Today, more than ever, we are in a position to claim that we are yet another step closer to answering the critical question: Who ultimately assassinated Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias? This is a question that has intensely occupied many generations of Greeks, as well as circles of the international community, since the tragic assassination of the first Governor, Ioannis Kapodistrias, at 6:50 AM on Sunday, September 27 / October 9, 1831, at the entrance of the Church of Saint Spyridon in Nafplio, up to the present day.

In fact, the specific answer can be defined exclusively through the voices, and sometimes silences, of archival documents that, over time, are either released or studied more closely again in the context of the state archives of our homeland or abroad. And, of course, through the memoirs and reports of contemporaries to the events.

One of the specific related works, the unpublished experiential Diary of Georgios Riganas, head of the personal guard of the Greek leader, stands at the center of this research and boldly and decisively contributes to the writing and documentation of the work at hand titled: “Who ultimately assassinated Ioannis Kapodistrias? The Diary of Georgios Riganas, Commander of the Governor's Personal Guard.”

It is a fact that the Corfu-born diplomat, upon seeing his would-be assassins, paused, and perhaps - who knows? - his instinct might have caused him grim premonitions, which he bravely and strongly overcame, moving forward to take that small yet fateful step into eternity.

This was also the end that befell the first Governor of Greece, marking the first political assassination of the Greek state, the assassination, ultimately, of the first short-lived Greek Republic!