(Пре)създаване на национална идентичност в Гърция през XIX век: национална идентичност, образование и европейски възприятия за Гърция

The nation like an individual, is the culmination of a long past of endeavors, sacrifices and devotions. Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most legitimate, for the ancestors have made us what we are. A heroic past, great men, glory, this is the social capital upon which one bases a national idea. To have common glories in the past and to have a common will in the present; to have performed great deeds together, to wish to perform still more—these are the essential conditions for being a people…. The Spartan song “We are what you were; we will be what you are”—is, in its simplicity, the abridged hymn of every patrie.

Ernest Renan

Overview

This paper discusses attempts in 19th century Greece and Europe to (re)create a Greek identity based on the ancient Greek past. It is organized in six parts and begins by defining the nation and national identity. This paper than considers the origins of a modern Greek identity and discusses how some Byzantine Greeks believed that the ancient Greek past was linked to a modern Greek identity and follows by describing how a Greek identity and the reawakening of ancient Greece were important to several western European intellectuals who called themselves Philhellenes. For the Philhellenes Greece was the source of western civilization, and as such western Europe owed much of its intellectual roots to Greece. This paper concludes by looking at how “others”—notably western Europeans viewed the modern Greeks. Much of the evidence of how western Europeans viewed the modern Greeks comes in the form of art and literature from the time just prior to Greek Independence. The reader will find that Greece struggled in finding a national identity. Along the way Greece was confronted with its “oriental” traditions and western cultural legacies, its Orthodox Christian religious beliefs and modern secular aspirations, its traditional customs and its ambition to modernize.

Defining the Nation and National Identity

The nation and national identity are concepts that were quite different in Greece at the time of the Greek Revolution than those espoused in ancient Greece. The latter was organized around small city-states where borders and territories were not well defined. As a result, ancient Greeks identified themselves according to the city or town in which they lived rather than to a universally understood Greek nation and identity. The ancient Greeks were, of course, well aware that the people living in these city-states shared cultural similarities, such as religion, language, and common traditions. Nonetheless, competition between and wars among the city-states emphasized their differences. 

According to several historians, the modern concepts of the nation-state and national identity emerged in Europe as early as the 18th century and are for the most part recent constructions.¹ However, the idea of belonging to a community of people that share similar cultural attributes---a nation---has existed for some time. The earliest nations consisted of groups of people living in small towns and villages. As a local population grew to become a city, so did its nation or people. Borders were reified and national living spaces and national boundaries became better defined on political maps. People and governments also found that people generally lived in greater peace with one another---within the prescribed confines of their nation-states---than those who lived outside the borders of their respective national state and amongst those who were not part of their nation. 

In the 19th century, Europe experienced a period of intense nationalism that promoted the formation of nation-states. This was especially the case for Italy (1870) and Germany (1871), each of which sought to consolidate its political power under a single authority. They did so by expanding their economic and cultural reach and unifying their people, who mostly lived at the time in small independent kingdoms and principalities, around a notion of a commonly shared history, culture, and ancestry. This created a shared commitment to, and emotional connection with a larger national community. 

In contrast, nations like France, Spain, and England had early consolidated their people and territory around large kingdoms. Those kingdoms gradually became modern nation-states, as absolute monarchs lost their divine and absolute authority and people began to define themselves in terms of belonging to a nation rather than as the subjects of a supreme ruler. Meanwhile, multiethnic empires such as, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria-Hungary, struggled to maintain their territories. By the 19th century the multitude of ethnic groups that comprised these empires sought to break from the yoke of their authority and form their own independent states. In his classic piece “What is a Nation?” Ernest Renan purports that,

The Modern nation is therefore a historical result brought about by a series 
of convergent facts. Sometimes unity has been effected by a dynasty, as was 
the case in France; sometimes it has been brought about by the direct will of 
provinces, as was the case with Holland, Switzerland, and Belgium; sometimes 
it has been the work of a general consciousness, belatedly victorious over the 
caprices of feudalism, as was the case in Italy and Germany.²

Contemporary scholars such as Benedict Anderson, Etienne Balibar, Michael Hertzfled, Eric Hobsbawm, Terrence Ranger, David Lowenthal, and Anthony Smith agree that national identity is linked to the collective cultural identity and shared memories of an ethnic community.³ Nations are formed around communities that share a common religion, language, and set of customs, and are strengthened by the creation of a national history that focuses on the accomplishments of the community’s heroes, inventors, scientists, artists, writers, and philosophers. Such effects can be realized and propagated through a nationalized school system and the mass publication of books. Displaying national symbols such as flags, traditional clothing, monuments, images of the nation’s past, and the celebration of national and religious holidays can also reinforce them. Such messages implicitly suggests to the members of the nation that they are part of a community of people who put in place the institutions ---schools, churches, family life, and others that help the nation as a whole succeed over time. In other words, everyone in the community plays a role, whether directly or indirectly, in the nation’s success. 

