1821 – A New Dawn for Greece. The Greek Struggle for Independence – Contents

Contents

Introduction 1821 – A New Dawn for Greece: The Greek Struggle for Independence

Lucien Frary (Rider University)

Lucien Frary (PhD, University of Minnesota) teaches history at Rider University. His research deals with Mediterranean, Slavic, and Eastern Orthodox studies, in particular Russia’s interest in the Near East, starting in the sixteenth century. He is the author of Russia and the Making of Greek Identity, 1821–1844 (Oxford, 2015).

1. Defining a Hellene: Legal Constructs and Sectarian Realities in the Greek War of Independence

Evdoxios Doxiadis (Simon Fraser University)

Abstract: The Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) is a fascinating mélange of the old and new, of traditional identities and modern concepts. Perhaps nothing exemplifies this better than questions of identity, ethnicity, and nationality as they played out and developed over the 9 years of the conflict. This article examines two trajectories on the question of identity and nationality that seamlessly coexisted not only during the Greek War of Independence but also for much of the early history of the Modern Greek State. The first looks at popular understandings of identity and the second the legal constructs that tried to define a national identity and nationality in terms of law that would be compatible with developments elsewhere in Europe. This article explores these questions on the ground but also in terms of legal constructs and their evolution from the period just before the eruption of the revolt to the establishment of the Greek state arguing that these efforts and apparent contradictions can be seen as taking part in a wider European debate on nationality and identity following the experience of the Napoleonic Wars and at the same time continuing long-held identities in the Ottoman state.

Keywords: Greek War of Independence, identity, nationalism, ethnicity, law

Evdoxios Doxiadis (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) is an Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University. His research focus is eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Greek and Mediterranean history with a particular interest in questions of law, gender, minorities, state formation, and nationalism. He is the author of State, Nationalism, and the Jewish Communities of Modern Greece (Bloomsbury, 2018) and The Shackles of Modernity: Women, Property, and the Transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek State, 1750–1850 (Harvard University Press, 2012).

2. Russian Military Perspectives on the Ottoman Empire during the Greek War of Independence

Victor Taki (Concordia University of Edmonton)

Abstract: The refusal of Alexander I to declare war on the Ottoman Empire in support of the Greek Uprising in 1821 provided Russian military men with a possibility to reflect on the past Russian–Ottoman wars and prepare the best strategy for future confrontation. One of the aspects of this reflection was the growing interest of Russian military planners in the ethno-confessional composition and political attitudes of the local population in the territory of the prospective war theater. This article argues that increased attention to the population reflected the desire of the tsarist planners to avoid excesses of a “people’s war” rather than to unleash its destructive potential. Despite a strong emotional response that the Greek War of Independence provoked among the Russian military, their perspectives on the Ottoman Empire during the 1820s were for the most part quite restrained and conservative.

Keywords: Greek War of Independence, Russian foreign policy, Ottoman empire, Russian–Ottoman wars, ethnicity, violence

Victor Taki (PhD, Central European University) has taught at the University of Alberta, Dalhousie University, The King’s University, and Concordia University of Edmonton. His most recent book Russia on the Danube: Empire, Elites and Reform in Moldavia and Wallachia, 1812–1834 is published by Central European University Press. His research interests include Imperial Russia’s Balkan entanglements and the intellectual history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

3. “Little Malta”: Psara and the Peculiarities of Naval Warfare in the Greek Revolution

Nikolas Pissis (Freie Universität Berlin)

Abstract: The tiny island of Psara, located in the center of the Aegean Sea, constitutes a lieu de mémoire for the Greek War of Independence. Psara occupied a prominent place in Philhellenic discourse due to the spectacular achievements of the island’s fireships and the bloody reprisals after an attack in 1824 by the Ottoman navy. This chapter utilizes the case of Psara as a laboratory for examining various questions related to military history (such as the nature of naval operations, their resources, techniques, and command) in an Ottoman and Mediterranean framework (particularly involving the legacy of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1768–1774). It addresses the broader issues and debates concerning the immediate causes of the outbreak of the Greek Revolution in 1821 as well as the perceptions of events (e.g., the looting of Muslim settlements on the Anatolian coast by Psara’s warships). The study draws on a neglected corpus of sources, including the voluminous “Archive of Psara” (Academy of Athens, 1974) and naval diaries of Greek war ships.

Keywords: Psara, Greek War of Independence, naval warfare, Ottoman Empire, fireships, Mediterranean

Nikolas Pissis (PhD, Freie Universität Berlin) studied history in Athens, Tübingen, and Munich. Since 2012, he has been Research Associate at the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) “Episteme in motion” at the Freie Universität Berlin. He is the author of Russland in den politischen Vorstellungen der griechischen Kulturwelt 1645–1725 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020).

