Greek Revolution
Metropolitan Germanos of Patras blessing the Greek flag at the monastery of Agia Lavra on 25 March 1821 (painting by Theodoros Vryzakis , 1865).
The event is considered the beginning of the Greek Revolution.
| date | February 22, 1821 to September 12, 1829 |
|---|---|
| location | Greece, Aegean |
| exit | Greek victory |
| Follow | Establishment of the First Hellenic Republic Recognition of sovereignty in the London Protocol of 1830 and the Treaty of Constantinople (1832) |
| conflict parties | |
|---|---|
|
|
Only with Navy:
|
| commander | |
|
Political : Filiki Eteria Alexandros Mavrokordatos Ioannis Kapodistrias (from 1828)
Military : Theodoros Kolokotronis Alexander Ypsilantis Demetrius Ypsilantis Georgios Karaiskakis Richard Church Thomas Cochrane Andreas Vokos Miaoulis Konstantinos Kanaris Markos Botsaris |
Political : Mahmud II Muhammad Ali Pasha Military : Omer Vrioni Mahmud Dramali Pasha Hursid Pasha Husrev Pasha Reşid Mehmed Pasha Ibrahim Pasha |
| troop strength | |
| unknown |
.svg){kind=small} Eyâlet of Egypt: 17,000 men 400 ships including 54 battleships |
| losses | |
|
approx. 25,000 dead |
over 40,000 dead |
| Civilian casualties : over 105,000 | |
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
The Greek Revolution (1821–1829), also known as the Greek Uprising or the Greek War of Independence , denotes the struggle of the Greeks against Ottoman rule and for an independent Greek Republic . The striving for independence was initially supported, primarily for tactical reasons, by the major powers France , Great Britain and Russia . March 25, 1821 marks the beginning of the Greek Revolution and is a national holiday in Greece .
requirements
society
The conquest of Byzantine Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453 did not end Greek social life, but led to the flight of a part of the elite , especially artists, merchants and scholars, who were in Western Europe or in areas still under other rule were such. B. Crete , settled. In Italy, these Greeks contributed significantly to the development of the Renaissance .
The Ottomans installed the millet system in their dominion, which guaranteed certain rights to Christians and Jews living in the empire . In return, the members of these religious communities, the so-called "protégés" ( dhimma ), were forbidden to carry weapons and were obliged to pay a poll tax ( jizya ). In comparison to the other Christians of the Balkans and Asia Minor , however, the Greeks enjoyed a number of special rights within the framework of this regulation, which they were able to increase over the following decades and centuries.
These special rights did not apply to the Greeks in general. The simple Greek rural population was no different than, for example, the Serbs or the Christian Albanians. In particular, homer-based reading and writing lessons, which had already been neglected in the late Byzantine period, were abolished, which led to illiteracy among the rural population. The Greek-Orthodox clergy , which was composed not only of ethnic Greeks, was certainly privileged in the Ottoman social order. On behalf of the Sublime Porte he controlled the Orthodox religious community. The Ottomans made no further distinction between Greek, Slavic, Albanian and Romanian Christians when they gave the Greek clergy all religious, educational and administrative power over them.
Because the Patriarch continued to reside in Constantinople's Phanari district, modern-day Fener , this city, and particularly this district, remained a cultural and religious center for the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, as it had been in pre-Ottoman times. The Greeks living here, who were privileged by the Sultan , were called Phanariotes . Accordingly, the orthodox belief, culture and educational system were heavily Greek dominated. The Greek clergy thus benefited from the abolition of the autonomy of the non-Greek churches.
administration
Not infrequently, administrative posts were occupied by Greeks. They could even be found at central points of the Ottoman administration. Likewise, the office of the dragoman (interpreter) was in Greek hands. This was because the high Muslim officials were not particularly interested in learning foreign languages. Therefore, Greeks often attended diplomatic negotiations in this capacity and thus had a de facto ambassadorial function.
At a lower administrative level, the Phanariotes were responsible for collecting taxes from the Christians. This right was often abused for personal gain by levying higher and higher taxes on the Christians in the province, both Greek and non-Greek. Last but not least, this practice led to the popular uprising of 1821. Not all Phanariotes followed this practice. There were even a number of Phanariotes among the later freedom fighters who played a major role in the fight for the ideals of an independent democratic nation state. Among others, Alexandros Ypsilantis was among them. Nevertheless, it was precisely large sections of the educated Greeks who initially did not find much to like the enlightened idea of their own national state based on the French model.
