Greek Revolution Research Articles

Bouboulina and the Greek Revolution: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Heroine of 1821 ed. by April Kalogeropoulos Householder (review)

Bouboulina and the Greek Revolution: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Heroine of 1821 ed. by April Kalogeropoulos Householder (review)

Uvjeti javnoga zdravstva i medicinske njege tijekom grčkoga rata za neovisnost 1821.

Τhe 1821 Greek War of Independence, following 400 years under Turkish occupation, resulted, after long-term sacrifices, in the establishment of Greece as a sovereign nation-state, marking the first in the autocratic Europe of the time. The poor public health and the lack of doctors, medical supplies, safe water, food, and sewage favored the outbreak of epidemics. The Greek cause attracted worldwide support, and a great number of philhellenes, physicians, and aristocrats offered services and even their lives on the battlefields. Greek and foreign historians stress the international importance of the Greek Revolution for the activation of the term nation into a social force for democracy and the right to public and individual health and welfare all around the world.

Who Saved the Parthenon? A New History of the Acropolis Before, During and After the Greek Revolution

Who Saved the Parthenon? A New History of the Acropolis Before, During and After the Greek Revolution

Fortresses of the Peloponnese, Ottoman Defences and the Greek Revolution (1821–1828)

During the Greek Revolution, the fortresses of the Peloponnese played a crucial role, serving as key defensive positions, sanctuaries for those seeking refuge from violence and sites for negotiations between the Ottoman forces and Greek revolutionaries. By maintaining control over a handful of fortresses in the Morea, the Ottomans were able to monitor the progress of the uprisings. However, their claim to rule persisted until they were eventually compelled to evacuate by French forces in 1828. This article seeks to address the Ottoman presence in the Peloponnese. It explores the whereabouts of Ottoman forces, their defensive strategies against the Greek revolutionaries and the factors that contributed to their successes or failures in confronting the Greek forces. Additionally, it delves into the impact of the physical characteristics of the fortresses, the geography of the region and the weather conditions during the Greek uprising. Focusing primarily on the fortresses of the Peloponnese, the article draws from Ottoman archival documents to shed light on the Ottoman perspective of the Greek revolts.

Between Historical Reality and Poetic Imagination

This article is a literary-historical interpretation of the works of the Polish Romantics. Many of the outstanding Polish Romantic writers were fascinated by the 1821 Greek Revolution. Poland had been subjugated since the end of the eighteenth century so the uprising was an important revolutionary model for Poles. The space and time of the poetic vision of the Greek War of Independence in those Romantic texts was of great importance for historiosophical and existential reflection. The Polish Romantics mentioned many different places that were connected with the Greek Revolution, such as Psara, Chios, Jassy, Kleisova islet and Messolongi. The choice to focus on these places, as well as the contexts of their representation, are significant. A variety of interpretations of the Greek War and Greek heritage emerge from these texts, such as the Greek Uprising as an important event integrating the European tradition and as the embodiment of the main existential and political problems of the nineteenth century, as well as the heroic interpretation of the revolution as an ideal to be emulated by enslaved nations. The Polish Romantic texts under discussion contain various poetic images of the space and time of the Greek War of Independence.

Islands on Fire?

This article focuses on some aspects of the fascinating histories of islands in the Aegean and the Ionian seas during the Greek Revolution, drawing on documents of the time and histories of the revolution written during or soon after the big event. It looks at the dynamics of the revolution, as seen in the changing perceptions of space in the Aegean Archipelago and the Ionian Seas. It suggests ways to follow the “conceptual or political turn” and the “spatial” turn in the history of the revolution, and argues for exploring the political, fiscal and maritime territorialisation that took place, and by historicising the ambiguity that prevailed during the revolution.

Empires, Nations and the Question of Territorial Sovereignty in the Greek Archipelago during the Greek Revolution

Based mainly on the correspondence between the local religious and secular authorities, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide) in Rome, representatives of the French and Austrian governments and the Greek insurgents, this article demonstrates how the story of the Catholic community of Syros describes the making of a new frontier but also the shaping of a new territorial conception of sovereignty where multiple agents and jurisdictions co-existed next to each other for centuries. The so-called “Pope’s Island” was the only one with a solid Roman Catholic majority among its inhabitants. After the outbreak of the Greek revolt, Syros declared its neutrality and became a safe haven for Orthodox refugees fleeing from Ottoman reprisals, especially after the Chios massacres in April 1822. By 1825, around 30,000 (mainly Orthodox) refugees had taken over the port, which in the meantime became a Christian “Eldorado” of legal trade and illegal traffic of all sorts, including piracy booties and slave labour.

