Skip to content
  • Who we are
    • Association
      • Our History
      • Mission and vision
      • General Assembly
      • Governance and Policy Documents
      • Annual reports
    • People
      • Board
      • Honorary Board
      • Advisors
      • Ambassadors
      • Historiana Teams
      • Research Fellows
      • Staff
      • Trainees
      • Professional Volunteers
    • Manifesto
    • Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation
  • What we do
    • Projects
      • Changing Democracies
      • Contested Histories
      • Critical History Tours
      • Facts not Fiction
      • Histories that Connect – Sri Lanka (II)
      • In Europe Schools
      • Learning History that is not yet History II
      • Making Visegrad History Digital
      • Monument(al) Challenges
      • Moving Europe
      • Seeking Justice
      • Sharing European Histories
      • School EducatioN for Sustainable and Equal Inclusion
      • The common European data space for cultural heritage
      • Watching Videos Like a Historian
    • Professional Development
      • Annual Conferences
      • Webinars
      • EuroClio Traineeship Programme
    • Consultancies & Hubs
      • Council of Europe
      • EuroClio Hubs
    • Latest annual report
  • Events
    • Annual Conferences
    • Workshop
    • Online Seminars
  • News
    • EuroClio & MembersUpdates from the Association, Members and Projects.
    • OpportunitiesWays to engage with the work of EuroClio and partners.
    • ArticlesBlogs, interviews, stories, and other content curated by our Outreach team.
    • ReviewsReviews of books, documentaries or other publications that are relevant to the teaching of history.
  • Resources
    • Teaching practice
    • Educational material
    • Research
    • Recommendations
    • Historiana
    • Podcast
    • Contested Histories.org
  • Join us
  • Members
    • Become a member
    • Full Membership
    • Associated Membership
    • Individual Membership
  • Donate
  • Search

Fighting for Freedom, 200 years since the Greek Revolution

Fighting for Freedom, 200 years since the Greek Revolution

From the beginning of EuroClio, I was confronted with the pitfalls of writing national narratives. I met colleagues in countries where they had just begun writing more or less complete new narratives, but also places where existing national narratives were under constant pressure due to political debates or certain lobby groups. Greece belonged to the latter group of countries. I remember a lecture of a young Greek scholar, who explained how difficult it had been, and still was, to write a coherent national history based on a heroic classical and pagan past and a modern Christian present. I also remember how an attempt in 2007 to present a new school textbook became global news as the Greek Orthodox Church considered it ‘too soft on the Ottoman empire’. Finally, Greek EuroClio colleagues continue to argue regularly for a more coherent national narrative within local schools.

2021 was the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the Greek War for Independence (1821–1830). Arguably an appropriate moment for a historiographical reflection on this crucial event, which certainly fits in the age of revolutions and was in many ways also an outcome of the Napoleonic wars. Two important publications saw light in 2021 and both address in detail the events of this period: The Greek Revolution: A Critical Dictionary by Paschalis M. Kitromilides and Constantinos Tsoukalas (Editors) and The Greek Revolution, 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe by Mark Mazower (both 500 + pages).

I was intrigued to find out how the historians involved would critically review the almost mythical proportions of this Greek fight for freedom. Reading the foreword of the Critical Dictionary I became hesitant as it rather aggressively asked the reader who ‘would dispute that contemporary Greece forms, by virtue of its modern origins, part of the West’. However, the more than 30 articles give an incredible insight into the complexity of the story of this revolution against the Ottoman Sultan. An impressive selection of Greek and international contributors analyse the revolution and its regional and transnational repercussions. The publication has a thematic approach that gives insights into the role of local and international personalities, institutions, events and places, and ideas. The last chapter looks at how events were interpreted in the press, art, literature, and music and evaluates the impact of intellectual movements such as philhellenism and the Enlightenment. The articles are obviously largely representing the Greek narrative; it would have been a strength if some articles would have looked a bit further into the greater geopolitical dimension. After all, that dimension was in the end decisive for obtaining independence.

The English/American historian Mark Mazower, who began his career as a historian of Greece and the Balkans, took on a rather classical chronological narrative of the complex events, which took place in very different places in contemporary Greece. He considers them at first ‘not so much a single war as a set of interconnected regional conflicts’. Mazower presents the story with many details about Greek and Ottoman warfare, different military and political leaders, hungry townspeople, and suffering women and children. It is a substantiated critical review of the traditional struggle for Greek independence as many of the leaders were more focused on their self-interests rather than on the common goal of national freedom. The worldwide dimension is widely present, looking into international combatants as well as relief actions and geopolitical decision making.