In short, the people of a nation are bound together by a common understanding of one another and a common understanding of their history and culture. In the case of Modern Greece, this was manifested through well-known historical figures, events and accomplishments including Socrates, Homer, The Battle of Marathon, the early Olympic Games, Alexander the Great, democracy, philosophy, and the Acropolis.⁴ A nation can also bring together its members by reminding them of past difficulties, struggles and miseries; unity is formed around a common historical experience even when that experience involves being oppressed and persecuted. In Greece, (as in much of the Balkans) the most important example of this type of unification involves the nation’s persecution at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. 

Benedict Anderson’s seminal work Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism contends that nations and nationalism are products of modernity that have been created as a means to political and economic ends.⁵ Of particular importance to Anderson’s theory is the role of mass produced books and their dissemination to the public. According to Anderson, a newly emerging nation imagines itself antique and invents mythological stories about the formation of the nation and/or attaches its history to antiquity.⁶ National museums, with their finely maintained and preserved historical relics, are sometimes extravagantly showcased to the nation and world.⁷ Books are written about the history of the nation and it is taught to children in school. All of this is intended to foster a feeling of belonging to help create a sense of national unity and to promote loyalty to the nation. David Lowenthal echoes Anderson’s arguments by contending that

The past remains integral to us all, individually and collectively. We must concede the ancients their place…. but their past is not simply back there, in a separate and foreign country, it is assimilated in ourselves and resurrected in a ever-changing present.⁸

Lowenthal also suggests that national histories bring an audience into direct relation with the past even if these histories are distorted or invented to showcase a nations’ superior worth over other nations.⁹

Similarly, works by Anthony Smith assert that nationalism draws on the pre-existing history of a “group” where the group attempts to fashion this history into a sense of common identity and shared history.¹⁰ Smith argues that nationalisms are based on historically flawed interpretations of past events that tend to overtly mythologize small, inaccurate parts of history.¹¹ Greek nationalism, for example, makes prodigious use of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.¹² The loss of Constantinople has been mythologized and over embellished in Greek historical accounts, and has become and important part of a Greek identity. School children in Greece are taught as early as primary school, the exact year, month and day of Constantinople’s fall to the Ottoman Turks (Tuesday, May 29, 1453). The event is taught in such a way that it represents the end of a once culturally vibrant Greek civilization and the beginning of a long period of suppression and persecution by the Ottoman Turks. Ottoman rule is further presented as an assault on Greek religion---it was expected that Greeks would replace Orthodox Christianity with Islam—but the conquered Greek people were strong enough to ward off any forceful religious conversion. Ancient Greek figures and the leaders of the Greek Revolution are also idealized and presented as national models and are portrayed in Greek history books as patriots and heroes, as defenders of the nation, devout followers of the Greek Orthodox Church and the ideal models of “Greekness” and “Hellenism.”¹³

Andrew Baruch Wachtel’s work Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslaviaprovides another example in which resistance to the Ottoman Empire proved important in nation building. He examines the concept of “Yugoslavism” as an intellectual construction that was first conceived by Croatian nationalists during the Illyrian Movement of 1830.¹⁴ According to Wachtel, a movement for a unified southern Slavic nation-state occupying the northwestern Balkan territories of the late Ottoman Empire rose and fell in cycles to the strength of the movement depended on the pubic mood of a given time. By 1918, the world found on its maps a united Yugoslavia composed of various south Slavic ethnic and religious groups. However, the new nation struggled with how to keep itself intact as a state and nation---when people were not quite certain what to call themselves. Over time, Yugoslav monuments, symbols, and holidays were created to foster a common Yugoslavian identity. Literature, music, and art were also introduced and people eventually set aside their ethnic identities in favor of a broader southern Slavic identity. Yet, less than a century later, in the 1990’s, there was no longer a feeling of cohesion within the Yugoslav community; bonds that had once united the Yugoslav nation had slowly broken as established ties and social cohesion faded away.¹⁵ Groups began to identify themselves with their distant national pasts and religious orientations rather than as members of a Yugoslav nation. 

