Η ελληνική επανάσταση

by Mark Mazower, Κώστας Κουρεμένος (Translator), Κώστας Λιβιεράτος (Editor)

Στα χρόνια της εξάντλησης και της καταπίεσης που ακολούθησαν την ήττα του Ναπολέοντα το 1815, μία ήταν η υπόθεση που ηλέκτρισε αναρίθμητους ανθρώπους στον κόσμο: η ελευθερία της Ελλάδας.

Το πολυαναμενόμενο νέο βιβλίο του κορυφαίου Βρετανού ιστορικού Μαρκ Μαζάουερ αναπλάθει ένα από τα πιο συναρπαστικά, απρόσμενα και σημαίνοντα γεγονότα της νεότερης ελληνικής και ευρωπαϊκής ιστορίας: όταν οι άνθρωποι των χωριών, των κάμπων στις ελληνικές περιοχές της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας ξεσηκώθηκαν το 1821 ενάντια στον Σουλτάνο και αναμετρήθηκαν με τις πανίσχυρες ένοπλες δυνάμεις του – Τούρκους ιππείς, Αλβανούς πεζικάριους, αιγυπτιακές στρατιές. Κόντρα σε όλα τα προγνωστικά, και παρά τα τρομακτικά αντίποινα και τις καταστροφές που γνώρισαν, αλλά και τις αδυσώπητες εμφύλιες συγκρούσεις, άντεξαν αποφασιστικά και κράτησαν ζωντανή την επανάσταση, ώς τη στιγμή που η στρατιωτική επέμβαση της Ρωσίας, της Γαλλίας και της Βρετανίας επέτρεψε τελικά την εγκαθίδρυση ενός νέου εθνικού κράτους.

Ο Μαζάουερ προσφέρει μια σφαιρική, πανοραμική θεώρηση αυτής της ιστορίας, συνυφαίνοντας αριστοτεχνικά τα αμέτρητα νήματά της. Μας βάζει στο μυαλό και την καρδιά των πρωταγωνιστών, αλλά και στις αποκαλυπτικές εμπειρίες των πολλών. Ξαναβλέπουμε έτσι με νέο μάτι τα σχέδια των επαναστατών συνωμοτών της Φιλικής Εταιρείας, τον δαιμόνιο ανταρτοπόλεμο των οπλαρχηγών και τα κατορθώματα των μπουρλοτιέρηδων, τα διλήμματα, τις αμφιταλαντεύσεις και τις μεταστροφές αρματολών και κλεφτών, προκρίτων και καραβοκύρηδων, τα συνταγματικά οράματα και τις διπλωματικές κινήσεις της νέας πολιτικής τάξης, την έμπρακτη συμπαράσταση φιλελλήνων και εθελοντών, τις περιπέτειες πλανόδιων ιερέων, ναυτικών και σκλάβων, την αγωνία των πολιορκημένων πόλεων, την τραγωδία και την εγκαρτέρηση των ανυπεράσπιστων γυναικών και παιδιών, όπως ξετυλίχθηκαν όλα μέσα σε αυτή την πυκνή, επική δεκαετία.

Καταλαβαίνουμε με αυτό τον τρόπο πόσο καταλυτική ήταν η τομή που σήμανε η επανάσταση του 1821 στη νεοελληνική ιστορία, αλλά και πόσο κεντρική θέση κατέχει στη διαμόρφωση διεθνών τάσεων όπως ο ρομαντισμός, ο εθνικισμός ή ο ρεπουμπλικανισμός και στην ανάδυση ενός νέου είδους πολιτικής αναμέτρησης ανάμεσα στις σιδερένιες επιταγές της Ιεράς Συμμαχίας, τη δυναμική μιας πρωτόγνωρης διεθνούς αλληλεγγύης και τα όνειρα, τις επιθυμίες και τις πράξεις των λαών. Ούτε λίγο ούτε πολύ, το βιβλίο αυτό δείχνει πώς οι ηγέτες των μεγαλύτερων δυνάμεων της εποχής βρέθηκαν μπροστά σε μια δύναμη πιο ισχυρή κι απ’ τη δική τους, όταν οι άνθρωποι κατέληξαν να δουν αλλιώς τον κόσμο τους και, μ’ ένα κόστος συχνά τρομερό για τους ίδιους, να αλλάξουν την ιστορία.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Greece, European History, Politics, 19th Century, War

624 pages, Hardcover

First published November 16, 2021

About the author

Mark Mazower is a historian and writer, specializing in modern Greece, twentieth-century Europe, and international history. His books include Salonica City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430–1950, winner of the Duff Cooper Prize; Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe, winner of the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History; and Governing the World: The History of an Idea. He is currently the Ira D. Wallach Professor of History at Columbia University, and his articles and reviews on history and current affairs appear regularly in the Financial Times, the Guardian, London Review of Books, The Nation, and New Republic.

Reviews

[Σωτήρης Αδαμαρέτσος · Rating 5 out of 5]

Σημαντικό και συναρπαστικό αφήγημα ενός σπουδαίου μελετητή της ευρωπαϊκής ιστορίας του 19ου αιώνα, για την Επανάσταση του 1821 και την συμβολή της ως ιστορικά κομβικου γεγονότος στην γέννηση των εθνών της Ευρώπης και την πολιτική και διπλωματική στροφή που επέφερε στην ήπειρο μετά τους Ναπολεοντιους Πολέμους.
Εν αναμονή της μετάφρασης του Κριτικου Λεξικού της Επανάστασης των Κιτρομηλιδη/Τσουκαλά και μετά το πληρέστερο ιστορικό πόνημα του αξιοσέβαστου καθηγητή Ν. Πιζανια, το παρόν έργο αξίζει την προσοχή όσων ενδιαφέρονται για μια ευρύτερη κατανόηση της ελληνικής Επανάστασης, μέσα από την ματιά ΚΑΙ πολλών Ευρωπαίων (και Αμερικανών) που έδεσαν τις προσδοκίες και τα οράματα τους για την ελευθερία των εθνών κ την φιλελευθεροποιηση με τις τύχες ενός λαού που ξεκίνησε μια επανάσταση για να φτιάξει το "ρωμαίϊκο"...