Revolutionary influences from Western Europe
For the groups described, who were privileged under the Millet system, Ottoman foreign rule was definitely beneficial. Rich shipowners on the islands, wealthy merchants, the high clergy of the Orthodox Church, the Phanariotes, etc. m. had much to lose and little to gain from a national revolution.
However, much of the Greeks had no share in the power and wealth of the upper classes. The peasantry, the subordinate provincial clergymen, as well as simple seamen, did not know all these comforts of the Ottoman status quo .
Towards the end of what is known as antiquity, i.e. up to around the beginning of the 5th century, Greece was the only fully literate country in Europe. People learned to read and write in public schools by memorizing the texts of Homer . Since the time of the Turkish occupation, this has not happened at all, so that an uneducated underclass of farm workers, seamen, but also clergymen emerged; The latter only had a rudimentary understanding of what they read from the New Testament during the service. Instead, one was increasingly dependent on oral traditions.
However, the now largely illiterate mob that made up the bulk of the subjugated Greeks at that time had neither a unifying ideology nor financial clout. Without ideas and leadership, the displeasure of the Greek population erupted only from time to time in a few local uprisings, which were put down by the Ottoman powers of order as quickly as they were ignited. In the 17th century, however, a major cultural and intellectual shift was slowly emerging.
A second reason was the comparison between areas under Venetian rule with areas under Ottoman rule. Thus the Ionian Islands were under the rule of the Venetians. Despite having fewer mineral resources and poorer geographical conditions compared to the Ottoman mainland and other islands, they prospered economically. The Republic of Venice provided mercenaries and promoted the islands with new cultivation methods and guaranteed purchases of agricultural products. Due to a free social constitution, there was a mixture of Greeks and new settlers, of Orthodox and Catholics. The nobility consisted of both ethnic groups, and the Greek language gave way more and more to a Greek-Italian creole language .
Greek civilization's intellectual exchange with the rest of Europe had never entirely ceased. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, many Greeks, especially scholars, artists and merchants, fled to the West, where they made their contribution to the Renaissance. One of the greatest exponents of Mannerism in Spain was a Greek from Crete, El Greco , actually Domínikos Theotokópoulos. Trade contacts also supported the exchange of ideas. In addition to new production techniques, Greek traders also brought new ideas to the country, including the concept of economic and political liberalism , which they found very attractive .
The flourishing commercial activities of Greek merchants from abroad sparked new forces in the cultural life of the nascent nation. In Venice in the 16th century, printing presses went into operation, which subsequently also increasingly printed Greek-language books, which had hardly happened up to then. Institutions were set up at home for students who could not afford to study abroad. The interest of the people in the Greek language, the local traditions, in traditional stories and epic poems about orthodox martyrs or heroic freedom fighters , and finally also in classical mythology , was revived. A leading role in this reawakening process was played by Enlightenment writers Adamantios Korais and Rigas Velestinlis .
course
The Greeks, who had been under Ottoman rule for more than 350 years since the fall of Constantinople in 1453, proved to be too weak militarily to defend their newly won national independence on their own. The war of independence was essentially decided between the great European powers and the Ottoman Empire. A prelude to this was the suppressed Orlov revolt inspired by the Russian Empire in 1770 . After the convening of the first Greek National Assembly on December 20, 1821, efforts to achieve a lasting liberation of the parts of the empire settled by Greeks stalled for several years. Only the destruction of the Turkish-Egyptian fleet by the great powers in 1827 at Navarino and then the eighth Russian war against the Turks in 1828 created the conditions for the Peace of Adrianople in 1829.
Breakout of the Revolution (1821)
In contrast to the Serbian uprising of 1804 , which can be seen as a spontaneous counter-attack on related Turkish activities, the Greek revolution of 1821 had been planned and thought out years earlier by the Filiki Etairia (Greek for "friendship"). However, the Greek people as a whole were not behind these plans. The modern idea of nationality was still too abstract for many, let alone that anyone would have believed in the success of the company.
The Filiki Etairia planned to ignite the revolution on March 25 in three different places at the same time, in order to create more confusion among the Ottomans and thus make success more likely. One of these places was the Peloponnese , where a larger group of rebels, the so-called klephts , supported the revolution plan. The second location was Constantinople, where riots were planned within the Phanariote community and which was taken for granted as the capital of the newly created Greece. The third action planned was the invasion of Greek forces into the Principality of Moldova and Wallachia . These were to march in from Odessa across the Russian border.