Works by Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger argue that nation-states sometimes invent traditions or twist the truth about their history to secure their legitimacy.¹⁶ Specifically, Hobsbawm and Ranger consider how the British monarchy invented national traditions to justify the existence and importance of the British Empire.¹⁷ In a speech to students from Central European University, Hobsbawm gives a personal example from a trip he took to Pakistan. Hobsbawm remarks that on this specific trip he saw banners posted on the streets of Karachi declaring, “Pakistan: 3000 Years of History!” Hobsbawm points out that the word Pakistan and the state of Pakistan were not even concieved until 1947 and that the nation-state of Pakistan was simply a modern national and political invention (as are most nation-states).¹⁸ Etienne Balibar echoes Hobsbawm and Ranger’s perspective on the invention of nations and national identities when espousing,

The myth of origins and national continuity, which we can easily see being set in place in the contemporary history of the “young” nations (such as India and Algeria) which emerged with the end of colonilim, but which we have a tendency to forget has also been fabricated over recent centuries in the case of the “old” nations, is therefore an effective ideological form, in which the imaginary singularity of national formations is contructed daily, by moving back from the present into the past.¹⁹

In the case of Greece, Michael Hertzfeld’s anthropological study on the making of Modern Greece shows how after centuries of Ottoman rule, Greek scholars and intellectuals constructed a cultural continuity through folklore studies so as to defend a Greek national identity that was linked to ancient Greece.²⁰

Hertzfeld presents the argument that a mostly uneducated rural Greece was in danger of having its cultural patrimony confiscated by a western intelligentsia. In other words, rural Greeks (which consisted most of the population of modern Greece) would be divorced from the achievements of the ancient Greeks and such achievements and their preservation over time would be attributed to those individuals educated in the west.²¹ The Greek intelligentsia however would respond with a plethora of scholarship on how one could still find traces of the ancient Greek world in Modern Greece, specifically through examination of folk culture and folk life. Greek scholars examined the rural rituals of weddings, funerals, and songs to find evidence for this connection. The discovery of such historical linkages proved successful in countering any belief that the Modern Greeks were not the descendants of the ancient Greeks, even if the folk culture often seemed generally more pagan than Greek. However, questions remained. What connection did the Modern Greek have to the ancient Greeks? Further, how could the ancient Greeks become part of the Modern Greek nation and Greek national identity? 

Using Greece as an example, Hertzfeld takes theories of nationalism and national identity a step forward, by asserting

…that the nation-state’s claims to affixed, eternal identity grounded in universal truth are themselves, like the moves of social actors, strategic adjustments to the demands of the historical moment.²²

Hertzfeld incorporates his concepts of “social poetics” and “cultural intimacy” to the nation and national identity. According to Hertzfeld, even after modernity the “…nation-state is ideologically committed to ontological self-perpetuation for all eternity.”²³Many Americans today for example, protest tax increases to support programs that would benefit them, because doing so preserves what is thought to be “traditional American colonial and democratic virtues” such as individualism and the American belief in limited government regulation and taxation. In the same respect, one may find in Greece a devout Marxist-Leninist who during his lifetime staunchly attacked the Greek Orthodox Church, opposed organized religion altogether, and declared himself an atheist, but who is still buried in a traditional Greek Orthodox religious ceremony. In this strangely, but interestingly contradictory case, both the Church and the deceased communist find harmony. They both understand that religion, spirituality, and even mysticism is tied to a Greek identity and that preserving a Greek identity, whether defined by the communist as secular and pagan in nature or by the Church as purely Christian, is more important than political and ideological rhetoric. 

In contrast to most other national histories and identities, a Greek identity was arguably imported into Greece prior to the formation of the modern state of Greece. Constantine Tsoukalas contends, “A type of Greek identity has existed and did not need to be invented or reinvented.”²⁴These proto-Greek nationalists, who were mostly Greek intellectuals, wealthy Greek business elites living in Europe and Constantinople, and a relatively large contingent of Western European writers and artists, helped formulate and import a Greek identity into Greece. This identity was primarily based on Modern Greek cultural, historical and linguistic roots in ancient Greece with Orthodox Christian links to the Byzantine Empire. 