Transformation of Urban Space before and after the Greek Revolution

This article aims to uncover the links between the 1821 Greek Revolution and the transformation of the social topography and landscape in Mega Revma (Arnavutköy), a Bosphorus village with a large Greek Orthodox population. In the eyes of the sultan, the Phanariots were the ones who “misled the loyal Greek reaya to rebel against their rightful sovereign”. Thus, it is not surprising that Mega Revma, as a centre of Phanariot life, was a place transformed by the crisis of 1821. The processes of social and religious restructuring of Mega Revma took place in two main phases. While the first phase (1821–1828) consisted of more violent and immediate responses to the revolution, the second phase was a long process that aimed to Islamise the village using conciliatory measures and building projects.

Female Fatherlands

This article examines the patriotic discourses of a few female thinkers who were connected with the Greek cause, before and during the Greek Revolution. It examines how they understood Greece and Europe as social, political, geographical and revolutionary spaces and how they understood the gendered character of the war. It seeks to challenge traditional localities of the Greek Revolution by including women who lived in areas that were not encompassed by the Greek nation-state after its inception and did not necessarily use the Greek language in their writings.

Where was 1821?

The aim of this special issue of Historein is to offer a new and fresh perspective on the 1821 Greek Revolution by drawing on the insights that the spatial turn has brought to the study of the Age of Revolutions. Our point of departure was that although the revolution took place in time and space, it is questions of temporality and of situating the revolution in a temporal context that have mainly preoccupied historians. This can hardly be said about space. In fact, as we argue, the spatial categories that historians have used have had a “natural” and self-evident character that required little or no probing. We wanted to interrogate this character, and what we consider as a lacuna in our understanding of the revolution. Thus, the aim of the introduction is threefold. The first part briefly discusses the historiography on space, and the ways in which this has been used in the study of Age of Revolutions. It also explains why the revolution provides a rich setting to think through space and pose questions about spatiality. The second part introduces the articles that comprise the issue. In this part, we also attempt to bring the contributions together by showing that they can be seen as falling into three very broad categories depending on the type of space they feature (space as place, space as territory, and space as an imagined category). The last part considers other possibilities, other vistas of research, where a “spatial” perspective can take us, if we want to better understand the 1821 Revolution.

Critical and Comparative Reappraisals of the Greek Revolution

Critical and Comparative Reappraisals of the Greek Revolution

History, Historical Culture, and 1821

This article examines the reasoning, methodology, and implementation of the 1821 Greek Revolution Observatory, an archive documenting the bicentenary of the revolution. The piece showcases the various aspects of academic and public history involved in the archive’s creation, pointing out the many ways that public history records various versions of the national self. The work also demonstrates the pioneering nature of the archive in terms of the interconnectivity of historical narratives and digital ethnography. Moreover, it displays the ways in which the archive’s digital structure will facilitate key practices and usages by historians, artists, researchers, journalists, anthropologists, and others interested in historical culture.

Currency as an Imprint of the Nation-State: Monetary Conditions in the Ottoman Empire at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century and the Transition from Ottoman Currencies to the Phoenix of the Hellenic State (1828)

Abstract: The economic decline of the Ottoman Empire was fundamental in various ways to the outbreak and progress of the Greek Revolution. The first attempts to create a national currency during the Greek Revolution reflect efforts to craft a modern state, and the eventual introduction of the phoenix by the first governor of the Hellenic State, Ioannis Capodistrias, underscores the shift to a newborn nation-state. The contradictions of Capodistrias’s monetary policy, however, reflected social antagonisms within Greece.

Health care for the wounded combatants during the Greek Revolution of 1821

This paper presents a historical review of the health situation during the Greek War of Independence. The efforts to support and organise the Revolution of 1821 included organisation of structures, finding financial resources, collecting ammunition and mental preparation. However, there was no consideration concerning the medical, nursing and pharmaceutical care for the wounded combatants. The Greeks realised there is lack of medical equipment and staff right from the beginning of the Revolution. They had to nurse not only the casualties but also the people who suffered from an epidemic or other diseases. Many people who had studied Philosophy, Astronomy and other sciences also practised Medicine. However, their knowledge was limited to a naturalistic perception of the reality in the medical field. There were also quack doctors and charlatans offering health aid based on their experience. The health conditions were awful due to the constant, unexpected transportation of the military forces, the siege of forts and cities, the forced transportation of a large number of people from the countryside to fortified city centres, the constant battles, the lack of drinking water, food and medicines. Philhellenism, volunteerism, women’s contribution, financial support from the rich and strong will to be free helped in ameliorating the conditions.

