Nicola Matushi
Nicola Matushi (Greek: Νίκος/Νικόλαος Ματούση(ς); Samarina, 1898 - Athens, after 1981) was an Aromanian lawyer, politician and Regent of the Principality of Pindus, an Italian-sponsored Aromanian puppet state during World War II.
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 Party 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 practised law in Larissa before joining the Roman Legion of his compatriot, Alchiviad Diamandi di Samarina, formed upon the onset of the Axis Occupation of Greece. In 1941 he was appointed prime minister of the Principality of Pindus, an Italian-sponsored attempt to create an Aromanian secessionist state in north-western Greece. In June 1942, after Diamandi's abdication, Matushi became Regent of the autonomous state. Then he went to Athens, but he was obliged to flee to Romania like Diamandi the next year, when he was substituted by a Hungarian adventurer, Count Gyula Cseszneky, Baron of Milvány.
Matushi was sentenced in Communist Romania for 20 years in prison on a Danube island.
In 1964 he appeared in Greece where he was declared innocent of war crimes. In 1976 his civil rights were completely restored by a Greek court. Up to 1981 he lived in Athens.