Και είναι αυτή η λέξη που εξηγεί την πορεία της εξέγερσης, καθώς - όπως έχω αναφέρει και παλαιότερα - καθένας εννοούσε διαφορετικά αυτό το ρωμαίϊκο, το γκουβερνο που ήθελε να φτιάξει! Και είναι αυτή η προσδοκία του ατομικού απέναντι στο συλλογικό, που κατά τον συγγραφέα γέννησε στο τέλος περισσότερη δυσαρέσκεια πάρα αποδοχή αυτού που ονομάστηκε Βασίλειο της Ελλάδος, μια δυσαρέσκεια και μια αίσθηση του ανολοκλήρωτου, που διαχέει την ιστορία της χώρας και φτάνει μέχρι και σήμερα. Ένθερμος υποστηρικτής της ιδέας του Έθνους ως εκκίνηση της νεότερης πολιτικής ιστορίας της Ευρώπης, ο συγγραφέας καταγραφεί την εξέγερση ως την πρώτη Επανάσταση ενός λαού που προσπαθεί να μετασχηματιστεί σε Έθνος, σε μια ήπειρο που οι επαναστάσεις των αρχών του αιώνα ήταν αντικαθεστωτικες και αντιμοναρχικες. Πως το κατάφερε;

Ο συγγραφέας το περιγράφει με γνώμονα όχι την γραμμική εξιστόρηση αλλά την τομή σε στιγμές και πρόσωπα που οδήγησαν την πορεία της Επανάστασης και όρισαν την εξέλιξη της. Σε αυτές τις στιγμές κύριο αφήγημα παραμένει, σε όλο το έργο, η σφαγή και ο εξανδραποδισμος χιλιάδων ανθρώπων, ένθεν κακειθεν, που χώρισε τους χριστιανούς από τους μουσουλμανους και διέρρηξε κάθε πιθανότητα επιστροφής στο προ της εξέγερσης καθεστώς. Το αίμα των αμάχων που χύθηκε στη Τριπολιτσα αποτέλεσε τη ρήξη που χρειάζονταν η επανάσταση για να αντικαταστήσει την υποτέλεια των απλών χωρικών με τον φόβο της εκδίκησης του Σουλτάνου. Οι Οθωμανοί κήρυξαν τον ιερό πόλεμο κατά των άπιστων υπηκόων του· οι σφαγές τους κατά των ελλήνων αμάχων οδήγησαν στην σταδιακή απονομιμοποίηση τους...

Αυτό το φόρο αίματος που πλήρωσαν βαρύ τελικά οι εξεγερμενοι, αυτή η αντοχή του λαού απέναντι και στους Οθωμανούς και στους δικούς τους ιδιοτελεις οπλαρχηγους, αποτέλεσε και την αφορμή να γεννηθεί στην Ευρώπη αυτό που σήμερα ονομάζουμε δημόσια κοινή γνώμη, τότε η δημόσια κατακραυγή των οπαδών της φιλελεύθερης ιδέας και της ελευθερίας των Εθνών. Και που προκάλεσε την αλλαγή στην πολιτική των μεγάλων δυνάμεων και την επέμβαση τους στην σύγκρουση δύο διαφορετικών θρησκευτικών ομάδων.
Γιατί όσο και αν δεν θέλουμε να το κατανοήσουμε σήμερα, ο λόγος που η Ευρώπη έστρεψε το βλέμμα της σε αυτή την εξέγερση ήταν, πέραν της ανάμνησης της αρχαίας Ελλάδας ΚΑΙ η σφαγή των χριστιανών αμάχων από τους μουσουλμάνους δυνάστες τους, η πείνα και η ανέχεια των χιλιάδων προσφύγων των σφαγών σε Χίο, Μικρά Ασία, Πελοπόννησο και Μεσολόγγι που κινητοποίησε ακόμα και τους Αμερικανούς να οργανώσουν εφοδιαστικές αποστολές· και οδήγησε από τους οπαδούς της ελευθερίας όπως ο Βύρωνας και οι Γάλλοι ρεπουμπλικανοι, μέχρι τους μοναρχικούς οπαδούς των Βουρβονων, όπως τον Σατωμπριαν και τους Αμερικανούς που ανεχόταν την δουλεία, να απαιτήσουν την επέμβαση για την σωτηρία των χριστιανών Ελλήνων από την...σκλαβιά και τον βάρβαρο μουσουλμάνο Τουρκοαιγυπτιο πολεμιστή του Ιμπραήμ Πασά! Ακούγεται κάπως; Ω ναι, αλλά παρατηρήστε τον πίνακα του Ντελακρουα "Η Ελλάδα θρηνεί στα ερείπια του Μεσολογγίου"! Η λευκοντυμενη Ελλάδα θρηνεί τους νεκρούς της σπουδαιότερης στιγμής της εξέγερσης ενώ πίσω της ένας μαύρος στρατιώτης του Ιμπραήμ κραδαίνει την λόγχη που φέρει την ημισέληνο. Η αντίθεση είναι χαρακτηριστική...

Η ελληνική μετάφραση και έκδοση είναι αντάξια της αγγλικής, αν και την τελευταία θα την συνεστηνα θερμά στους φίλους που επιθυμούν να διαβάσουν το πρωτότυπο, κυρίως για την ενδιαφέρουσα απόδοση από τον συγγραφέα των ελληνικών αποσπασμάτων των πρωταγωνιστων. Πρόκειται για ένα υπέροχο βιβλίο, με μια πληθώρα υποσημειώσεων που αποδεικνύει το εύρος της αναζήτησης και την φιλοπονία του συγγραφέα να γράψει για ένα γεγονός που κατέχει πολύ καλά· αλλά και κατανοεί την αξία του στην πορεία της ευρωπαϊκής ιστορίας. Όχι για να μας κολακέψει, άλλωστε δεν φειδεται κριτικής απέναντι σε πρόσωπα και καταστάσεις που θεωρούμε ηρωικά και "ιερά μνημεία", πολιτικούς και λαϊκούς αγωνιστές, με μια τάση κατανόησης προς την πολιτική του Μαυροκορδάτου και συμπάθειας στους αποσυναγωγους οπλαρχηγους όπως ο Καραϊσκάκης· αλλά για να καταδείξει την σημασία της στην απαρχή της Ευρώπης των Εθνών που μέσα στο 19ο αιώνα απαίτησαν την αναγνώριση τους απέναντι στους μονάρχες της! Αλλά αυτό είναι πλέον η ίδια η ιστορία της Ευρώπης.

