The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism: A ‘crooked line' leading to war and independence
The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism
Author
:
Yanni Kotsonis
ISBN-13
:
978-069121526
Publisher
:
Princeton University Press
Guideline Price
:
£30
The bicentenary of the 1821 start of the Greek war of independence from the Ottoman empire has prompted several academic studies, chief of them Mark Mazower's The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe. The war (which continued until 1827) is now referred to as 'the Greek Revolution' because it indicates the creation, on liberal lines, of the first modern state in Europe. Well, almost.
The author acknowledges that the 'Septinsular Republic' of the seven principal Ionian islands (1800-1807) was 'the first modern Greek state', even though
Greece
itself had not yet come into existence, and the islands looked across at a mainland that remained under Turkish rule.
Kotsonis excellently details the way that the 'revolution' simmered while the imperial powers of Russia, Britain and France weighed up their territorial options: the war of independence could not have opened if diplomatic conditions had not permitted it. It was a 'crooked line' rather than a straight one, leading directly to war and then independence.
The impetus may have come from Greeks in Odesa, but the decisions were made by the great powers, as they were at Vienna in 1815 and Versailles in 1918-19 and, as we see only too horribly today, on the future of Ukraine (where the Greek 'revolution' began!)
READ MORE
On the nature of 'violence', Kotsonis offers that it was caused, and justified, by the concept of a unified Greek-Christian state whose primary purpose was to defeat and eliminate the Muslim Turk. 'It was a Christian war of liberation from an alien, Oriental power.'
[
Old-fashioned Greece has no chance of becoming truly developed
Opens in new window
]
This seems to explain how Greece became, then and now, the border of Europe and its bastion against immigration, which is largely Muslim. As a historian's argument, this is both simplistic and naive, ignoring as it does the chessboard profile of the Balkans. His story ignores the entire 'Great Idea' (first enunciated in 1844) which aimed to embrace all ethnic Greeks and directly or indirectly caused the Balkan wars of 1912-13 and the disastrous Asia Minor campaign of 1920-22, which humiliated and bankrupted Greece morally and politically.
The modern state was created by the fiat of the Russian, British and French empires. The author, although Greek in origin, is a Russian specialist (at New York University) and his bias in this book towards the Russian contribution to Greek independence is overwhelming and at times alarmingly overstated. His assertion that 'Greek independence became a certainty because of Russian arms and diplomatic persistence' is simply unsustainable.
One 'Russian' fact is, however, inescapable: the 'revolution' was conceived in Odesa, which, like Taganrog, Nizhyn and Kherson (now fought over by Ukraine and Russia), was originally a Greek city, and remains a matter of concern for diasporic Greece today.
Kotsonis's book needs to be read alongside Liberalism after the Revolution: the intellectual foundations of the Greek state c. 1830-1880 by Michalis Sotiropoulos because the emergence of violence and that of liberalism have coincided throughout modern Greek history and have bedevilled the creation of a modern democratic state up to the present day.
Kotsonis tells us that 'Solidarity within the elite' had effectively suppressed discontent, which was certainly true of the well-established landowners and tax-gatherers under Ottoman rule of mainland Greece. It remains true of conservative Greece today, and explains the virtual exclusion of the Left from political life. It also explains the continuing presence of discontent and the undercurrent of violence (which frequently breaks the surface) within the Greek state which is, admittedly, not within the scope of this book.
In Kotsonis's thesis, war and nationalism were synonymous, but he seems to discount the continuing presence of violence. To refer in his epilogue to Pontic Greeks coming into the new state, without referring to the violence (both physical and mental) which that influx has occasioned, is to limit his argument about how 'violence' exists in the modern state.
Kotsonis acknowledges that the consequences of creating the state of Greece 'are still with us' and that the status of modern Greece is 'up for grabs'. He can say that '1821 is a current event' and that 'the Revolution is still with us and there are new stories to be told', but he doesn't tell them, although his references to his research make it clear that he knows what they are.