The process that linked the modern Greeks to the ancient Greeks began as early as the last quarter of the 18th century when ancient Greek works became easily accessible to an elite group of Greek Christians in Europe. Benedict Anderson states,

Exalted by philhellenism at the centers of Western European civilization, they [Greek intellectuals] undertook the debarbarizing of the modern Greeks, i.e., their transformation into beings worthy of Pericles and Socrates.²⁵

Eric Hobsbawm found that this process continued well into the early 19th century when,

The literate champions and organizers of Greek nationalism were inspired by the thought of ancient Hellenic glories, which also aroused the enthusiasm of educated, i.e. classically educated, philhellenes abroad.²⁶

Such a belief however was limited to a marginal group of Greek-speaking intellectuals in Europe and the majority of Greeks in Ottoman Greece were not necessarily aware of this connection. Thus, it would not be until the 19th century when Greeks began to see themselves as the descendants of the ancient Greeks. Douglas Dankins’ ubiquitous history, The Unification of Greece, 1770-1923, argues that education in Modern Greece reintroduced the classical past and helped strengthen this connection. Dankin states,

As was only natural [the Modern Greeks] began to devote themselves to thestudy of ancient Greece and introduced classical studies into their educational system…..For [the Modern Greeks] the heroes of the ancient Greek world became the heroes of their nation, and they began to stress their classical ancestry.²⁷

Modern Greek culture had certainly not remained pure since classical times. The Greek language had changed, its people had become Christian, and the population had been culturally influenced by other societies and cultures over time. Nonetheless, by the 19th century a free Greek state began to ostensibly identify itself and its people as the legitimate heirs of the ancient Greeks.

Beginnings of a Modern Greek Identity: Historical Overview

The idea of a Greek identity, in the modern sense, was nearly non-existent in most of the late Byzantine and early Ottoman Greek period. Andronikos Falangas finds one interesting example of proto-Greek nationalism in the 16th and 17th centuries within the Habsburg Empire. Seeking to liberate the Balkans from Muslim Ottoman control, and expand his European control, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, assigned one of his military commanders a John Axagiolis to construct a poem in the vernacular Greek that depicted Charles as the rightful heir to the Byzantine throne. The poem clearly tries to encourage a sense of Greek nationalism by presenting Greek speakers in the Ottoman Empire as the valorous descendants of “glorious ancient ancestors.” Charles’ political ambitions were not successful. The poem did however incite a revolt and convinced a marginal group of Greek speakers that they were the descendants of some great ancient civilization.²⁸

More often, the Byzantines found it offensive to be called Greeks, because the term was associated with paganism, and instead preferred to be called Roman (Romioe).²⁹ Claudia Rapp contends,

For westerners to call the Byzantines Graikoi became an effective weapon in the arsenal of diplomatic exchange. It was taken as a grave offense, as it undermined the very essence of Byzantine political identity as the legitimate successor to Rome.³⁰

However, at different points in the historical record one finds subtle traces of evidence that some were advocating a Greek identity that considered the legacy of ancient Greece and reviving the creation or revival of a contemporary Greek identity that was linked to ancient Greece. 

Arnold Toynbee’s comprehensive work on Greek heritage, finds that during the 14th and 15th centuries several high-ranking Byzantine authorities who called themselves Neo-Hellenes promoted the creation of a Greek or Hellenic identity around the same time, the Ottomans were gradually encroaching on Byzantine lands.³¹ These Neo-Hellenes wished to spare themselves from foreign domination and conquest. Their solution was to adopt the social, cultural, and philosophical ways of the ancient Greeks in order to unite the Greek-speaking population around a single national identity. Other groups of Neo-Hellenes strongly believed in the traditions and religious and philosophical beliefs of the ancient Greeks. Indeed, Neo-Hellenic movements appear sporadically in the historical record and were often inconsistent. None gained much political or public support during its time, but they do show serious (if limited) attempts to revive a Greek identity based on some of the cultural traditions of ancient Greece.

