Ottoman Attempts to Define the Rebels During the Greek War of Independence

Abstract

Abstract This article uses tools developed by conceptual history to examine what it might have meant for Ottoman officials in Istanbul to use the term Rum milleti during the Greek War of Independence. The revolution that started in 1821 has been seen as the first successful national uprising in Europe. It has long been ascertained that the Ottomans did not understand the national undertones that was seen in the declarations of the leaders of the Greek Revolution. Moreover, the Ottoman response to the eruption of this revolution has generally been examined in the context of Istanbul, Morea and the Danubian Principalities. The goal of this paper is to broaden our understanding of the intellectual and spatial limits of the Ottoman response to the Greek War of Independence. It starts with an examination of the Ottoman response to the French Revolution and to the Serbian revolt of 1804 to follow the trajectories of the term millet. It points out to the limitations of the Islamic understanding of the revolts of subject populations by testing some intellectual tools that were used to surpass such limitations.