The insistence throughout this book on the polarisation of Christian and Muslim conceals the fact that languages, faiths, cultures and, indeed, landscapes themselves can never be defined by nation states (as Kapka Kassabova shows in her recent Elixir: in the Valley at the End of Time).
Kotsonis's writing is casual, and refreshingly unacademic, but the lack of a bibliography is disappointing, and the author's suggestions for further reading are surprisingly superficial.
Richard Pine's books include Greece Through Irish Eyes (2015) and The Eye of the Xenos: Letters about Greece (2021). He contributes Letter from Greece to The Irish Times.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Europe without Borders: a detailed history of the Schengen system - Skilful account of a tense balancing of freedoms
Europe without Borders, A History Author : Isaac Stanley-Becker ISBN-13 : 978-0691261768 Publisher : Princeton University Press Guideline Price : £30 The Schengen system of free movement across borders for nationals of its 29 member-states symbolises the promise of liberal internationalism in Europe after its long history of conflicts and war. Originating in an interstate treaty signed in 1985 between France, West Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, it went public in 1990 after intense negotiation between state officials just after the Berlin Wall fell. Over the following decades it embraced most states and more than 450 million people. Ireland and Cyprus are its only EU non-members. Ireland preferred to maintain the similar Common Travel Area with Britain, which never joined Schengen. This book by a US journalist and academic is a detailed history of how the Schengen system was created. Based on extensive archival research it has an acute sense of the system's humanist and cosmopolitan promise alongside market and border limits. READ MORE It breaks new ground by revealing the abiding tensions in Schengen's construction and operation: between freedom of movement for people and citizens compared with market freedom for capital and workers – and between the rights conferred on nationals of its member-states and strict restrictions on outsiders. Stanley-Becker skilfully relates these tensions to the politics of immigration in Europe after decolonisation. Schengen 'was a laboratory of free movement always meant to join Euro-nationalist rules of exclusion with neoliberal principles of market freedom', he writes. Two contrasting protests frame his study: one by lorry drivers against long border queues, which pushed Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand into their Saarbrucken initiative in 1984 to ease Franco-German border controls by sharing them with other countries, in the name of a Citizen's Europe. And then, in 1996 and after, came protests by sans-papiers immigrants in favour of free movement as a human right. The contrast is inherent in the racial hierarchies that defined nationals of these former colonies as 'undesirables' in secret police lists. The book is strong on the legal and philosophical history and political arguments surrounding these Schengen rights, much less so on the huge everyday freedoms they gave to the many European citizens and workers who have benefitted from them and value them highly. These hard-won freedoms are now severely challenged by the new right-wing politics of immigration and identity on the continent.
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
Letters to the Editor, June 21st: On public service, the cost of living and sunscreen
Sir, – A stream of commentary in the columns of The Irish Times has crystalised a sobering truth, that ' Our administrative and legal procedures simply cannot unblock the logjam in time to prevent serious damage ', as Michael McDowell put it. ('There is a way to break the logjam in infrastructure', June 18th). Before last Christmas, Patrick Honohan, former governor of the Central Bank, wrote in an Irish Times article: 'The issue is not so much what the aims of public policy should be... the problem has been in delivery'; and recently an Irish Times editorial spoke of our 'sluggish' administrative processes. A simple example illustrates the depth of this dysfunction: a friend of mine, an experienced property expert who spent much of his career in the public sector, repeatedly attempted to draw attention to suboptimal performance in a prominent State body (mirroring wider poor performance manifest in the ballooning housing crisis) and to offer solutions. As a last resort, he wrote to Taoiseach Micheál Martin in January and, after several reminders in the meantime, he finally received a reply this week, six months on, saying that his letter had been forwarded to Jack Chambers, Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitisation. The Office of the Taoiseach publishes a national risk assessment annually which sets out the '24 strategic risks facing the country in the short, medium and long term'. READ MORE Pandemics, war, housing