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

An admirably detailed, considered account of the uprisings that led to the formation of modern Greece after a lengthy, hard-won battle for independence from the Ottoman Empire. I found the early chapters of Mark Mazower’s book a little dense and difficult to negotiate, simply because of the intricate circumstances he’s outlining and the vast array of key players he introduces. But once Mazower established his territory, this quickly became incredibly gripping and impressive. The Greek revolution began on 21 February 1821. It’s a history of sudden advances and equally sudden setbacks, harsh sieges, atrocities and massacres, regional and local skirmishes. An unlikely convergence of forces and political interests that led to a seemingly impossible success. The Greeks were a minority within the Ottoman Empire approximately three million out of a total population of roughly twenty-three, many scattered across the world. They were outnumbered and considerably outgunned from the very beginning. Even though the Ottoman forces were comparatively small, they were still at least ten times what the Greeks could muster. And yet they prevailed.

Mazower’s meticulously-researched piece covers the plight of Greek communities under Ottoman rule; the rise of secret, pro-independence societies – particularly among the diaspora in Odessa; the varied, often clashing visions of what an independent Greek homeland might be or represent; and the many interest groups involved from wealthy landowners to peasantry to political groupings focused on revolutionary rebirth or the fulfilment of a more religious destiny. I was particularly engaged by his examination of the wider social and cultural impact of the Greek struggle. Initially the Philhellenes including famous figures like Byron, in Europe, and beyond, were drawn to the conflict because of a mix of nostalgia and reverence stemming from associations between modern-day Greeks and their ancient past. This made the Greek fight a fashionable cause for many, rather like the Spanish Civil War over a century later; it was a particularly popular one for younger, European men, steeped in the work of Byron and Shelley, and caught up in growing anti-imperialist sentiments: although among the supporters who flocked to the fight were a number of women and at least one African American. At a later stage in the insurgency outside interest in the Greeks’ future shifted from radical to mainstream inspiring art, literature, even opera, slowly attracting more powerful sources of support and financing.

Mazower manages to capture both the immediacy of the battles between the Greeks and the Ottoman forces, and the wider, political relevance of these events: challenges to the idea of empire, newly-emerging concepts of national identity and self-determination. But he also takes time to look beyond prominent figures vying for power to portray the brutal realities of life for the non-combatants, the local farmers, poor families, and increasing numbers of refugees. I picked this up because I’ve liked Mazower’s writing in the past but was surprised by how interesting this subject turned out to be, or maybe that’s just because of his skilful handling of his material. It’s a memorable, lucid account that doesn’t shy away from complexities, well-written, carefully-structured, fascinating and informative.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Allen Lane, imprint of Penguin, for an arc

[Michael Kotsarinis]

Δεν νομίζω πως ο συγγραφεάς χρειάζεται ιδιαίτερες συστάσεις και είναι γνωστό ότι εκτιμώ πολύ τα βιβλία του.
Έτσι και σε αυτό το βιβλίο, δεν απογοητεύτηκα καθώς ο συγγραφέας προσφέρει μια διεισδυτική ματιά στην ελληνική επανάσταση, όχι με εξαντλητική παρουσίαση λεπτιομερειών και γεγονότων αλλά επιλέγοντας την πιο δύσκολη οδό της προσέγγισης των κινήτρων, των σκέψεων πίσω από τις πράξεις και τις συνέπειές τους. Επιχειρεί να εμβαθύνει στο πλέγμα κα τη δυναμική των σχέσεων των κύριων πρωταγωνιστών, είτε προσώπων, είτε ομάδων και στέκεται με κριτική ματιά απέναντι σε όλους εξίσου.
Σίγουρα ένα βιβλίο που δεν έχει σκοπό την εξύμνηση των εθνικών μύθων αλλά τη ρεαλιστική και κριτική προσέγγιση που είναι πλέον απαραίτητη προκειμένου να προχωρήσουμε μπροστά ως κοινωνία.

Δείτε λίγα παραπάνω στο Ex Libris.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

At 1:30 in the afternoon on 20 October 1827, a squadron of 27 British, French, and Russian warships sailed into Navarino Bay, located on the southwestern corner of the Peloponnese peninsula. There they confronted a much larger force of Ottoman and Egyptian vessels arrayed in a horseshoe formation, which the squadron matched by lining up their ships inside it. When confronted with a message ordering his withdrawal, the commander of the allied forces, the British admiral Sir Edward Codrington, replied that he had arrived to give orders rather than receive them. Though Codrington communicated peaceful intentions, Ottoman sailors prepared a fireship to launch at his squadron and fired at efforts to tow it aside once it was lit. Covering fire from a passing French warship soon spread along the line, turning into a general engagement between the two sides.

By dusk the battle was over. For the loss of 181 sailors killed and another 480 wounded, the allied force had virtually annihilated the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet. Thousands of Ottoman sailors died in the battle, and of the 78 ships that the allied squadron engaged, only six remained seaworthy. It was an impressive and lopsided victory, yet the greatest victor of the battle was not the British, nor the French, nor the Russians, but the Greeks. News of the allied victory was greeted in dozens of Greek villages with church bells and bonfires, for while the Ottomans still possessed tens of thousands of soldiers in Greece, the defeat of the Ottoman naval forces meant that the Greek revolution they had been sent to destroy was saved.

That the Greeks’ war for independence was decided by a naval battle in which not a single Greek ship participated illustrates the important role European politics played in shaping it. As Mark Mazower demonstrates in his history of the Greek Revolution, there were few aspects of the conflict that were not influenced by external forces, not all of which favored the Greeks’ effort to win their independence from the Ottoman empire. Waged as it was in the shadow of the Napoleonic wars, it posed a threat to the efforts by the European powers to establish a stable, conservative postwar order based on the concept of legitimacy. In the end, however, the intervention by European naval forces reflected the inexorable changes that were taking place in the West, which made the events in Greece a harbinger for the century that followed.

Nothing better demonstrated the importance of the international dimension of the Greek Revolution than its origin, which can be traced to three members of the Greek diaspora living in the Russian town of Odessa. It was there that they founded the Filiki Etairea, or “Friendly Society,” one of the first of the many nationalist movements that were taking root in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Supported by wealthy members of the diaspora community, in 1821 they sought to take advantage of the distraction created by European interventions in revolts elsewhere to stage an uprising against Ottoman power in Greece. Under the leadership of Alexandros Ypsilantis, a Pharonite Greek and Danubian prince serving in the Russian army, the Eteria staged an uprising in the Danubian Principalities intended to trigger a general Christian rebellion against Ottoman rule. Though Ypsilantis intimated he had the backing of Tsar Alexander I, the Russian ruler quickly disowned Ypsilantis’s actions, giving the Ottomans tacit permission to crush Ypsilantis’s uprising and forcing the would-be revolutionary to seek exile in Austria.

