Despots, Dictators, Revolutionaries & Rebels

Thank you jbuck

Thanks walk2dwater Berlin is a great city, so much to see & visit while there.

Thought I may as well add Karl Marx's revolutionary sidekick to this topic.
Friedrich Engels 1820-1895

The son of a wealthy Prussian protestant family who owned cotton textile mills in both Germany & England, Engels' revolutionary ideas disappointed them. He even wrote under the pseudonym "Friedrich Oswald" for a spell to avoid connecting his family to his provocative writings.
He co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx.
Engels is on this East Germany 50 Mark (1971) banknote

Thank you walk2dwater

Stephen The Great/Stephen III of Moldova 1433-1504

He reigned Moldavia, as it was then known, for more than 47 years.
Regarded as one of the most astute politicians of the 15th Century he often played The Ottomans, Hungary & Poland against each other to great success.
A key player in shaping the Countries of Eastern Europe.
He "paid tribute to The Ottomans only when advantageous, paid homage to King Casimir of Poland when that seemed wise and resorted to arms when other means failed".
He was also capable of despotic cruelty, suppressing rebellion, using impalement, enslaving/freeing Gypsies & claims that he participated in human sacrifice.
A master tactician on the battlefield, he led an army of 40,000 & organised the construction of great fortresses and defences securing Moldavia.
Regarded as a National Hero of Moldova/Romania, statues, universities, schools, streets & metro station bear his name and his image has appeared on every post-Soviet banknote issued in Moldova.
Here he is on the Moldova 1 Leu (2002)

Looking good!

Excellent Dave L, thanks for adding to the thread/topic

Petar Kocic 1877-1916
He was a Bosnian-Serb writer, activist & politician who strongly opposed Bosnia's Austro-Hungarian Habsburg rulers as well as the landowning Muslim classes, who were a legacy of Bosnia's former Ottoman Empire rulers.
Kocic fought hard for peasants' rights & agricultural reform, he was jailed 3 times in the 1900's in an attempt to silence him, he also published newspapers criticising the Austro-Hungarian regime & became a member of parliament in 1910.
Plagued by mental illness throughout his life he died in a Belgrade mental hospital aged 39.
Said to have inspired a generation of Nationalists his name is on many streets, public parks & statues in Bosnia-Herzegovina & Serbia.
Kocic & his magnificent moustache are on this Bosnia-Herzegovina 500,000,000 dinara (1993)