Restoration and highlight of Agioi Theodoroi church in Nafplio with the use of CAD technologies

The church of Agioi Theodoroi is located north of the new city of Nafplion, in the “Neo Byzantio” or “Kültepe” area, near the main road connecting Naflion to Argos, on Kalamata Street. It is a small, simple construction, single aisled church with pitched tiled roof and a semi-circular sanctuary arch. The church is not pro-claimed monument, but it constitutes important historical evidence of recent history of the city and of Greece in general, given that it is documented to be associated with one of the protagonists of the Revolution of 1821 Theodoros Kolokotronis and therefore it is inextricably linked to the collective historical memory.
 Today the church belongs to “Holy Church of Saint Constantine and Helen” in Naflion. Due to celebrations for the 200 years anniversary of the Greek revolution, the committee “Greece 2021” has approved the financing of its restoration.
 This paper presents the initial diagnostic procedures as well as the first results from the plaster removals and the test sections in the construction field. The diagnostic procedures include the creation of multidisciplinary thematic maps in Computer Aided Design (CAD) environment, which incorporate: (a) data of historical and architectural documentation (b) data of geometric documentation and (c) data of building materials characterization and decay diagnosis.
 It is about a work in progress and is proceeding with multidisciplinary collaboration between historians, architects, archeologists, material science engineers. Of particular interest is the involvement of the local community in support of the project and in archival/bibliographic research. Finally, the completion of the project will bring changes to the map of the city’s points of historical interest since it is located outside the historic city center. This event should have as its goal both the sustainable protection of the monument as well as the sustainable development of the wider area

The foreign policy of Klemens von Metternich in the works of V. K. Nadler (1840–1894)

The foreign policy activities of Klemens von Metternich, the main organizer of the Congress of Vienna, the true architect of the post-Napoleonic international order, and minister of foreign affairs and chancellor of the Austrian Empire, attracted the attention of many researchers, especially on the eve of his 250th birthday anniversary. The first monograph in Russian imperial historiography entirely devoted to Metternich's diplomacy was authored by the Kharkiv University professor V. K. Nadler (1840–1894); but this aspect of Nadler’s scholarship is largely unknown today. The purpose of this article is to comprehensively analyze Nadler's works dealing with Klemens von Metternich's diplomatic legacy and its significance for the further development of the post-Napoleonic international order. The author employs the methods of historical and comparative analysis, systematization and generalization, and retrospective analysis. The article shows that, in addition to the specialized study on Metternich and the European Reaction (1882), Nadler partially devoted the multi-volume monograph Emperor Alexander I and the Idea of the Holy Alliance to the analysis of the foreign policy of the Austrian Empire in the first years of the Vienna System of international relations. Nadler tried to avoid exaggerating the role of the individual in history, in the best progressive tradition of the historiography of his day. However, to denote the new international order, Nadler usually used the name «Metternich's political system», thus stressing the crucial importance of the Austrian minister as the organizer of the Congress of Vienna, the guarantor of the implementation of its decisions, and the driving force behind the fight against any dissent in European countries. According to Nadler, while the Vienna international order initially developed precisely in the reactionary direction mapped out by Metternich, the Greek Revolution and the Adrianople Peace Treaty of 1829, which confirmed the autonomy of Greece, struck a real blow to the «Metternich system».