Nevertheless, Ypsilantis’s actions succeeded in sparking revolts throughout much of Greece. One of the great strengths of Mazower’s book is his dissection of the complex and often contradictory motivations of the rebels, which illustrate the clash of perspectives and goals between the participants. For any rebellion to succeed the participation of the armatoles, or the Greek chieftains who maintained order for the Ottomans and whose armed bands were a major source of military power in the region. While eager to participate, their goal was not a Greek nation but freedom to run their areas as they saw fit – in essence, to become the biggest fish in their small ponds. It was a goal alluring enough for them to rise up against the Ottomans, yet it was one doomed to failure against the superior forces the Ottomans would be able to mobilize against them over time.

This lack of unity hampered the Greeks’ effort to overthrow the Ottoman yoke. Though a republic was created under the leadership of the politically savvy Alexandros Mavrokordatos, he struggled to establish any authority over the fractured Greeks. This aided Ottoman efforts to reestablish their dominance in the region, which they did in a bloody fashion. Mazower is unsparing is his descriptions of the massacres committed by both sides in the conflict. For the Ottomans, revenge-driven killings of Muslims in Kalavryta, Navarino, Tripolitsa, and elsewhere early in the conflict underscored the need for a brutal response. In turn, the slaughter at places like Chios and Missolonghi galvanized sympathy for the Greeks throughout the west. Combined with the philhellenism felt by many throughout the West, this generated both volunteers and funds that sustained the Greek cause over the next three years.

Yet this outflow of support was not enough for the armatoles’ irregular bands and naval forces from the shipowning islands to compensate for the arrival of a massive Egyptian force in early 1825. Over the next two years, the thousands of European-trained troops gradually ground down the Greek resistance, with their successes only adding to a refugee crisis throughout the region. Increasingly exhausted communities preferred submission to the Ottomans rather than continuing a struggle that looked likely to tend in defeat. With growing confidence in their successful suppression of the rebellion, in 1827 the Ottoman sultan, Mahmud II, rejected a joint offer by Britain, France, and Russia of mediation with the goal of establishing autonomous rule for the Greeks within the empire.

It was the effort to force Ottoman compliance that led to the battle of Navarino. The allied victory did not mean that the Greeks could count on their support for independence, yet in the wake of the outbreak of war between Russia and the Ottoman empire in 1828 the Ottomans caved to Russian pressure to end their campaigns in Greece. Independence was made palatable to the West with the installation of a foreign king, with the 17-year-old son of the philhellenic king of Bavaria chosen for the role. Thus was won independence: a messy victory that Mazower rises successfully to the challenge of describing it in all of its chaotic detail. It’s an excellent work that does a good job of recounting the nuances of the independence movement and the tragedy of the bloodshed in the quest for it. While his examination of the Ottoman side of the conflict pales by comparison to the level of detail he provides for the Greek cause, it is nonetheless a splendid study, one that is likely to remain the standard English-language work on the subject for decades to come.

[Jean-Luc · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engrossing and richly detailed account of the first successful attempt by an ethnic group under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire to become fully independent in the new European order ushered in by the Congress of Vienna.

A well fought struggle for liberation that heralded the beginning of the end for the Ottoman hegemony in the Balkans and the opening of a Pandora's box of endless nationalists feuds and conflicts that will go on plaguing the entire area and turned it eventually into the always dangerous European powder keg it has never ceased to be for the last 200 years.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in 19th European history and diplomacy, especially the labyrinthine plots, conflicts and political shenanigans of the accursed Balkans.

A fascinating read that deserves to be enjoyed without any moderation whatsoever👏👍

Many thanks to Netgalley and Penguin for this terrific ARC

[Stratos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Απαραίτητο για όποιον ασχολείται με την Ελληνική Ιστορία ιδιαίτερα βέβαια με την Επανάσταση του 21. Θα μου πείτε. Πόσα πια απαραίτητα βιβλία; Δυστυχώς ή ευτυχώς η ιστορία έχει πολλές πτυχές και οπτικές γωνίες εξήγησης οπότε για τη διερεύνηση δεν αρκούν ένα δυο βιβλία. Ειδικά αυτό του Μαζάουερ εκτός του ότι είναι γλαφυρή και ενίοτε απολαυστική, προσφέρει αρκετά νέα στοιχεία. Και βέβαια ένας ξένος γράφει ελληνική ιστορία με την δυνατότητα αντικειμενικής οπτικής γεγονότων και καταστάσεων. Οτι πρέπει για όλες τις εποχές!

[Orestis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Κάντε το βιβλίο ιστορίας Γ λυκείου ΧΤΕΣ!
Ένα υπέροχο ιστορικό βιβλίο, που αναλύει την ελληνική επανάσταση από όλες τις απόψεις και έρευνα τον αντίκτυπο που είχε στον κόσμο την εποχή που έγινε. Διαβάζοντας μου λυθήκαν ένα σωρό απορίες και διευκρινιστήκαν πολλά από τα σημεία που δεν έβλεπα καθαρά σε σχέση με την επανάσταση.
Ένα από τα πιο δυνατά σημεία για μένα ήταν ο βασικός λόγος που επενέβησαν η μεγάλες μεγάλες τις εποχής. Ο συγγραφέας υποστηρίζει Έλληνες και Οθωμανοί είχαν εγκλωβιστεί σε έναν ατέρμονο ατέλειωτο και εξαντλητικό κύμα εχθροπραξιών μεταξύ τους, που οποιαδήποτε σκέψη συνύπαρξης ήταν αδύνατη. Μια κολοσσιαία παρηκμασμένη αυτοκρατορία πολέμα με μένος μια μικρή ομάδα ανθρώπων που επαναστάτησαν ενάντιων της. Οι υπήκοοι των μεγάλων δυνάμεων, με νωπές τις μνήμες της γαλλικής και της αμερικάνικης επανάστασης, έβρισκαν σε όλα αυτά ένα πάτημα για να ανατρέψουν της δικές τους απολυταρχικές. ηγεσίες. Εν το μεταξύ, μετά τους ναπολεόντειους πολέμους, όλοι οι βετεράνοι βρήκαν έναν νέο σκοπό να πολεμήσουν και οι νεότεροι βρήκαν μια αφορμή να διακριθούν στον "πόλεμο της γενιάς τους".
Το βιβλίο διαθέτει πολλές τέτοιες ερμηνείες και είναι κρίμα που όλα αυτά παραλείπονται στην ιστορία που διδασκόμαστε στα σχολειά. Προσωπικά, τώρα που έμαθα την αλήθεια νιώθω μεγαλύτερη περηφάνια και συγκίνηση όταν σκέφτομαι την ελληνική επανάσταση, πάρα όταν στο σχολείο μας ψέκαζαν με την προπαγάνδα του υπουργείου. Το ιδανικό φυσικά θα ήταν να μπορούσε το μάθημα να γίνεται από την ύλη πολλών βιβλίων έτσι ώστε και να υπάρχει μια πιο ευρεία αντίληψη του αντικειμένου, άλλα επίσης για να μπαίνουν τα παιδιά στην διαδικασία της έρευνας ενός θέματος και την έκθεση τους στο φως διαφορών ερμηνειών. Γιατί τι είναι η ιστορία αν όχι ερμηνεία ιστορικών συγκυριών;

