Mustapha Khaznadar, was Prime Minister of the Beylik of Tunis from 1837 to 1873. He was one of the most influential people in modern Tunisian history.
Biography
Early life
Mustapha Khaznadar was born of Greek ancestry as Georgios Kalkias Stravelakis on the island of Chios in 1817. In January 1822, rebels from the neighboring islands of Samos arrived on Chios and declared their independence from the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman sultan soon sent an army of about 40,000 to the island of Chios, where roughly 52,000 Greek inhabitants were massacred and tens of thousands of women and children were taken into slavery. During the Chios massacre, Georgios's father, the sailor Stephanis Kalkias Stravelakis, was killed, while Georgios along with his brother Yannis were captured and sold into slavery by the Ottomans. He was then taken to Smyrna and then Constantinople, where he was sold as a slave to an envoy of the Husainid Dynasty.
While a slave Stravelakis converted to Islam and was given the name Mustapha. He was raised by the family of Mustapha Bey, then by his son Ahmad I Bey while he was still crown prince. Initially, he worked as the prince's private treasurer before becoming Ahmad's state treasurer. He managed to climb to the highest offices of the Tunisian state, married Princess Lalla Kalthoum in 1839 and was promoted to lieutenant-general of the army, made bey in 1840 and then president of the Grand Council from 1862 to 1878. In 1864, Mustapha Khaznadar, then Prime Minister, attempted to squeeze more taxes out of the Tunisian peasants; the countryside rebelled and rose in the Mejba Revolt, nearly overthrowing the regime. However the government was swift to act and ultimately suppressed the uprising through a combination of brutality and guile. Mustafa Khaznadar retained memories of his Greek origin and contact with his native Greece, even sending ten thousandriyals from the state treasury to pay for his two Greek nephews he was educating in Paris. Khaznadar died in 1878 and is buried in the mausoleum of Tourbet el Bey, in the heart of the Medina of Tunis.