4. Policing a Revolutionary Capital: Public Order and Population Control in Nafplio (1824–1826)

Vaso Seirinidou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)

Abstract: In the new hierarchy of space created by the Greek Revolution, Nafplio acquired a prominent position and soon replaced Tripolitsa as the preeminent administrative center of the fledgling state. Declared by law as the seat of the administration in September 1823, Nafplio was a stronghold during the incessant infighting that characterized the Greek struggle for independence. From June 1824 (when its fortress was handed over to the government), Nafplio served as the political and military center of the revolutionary territory. Administrative officials, politicians, primates, soldiers, and an influx of refugees thronged the city, creating conditions for overpopulation, at a time when the Ottoman–Egyptian commander Ibrahim Pasha was advancing on rebel strongholds in the Peloponnese. Based on voluminous archival records, this essay examines the policing projects carried out by the revolutionary authorities between 1825 and 1826 to address public order and security issues facing the city. The essay demonstrates that in the space of two intense years of political and military struggle, enclosed and overcrowded Nafplio became a laboratory for developing civil administration and the creation of a policed capital.

Keywords: Greek Revolution, Nafplio, Peloponnese, administration, police, public order, population control

Vaso Seirinidou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Archeology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She has also taught at the University of Vienna and the University of Crete. Her research interests have been concentrated on the history and historiography of migration and diaspora, with emphasis on the Greek diaspora in the Habsburg Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and intellectual history. She has published two books and various articles in Greek, English, and German. Her current research interest is focused on issues of social history and state formation during the Greek Revolution (1821).

5. Konstantinos Oikonomos and Russian Philorthodox Relief during the Greek War for Independence (1821–1829)

Lora Gerd (Russian Academy of Sciences)

Abstract: After the Archipelago expeditions of the Russian Navy in 1769–1774 and 1805–1807, thousands of Greeks fled the Ottoman Empire and resettled in the province of Novorossiia (southern Russia). Among the migrants were prominent merchants who strongly supported the Philiki Etaireia (Friendly Society) and the cause for Greek independence. Although Tsar Alexander I could not openly support the insurrection that broke out in 1821, Russia provided invaluable material assistance to the Greek refugees, who arrived in Russian cities such as Odessa and Kishinev. Special committees under Russian officials distributed funds gathered from private donations and public sources all over Russia. The famous Greek cleric Konstantinos Oikonomos also arrived in Odessa with his family. His speech at the funeral of Patriarch Gregory V (whose relics were buried in Odessa) helped solidify the image of the patriarch as an ethno-martyr. Oikonomos served as a mediator and advisor to the Ober-procurator of the Russian Holy Synod, Alexander Golitsyn, who was responsible for gathering information about Greek clergymen among the refugees. Oikonomos also played an important role in distributing donations for the families of the Greeks displaced after the massacre on Chios in 1822. The documents from Russian archives presented in this essay demonstrate the network of Oikonomos and the pivotal role that he played between the Russian high officials and Greek intellectuals, the Greek merchants, and his poorer compatriots. This chapter features an annex with the unpublished correspondence of Oikonomos as evidence for one of the largest humanitarian actions of the nineteenth century.

Keywords: Greek Revolution, Novorossiia, refugees, Odessa, Konstantinos Oikonomos, Chios, humanitarian intervention

Lora Gerd is a chief researcher at St. Petersburg Institute of History, Russian Academy of Sciences, and a Professor at St. Petersburg University and the Theological Academy. She is the author of many studies relating to Russian policy in the Christian East and Byzantine history, including Russian Policy in the Orthodox East: The Patriarchate of Constantinople (1878–1914) (De Gruyter Open, 2014) and Konstantinopol’skii Patriarkhat i Rossiia 1901/1914 (Indrik, 2012).

6. The Geopolitics of the 1821 Greek Revolution

Ioannis E. Kotoulas (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; Tbilisi State University)

Abstract: This chapter analyses the geopolitics of the Greek Revolution and provides an in-depth examination of the demographic and geographic factors that played a role in the Revolution. The chapter probes the geopolitical framework of interstate relations at the opening of the nineteenth century; the topography and characteristics of the spatial area of the Revolution; the human capital that facilitated the rebels (e.g. klephts, armatoloi, sailors, merchants, and intellectuals); and the strategic plans of the powers involved (great and small). The chapter reflects on the founding principles of the Greek state as a great-power protectorate and demonstrates that independence was achieved in great degree due to the geographic position of the Greek rebels on a vulnerable periphery of the Ottoman Empire, where the European states could project their sea power.

Keywords: Greek Revolution, geopolitics, Ottoman Empire, Mediterranean Sea, Balkan peninsula, great powers

Ioannis E. Kotoulas (PhD in Modern Greek History, PhD in Geopolitics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) is an Adjunct Lecturer in Geopolitics, University of Athens and a Visiting Lecturer in Greek Studies, Tbilisi State University.