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful history of the first time that nationalism showed its head in Europe following the defeat of Napoleon - the beginning of a much broader disruption that would extend throughout the century and into the two world wars of the 20th century. The book is by one of the top historians of modern Europe and does a fine job of showing all the different participants and all of the different levels involved in the revolution - which have continued up through the Greek financial crisis following 2008.

More to follow after some additional processing.

[Faustibooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very nice book about the Greek Revolution of 1821, a topic I didn't know anything about before reading it. I absolutely love Greece and Greek history, but unfortunately, my knowledge about it is very limited to the Ancient and Medieval eras, so this book was both enlightening and refreshing, especially if you think that the Greece that we know today is obviously more similar to the Greece of 1821 than the ancient one. I hope to go there soon!

Now, the Greek Revolution was a very complex, long lasting and rich conflict that spanned through different territories and included a huge cast of people of different social standings and roles. At times it was quite hard for me to remember who was who and what was going on exactly, I also struggled a bit with the chronology of the conflict. There are dozens of names of important warlords, politicians, diplomats and activists which I sometimes confused with each other, as were some of the locations I had never heard of, but luckily the book included some maps.

Some parts were more interesting to read about than others, especially the part of the Philhellenes and the European response to the suffering of the Greeks and their struggle for independence against the Ottoman Empire was very interesting to me. How the Greek struggle could be supported by liberal Napoleonic veterans or by conservative Christian monarchists in the name of liberty from tyranny was really interesting. What I also enjoyed a lot was all the different aspects and members of society that form a revolution, and how they are forced to work together in their dire circumstances, which doesn't always work out. In fact, infighting plagued the Greeks almost as much as the Ottoman armies. Revolutions like this one depended on each part of society to participate, which intrigued me a lot, you have illiterate warlords, former Ottoman beys, the clergy, the peasants, liberal politicians who looked up to Napoleon and foreign volunteers who loved Ancient Greece. How a revolution is won through blood and steel, but legitimised and confirmed by politicians and scholars who in all the chaos tried to write constitutions and create some sort of government that could interact with the other European powers and get recognised. This also included identity formation and at the end of it, modern Greece was born.

All in all a very nice book on an important event in history!
Four stars!

The mountains look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream’d that Greece might still be free.
- Lord Byron

[Nikos Gian · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Eχει λοιπόν σημασία να πάμε πέρα από τους ήρωες, όχι για να ισχυριστούμε πως είχαν πήλινα πόδια, αλλά για να δώσουμε μια πληρέστερη εικόνα των δυνάμεων που έθεσε σε κίνηση ο ξεσηκωμός και που τον ώθησαν με τη σειρά τους προς τα εμπρός».

[Milo van Bokkum · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 ongelofelijk verhaal ongelofelijk verteld

[Sajith Kumar · Rating 2 out of 5]

The roots of Western Civilisation run deep into the form and content of the ancient Greek Civilisation. Every aspect of western thought derives its inspiration from the orators, politicians, historians and litterateurs of the Hellenic world. With a sense of this deep attachment in mind, tourists scour the modern Greek nation and marvel at the architectural remains and reeve the thread of association which they think to be unbroken over the vast length of time. Little do they realise that Greece, the country tourists visit today, was born out of the revolution which began in 1821. And that the glorious city of Athens was a quiet Ottoman backwater that had been left in ruins. The Greek people underwent much tribulation after they ended up under the Ottoman yoke. Under a strict interpretation of the sharia law, Greek Christians lived a subhuman existence with all avenues of progress blocked and even basic human rights denied. They had no freedom of religion. In fact, churches were not even allowed to toll their bells for worship. Muslim slave traders raided the territories to capture slaves for sale in the slave markets of Turkey, Syria and Egypt. Ottoman grandees chose Greek women for their harems at will. After centuries of patient suffering, the Greeks rose up in revolt in 1821 against the barbaric Ottoman rule and claimed independence with generous European support. Coming close on the heels of Napoleonic Wars, the events led to solidification of principles that founded the idea of modern Europe such as public opinion, international aid and peace-keeping forces. This book tells the story of this great transformation of the Greeks from medieval savagery to modern enlightenment. Mark Mazower is a professor of history at Columbus University and specializes in subjects on Greece and the Balkans.

The Greeks had an affinity to Russia as it was the stronger partner sharing the Orthodox Christian faith. A group of Greek patriots in Russia formed the Filiki Etaireia (Friendly Society) under Alexander Ypsilantis to wage war against the Porte. But this was a motley crowd of volunteers who lacked unity and discipline. The rebellion was initiated by this committee in the Danubian Principalities but was soon crushed. The banner was then kept aloft in the Peloponnese and Rumeli under the guise of the rebel Ottoman governor Ali Pasha of Jannina who had turned himself against the sultan. Even though Ali Pasha was later killed, the Ottoman rule in Greece hung in the balance. But the Greeks possessed no strong leadership and were grouped under several chieftains who had only local priorities to keep. The Turks retaliated by killing prominent Greeks residing in Constantinople, the Ottoman capital. Their spiritual leader, the 84-year old patriarch Gregorios V was publicly hanged and his body kept dangling there for days as a humiliation and warning. Non-Muslims were nothing more than hostages in Ottoman lands. If the sultan’s troops were attacked elsewhere by their co-religionists, they suffered the full punishment as if they were the perpetrators of the act. Ottomans regained the territory by combining their forces with Mehmed Ali Pasha of Egypt and fighting under his son Ibrahim Pasha. Ibrahim’s reprisals were merciless and brutal in the extreme. Apart from the usual killings, rape, loot and enslavement, he cut down the orchards and fruit trees to make Greece a desert similar to his home province of Egypt. At this point, Europe’s patience ran out and England, France and Russia intervened militarily. Ottoman resistance was soon wiped out and Greece was made independent.

