Soutzos family

The House of Soutzos or Soutsos (Σούτσος or Σούτζος, Suțu or Sutzu) was a Phanariote family which grew into prominence and power in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) during the last centuries of Ottoman Empire and gave several hospodars to the Danubian Principalities, like Alexandros Soutzos, Michael (I) Drakos Soutzos and Michael (II) Soutzos.

History
The origins of the Soutzos family are unclear. Some authors theorize Albanian or Byzantine Greek descent for the family, with a suggested region of origin being the island Chios. Its first members appear in the 17th century in Constantinople, while it is assumed that it descended from the Drakos family of Epirus. It is speculated that one of the members had an important role in the plumbing of Constantinople. Since then the Turks called the Drakos Soutzides and the Greeks used the more Greek Soutsos.

Konstantinos Drako, son of a rhetor of the patriarchate (Diamantaki Drako), was the first Soutzos to rise to prominence. In 1714, he married Princess Maria Rusetaina, daughter of a long-established Phanariote family (her mother was Helena Mavrokordataina and her paternal grandfather Antonie had even held the princely rule in the Danubian countries under Ottoman overlordship). Konstantinos' in-laws raised Konstantinos to high positions in Danubian principalities, and his sons were kin with everybody who mattered in Phanar. Later, in the 1780s—1790s, one of the sons (Mihai Draco-Sutzu) rose to the thrones of Walachia and Moldavia and was the first Prince of their surname.

After prince Mihai, his nephew Alexandru Suțu, and his namesake grandson Mihail Suțu also ruled as Princes.

Significant members of the family include the two brother poets Panagiotis Soutsos and Alexandros Soutsos, of whom the first set the cornerstone for the revival of the Olympic Games and the latter was the founder of the Greek Romantic school of poetry. The main branch of the above family is now found in Athens, Greece. Alexandru A. Suțu and Mihail C. Suțu both became members of the Romanian Academy in the 1880s.