The people of the village participated in all national struggles of modern Greek history. The leader of the Greek revolution in Chalkidiki Emmanouel Pappas was born at Dovista in 1773. Many villagers were initiated into the secret revolutionary plans by Emmanouel Papas and were ready to fight in the battles of the oncoming revolution. According to local tradition, the Pappas' family house was used for storing weapons and ammunition which were first landed at the harbor of Tsayezi (close to modern Nea Kerdyllia and ancient Amphipolis) on the Strymonian Gulf and then transported to Dovista through the (drained since 1938) lake of Tachinos (named after the nearby village of Achinos), whose northernmost shores were lying in a distance of around 16–17 km from Dovista. With the outbreak of the revolution, a big number of recruited fellow villagers of Pappas followed him to Chalkidiki. Many of them were killed in the battles there, while the survivors followed Pappas in his departure from Mount Athos after the Ottoman repression of the revolution in Macedonia and continued the struggle in southern Greece, fighting under the commands of Emmanouel Papas' son Ioannis, who later fell in the battle of Maniaki, alongside Papaflessas.