By the 15th century, a Greek Orthodox Neo-Hellenic monk and teacher by the name of Georgios Gemistos Plethon (circa 1355-1452) outspokenly promoted reviving the everyday use of the name Hellene for those citizens who helped form the Greek-speaking communities of the Byzantine Empire. Plethon declared to the Patriarch of Constantinople, “We over whom you rule and hold sway are Hellenes by race as is demonstrated by our language and ancestral education.”³² In his famous work, Laws, Plethon articulated his philosophy and vision of a Neo-Hellenic identity based on the religious and cultural traditions of ancient Greek pagans. Leading by example, Plethon committed himself to Zeus, rather than a Christian God.³³ He advocated bringing back all the Greek gods for religious worship and spiritual inspiration. Plethon’s ideas did not have a drastic impact or change the way that Eastern Roman Greeks viewed themselves, but his ideas did threaten the Church’s authority.³⁴

As is no surprise, Plethon’s vision was not well taken by the Greek Church. He had challenged the Church’s authority and advocated indirectly for the demise of the Church and its teachings.³⁵ He also dismissed Christ as his savior (which made him a heretic in the eyes of the Church). But most serious of all, his teachings assumed that the ancient Greeks were at a higher spiritual and cultural level than his own Christian civilization. Plethon proclaimed that his former Church was corrupt and more concerned with maintaining its own power and authority than with the well being of its worshipers.

Plethon also traced his Greek language back to that of the ancient Greeks. He felt that the Koine Greek language was the missing link between his contemporary Greek world and ancient Greece. Spoken for perhaps 1000 years, until the mid-6th century ACE it was clearly different from ancient Greek, but it had obvious linguist associations with that language. The Greek Orthodox Church used it most often both in formal communication as well as during religious services. In other words, Plethon understood that the language that he spoke was almost identical to that of his ancient Greek predecessors. Indeed, Plethon’s reference to God as Zeus may have been a greater indication of his linguistic orientation than his religious orientation. In ancient Greek “God” was called Zeus or Dias, head and supreme god. To the early Romans Zeus becomes the Latin Deus. Later, in many of the modern Latin-based or Romance languages it is revised to Dios; in the Koine and Modern Greek it becomes Theos. 

Plethon was a well-regarded teacher during his own time and had several prominent students. Among others, he taught George Scholarius, who would become Gannadios II, the first Patriarch of Constantinople after the fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks.³⁶ Gennadios would be Plethon’s strongest opponent and an ardent enemy of Plethon and his ideas. At one point Gennadios declared “Ouk ap foihn pote Ellhn einai” or “Never call me a Greek.”³⁷ For Gennadios, his Orthodox Christianity constituted the most important dimension of his personal identity as well as those of his Church and his people identity. To call yourself a Greek would also declare that you were not a Christian.

Because of pressure from the Church and Gennadios, Plethon eventually left Constantinople to retire to the Peloponnese. He moved to the town of Mystras in Laconia, where he would later found a “mystery school” that advocated his Neo-Hellenic ideas.³⁸ By the late 15th and early 16th centuries Plethon’s school had several followers, mostly Italians who were at the time becoming increasingly interested in the ancient Greek and Roman world. Ironically, Plethon’s school was modeled after the Christian monastic schools of the era---but Plethon’s students read works by notable Greek writers and philosophers rather than learning the teachings of the Old and New Testaments. Plethon also taught his students to worship the Greek gods and pray to ancient Greek and Roman statues rather than teaching monotheism and the misgivings of idolatry.

Surprisingly, although Plethon’s teachings were anti-Christian, anti-clerical and anti-establishment, the Church did not close his school. There are two explanations for this. First, Plethon’s school was too small and too distant from the Church headquarters in Constantinople to pose any serious threat to the Church’s authority. Secondly and more importantly, Plethon’s school was located on lands controlled by Venice, wherein the Greek Church had no authority. 

Despite Plethon’s agitation for a national identity, an overwhelming number of educated Byzantines and Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Byzantine region remained loyal to the Orthodox Christianity. The Greek Orthodox religious perspective focused around the world of God and the Bible, the struggle between faith and infidelity, and man’s struggle for salvation. Perhaps the Church saw Plethon as a washed up old monk who suffered from a permanent case of madness, whose ideas and teachings would never be taken seriously. Nonetheless, after Plethon’s death, his former pupil Patriarch Gennadios II burned many of Plethon’s works, most notably Summary, and permanently closing his school.³⁹ As a result, Plethon’s movement to revive an ancient Greek identity dies out in Ottoman Greece. 

