The Greek Revolution of 1821 and Its Significance for the National Liberation Movement of the Greeks in the Ottoman Lands at the Beginning of the 20th Century

Abstract

The chapter examines the influence of the Greek revolution of 1821 on the national liberation movement of the Greeks in the Ottoman lands at the beginning of the twentieth century. The nation building among the Greeks was a long process; the beginning was laid in 1830, and the last lands inhabited by them were annexed only after the Second World War (the Dodecanese Islands in 1947). For more than 100 years, the struggle of the Greeks living on the territory of the Ottoman Empire for reunification with Greece endured. There were movements in Thessaly, Epirus, Crete, and Macedonia. The national liberation movement was especially active in the early twentieth century in Macedonia and Crete. In Macedonia, with its diverse ethnic composition, the national interests of the Balkan countries, many of which considered a significant part of Macedonia as their ancestral territory, collided. The great powers, for which this region was of strategic importance, were also involved in the conflict in Macedonia. Based on the status quo policy in the Balkans, the European powers put forward a project of reforms in Macedonia on the basis of preserving the supreme power of the Ottoman Empire. During the reforms, Greece supported them on the one hand, and on the other, unofficially supported armed detachments that went to Macedonia to support their fellow tribesmen. The “Thessaloniki Organization” created by Greece was a secret society built on the principle of “Filiki Eteria” of the period of the revolution of 1821. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a powerful national liberation movement unfolded in Crete. In 1905, an insurrection led to a change of the island’s governor, and in 1908, the Cretans proclaimed the reunification of the island with Greece. However, the great powers did not allow this. The final reunification of Crete with Greece took place only during the Balkan Wars, after which most of the Ottoman lands were annexed to Greece.