Nicola Matushi
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Nicola Matushi (Greek: Νίκος/Νικόλαος Ματούση(ς); Samarina, Greece, 1898 - Athens, after 1981) was an Aromanian lawyer, politician and Regent of Pindus.
Nicola Matushi was born in Samarina in the Pindus mountains. He was a devoted Aromanian nationalist and from 1923 he was the general secretary of the communist group in Trikala. However in 1926 he was excluded by the party. Then he went to Larissa where he was active in Yannis Sofianopoulou's Rural Party. He practiced law in Larissa before joining the Roman Legion of his compatriot, Alchiviad Diamandi di Samarina. In 1941 he was appointed prime minister of the Principality of Pindus. In June of 1942, after Diamandi's abdication Matushi became Regent of the autonomous state. Then he went to Athens, but he was obliged to run to Romania like Diamandi the next year when he was substituted by a Hungarian adventurer, Baron Gyula Cseszneky.
Matushi was sentenced in Communist Romania for 20 years in prison on a Danube island.
In 1964 he appeared in Greece where for the suggestion of prime minister Georgios Papandreu he was declared innocent of war crimes. In 1976 his civil rights were completely restored by a Greek court. Matushi claimed that his intentions during 1941-1942 had been to avoid the Bulgarian occupation of Saloniki. Up to 1981 he lived in Athens where he was an honoured member of the local lawyers' chamber.