Some scholars point to Plethon to show that the existence of a Modern Greek identity with classical roots began as early as the late Byzantine period. But most scholars today would agree that Plethon’s notion of a Greek national identity was quite different from the notion that develops in Greece in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He is better characterized as an enlightened humanist scholar who adored the teachings of the classical Greek world but found his Orthodox Christianity and humanist ideals to be conflicting bedfellows.⁴⁰ Moreover, Plethon adamantly wanted others to look more closely to those teachings so they could be inspired as he had been. In this and other ways, he is similar to the scholars and artists of the Italian Renaissance, who envisaged a rebirth of the classical past even as those ideas came into conflict with the ideas of their predominantly Christian society. Plethon cared less about national identity than about the intellectual pleasures of the ancient past and bringing those ideas and way of life back to the forefront of the Greek Christian world. 

Although Plethon’s resuscitation of a Greek or Hellenic identity with ancient roots failed during his lifetime, his ideas seemed sensible by the early 19th century, when both western European and Greek intellectuals also sought to develop a Modern Greek identity based on ancient Greece. However, in the years preceding the Greek Revolution the question that still remained was, “Who were Greeks and what geographic space did they occupy?” The question was so important to Modern Greece’s national project that identity, language, history, and geography would eventually all be fused together. 

From a geo-political standpoint, ancient Greek lands were far smaller in size and much farther south than the geographically expansive Byzantine lands had been.⁴¹ This posed a serious problem for the devisers of the Great Idea or Grand Idea (Megali Idea 1844-1922), who envisioned a large and powerful Greek state that stretched from Romania to the southern tip of the Greek peninsula. This was a nationalist agenda that dominated Greek foreign policy for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Megali Idea proposed that the Greek state should be extended to include all Greeks, not just the minority who lived in the Greek state----in short, this would be a Greek state that would dominate most of the Balkan region.⁴² After the Greek Revolution, an adolescent Greek state lobbied internationally for the re-unification, incorporation, annexation, or return of unredeemed Greek lands. Its claims were based on modern Greece’s historic and cultural links to the ancient Greek and Byzantine Empires. In order to legitimate such claims, Greek history needed to be presented as one continuous and unbroken thread from Ancient to Byzantine to Modern Greece. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, international support favored Greece’s modern territorial claims. 

Most historians agree that the common Greek at the time of the Greek Revolution knew very little of ancient Greek and Byzantine history and civilization (to assume that all Greek speakers did, would be like assuming that all Austrians today could play any of Mozart’s classical overtures on the piano).⁴³ Thus, the more difficult task for an independent Greece was to gain support from commoners who did not feel they were descendants of the ancient Greeks, and who had no particular sense of national history and identity.⁴⁴ The Greek school system was chosen to serve as the main catalyst in shaping a Greek identity based on the ancient Greek past. Specifically, cultural and political leaders in Greece decided to rely upon the power of education as a nationalizing force. Both the school system and Greek history textbooks would be used in developing a strong notion of a Greek identity.

Notes

¹ See Davies, Norman. Europe: A History. Harper Perennial. (1998). Palmer, R.R., Colton, Joel and Kramer, Loyd. A History of the Modern World. McGraw-Hill. 9th edition. (2001). Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe from the Renaissance to the Present. W.W. Norton and Co. 2nd edition. (2004).

² Renan, Ernest. “What is a Nation?” in Eley, Geoff and Suny, Ronald Grigor ed. Becoming National: A Reader. Oxford University Press. pp. 41-55. (1996).

³ See Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and the Spread of Nationalism. Verso Publishing. (2006). Hertzfeld, Michael. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. Routledge. 2nd edition. (2005). Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terrence. The Invention of Tradition. Cato Press. (1993). Lowenthal, David. The Past as a Foreign Country. Cambridge University Press. (1985). Smith, Anthony. National Identity: Ethno Nationalism in Comparative Perspective. University of Nevada Press. (1993).

⁴ Carras, Costas. 3,000 Years of Greek Identity: Myth or Reality. Athens, Greece. Domus Books. (1983).

⁵ Ibid, Anderson.

⁶ Ibid, Anderson.

⁷ In the case of Greece, the museum is even brought to the people, when the people may not be interested in seeing those relics. When a new subway system was built in Athens at the turn of the 21st century, archeological relics unearthed during the construction of the underground project were later displayed in the subway’s platform for commuters to enjoy.

⁸ Ibid, Lowenthal, p. 129.

⁹ Lowenthal, David. The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. Penguin Books. (1997).

