The Greek Fire: American-Ottoman Relations and Democratic Fervor in the Age of Revolutions by Maureen Connors Santelli

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Greek Fire: American-Ottoman Relations and Democratic Fervor in the Age of Revolutions by Maureen Connors Santelli Ada Dialla (bio) Maureen Connors Santelli, The Greek Fire: American-Ottoman Relations and Democratic Fervor in the Age of Revolutions. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020. Pp. 250. Hardcover $44.95. The famous Greek leader Petrobeis Mavromihalis, upon the start of the Greek Revolution in the Peloponnese, sent to the Americans a document titled “Declaration to the Americans by the Kalamata Messinian Senate and the Field Marshal Petros Mavromihalis” (March 1821). In the document, the political affinity between Greeks and Americans was stressed. Despite the geographical distance, wrote Mavromihalis, the revolutionaries regarded the Americans as familiar; they regarded them as friends and fellow citizens, philanthropists, brave and with the Bible in hand. With this “Declaration,” Mavromihalis hoped to provoke the philhellenic sentiments of the Americans. Regarding European Philhellenism, most researchers agree that the phil-hellenic discourse included—and was based on—three main pillars: (a) religion, namely Christian religion, which in those days witnessed various changes in Europe as a vehicle for reshaping society, with Christianity associated with civilization and Europe/the West identified with Christian civilization; (b) antiquity, with Greek antiquity as the cradle of civilization (actually of European civilization, which was then seen as global); and (c) humanitarianism. When the Greek Revolution erupted, politicians, intellectuals, and public figures—everyone who could speak, write, and comment on what was happening among the Orthodox Greeks of the Ottoman Empire—had no difficulty in associating the uprising with the discourse on slavery and in empathizing with the Christian populations ruled by the Sublime Porte, seeing them as having been enslaved by the Sultan and as victims of various barbarities. From the first moment, language was mobilized which was intended to evoke humanitarian sentiments. Words and phrases such as “extermination,” “annihilation,” “effusion of blood,” “massacres,” and “slavery” were in common use. Elsewhere, Philhellenism, as a movement for supporting the revolutionaries, expressed itself in poems, art, [End Page 494] articles, fiery speeches, fundraising, the creation of various active committees and societies, and so on. But what was the reception in the United States of the Greek-speaking Orthodox Christian revolutionaries, subjects of the Sultan? This is a little-known and seldom-discussed subject: one of the few exceptions is an extended chapter titled “Americans and Greeks” in Gary Bass’s 2008 book Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention. And this gap in the literature is what Maureen Connors Santelli has come to address. The philhellenic movement in the United States and elsewhere developed mainly in the wake of the Chios massacre of April 1822. In the US, the philhellenic movement had reached a peak by 1824, with the press referring to the “Greek Fire,” a phrase that alluded to Byzantine liquid fire but that also underscored how the philhellenic movement was spreading like fire across the whole of the United States. This book examines American philhellenism at two levels: (a) as a movement of support for the Greek insurgents; and (b) as an issue internal to American society, linked with discussions of the need for social and political reforms, especially regarding the questions of slavery and the emancipation of women. Santelli’s study thus connects, in an original manner, issues of foreign policy with burning internal questions. It examines Philhellenism, within a global framework and in terms of the interrelationship and overall movement of ideas, as a model for popular political action. In the United States, Philhellenism raised important questions of collective identity—a result of Americans’ comparison of themselves to European societies across the Atlantic, including with respect to stereotypes regarding the Ottomans—and of the political affinities between Americans and Greeks. The author begins her presentation by bringing to the fore the history and context of the period immediately prior to the Greek Revolution and shedding light on the little-known subject of US-Ottoman relations. The United States was not yet a great power. Its presence in the Mediterranean, though conspicuous, was not a result of diplomatic missions or international trade agreements. As the author explains in an initial chapter titled “Americans, Greeks, and Ottomans before 1821,” the...