The planners of the revolution fatally regarded these Romanian provinces as Greek territories, probably because they had previously been administered by Greek Phanariotes for a century . In doing so, the Filiki Etairia completely ignored and/or misrecognized the fact that the local population, both important figures and common people, were ethnic Romanians who could hardly be won over to the Greek cause. It was planned that Alexander Ypsilantis should lead a volunteer battalion of students and Romanian peasants in the fight against the Ottomans. Ypsilantis, himself the son and grandson of two Phanariote rulers of Moldova, was to be supported by the then Moldovan voivode Tudor Vladimirescu , who was actually supposed to organize the uprising of the Romanian peasants. However, things turned out differently.
When Alexandros Ypsilantis invaded Moldova in March 1821 with his 450 men, the "holy battalion ", the Romanians under Vladimirescu did not attack the Ottomans, but the houses of the hated Greek Phanariotes. They were more interested in administering their provinces themselves than in clashing with the Ottoman authorities. The Greek invasion of the Romanian Danubian Principalities ended in a complete fiasco. Ypsilantis retired to Austria, where he finally died in Vienna. According to today's understanding of the concept of nationality , the reasons for the failure of the Greeks in the Danube principalities are obvious. The planners of the Filiki Etairia , however, succumbed, presumably mainly out of wishful thinking , to the fatal error of seeing the Romanians simply as non-Muslim Orthodox according to the Ottoman understanding.
The uprising in Constantinople was also put down. The Ottomans responded by hanging the Greek Orthodox patriarch. The new patriarch and other collaborating Phanariotes then condemned the revolution.
The only success was in the Peloponnese. The revolution erupted across the entire peninsula. Turkish cities were taken and the Muslim population was forcibly expelled . In return, the Ottoman army imposed similar measures on parts of its Greek population, including on the island of Chios . The revolution was in full swing, gradually liberating the Peloponnese. On December 20, 1821, the first Greek National Assembly met in Nea Epidavros (then called Piáda ).
The front lines persist (1821–1825)
After this first success of 1821, the fronts in southern Greece hardened and the situation remained unchanged until 1825. There were several reasons for this: Neither side was strong enough for a quick, final victory. On the one hand, the Ottoman troops had to march anew every spring from their base in central Greek Thessaly . Lacking a sufficiently large fleet, the Ottomans had to make their way south along the coast. In the autumn they marched back again, since safe wintering in the unsettled Peloponnese was out of the question. On the other hand, the Greeks had no regular army to oppose the Turkish troops. The Greek units , composed for the most part of partisans , peasants and a few Phanariotes, were too weak to launch an offensive north. They could only defend the Peloponnese.
A second reason for the persistence of the fronts was a dispute over leadership among the Greeks themselves. They were divided into two camps, which also carried the class differences that existed in the Ottoman Empire into the revolution: The armed farm workers and the earlier klephts saw Theodoros Kolokotronis their leader. Facing him were the leaders of the National Assembly , which included Alexandros Mavrokordatos and Georgios Koundouriotis . Mavrokordatos came from an old Phanariote family. Koundouriotis was a wealthy shipowner from Hydra . They represented the National Assembly, which basically spoke for the influential and wealthy figures. From 1823 these two groups fought each other.
The third reason why the fronts stayed put was interventions by Great Britain, France and Russia. All three great powers had financial interests in the Ottoman Empire and wanted to ensure that these were not jeopardized by the revolution in the Peloponnese. The British - by far the world power at the time - for all their sympathy for the Greeks ( Philhellenism ), were unwilling to let Turkey become so weak that the Russians could secure access to the Mediterranean Sea , where they would have been a threat to the trade routes . The tsar, on the other hand, feared, despite his equally cherished sympathy for the Greek co-religionists, that the possibly newly emerging Greek state could enter into an alliance with Great Britain. Besides, he did not like the idea of national revolution. The French, on the other hand, had strategic as well as financial interests to protect in this region. Maintaining the status quo was clearly their preferred solution. From the point of view of the great powers, the fact that the fronts in southern Greece had remained in place for years proved that the revolution would not die down. Therefore, they made preparations to ultimately secure an outcome of this revolution that would not harm their interests.
