Which aspects of social life were affected by banditry? What are the consequences of this phenomenon and the methods used to suppress it? To what extent did the problems of the newly established Greek state contribute to the escalation of the phenomenon? How significantly did the actions of the bandits affect the residents they plagued?

With these fundamental questions, the study aims to interpret the phenomenon of banditry, which for a long period of the modern Greek state (from around 1830 to 1930) was an integral part of traditional society. The memory of bandits such as Davelis, Giangoulas, the Arvanitakis family, the Renzaios, and the Koumpas, or incidents like the kidnapping in 1866 of Sotiris Sotiropoulos, who later became Prime Minister, the murder of British travelers in Dilesi in 1870, the banditry of Petra Filipiada in 1926, and the kidnapping of MPs Melas and Mylonas in 1928 remains vivid.

Nikolaos A. Anastasopoulos was born in Athens in 1978. Since 2015, he has served as an Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Greek History at the Department of History and Archaeology of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Ioannina. Since 2016, he has been a member of the Board of Directors as well as the curator of Publications, Library, and Cultural Center of the Society for Epirus Studies. His main publications include the monographs:

• Deviant behaviors and repression in Greece during the Interwar Period: the example of the Ioannina prefecture, published by the Society for Epirus Studies, Ioannina 2012 (2 volumes)
• The Jewish Club of Ioannina during the Interwar Period: Foundation, objectives, presence, published by the Joseph and Esther Gani Foundation, Ioannina 2015