and social cohesion are mentioned, for example, but never mentioned in this annual assessment is the overarching risk, which if not addressed, compounds all other risks, namely, administrative incompetence and inertia. The Civil Service is not up to the job. Just for example, with 15 grades and associated sign-off authorities above the level of Executive Officer, and several more below EO, Civil Service structures are not fit for purpose in this day of digitisation and AI; reasonable public expectations of personal accountability, with consequences, are thwarted when things go wrong, be it in the national children's hospital, nursing homes, the Office of Public Works, policing or the degradation by nitrates of Our Lady's Island lagoon. To achieve progress on his extensive portfolio of responsibilities, radical public service reform has to be front and centre for Mr Chambers. – Yours, etc, EDDIE MOLLOY, Rathgar, Dublin 6. Rent pressure zones Sir, – While most attention has focused on the likely impact of changes to rent pressure zones (RPZs) on future rents, little consideration seems to have been given to their consequences for house prices. Firstly, housing and apartment development land prices will rise on the basis that building rental homes will be perceived as having become more profitable and this will lead to increased house prices, even if other building costs don't also increase. Secondly, as long-term rental yield expectations will have been increased, they will lift the capital value of underlying assets and progressively influence the market for not-for-rent new and second-hand homes. As always, it is not just rental income that's important in property investment but the 'total return' which includes capital appreciation determined by purchase-sale market conditions and timing. Thanks to the RPZ changes, these have suddenly become more favourable for landlords and builders and less so for buyers and renters. – Yours, etc, BRIAN FLANAGAN, Blackrock, Co Dublin. The high cost of living in Ireland Sir, – Your front page article ( 'Ireland second most expensive country in Europe ' June 20th), will come as no surprise to anyone holidaying or on business in mainland Europe this year. We have just returned from Cyprus where a bottle of decent supermarket wine was €5.50 (€10 here), 20 cigarettes were €4.30 (€14.50 here) and a litre of unleaded diesel was €1.32 (€1.74 here in rural Donegal). Against an average monthly rent of ¤2,000 in Ireland, €850 a month could get you a furnished two-bed apartment in Paphos with access to a pool and a five-minute drive from the beach and all shopping amenities. Of course, wages are lower (minimum wage of €6.60 an hour there, €13.50 here) but that's irrelevant if you are working from home for a multinational – your salary is the same wherever you are, or like us, you are on a fixed pension income. Around 76 per cent of Greek Cypriots speak English, all government documents are in both languages, they drive on the left and you can keep in touch with news in English from British Forces radio or the English edition of the Cyprus Mail. Annual sunshine hours are 3,000 against 1,500 in Dublin. After 11 years in Ireland we've had enough and are planning a move. If it wasn't for the cat, we'd be there now. – Yours, etc, KENNETH HARPER, Burtonport, Co Donegal. Sir, – Eurostat's finding that Ireland is the second most expensive country in Europe came as no surprise. Donegal friends of ours recently returned from Venice, and when I asked if it had been expensive, they replied: 'Not really – after living in Ireland, Venice seemed quite reasonable.' When Venice starts to feel like a bargain, something has gone badly wrong. – Yours, etc, ENDA CULLEN, Armagh. Sir, – Your recent reporting on Ireland being the second most expensive country in the EU is a timely reminder of the factors driving up costs for households and businesses. Among these, fuel stands out: not because of global market volatility, but because of Irish taxes. We believe Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe should establish an expert group to review how fuel for transport and home heating is taxed. Its remit should be clear: It should secure fair revenue for the State, support the shift to renewable energy and protect vulnerable consumers from punishing costs. Current policy hits hardest those with no alternative. That's not sustainable – environmentally, economically, or politically. – Yours, etc, KEVIN McPARTLAN, Chief executive, Fuels for Ireland, Dublin 1. Sir, – Your article (' Ireland's grocery prices are still soaring. How can that be? 