Mazower gives a brief report of the highhandedness with which the Ottomans ran their dictatorship over the Greeks. The Muslims were in a minority in the province, but the Greeks were unmistakably suppressed as inferior. Any Greek meeting a Muslim on the road had to dismount as a mark of respect. Christian violence against Muslims was taken very seriously, but the Porte did not bother with violence among Christians themselves, leaving their religious bodies to resolve the issue. Greeks were mistreated and scorned for centuries by their Ottoman masters. The desire for revenge brought out casual ferocity and vindictive rage when the rebels overran Muslim settlements. The return attacks were blood-curdling. When Turks subdued the island of Chios which rebelled, they killed 25,000 men and 45,000 women and children were taken as slaves out of a population of 100,000. Soldiers cut the heads and ears off the corpses for payment from the Pasha’s accountants.

The crusades were the desperate attempt of European Christianity to liberate the Holy Land from Muslims in the eleventh-thirteenth centuries CE. The author has not addressed the question of how deep the spirit of crusades or religious unity had percolated into the European mind in arriving at their decision to come to the aid of Greeks even at the cost of military encounter with the powerful Ottomans. He provides many hints however. A sense of Christian solidarity allowed monarchists and republicans in Europe to bury their differences and coalesce around a culturalist argument akin to the spirit of the crusades. The prospect of communal death at the hands of Ottomans was a fear shared by the Greeks in the Peloponnese, Rumeli and Asia Minor. It was unquestionably one of the ways in which an idea of the Greek nation emerged. The Greek constitution, which was drafted by politicians and thinkers trained in Europe in 1822 declared Orthodox Christianity to be the ruling faith of the Greek state. Only Christians could be Greek citizens. The document was prefaced with the words ‘in the name of the Holy and Indissoluble Trinity’. There was a report in 2018 that the ruling Greek party was trying to separate church from the state and so it seems that even after many revisions, the constitution is still not secular in the modern sense. Whichever way you look at it, Orthodox belief has been the starting point of modern Greek consciousness. The Ottoman past has been completely eradicated from Peloponnese.

Mazower displays a surprising lack of empathy to the Greek cause in the narrative. The bad aspects of all Greek national leaders find prominent mention in the biographical sketches. On the other hand, the Ottoman warlords who had killed and enslaved thousands of innocents do not get the censure they deserve. Every nation glorifies their national movement and iron over wrinkles and differences of opinion especially when non-homogeneous groups are involved. This author’s irreverent approach inflates the issues of contention and ignores the points of unanimity. Lack of unity and mutual distrust among the leaders and regions are blown out of proportion. The revolution itself is portrayed as a lucky accident rather than the result of a valiant fight. “Putting off decision until it was clear who’ll prevail”, ‘wanted to avoid conflict but forced into action” are some of the author’s choice phrases to mark the Greeks in a poor light. The Greeks were short of men, material, money and resources on all fronts. In spite of this, Mazower ridicules the fighters and reports their occasional depredations against their own flock due to severe shortage of resources. All these fallacious arguments try to reinforce the conception that the Greeks did not deserve to win self-determination and that the Ottomans were unfairly wronged. This is epitomized in his narrative on the rudimentary Greek navy which was initially nothing but retrofitted commercial fleet. There was no discipline in them as the sailors were volunteers who deserted as they pleased. Needs of national strategy took second place and they reverted to ferry cargo for profit at times. They even indulged in piracy (p.140). At the slightest prospect of defeat, the Greek contingents looted each other. This is how the book portrays the Greek effort. The author also exhibits an Ottoman bias. Even when the Greeks were being crushed as a subhuman race of infidels, he claims that Christian women sometimes turned to Ottoman judges to obtain satisfaction when their own communal law fell short (p.124).

The book vividly highlights the change in European perception of the conflict that finally triggered a military response that decimated the Ottomans. Without that crucial intervention, all Greeks would undoubtedly have been killed or forcibly converted. The support arose in the trickle of philhellenes from Europe who was motivated by the study of classical Greece and the incumbent desire to somehow restore its past glory. The real contribution of these philhellenic volunteers was that they marked Europe’s concern and alignment of public opinion to the Greek cause. However, many of them were disillusioned after arriving in Greece and fighting on their side. In the next stage, specially chartered consignments of supplies and material reached the insurgents from wealthy Europeans and sympathetic groups. Lord Byron was the most famous volunteer and his death from natural causes in 1824 was a sensation across Europe. The surge in Europe’s sympathy was rooted in a tradition of educated veneration for ancient Greece. Supporting the Greeks also meant signaling disapproval of the continent’s conservative masters and their intolerance of the rights of nations. This was significant after Waterloo when the restored European monarchy abhorred revolutionary movements anywhere. The monarchs maintained neutrality or resigned indifference to the continuation of Ottoman dominance in the first few years of the revolution.

As is common with many European and American writers, this author also tries his best to laud the Ottomans. Apart from vignettes of their rule mentioned above, Mazower goes one step further to eulogize the life of slaves under Ottomans because, as he says, sometimes staffing the highest levels of imperial governance was with slave recruits. For this author, getting caught and separated from their own families to become a slave is like clearing the civil service examination! But the victims never thought so as we see them often committing suicide to prevent capture. The life of a female slave was much more hellish as sexual violation was also involved. Not that the young male slaves were also not completely free from this threat. She would be extremely fortunate if she could end up as one among the hundreds of concubines in an Ottoman Pasha’s harem. The narrative is rather drab and uninspiring. After 1826, the pace quickens and in a few chapters Ottomans go down, a new king appears from Bavaria and a constitution comes into effect. With its mission of cutting Greek revolutionary leaders down to size, the book is designed to cast away the feeling of euphoria from modern Greeks and to nip off respect towards the nation’s founding fathers. The book tells of European military experts called to train Ottoman soldiers going over to their army and fighting against their fellows. This author is a successor to them in spirit.

The book is recommended.

[Hadrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Mazower's historical work can be broadly categorized into two groups: First, histories of 20th-century Europe, such as Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe, or Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century. Additionally, he writes with a focus on the Balkans and Greece in particular, with titles such as Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950, Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44.