William St Clair, Who Saved the Parthenon? A New History of the Acropolis before, during and after the Greek Revolution. Cambridge, Open Book Publishers 2022

William St Clair, Who Saved the Parthenon? A New History of the Acropolis before, during and after the Greek Revolution. Cambridge, Open Book Publishers 2022

Interconnections between Minister Cabinets in Greece. A Bicentennial Study with Implications on Economy

In this paper we deal with a network analysis of interconnected cabinets in Greece for an extended time period. In parallel, we present a small review of the economic crises that have occurred in Greece over this period. More particularly, we used historical sources to locate all different Greek governments and all economic crises starting from the 1821 Greek revolution to the present days. We also formed a two-mode (also known as affiliation) network of ministers and cabinets and subsequently created a network of interconnected cabinets. We used dedicated software to visualize this network and used Social Network Analytical procedures in order to calculate its properties. Finally, in an attempt to investigate possible relations between network metrics and economic crises, we note and discuss an interesting observation between a specific metrics and such major economic events. In our paper, we firstly introduce the context and present our research questions. We then present the relevant literature, mainly discussing the extent to which Social Network Analysis has been used to investigate patterns of behaviors in politics. We then proceed to presenting and applying our methodology on network creation, visualization and metrics computations. The following section discusses the longitudinal evolution of our network and the relation between its clustering coefficient and the emergence of economic crises. We then finalize our paper with some conclusions.

English Brutal Colonisation of the Seven Islands: The Poems of Ossian by James Macpherson

After the failure of the first strike of the 1821 Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire, which began in Moldovia in February, it continued in the Peloponnese one month later. The uprising resulted in victory with the formation of the Modern Greek state; its President was Jiannis Capodistria, a Corfiot. Greece was a state born mutilated in 1828 as it excluded: Epiros, Thessalia, Chios Mytilene, Samos, Crete and the Dodecanese Islands under Ottoman rule. The Ionian Islands were under English control, ostensibly known as the ‘British Protectorate’. The second expansion of the Greek state in the nineteenth century was engendered by Radical Ionian Greeks who rebelled against the English who had tyrannised the Seven Islands for almost fifty years until 1864 when they united with Greece. The influence of Celtic literature through the works of The Poems of Ossianby the Scottish antiquarian James Macpherson and Irish Melodies and ‘Imitation of Ossian’ by the Irish scholar Thomas Moore inspired the works of Seven Islands radical intellectuals, which provide a hidden code that coincided with political events at the time to unite the oppressed. The main translator of The Poems of Ossian was Panayiotis Panas, a Kephalonian scholar. He was the successor to Rhigas Velestinlis, the protomartyr of the Greek Revolution and follower of the national poet, the Zakynthian Dionysius Solomos. Panas aimed to unite and spiritually uplift the people by conveying the hope of living under freedom, equality, and fraternity; to live under democracy, without a monarchy. Neglected by the Greek Academy in the twentieth century do these translations of this Celtic literature and its influence remain in obscurity in this century? To what extent did the English have the right legally to gift the Seven Islands to Modern Greece in 1864? Has the sacrifice and patriotism of those who fought for the union of the Seven Islands with Greece been included in the school curriculum. Keywords: Irish melodies, translation, nineteenth century, history, The Mediterranean, The Poems of Ossian and British Colonialism

Delimiting Europe: Greek State Formation as Border Making

When the Greek prime minister admired Delacroix’ famous painting ‘The Battle of Chios’ in the Louvre Museum during a state visit to France in 2021, this was meaningful in more than one way. Not only did he and French president Macron celebrate the second centenary of the 1821 “Greek Revolution.” They also reaffirmed their 200-year-old geopolitical alliance in the Eastern Mediterranean. An alliance between two countries that see themselves as the birthplace of European civilisation. Then, as now, celebrating their Europeanness went beyond artistic depictions and symbolisms. The creation of a White European space by virtue of a concrete struggle against an Oriental other, thus, delimited not only the Greco-Ottoman, but also Europe’s South-eastern borders. What IR has come to understand as the ‘spatial turn’, a return to emphasising the (un)making of borders and space, took, and takes, place in the Aegean. Looking back at the significance of the Greek War of Independence, this article reveals that, much like the violence in Delacroix’ painting, this formation of inter-national modernity, far from merely being a civilisational achievement, was bloody and genocidal. The painting’s conventional Orientalist understanding sees a white European people massacred by an Oriental occupying force. A careful re-historicisation of the Greek independence struggle reveals, however, that it had highly specific social and geopolitical origins that cannot be reduced to a spreading European Enlightenment. An alliance between local social forces gave rise to a struggle that was consolidated by mass violence. The international invention on behalf of Greece didn’t represent a shift towards a liberal international order giving rise to a reborn Athenian Republic. It represented a compromise between otherwise divided conservative dynasties imposing their designs on the young state. Finally, the article will argue that this historical episode embodies a continuing social process of European border making.