'June 16th) cites many reasons for the huge grocery price hikes which we've all seen in the past year or so. Aside from geopolitical events, there is one development that I have noticed in all our local supermarkets over the past year: there has been a huge change in the way supermarket food in particular has been displayed. Now acres of plastic doors have been installed for refrigerated and frozen goods. Inside these cabinets every item of food is presented in plastic or aluminium containers and the food is then covered in literally kilometres of plastic wrap. Potatoes, carrots and even onions are in plastic bags, mushrooms, tomatoes and fruit are in plastic trays shrouded in film. Are we all paying for these plastic doors, the food containers, the cling film? I would like to know how much the packaging contributes to the increased costs. We are offered no choice on whether to accept it or not. I would also like to know whether there are any health risks to us from all the plastic. Are we going to be able to recycle all this packaging? I weighed two washed and emptied trays: one plastic (27 grammes), the other aluminium (23 grammes). Our waste company accepts no aluminium trays for recycling, which presents an additional problem, as one aluminium school lunch tray arrives into our house every weekday. I share the outrage of Pricewatch's readers, but it's not just each individual family budget that's being affected. The cost to our climate is going to be heavy: the CO2 generated by manufacture of aluminium and plastic is only one part of it. Washing the items to make them fit for recycling takes energy (which we pay for). More CO2 is then needed to cart the stuff to a central recycling facility, where even more fossil fuel is needed to recycle it. As for the plastic doors, I reckon their lifespan would be 25 years at most, which gets us to 2050. I wonder whether there is any plan to dispose of or repurpose them. It doesn't appear that the supermarkets are taking climate change seriously. – Yours, etc, MARY SIKORA, Rosscarbery, Co Cork. Child poverty is not inevitable Sir, – The latest child poverty monitor from the Children's Rights Alliance is not just a wake-up call, it's a national shame. In one year, more than 45,000 more children in Ireland have been pushed into consistent poverty, bringing the total to nearly 103,000. This is not a statistic. It is a searing indictment of political choices, public apathy, and a system that continues to fail our most vulnerable: our children. Poverty is not inevitable. It's the result of policy decisions that too often favour economic metrics over human dignity. Today, children account for nearly 40 per cent of those in consistent poverty. Thousands go to bed hungry, live in insecure housing, and miss out on the most basic joys of childhood. This, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The Government has made welcome commitments, free school books, hot meals, GP access, but these measures, while helpful, are broad strokes. They do not touch the core of the crisis. The housing emergency is pushing nearly 4,800 children into homelessness, and 230,000 more live in material deprivation, families forced to choose between food and heat, rent and clothing. This is not just a policy gap. It is a moral failure. After nearly four decades working in developing countries, I've seen poverty in its harshest forms, from the famine zones of Africa to the slums of Calcutta. I still remember a six-year-old boy abandoned to die in a sewer. He survived, but only just. His story lives with me because poverty robs children of their worth and their future. While the context is different, children in Ireland are being let down in ways that should horrify us. This isn't just about numbers, it's about values. Do we value children only in rhetoric? Or are we willing to invest in their futures? We know what works: targeted child benefit, early intervention, proper housing, and dignified social protection. And yet two years after the ESRI called for a second-tier child benefit, we still wait. Meanwhile, on the world stage, child suffering deepens. In 2024 the UN verified more than 41,000 grave violations against children in conflict zones. More than 4,500 children were killed, many in Gaza, Congo, Ukraine, Ethiopia and beyond. Some 22,495 children endured multiple atrocities, recruited, raped, bombed, starved. It should haunt us. We must stop looking away. Whether in Dublin or Gaza, Galway or Ethiopia, every child matters. Let us be the generation that found its conscience, raised its voice, and acted. – Yours, etc, RONAN SCULLY, Knocknacarra, Galway. Roaming dogs on the beach Sir. – Having visited Seapoint yesterday evening for a swim, I could not believe the number of dogs still roaming freely among swimmers' belongings and in the sea, in spite of signs everywhere saying ' No Dogs'. Also, where we were changing there was a large abandoned dog poo for unaware swimmers to walk into... disgusting. There were many children there yesterday who do not like dogs and I don't think it is fair for them to have to endure this. Where are the dog wardens patrolling this area? They should be there constantly in the summer months. – Yours, etc, EILEEN BANNAN, Letterkenny, Co Donegal. Always wear sunscreen Sir, – As an Australian, now happily resident in Ireland, your cover photo of sunbathers ('Hotting