The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 1453 to 1768: The Ottoman Empire by Molly Greene

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 1453 to 1768: The Ottoman Empire by Molly Greene Phokion Kotzageorgis (bio) Molly Greene, The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 1453 to 1768: The Ottoman Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 2015. Pp. 239. 6 figures, 2 maps. Paper $49.95. Following the recent publication in Greek of Petros Pizanias’s history of Greece from 1400 to 1821 (Pizanias 2014), the present work comes to provide a fresh historical account of a period generally unexplored by contemporary historians. As part of The Edinburgh History of the Greeks series, Molly Greene’s book aims to provide a history of the Greek people and not of Greece in geographical terms. It also takes into account the latest findings on the political, social, economic, and cultural aspects of the period, employing the methodological tools of other disciplines apart from historiography. The result is intended to provide an innovative and exciting approach to the history of the period. In a study that extends beyond the chronological limits specified in the title, the author devotes two chapters to each of the four centuries involved, basing her analysis on basic themes for each century. The subtitle, “The Ottoman Empire,” prepares the reader for a history of the Greeks in Ottoman lands and not those of the diaspora or in Venetian-occupied territories. The narrative begins with “Thessaly” (the title of chapter 1), because, in Greene’s opinion, it was there that the Ottomans first established—at least as far as the Greek [End Page 410] lands are concerned—their new form of society. Thessaly also provides a useful insight into how the various Greek communities were formed. Through this attention paid to the Thessaly region, the author touches on issues relating to the early appearance and expansion of the Ottomans in the Balkans, such as the enlistment of Christians into the Ottoman armed groups, the special categories of taxes levied in the villages, the negotiating power of the monasteries, the formation of towns, and the protection of Christian urban and rural areas by patrons or benefactors (vakıfs, metropolitans, guilds). As she does throughout the book, Greene focuses on the Greeks through a narrative discourse that takes in both the Muslim perspective and the broader Christian reality in the Balkans. Chapter 2, “From Constantinople to Istanbul,” revolves around the Fall of Constantinople. After analyzing the relationships between the Byzantines, the Church, and the sultan, the author goes on to discuss the identifying terms Roman/Rum and Greek/Hellene. She contends that regionalism, which resulted from the political fragmentation of the Greek lands before and after the Fall, is the key point for interpreting the preeminence of the religious meaning of the term Roman/Rum over the political nuance it had during the Byzantine era. Rejecting the view that a sense of Greekness was already in existence by 1204, Greene claims that there was neither any national sentiment attached to the Greek language nor any support for the notion of a common descent from the ancient Greeks apart from in the Byzantine capital and amongst the Christian elites. Continuing along the same line of reasoning, the author notes her intention to study Hellenism “as a project rather than a reality” (53) and to ascertain where and why it succeeded or failed. In chapter 3, “Christians in an Islamic Empire,” posing an unusually phrased research question, the author asks how it was possible for a powerful Greek elite to continue to exist in Constantinople and for the Greeks to prosper in various fields of activity during the sixteenth century, when the Ottoman Empire was Islamicized and a different form of religious orthodoxy was imposed by the ruling power. The relative peace and stability that prevailed in the Ottoman world is put forward as a possible answer to this singular question. The author lays emphasis on the wave of conversions to Islam in the towns, a phenomenon she believes can be explained by the migrations to these places. Also, she challenges the view that the towns were dominated by Muslims, emphasizing their strong, if not dominant, Greek cultural character. Continuing with the sixteenth century in chapter 4, “The Larger Greek World,” the...