This book is both. It is a history of Greece, specifically the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire, stretching from 1821 to 1829, and a look at the broader repercussions on European history. There were revolts in the Greek peninsula against Ottoman rule before, but this was the first to catch broader attention due to the power of the popular media, which in turn drew attention to the plight of the non-combatant civilians. Public opinion, as novel and as passionate as it was, did not share the Chancellor of Austria's Metternich's opinion that "beyond our eastern frontiers, three or four hundred thousand hanged, strangled or impaled do not count for much".

Mazower's history is not strictly chronological. Chapters are organized by theme, and he moves between the focus on the revolution itself to foreign reaction. The rebellion itself was even more complicated than I had anticipated - it began ahead of schedule, on March 1821, after fear of discovery, and an army nearer to the Danube was soon destroyed.

The rebellion itself was contentious - formed from a widespread Greek diaspora, and a bewildering array of Greek and allied forces (for example, Albanians), local warlords, highwaymen, and a small number of Western volunteers completely out of their depth. The Ottomans also drew from their considerable empire, with military leaders dispatched from Egypt or Georgia. While the rebellion first achieved quick (and bloody) victories in the south and the Peloponnese, and brutal ethnic and religious reprisals soon followed - against the Muslim population and in some towns the Jewish population. Neighbors turned against each other in scenes that remind me only too well of later ethnic cleansing.

The rebellion was not able to capitalize on its successes, and in fact fell to further infighting by 1824. The Ottomans, reinforced from Egypt, won success through some brutal and grinding sieges south, through Messolonghi, and campaigns around the then-backwater town of Athens - so many captives were exported that the price for slaves declined. By 1826, western observers had taken the cause up for lost. Then a combined British, French, and Russian fleet had led a decisive victory against the Ottomans in 1827 at the Battle of Nazarino.

Greece would be the first of many nation-states to emerge in Europe from the collapse of empires in the 19th century. It was a brutal campaign, one where the press had spread word of atrocity to the world, and one that was all but given up for lost. Small wonder, then, that Mazower calls the Greek's success miraculous.

The book reads well, at least for myself, even though I knew almost nothing about modern Greek history before this. Mazower does not hold back from critical looks at some of the 'founding fathers' of this Greek state, but he presents a serious picture and analysis of the revolution and what drove it forward to its end.

[Jdamaskinos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must admit that history books are not my cup of tea. However, this one is a different kettle of fish; I could not put it down! Its subject is of course relevant and 'vaguely' familiar for any Greek. Familiarity is important but does not necessarily translate into knowledge. In my mind, names and events were all nebulous. After reading Prof Mazower's book everything became much clearer.

The author does not confine his book to a simple account of the events but also places them into the broader context of the geopolitical circumstance in Europe and America at the time and endeavours an interpretation. The crucial question running the book from the beginning through to its end is 'how did Greeks manage to win against all odds?' In the spring of 1827 the situation for Greece (although there was no such thing as Greece at the time...) was desperate: Ibrahim had turned Morea into a desert, Kütahi had conquered Rumeli and Athens, the money of the British loans had been drained out and the crews of the fleet of Hydra and Spetses were reluctant to keep fighting with no money left. Mazower says that had at that point Ibrahim's fleet moved against Hydra (which I understand he was planning to do...), the war would have ended once and for all and the Greek struggle would have burned down to ashes. This is the point when the Great Powers of Europe intervened and supported the Greek cause. However, Mazower does not adopt the saga that Greeks prevailed just because of the European support. This is too simple an explanation for him. He believes that Greeks won because they did not lose! Because they did not completely surrender and they kept fighting for 6 years without a stop. Without knowing, they were buying time. The dragging of time made eventually European powers change their stance towards the Greek struggle due to their geopolitical 'symferonta' but also because the public opinion in their countries had started changing. 1827 was simply the perfect timing for the Greek cause to be supported by Europe.

Besides the analysis and interpretation of the events which is undoubtedly fascinating, the greatest strength of the book, in my opinion, is the very description of the events. You read, for instance, about the siege of Mesolongi and although you may know the final outcome, it is impossible not to carry on reading; you want to see what happened the night of the sortie and how we got there. Mazower is not only a serious historian but also a charismatic author and he manages to give 'blood and flesh' to his protagonists. We learn that Kolokotronis was 6-foot long, that Kapodistrias was ascetic and enjoyed playing chess, that Mavrokordatos wore his gold rim round glasses and spoke 10 languages (!) and Karaïskakis had a muslim girlfriend and was prone to ill-health due to tuberculosis. All these petty details make the descriptions vivid and go alongside a very balanced approach to the strengths and weaknesses of the 'heroes' by the author; they are neither saints nor devils, but just human beings.

The book starts off with a description of Ermoupolis in Syros and finishes with the finding of the Virgin Mary's miracle-working icon in Tinos in 1823. The first is to show that the Greek war of independence was a real 'revolution' in every possible way, as a completely new society emerged through the ashes of the struggle; vibrant, European-orientated, modern which was in stark contrast with its Ottoman past. The latter to show that religious faith was a great motivation for Greeks to fight a war which appeared to be suicidal and futile on any logical ground.

For Greeks, this book offers a great opportunity to learn and reflect on this important page of our long history. For international readers, it sheds plenty of light upon relatively unknown historical events which nevertheless consist the first truly national successful revolution in the history of modern Europe.

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What did the people of Greece want to do in 1821? . . . They wanted to establish the reign of the Greeks. Why? I run to the Church for an answer. I leaf through the holy scripture and what do I discover? God made man in His image according to His likeness. And He made him master of the earth, its animals, plants, and so on . . . Power has authority, the state virtue, when it is founded in the holy attributes of His image. [When it is not], the scepter shrivels in the hand of the ruler . . . The people of Greece wanted to restore the reign of that image in those heroic days when we cried for joy.”

- Gregorios Tertsetis, 1855



The Greek Revolution of 1821 was a watershed moment in European history. The unlikely triumph of a relatively small and scattered subject people over one of the world’s great powers represented, much like the contemporaneous Latin American revolutions or the American Revolution a half century earlier, a “world turned upside down”. It heralded the self-discovery of the nations, both within Europe and ultimately throughout the world; the epochal transformation of the globe from a world of empires to a world of nation-states; a seismic shift in socio-political affairs that the international relations scholar G. John Ikenberry has rightly identified as one of the most consequential but least understood developments of the last two centuries.

