The Ikarian Revolution (1912) and the ‘Red Rock’: the Free State, enosis and communism

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

ABSTRACT In July 1912, the inhabitants of Ikaria, an island of Greek speakers in the North Aegean Sea, revolted against the Ottoman garrison and proclaimed independence as the Free State of Ikaria. With their own president, anthem, flag, stamps and armed forces, the islanders self-governed for nearly five months before joining Greece in November 1912 – a unique event in the history of the Aegean Islands, but comparable to cases such as the Principality of Samos and the Cretan State. This article explores this short-lived episode of independence, and analyses how it spurred on further radicalism on the island, especially into the 1930s–40s, and in the context of the Greek Civil War (1946–49). Ikaria’s 1912 enosis (union) with Greece, and subsequent communist sympathies, which earnt the island the nickname of the ‘Red Rock’, are contextualized in the context of revolutionary tendencies, regional turmoil and the island’s history of autonomy, isolation and left-wing cultural ideals. Memory and commemoration of the Revolution, and its importance for later movements, is also touched on in this exploration. In all, this study aims to catalogue, examine, discuss and rationalize, this little-researched event, and follow its implications forward into the mid-twentieth century.