Aistratis

History

The island was known in antiquity as Halonnesos and was contested between Athens and Macedon. Its modern name comes from Saint Eustratius, a 9th-century Byzantine monk exiled here for opposing iconoclasm; under Ottoman rule it was called Bozbaba. From the 1930s Metaxas dictatorship through the Greek Civil War, Agios Efstratios served as a remote exile and prison island for political dissidents -- second in scale only to Makronisos -- housing figures such as composer Mikis Theodorakis and poet Yiannis Ritsos. On 19 February 1968, a magnitude-7.1 earthquake destroyed most of the original village; it was rebuilt nearby in a uniform, military-style layout of concrete prefabricated houses that still stands today.