Introduction - 1821 – A new dawn for Greece: The Greek struggle for independence

The year 2021 marked the bicentennial of the Greek War of Independence. Scholars in Greece and abroad have seized upon this opportunity to examine the process of collective mobilization among the Ottoman Greeks and those living in the diaspora that inspired independence movements worldwide. To commemorate the occasion, De Gruyter’s online journal Open Military Studies has dedicated this issue to the theme of 1821 – A New Dawn for Greece. Greek Struggle for Independence. Innovative in approach and original, the collection integrates political, diplomatic, and geostrategic approaches with new research on the Ottoman Balkans, identity and ethnicity, religion, and state-building. Each contributor analyzes primary sources in a united effort to revisit and rethink the domestic and transnational components of the Greek independence movement, as well as previously neglected elements of the revolutionary process.

As a result of the Greek Revolution, the Ottoman Empire was partitioned and part of its former territory was transformed into a sovereign state for the first time.^[1] The Greek liberation struggle gained significance across Europe almost immediately, for it exposed the currents and cross-currents of revolutionary ideologies in the wake of the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815. The Greek revolt was much more than a local affair: for many observers, it epitomized the triumph of liberty and popular sovereignty over arbitrary rule and foreign tyranny. For the first time, a compact nucleus of people united by language and religion successfully revolted against a multiethnic and multireligious empire, in a pattern later emulated by other peoples, including the Turks, who engaged in their own liberation struggle almost exactly a century after the Greeks.

The present collection builds upon the work composed by many inspired historians over 200 years.^[2] Despite a plethora of historical studies, the two major histories by Thomas Gordon and George Finlay (both composed by philhellenic foreigners, who, like Thucydides, fought in the war) have remained among the main narratives for the topic in English, at least until the 2021 volume by Mark Mazower.^[3] Part of the problem of the historiography about the 1820s does not concern the course of events, but rather the central question of origins. Why would the Greeks want to revolt against the Ottoman Empire? Traditional interpretations of 1821 begin with the so-called reawakening of the Greek people after four centuries of oppressive torpor, a teleological narrative that projects present myths into past reality. Another steadfast explanation concerns the triumph of the modern nation-state, based on the principles of self-determination and self-government. Yet our sources depict a revolt characterized by anarchy and chaos, chronic infighting and endemic conflict between Greek, Albanian, and other military chieftains. For many participants, religious persecution and social injustice fueled the war. For others, economic inequality was the primary motivator; petty regional squabbles, amplified by a general economic crisis, induced aggression. On the local level, many of the would-be Christian liberators launched predatory raids against fellow Greeks, bandits sought loot, neighbors turned against neighbors, and magnates grabbed territory and stockpiled arms for their own benefit. Many different groups and regional districts had narrow concerns centering around kinship, class, regional linkages, local power, suspicion of “outsiders,” and the status quo (either for or against). Divisions and splits trumped unity. Countless farmers and non-combatants suffered immensely from Ottoman, Egyptian, and especially Greek forces. Abroad, Greek communities in Europe and Russia became engaged through donations and volunteer brigades, thereby helping to internationalize the Greek struggle. In the course of the insurrection, both sides of the confessional divide inflicted massive death and engaged in atrocities and wholesale killings. Nevertheless, despite the odds against them, the majority of the Greek people in the regions of insurrection remained unified in their collective suffering, and their endurance brought forth the intervention of the Great Powers (France, Great Britain, and Russia), which united to crush the combined Ottoman–Egyptian forces aligned against them. Consequently, an independent kingdom (the prototypical nation-state) replaced centuries of foreign rule in parts of Greece.

Like the 150th anniversary, the bicentenary of the Greek rebellion has brought forth significant new approaches.^[4] Compared to the previous historiography, which stressed the heroic actions of a select few, the new focus is on the regional and local levels, and on the social, economic, and international developments that generated the discontent that led the Greeks to revolt.^[5] The emphasis on empires and trans-imperial actors (e.g., Greeks serving in states outside the Ottoman Empire) provides significant epistemological and methodological consequences for research on the revolution. For example, the development of ethnic allegiances and identities appears much more complicated than references to the neo-Hellenic Enlightenment, klephtic ballads, and the Greek mercantile bourgeoisie would suggest.^[6] In other words, nationalism appears like a convenient label to compartmentalize the ragtag events of the 1820s. Moreover, referring to the Greek rebellion as a “national uprising” glosses over the range of clashing goals and intentions in 1821. Greek residents of Attica, Macedonia, Thessaly, and the Morea may have been united by language and religion, but these regions had very different histories in the Ottoman Empire. Certainly, the impact, scope, and effects of Ottoman rule on the Aegean islands differed from what happened in the mainland provinces. Indeed, depending upon the circumstances, one may argue that the objectives of the war were not worth the devastation and sorrow felt by the ordinary people who had little to gain and everything to lose.

Ideologies aside, the major influence exercised by the European powers and actors outside Greece properly played a vital role in the shaping of identities and the formation of an independent state.^[7] This shift away from the specific nation and toward the broader continent opens up new vistas for understanding the connectedness of the Greek Revolution to post-Napoleonic Europe. The framing of the Greek revolt as an essential phase of the so-called Age of Revolutions (c. 1770–1848) illuminates how the Greeks revitalized the aspirations of patriots throughout Europe and the Americas. Meanwhile, Greek scholars have remained attuned to particular places and specific themes. Studies of localities, such as Mani, Chalchidiki, Mesolonghi, Tripolitsa, Patras, Crete, and the Dodecanese islands (among many others), as well as the topics of medicine and the environment, conversion and enslavement, women and children, minorities and refugees, and the villages and districts that submitted willingly to the Ottoman and Egyptian forces, continue to challenge historians and the singular narrative about nationalism’s triumph.

