The role played by Nitsa Tsaganea after the assassination of Trotsky by Stalin

There are times when watching an actor on TV or in the theater we associate him with his roles and imagine that his life will be more or less the same.

One such example is Nitsa Tsaganea. How many of us have not imagined that her life was calm and flowed extremely κά family with her in the "role" of the sweet mother who passes everything by her hand and takes care to keep everyone satisfied?

And yet, reality is far from that.

Nitsa Tsaganea's life was not only calm and family. At least in the first half.

An intensely politicized person in difficult times, the beloved actress, did not take long to choose a camp and to dedicate herself with all her strength to the struggle against the Nazis first and then against the "nationalists".

Her life could easily become a movie with plenty of adventure, strong political messages and great love stories. The point is that it would be difficult to find an actor who would have the strength to cope with such a demanding role.

On February 17, 1902, Eleni Laskari was born in Athens. The little girl shows from her very first years an appeal to acting and so she studied at the Drama School of the Hellenic Conservatory. There she stood out for her talent and soon got her first roles.

She first appeared in the theater in 1924 with the "Youth Troupe", playing the role of "Fani" in "Students" by Grigorios Xenopoulos.
Her film debut came in 1933 in the Greek-Turkish co-production "The Bad Road" ("Fena Yol"), directed by Ertogrul Muhsin and written by Grigori Xenopoulos and starring Marika Kotopouli, Kyveli and Giorgos Vassilis Logothetidis.

The professional success was a given for Nitsa Laskari who then took care to fill her CV with appearances next to great actors such as Marika Kotopouli, Kyveli, Emilios Veakis, Vasso Manolidou, Vassilis Logothetidis, the Mimis Fotopoulos, The Dionysis Papagiannopoulos and many others.

He may not have had many starring roles but all the appearances (especially the cinematic ones) caught the eye. He knew how to turn a supporting role into a protagonist. She knew how to earn what was due to her.

After all, who can forget the role of Ourania Ginopoulou in "The Germans are coming back"? That of the mayor's wife in "Our Lady the Mom"? The equivalent of Irene Dekavala in "a hero with slippers"? And of course Angeliki in "Theodoros and the two-wheeler" which for many is her top moment when she generously gave a laugh in order to be able to hold Theodoros.

During the period when Nitsa Laskari made her appearance alongside Marika Kotopouli, she met Giorgos Vitsoris. He, a doctor with intense political action, immediately wins her heart and leaves his science to become an actor and to be constantly by her side.

The faithful Trotskyist Vitsoris came into conflict with the archivists who in Greece had Mitsos Giotopoulos (his father) as their main spokesman Alexandrou Giotopoulos who has been convicted of participating in the 17N), was arrested by the Silk regime and before the outbreak of World war II exiled to France. There he developed a great resistance action as a saboteur and after the war he was honored and awarded by the French state.

They married Nitsa and had a daughter, the actress and poet Liana Vitsori.

Their marriage, however, did not last long because Nice met a young doctor, of aristocratic origin with an impressive figure.

The young man was the Christos Tsaganeas who falls madly in love with Nitsa Vitsori. So insane that he gives up medicine to become an actor next to the woman he loves and his family dismisses him and stops supporting him financially.

Christos is forced to live on a boat in the port of Piraeus and in order to make a living, he takes part in performances of wandering troupes, the herds, which were highly undervalued at the time.

She divorces G. Vitsoris to marry the man of her life. Tsaganeas was the second man in Nitsa's life to leave medicine to become an actor!

She changes her last name to Nitsa Tsaganea and with that she builds most of her career, while Christos becomes known as the inmate of the insane asylum in "The Germans are coming back" and knows the apotheosis in the movie "the wood came out of paradise" with the classic now role as… "Of course of course"!

The two did not have a child, however, they stayed together until the death of Christos Tsaganeas in 1977.

In the years when Nitsa was on Vitsoris' side, it seems that he was greatly influenced by his political action. Thus, although separated for many years, during the occupation Nitsa Tsaganea joined the lines of EAM and actively participated in its epic National Resistance.

Member of EAM was also the former aristocrat Christos Tsaganeas. In 1944, during the December uprising, in fact, his name was associated with the horrific murder of the actress Eleni Papadaki by OPLA (a case that we will deal with in more detail in the next tribute).

On August 20, 1940, Ramon Mercander, a Spanish communist, civil war veteran, and son of the Spanish NKVD agent Caridad del Rio Hernandez, assassinates Leon Trotsky in Mexico. Mercander was the "elite" of the Stalinist regime for the assassination of his great rival Stalin. Mercander believed, like all communists loyal to the Soviet Union at the time, that Trotsky was a traitor to socialism and the homeland, "a worm sold to the fascists."

The shock to Trotsky's followers around the world was great, however, they tried not to let his important record fall into the wrong hands.

In a strange game of fate, Vitsoris comes in contact with Nitsa and Christos Tsaganeas and although he knows that they are both members of the EAM that is loyal to the Stalinist regime, he asks them to keep and hide the valuable archive for as long as necessary. of Trotsky.

The couple did not deny and of course did not betray Vitsoris' trust. The archive for as long as it remained in Greece was hidden by the Tsaganeas couple under extreme secrecy without anyone knowing the slightest thing.

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