What I missed in both publications was a serious focus on the position of the many other communities in the region such as Albanians, Turks, and Slavic people. Here a clear source problem became apparent, as the Albanians are especially positioned in their traditionally described role as (Ottoman) fighters and rogues. Modern Turkish research would have been helpful to give better insights from their perspective on the events. Even the position of the many Greeks who remained in the Ottoman Empire after Greek independence is hardly addressed.

The excellent last chapter in Mazower’s book, Love, Concord and Brotherhood, brought me back to the earlier question of how to write a coherent Greek national narrative, as it closely reviews how slowly and with difficulty the Greek authorities, post-independence, were connecting the many actors and visions into one centralised state. I came to wonder how much of the revolutionary diversity of 1821 still impacts present day Greece. Writing a sound and inclusive Greek national narrative will continue to be a challenge, but these books are certainly important new building blocks.

Reviewed and written by Joke van der Leeuw-Roord, EuroClio Founder and Special Adviser

The Greek Revolution: A Critical Dictionary by Paschalis M. Kitromilides and Constantinos Tsoukalas (Editors). Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press (March 25, 2021), 800 pages, available on amazon.nl for 37€.

The Greek Revolution, 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe by Mark Mazower. Penguin Books Ltd (UK); 1st edition (4 November 2021), 573 pages, available on amazon.nl for 28,99€.

Andreas Holtberget2022-08-22T14:53:08+02:00August 22, 2022|Categories: Featured, Reviews|Tags: Book Review, Greece, Greek Revolution, Ottoman History|

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

FacebookLinkedInWhatsAppEmail

About the Author: Andreas Holtberget

Related Posts

8th Public History Summer School – University of Wrocław, Poland

8th Public History Summer School – University of Wrocław, Poland

May 28, 2025
Answer the DECUS Survey – available in Dutch, English, French, Greek and Italian!

Answer the DECUS Survey – available in Dutch, English, French, Greek and Italian!

May 27, 2025
Call for Youth Participation to OHTE’s 5th Annual Conference

Call for Youth Participation to OHTE’s 5th Annual Conference

May 27, 2025
CALL FOR CHAPTER CONTRIBUTIONS – Young Scholars in History Education Research: Theories, Methods, and Empirical Insights

CALL FOR CHAPTER CONTRIBUTIONS – Young Scholars in History Education Research: Theories, Methods, and Empirical Insights

May 19, 2025
Monument(al) Challenges in Focus: Report from Northern Ireland

Monument(al) Challenges in Focus: Report from Northern Ireland

May 14, 2025
Call for Applications: Standing up for Remembrance – Testimonies from the Past  as Lessons for the Present

Call for Applications: Standing up for Remembrance – Testimonies from the Past as Lessons for the Present

May 9, 2025
Monument(al) Challenges in Focus: Report from Turkey

Monument(al) Challenges in Focus: Report from Turkey

May 7, 2025
Monument(al) Challenges in Focus: Report from Greece

Monument(al) Challenges in Focus: Report from Greece

May 7, 2025
EuroClio Traineeship Programme

EuroClio Traineeship Programme

April 29, 2025
Exploring Eugenics and Interdisciplinary Approaches to History and Democracy Education in the EuroClio Framework

Exploring Eugenics and Interdisciplinary Approaches to History and Democracy Education in the EuroClio Framework

April 17, 2025
Dutch Teachers Call for Decolonised Education on Palestine – Interview with Docenten voor Palestina

Dutch Teachers Call for Decolonised Education on Palestine – Interview with Docenten voor Palestina

April 14, 2025
Naming the Streets, Shaping the City: A Reflection on the Enschede Symposium

Naming the Streets, Shaping the City: A Reflection on the Enschede Symposium

March 25, 2025

Project: 101051062 — FPA2021 .

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CERV. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

 

Contact us!

Bankaplein 2, 2585 EV The Hague, The Netherlands +31 70 3817836 secretariat@euroclio.eu

Privacy & GDPR Policy

Child Protection Policy

REGISTER FOR OUR NEWS

Page load link
Go to Top