Final phase of the revolution (1825–1830)
The final phase was determined by the intervention of foreign powers on both sides. After the sultan had assured him of dominion over the territories he had conquered, the modernized Egyptian forces led by Mehmet Ali rushed to the Ottomans' aid. In 1825 they landed in the Peloponnese and captured the port of Navarino. The revolution had thus failed in principle. It was now easy to recapture the Peloponnese from the quarreling Greeks.
However, the great European powers were by no means willing to let Mehmet Ali rule both Egypt and Greece. It was agreed to join forces and send a three-power fleet to Navarino. In the Battle of Navarino in October 1827, the European fleet sank most of the enemy ships. This left the sultan no longer able to militarily oppose the great European powers in the Peloponnese.
The Russo-Ottoman War (1828-1830) determined the final act of the revolution . After the Russian invasion of the Ottoman Empire and the surrender of the Sultan, the establishment of a small, independent Greek kingdom was decided as part of the London Protocol in 1830. Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg , the widower of the British Princess Charlotte Augusta , who died childless and the only legitimate child of the then British heir to the throne and prince regent and now King George IV , was considered for the new kingdom . However, the latter refused because at the same time (1830 ) Belgium became independent and Leopold considered the Belgian royal crown more desirable. The year before, Prince Philip of Hesse-Homburg was traded as a candidate for the Greek throne. The British proposal was also approved by Russia but rejected by France. With the approval of the three great powers (Great Britain, France, Russia), the second son of the Bavarian King Ludwig I , Prince Otto of Bavaria , who was still a minor, came to the Greek throne because the powers did not see a Greek candidate as suitable and a republican form of government outside of the imaginable. This prince, under the Hellenized form of his name Othon , became the first king of Greece .
After the revolution
While the Greek revolution was still based on progressive and enlightened ideals at the time it was planned, the result was characterized more by conservative reaction: a monarchy was installed under pressure from the European powers. King Otto, who came from Bavaria, was able to speak and write Greek after a short time and identified with his new homeland. He also succeeded in persuading wealthy Greeks living abroad to make investments and endowments. However, he could not break away from his absolutist upbringing and denied the people basic rights. A constitution was only passed under pressure from the streets. The childlessness of his marriage to Amalia was blamed on him as well as the desolate state of the state finances, which was also due to many opulent prestige projects. Foreign powers took sides in the country's leadership, most notably Britain, which boycotted his rule. Eventually Otto had to abdicate.
His successor , King George , was able to take advantage of the successes and expand the national territory. This happened mainly through the conquest of Greek-populated areas of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, but also through the accession of the Republic of the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1863/64, which Great Britain, as a protecting power, had previously prevented. Until 1923, the territory of Greece gradually took on its present form.
Impact and after-effects in Europe
Following the fall of Byzantium in 1453, Greek-speaking scholars had settled throughout Europe, promoting knowledge of the ancient Greek language and scripts. Restrictions and reprisals by the Ottoman rulers led to further waves of migration, especially of merchants. Since the 17th century, a larger following, especially among intellectuals and bourgeois, could be won for the liberation of Greece, which was expressed in the Greekization of names or philhellenism . After the Congress of Vienna and the Karlsbad resolutions , the Greek fight for freedom was also an important topic in the German-speaking world, which was also reflected in the fact that writers took contemporary Greece as their theme ( e.g. Wilhelm Müller ( The Little Hydriot ), Leopold Schefer or Goethe , the translated poems from modern Greek). This attitude also arose in opposition to an enduring anti- Greek hostility that was essentially a belated consequence of the religious schism. Despite events such as the Chios massacre , many politicians saw business relations with the Ottoman Empire as particularly at risk.
The freedom of Greece led to a weakening of the Ottoman Empire in Europe and became the model for further independence movements in south-eastern Europe. However, the transferability was only given to a limited extent. In the Balkans, especially in mixed-populated areas, conflicts arose between Christian and Muslim residents.
iconography
Charles Crodel : Greece and the Expulsion of the Turks from the Athenian Castle , mural in the main building of the University of Jena , 1925
literature
German speaking
- Richard Schuberth : Lord Byron's Last Voyage. A History of the Greek War of Independence. Wallstein , Goettingen 2021, ISBN 978-3-8353-3870-8 .
- Ioannis Zelepos: Greek War of Independence (1821–1832) , in: European History Online , ed. from the Institute for European History (Mainz) , 2015, accessed 11 March 2021 ( pdf ).