The collection 1821 – A New Dawn for Greece brings together six scholars. The opening essay, by Evdoxios Doxiadis, addresses the thorny problem of identity and the connection between religious self-consciousness and the sectarian realities of state-building during the Greek–Ottoman collision. The essay explains how the notion of a “Greek” identity and the civil concept of citizenship (as expressed by the “proto-nationalist” thinkers Korais and Rigas) came to be codified in the earliest legislation of the fledgling Greek government. Then, toward the end of the war and the post-independence period, the Enlightenment principle about secular citizenship that formed the basis for identity in early draft constitutions was replaced by the religious component of national self-identification that frames modern Greek identity today. Throughout this process, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims became excluded: although non-Orthodox could be Greek citizens, they could not be members of the Greek nation.

A special emphasis of this collection is on the Russian Empire and its role in Greek affairs. The chapter by Victor Taki considers the tsarist military establishment and the problem of popular unrest in the Danubian principalities during the Greek revolt. Drawing on Russian archives and Romanian primary sources, Taki reveals that as Russian military advisors developed a better understanding of the geography and the ethnic and religious composition of the Balkans, they decided to avoid agitating the local population. Although Russian commanders were exceptionally experienced in partisan warfare, they opposed the notion of an anti-Ottoman “people’s war,” due to concerns for its destructive potential. Taki’s exploration of Russian military planning provides insight into Tsar Alexander I’s decision-making as the Greek uprising entered its early stage. Predictably, under Tsar Nicholas I, discipline and restraint were the watchwords of the Russian officers engaged in Balkan affairs.

Until recently, historiography has neglected the connecting links between maritime trade, piracy, naval technology, and the outbreak of the Greek Revolution. The contribution by Nikolas Pissis considers a very important aspect of our story: the angle from the sea. In a well-documented essay based on an invaluable, yet neglected volume of primary documents edited by the Greek historian Vasilis Sfyroeras, Pissis profiles the small island of Psara by contextualizing it within the framework of the Ottoman Empire and the wider international setting.^[8] We learn that this mouse could really roar: a leading actor in the war from the beginning, Psara’s experience as a trading hub, pirate enclave, and participant in the Ottoman navy facilitated its shift into the revolutionary mode. This “Little Malta” made a major contribution to the independence drive both materially, in terms of ships and sailors, and symbolically, in terms of heroism and sacrifice.

The problem of state-building in revolutionary Greece during the middle years of the insurrection is the main topic probed by Vaso Seirinidou. A fascinating study of population control and state-capital formation, Seirinidou’s chapter brings us to the ground level to appreciate the pressure on the leadership in the Peloponnesus to provide for order and security in the newly established capital, Nafplio. Seirinidou’s research sheds light on the creation of a police force and an administration, the overseeing of the movement of refugees and irregular soldiers, the process of documenting the population (including census taking), and the quest for stability. Grounded in archives and well-informed by the literature about the relevant European institutions and customs (e.g., policing, census taking, population control), the essay demonstrates that key elements of Greek statehood were formed well before the arrival of Ioannis Kapodistrias in 1827. Nafplio thus serves as a fitting (and overlooked) prism to appreciate the profound changes taking place during “a new dawn” for the Greek people.

Religion has constituted a central tenet of Greek identity for centuries. Lora Gerd’s essay tackles the question of religion and philanthropic relief from the perspective of Russia during the first years of the Revolution. Forced to cope with an influx of refugees, the residents of Odessa, including the charismatic and gifted Greek theologian Konstantinos Oikonomos, came to the rescue. Featuring the correspondence of Oikonomos, Alexander Sturdza (a young official in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and the Minister of Education, Alexander Golitsyn, Gerd exploits the treasures in Russian archives to illuminate the impact of the Revolution on the Orthodox world. By arranging for the safe passage of thousands of imperiled Greek Christians, the autocratic Russian regime appears as an innovator in terms of humanitarian aid and refugee relief.

If Gerd’s chapter focuses on the particular, the final essay, by Ioannis Kotoulas, examines the big picture. The author of a major work on Greece and geopolitics, Kotoulas, explores the importance of geography during the Greek revolt and the era of state-building to follow.^[9] The demographic distribution of the Greeks across the entire Ottoman realm is an often-overlooked element of the 1821 rebellion. When the uprising broke out in the Danubian principalities in 1821, the Sublime Porte became alarmed that Greeks throughout the empire would take up arms. Moreover, the territories in revolt intersected major trading routes and the main communications lines to the Ottoman capital. The Greek question also involved Egypt (labeled an independent “proto-state actor”), which had a strategic interest in extending northwards into the Aegean Sea. In the long run, Kotoulas argues, the peripheral presence of the rebels (on the frontier of the Ottoman state) served as an advantage and induced the European states (driven by commercial and strategic self-interest) to intervene and defeat the imperial Egyptian–Ottoman forces. Irrefutably, the revolution altered the geopolitical map of the eastern Mediterranean and triggered a major reconsideration of international affairs.

As a whole, this collection covers mostly under-explored elements of the saga of 1821, oftentimes connected to wider developments and interpretative frameworks. The elements of the Greek Revolution addressed here indicate the wealth of new material being employed by historians, and the fascinating aspects of the Greek struggle, its origins, and outcomes, that await further scrutiny. We hope that the essays will appeal to scholars and students of Europe during the Age of Revolutions, as well as specialists in various aspects of Hellenism and the Greek War of Liberation. Although not gilded or encased in vellum, thanks to De Gruyter academic publishing, the access is open and online.^[10]