up', June 20th) prompts me to share the hard-earned wisdom of my people: slip, slop, slap. More specifically, slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat. There are things to envy about the Australian way of life, skin cancer is not one of them. – Yours, etc, BEN AVELING, Ranelagh, Dublin. Nuclear weapons and disarmament Sir, – How can a country with nuclear weapons insist that another country should not have them? The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is signed up to by 191 countries, including five states that have nuclear arms. This treaty, as well as aiming to prevent the proliferation of nuclear arms, looks to the disarmament of those weapons already in existence. As far as I am aware no such disarmament has taken place since the putting in place of the treaty in the 1970s. Don't those with the power to disarm nuclear weapons not know of the utter devastation caused by the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or of the still evident effects of Chernobyl? No country should have nuclear weapons. The fact that some countries do have them causes others to develop these weapons. Can the double standard be stopped and a serious effort made to comply with the aims of the NPT to stop both proliferation and disarm already existing weapons? The consequences of not doing so are unthinkable. – Yours, etc, MARY FITZGERALD, Terenure, Dublin. EuroMillions dejection Sir, – Unlike Brian Cullen (Letters, June 20th) I had a longer period of excitement as I didn't check my tickets until I heard where the winning ticket was sold. My wish always, if it's not me (we have to live in hope!), is the winner is someone who needs it, remains in good health, takes the best of advice and puts their winnings to good use and gives to worthy causes. Again, unlike Brian, 'who just has to go and buy another ticket', I wonder is it some sort of post big jackpot Lotto dejection/ depression that I did not purchase a EuroMillions ticket in my local Centra this morning as the EuroMillions jackpot is ONLY ¤17 million tonight! – Yours, etc, JOE WALSH, Dublin.
Irish Times
8 hours ago
- Irish Times
AG says he cannot help on legal query over Shannon flights that may aid Israel's Gaza war
Attorney General Rossa Fanning has told the Social Democrats that he is not in a position to assist after the party appealed to him to check whether Irish policy on flight inspection at Shannon Airport is consistent with EU customs law. The party's foreign affairs spokeswoman Patricia Stephenson had previously called on the EU anti-fraud watchdog, OLAF, to launch an investigation into the inspection of flights into Shannon which she said may be facilitating Israel's bombardment of Gaza . She also wrote to the Attorney General, along with her party colleague Gary Gannon, asking whether Irish policy is consistent with the State's legal duties under both EU law and the Genocide Convention. In a response, Mr Fanning wrote that while he appreciated the party had written to him 'with the public-spirited concern of conscientious members of the Oireachtas', he was unable to assist as his constitutional role 'does not extend to providing analysis of legal matters to individual members of the Oireachtas'. READ MORE He said that furthermore, 'it would be neither appropriate, nor in accordance with my legal position, for me to act as a conduit in bringing such concerns to the attention of the Government'. [ Ireland seeks 'legal clarity' over Shannon stopover for US deportation flights Opens in new window ] 'As members of the Oireachtas, I trust you will have the opportunity to express to Government directly the concerns you raise in the correspondence to DG TAXUD [Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union] and OLAF.' The Social Democrats have said there is credible evidence that military contractors and private aircraft carrying dual-use goods are moving through Irish airspace and Irish territory en route to Israel. Ms Stephenson has previously said that under EU customs law, Ireland is required to carry out risk-based inspections. 'That means prioritising flights operated by arms brokers or those on known weapons trade routes. That's what the law says - and right now, Ireland isn't following it,' she said. [ New aircraft inspection system planned to prevent illegal transport of weapons through Ireland Opens in new window ] Speaking on Friday after receiving the AG's letter, Ms Stephenson said: 'Given the response of the Attorney-General, it's now important that the Taoiseach clarifies if the Irish State is indeed in breach of EU law in choosing not to inspect planes that are arriving in Shannon and then travelling out of the European Union directly from Ireland. 'Obviously our concern is one of moral failure, regarding Gaza and the weapons travelling through Ireland, but the State can't continue to operate outside of EU Customs and VAT requirements while maintaining this appalling indifference to what is happening in Shannon Airport.'