¹⁰ Ibid, Smith.

¹¹ Ibid, Smith.

¹² Todorova, Maria. Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory. NYU Press. (2004). Serbian nationalism, for example, makes similar use of the Serbian defeat by the Turks at the battle of Kosovo in 1389. Many Serbian nationalists understand an independent Kosovo to be an attempt to destroy Serbian national identity, since it is believed that Serbian nationalism and a Serbian identity was born out of Kosovo. See Crawford, K. “Serbian History Textbooks and the Construction of National Identity. International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research. Vol. 3. pp. 1-10. (2002).

¹³ Today many museums in Greece display relics from ancient Greece and the Greek Revolution to help reinforce the idea of a continuous history and survival of the Greek nation despite centuries of foreign conquest and oppression.

¹⁴ Wachtel, Andrew Baruch. Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia. Stanford University Press. (1998).

¹⁵ Rudy Koshar’s work on German artifacts and German Memory (1870-1990) looked at the creation of the German state in the 1870’s and the deliberate effort by the newly founded state to unify its people by developing a common sense of history through a focus on particular artifacts and iconoclastic objects, such as the Cologne Cathedral, The Marienburg, the Walhalla, the Victory Column, the Hermannsdenkamal, the Kaiser Wilhelm monument, and the proliferation of Otto Von Bismarck statues throughout the country. See Koshar, Rudy. From Monuments to Traces: Artifacts of German Memory, 1870-1990. University of California Press. (2000).

¹⁶ Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger Terrence. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge University Press. (1992).

¹⁷ Ibid, Hobsbawm and Ranger.

¹⁸ Hobsbawm, Eric J. “A New Threat to History.” New York Review of Books. Vol 40. (1993).

¹⁹ Balibar, Etienne. “The Nation Form: History and Ideology.” in Eley, Geoff and Suny, Ronald Grigor ed. Becoming National: A Reader. Oxford University Press. pp. 41-55. (1996). pp. 132-149. Balibar’s piece is also found in Balibar, Etienne and Wallerstein, Immanuel. Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities. Verso Press. (1991). pp. 86-106.

²⁰ Hertzfeld, Michael. Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology and the Making of Modern Greece. Pella Publishing Company. (1986).

²¹ Ibid, Hertzfeld.

²² Ibid, Hertzfeld p. 5.

²³ Ibid, Hertzfeld p. 22.

²⁴ Tsoukalas, Constantine. “The Irony of Symbolic Reciprocities-The Greek Meaning of ‘Europe” as a Historical Inversion of the European Meaning of Greece.” in Malborg Mikale and Strath, Bo ed. The Meaning of Europe. Berg Press. (2002).

²⁵ Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of 
Nationalism. Verso Publishing. (2006). p. 72.

²⁶ Hobsbawm, E. J. Nations and Nationalism since 780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge University Press. (1990).

²⁷ Dakin, Douglas. The Unification of Greece, 1770-1923. Ernest Benn Limited. p. 2. (1972).

²⁸ See Falangas, Andronikos. “Imperial Antagonisms in the Eastern Mediterranean Area (16th-17th centuries). InterBalkanica. Comite National Grec Des Etudes Du Sud-Est Europeen. Centre D’ Etudes Du Sud-Est-Europeen. Athens. (2006). pp. 228-236.

²⁹ Charanis, Peter. “How Greek was the Byzantine Empire?” Bucknell Review. (1963). In the Ottoman records from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century one could certainly find mention of Vlachs, Arvanites, Romios and Jews. There are not many references of Greek (Rum in Turkish) to the Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Empire. In essence, The Ottomans too referred to the Greek Christian speakers in their empire at Romios, which is merely the adapted of Roman. See Falangas, Andronikos. Mia Agnosti Elliniki Martiria gia tin Vlachia ton Archon tou Decapemptou Aiona. A Greek Description of Vlachia During the Early Fifteenth Century. Elliniki Istoriki Etairia. Thessaloniki. In Greek. (2002). and Falangas, Andronikos. “Post-Byzantine Greek Merchants of the Fifteenth-Seventeenth Centuries.” Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora. Pella Publishing. Vol. 33. (2007). pp. 7-21.

³⁰ Rapp, Claudia. “Hellenic Identity, Romanitas, and Christianity.” Zacharia, Katerina. Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity From Antiquity to Modernity. Ashgate. (2008). p. 141.