- Ioannis Zelepos: Little History of Greece. From the founding of the state to today . CH Beck, Munich 2014.
- Evangelos Konstantinou : Enthusiasm for Greece and Philhellenism , in: European History Online , ed. from the Institute for European History (Mainz) , 2012, accessed 8 March 2021 ( pdf ).
- Richard Clogg: History of Greece in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries . A tear. Romiosini, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-929889-13-7 (original title: A concise history of Greece . Translated by Karin E. Seifert with the scientific collaboration of Ioannis Zelepos ).
- Wilhelm Barth, Max Kehrig-Korn: The Philhellene Era . Max Hueber Verlag, Munich 1960.
- Karl Mendelssohn Bartholdy: History of Greece. From the Conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 to the Present Day . Olms, Hildesheim 2004, ISBN 3-487-12039-9 (repr. of the edition Leipzig 1870).
- Georg Gottfried Gervinus : History of the Nineteenth Century since the Treaties of Vienna . Volume 5. Wilhelm Engelmann Verlag, Leipzig 1861.
-
Ernst Münch : The campaigns of Christian Europe against the Ottomans and the attempts of the Greeks to freedom . Schweighauser, Basel 1822–1826, 5 volumes, mainly volumes 3 to 5:
- 3: The History of the Recent Events with the Ottomans, and the Events of the Great Rebellion of the Hellenes up to the Declaration of the Congress of Kalamata to the Princes and Peoples of Europe .
- 4: History of the Rebellion of the Hellenic Nation from the Assassination of the Patriarch and Declaration of the Congress of Kalamata to the Present Day - The Events of the Year 1821 .
- 5: History of the Rebellion of the Hellenic Nation from the Assassination of the Patriarch and Declaration of the Congress of Kalamata to the Present Day - The Events of the Years 1822, 1823 and 1824 .
foreign language
- Mark Mazower : The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe. Allen Lane, London 2021, ISBN 978-0-241-00410-4 .
- Dimitris Michalopoulos, America, Russia and the Birth of Modern Greece , Academica Press, Washington-London 2020, ISBN 978-1-68053-942-4 .
- David J. Brewer: The flame of freedom . The Greek War of Independence, 1821-1833. Murray, London 2001, ISBN 0-7195-5447-0 (English).
- Peter H. Paroulakis: The Greek War of Independence . Hellenic Books, Darwin 2000, ISBN 0-9590894-1-1 (former title: The Greeks ).
- David J. Howarth: The Greek Adventure: Lord Byron and other eccentrics in the war of independence . Collins, London 1976, ISBN 0-00-216058-7 .
- Richard Clogg: Movement for Greek Independence, 1770-1821 . Macmillan Interactive Publishing, London 1976, ISBN 0-333-19275-3 (English).
- Douglas Dakin: The Greek Struggle for Independence 1821-1933 . BT Batsford, London 1973.
- Douglas Dakin: British and American Philhellenes during the war of Greek independence . Hakkert, Amsterdam 1987, ISBN 90-256-0800-0 (Repr. Thessaloniki 1955 edition).
web links
- Steven W. Sowards, "The Greek Revolution and the Greek State" , Chapter 6 from Twenty-Five Lectures on Modern Balkan History
- Matt Barrett: "The Greek Revolution of 1821" , Chapter 7 from History of Greece (in 20 lectures)
- Ralf Zerback : "The whole world is Greece" , in: Die Zeit , August 12, 2004
itemizations
- ↑ Note: In Greece the Gregorian calendar was introduced on February 16, 1923 (which became March 1). All earlier dates follow (unless otherwise noted) the Julian calendar .
- ↑ a b The War Chronicles: From Flintlocks to Machine Guns: A Global Reference of... , Joseph Cummins, 2009, p. 60
- ↑ a b c The War Chronicles: From Flintlocks to Machine Guns: A Global Reference of … , Joseph Cummins, 2009, p. 50
- ↑ Ismene Deter: "The prevented monarch" Prince Philip of Hesse and the Greek throne . In: From the city archives - Lectures on Bad Homburg history. 2003/2004, ISBN 3-928325-39-6 .
- ↑ Eberhard Schenk v. Schweinsberg: Murals by Crodel in the University of Jena, Kunstchronik und Kunstmarkt 59, 1925/26, p. 690.