³¹ Toynbee, Arnold. The Greeks and their Heritages. Oxford University Press. (1981).

³² Woodhouse, C.M. George Gemistos Plethon: The Last of the Hellenes. Claredon Press. p. 102. (1986).

³³ Migne, J.P. Patrologia Graeca. (1911). Migne’s Patrologia, is composed of two collections: Patrologiae Latinae Cursus Completus, 217 and Patrologiae Graecae Cursus Completus, of which one series contains only Latin translations. The second series contains the Greek text with a Latin translation. The entire work was completed in 1911.

³⁴ Mandilas, Kostas. Gerorgius Gemistos Plethon. In Greek. Athens. (1997).

³⁵ Ibid, Woodhouse.

³⁶ Harris, John. “The Influence of Plethon’s Idea of fate on the Historian Laonnikos Chlkokondyles.” Proceedings of the International Congress on Plethon and his Times. Mystras, Greece. June 26-29, 2002. ed. L.G. Benakis and Ch. P. Baloglou Society for Peloponnesian and Byzantine Studies. Athens. pp. 211-217. (2004).

³⁷ Sideris, X. and Jugie, M. ed. Ouevres completes de George Scholarios. Paris. (1930). p. 241.

³⁸ Ibid, Harris.

³⁹ Most of Georgios Gemistos Plethon’s surviving works could be found in Migne, J.P. Patrologia Graeca.

⁴⁰ See Peritore, Patrick N. “The Political Thought of George Gemistos Plethon: A Renaissance Byzantine Reformer. Polity. Vol. 10. No. 2. pp. 168-191. Palgrave Macmillan. (1977) and Woodhouse, C.M. George Gemistos Plethon: The Last of the Hellenes. Claredon Press. (1986).

⁴¹ Leonitis, Artemis. Topographies of Hellenism: Mapping the Homeland. Cornell University Press. (1995).

⁴² By 1922 Greek irredentism and the Great Idea were forced to an abrupt and unexpected end. Seeking to expand its territory, Greece entered a war with Turkey. Greece’s military campaign to annex Asia Minor, which was home to more than a million Greek speakers, was a disaster by almost all accounts. As a result, some 1.5 million Greeks from Asia Minor were expelled from Turkey and forced to relocate to Greece. At the same time, some 500,000 Turks living in Greece were forced to relocate to Turkey. At the time, this was the largest exchange of populations in the history of the modern world and the Greek state was in no way prepared to accommodate such a large incoming population. Some of these Asia Minor Greeks (Micrasiotesin Greek), who were also often referred to by nativist Greeks as Turko Sporades (Turkish Spawned) were hastily placed in towns and homes that once belonged to Greece’s exiled Turkish population. The majority however, ended up in make shift homes in major cities throughout Greece. The failed campaign in Asia Minor, or “Catastrophe” as it was called, was a major turning point in Greek foreign policy. For the Greek state Constantinople would no longer be within its territorial reach and political interest; Greece’s irredentist Great Idea was forced to a close. Set borders between Greece and Turkey were arranged through the Treaty of Lausanne in1923. On the Greeks from Asia Minor see, Hirschon, Renee. Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe: The Social Life of Asia Minor Refugees in Piraeus. Berghahn Books. (1998). and Milton, Giles. Paradise Lost: Smyrna, 1922. Basic Books. (2008). On the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey see, Penzopoulos, Dimitri. The Balkan Exchange of Minorities and its Impact on Greece. C Hurst & Co Publishers. (2002) and Hirschon, Renee. Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange Between Greece and Turkey. Berghahn Books. (2003).

⁴³ See Brewer, David. Greece the Hidden Centuries: Turkish Rule from the Fall of Constantinople to Greek Independence. IB Tauris. (2009), Clogg, Richard. Balkan Society in the Age of Greek Independence. Barnes and Noble Books. (1981), and Clogg, Richard. The Movement for Independence, 1770-1821: A Collection of Documents. New York. Barnes and Noble Publishing. (1976).

⁴⁴ After independence most Greek citizens did not resist the Greek school and a Greek identity that advocated the notion that the Modern Greeks were descendant of the ancient Greeks. We do however find some resistance in some of the islands in the Aegean. On the island of Samos for example, there was an attempt on the island to develop an independent Samiote identity separate from that advocated by the Greek schools in Greece. Samos would be incorporated into the Greek state in the early 20th century.