It was also an episode of fascinating intrigue, rich historical and cultural resonances, and shocking brutality. It featured a secret society, the Filiki Etaireia, which operated a network of merchant-spies throughout the Mediterranean basin who communicated in coded language, ordered assassinations of members who threatened to compromise it, and intentionally mislead its massive following into believing that it was clandestinely controlled by the Russian Czar.

For the republican elites of Greece and the adoring publics of Europe who adopted the Greek struggle as their cause célèbre, it represented the rebirth of Hellas: the reemergence of the classical Greek spirit in the modern age. For the ordinary farmers and merchants who did most of the fighting, suffering, and dying—who thought of themselves not as Hellenes but as Romioi (Romans)—it was the making of the Romeiko, the fulfillment of generations of prophetic expectation that would see the recovery of Byzantium and the liberation of Rumelia’s Orthodox Christians. It elevated unlikely heroes; perhaps most notably one Theodoros Kolokotronis, a sometime brigand and mercenary who became a revolutionary and a patriot, scoring one of the most decisive Greek victories of the war.

The religious and ethnic nature of the conflict contributed to the genocidal ferocity of both sides, horrifying European observers and prompting, in Russia, Britain, and France, the historical novelty of a movement for military intervention that justified itself on humanitarian grounds. Greeks targeted the Muslim and Jewish minorities of the Morea, while Greeks in Constantinople and throughout the Ottoman Empire were beheaded in the streets. At the outbreak of the uprising, the Ecumenical Patriarch Georgios V was lynched just after celebrating the Paschal liturgy, his body left to hang over the gateway to his Cathedral before being dragged through the city and down to the waterfront. Perhaps tens of thousands were massacred or enslaved on the tiny island of Chios, which made the mistake of aligning itself with the patriot cause; a grim throwback to the fate of Melos during the Peloponnesian War.

But at the far end of the maelstrom, a new Greece—and a new Europe—was born.

[Martinocorre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il Professor Mazower ha fatto un buon lavoro anche questa volta e proprio in questi giorni è uscita pure una bella edizione italiana. La bibliografia di supporto, anche da fonti primarie, è imponente e il risultato finale è un testo da cui rivive splendidamente un periodo storico complesso e di grande trasformazione.
Consiglio assolutamente questo libro a chi è interessato a:
- la Storia della Grecia moderna
- il periodo della decadenza dell’impero ottomano
- la fase post-napoleonica europea (c’è tanta Europa in questa vicenda, forse per la prima volta in chiave moderna)
- il tema della schiavitù e dell’auto-determinazione dei popoli e il loro governo
- i primi passi degli USA sulla scena della politica internazionale e la dottrina di Monroe
- il confronto tra lo slancio del giovane idealismo europeo e il blocco granitico della Restaurazione del vecchio mondo
- la pirateria e l’ultima grande battaglia dell’epoca delle navi a vela

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars: another massive brick of history that is first class scholarship but makes for an exhausting attempt at enjoyable reading. Some minutiae is more worthy than others...

[Sherif Gerges · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the summer of 2023, I visited the Island of Chios, where I learned about a massacre of Greeks at the hands of the ottomans. Seeking to learn more, I picked up this book.

Constantinople was conquered by Muslim Seljuk Turks in 1453, an event that looms large in this book. Mark Mazower’s writes a meticulously documented examination of Greece’s arduous struggle for sovereignty, accentuating the prolific bloodshed and catastrophic civilian toll on both sides. He vividly delineates the systematic persecution, mass enslavements, and calculated atrocities perpetrated by the Ottoman authorities, underscoring the existential precarity of the Greeks. It is also clear that Orthodox Christianity emerges as the cornerstone of Greek cohesion, fostering a shared identity amidst institutionalized second-class status under Ottoman rule.

Mazower emphasizes that Greek demands for freedom were deeply rooted in their subjugation as dhimmis—non-Muslims under Ottoman law who faced legal, social, and economic discrimination. Though Greeks played vital roles as merchants, scholars, and administrators (notably the Phanariots in Constantinople), they were ultimately excluded from political power, heavily taxed, and vulnerable to arbitrary repression. The Ottomans regularly kidnapped Greek boys for the Janissary corps (the devshirme system), and Christian communities often lived at the mercy of local Ottoman rulers, enduring periodic massacres and forced conversions. The revolution was as much about escaping this systemic subordination as it was about national self-determination.

Mazower does not shy away from exposing the brutal retaliatory violence committed by Greek revolutionaries. A fact I found quite stunning. The massacre of Tripolitsa (1821) stands as a chilling episode, where thousands of Ottoman Muslims and Jews were indiscriminately slaughtered after the city’s fall. Similar reprisals unfolded across the Peloponnese, where entire Muslim communities were wiped out or forcibly expelled. While Greek fighters saw these actions as retribution for centuries of Ottoman rule, Mazower presents them as part of the broader cycle of sectarian vengeance that defined the conflict.

Mazower also presents Constantinople as a crucial backdrop, highlighting the Ottoman state’s brutal response to Greek insurgency and the suffering of Greek civilians in the imperial capital. The execution of Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory V and the subsequent massacres of Greek civilians in the city reflected the empire’s panic over an existential revolt. The war, though waged primarily in Greece, had profound repercussions across Ottoman-controlled territories, with entire communities caught in the crossfire of nationalist uprisings and imperial retribution.

Ultimately, Mazower’s work is a sobering, describing a revolution where both Greeks and Ottomans engaged in acts of extreme brutality. His analysis situates the Greek War of Independence within a broader narrative of 19th-century nationalism, imperial decline, and the costs of liberation. This is an essential read, and although dense, I think everyone can take away a lesson or two about the costs of liberation. The parallels between the Greek Revolution and Israel-Palestine did not escape my notice.

[Alexandros Potapidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

How can the uprising of a small agrarian country of no political or geopolitical significance on the edges of Europe shake the continent's affairs? Especially considering that the uprising was against a much bigger, richer, and invested (by the Great Powers) Empire. Even more so during a time when the conservative forces who dominated the European affairs were explicitly anti-revolutionary and pro-status quo. In this context the success of the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire is seen as a maverick and counterintuitive in the accomplishment of its stated objective.

Mazower navigates us through the episodes that led to and shaped, not only the revolution with its military and political battles, but also the larger scene of the European appetite to uprisings and military solutions at a time of relatively stable and peaceful outlook. European political elites were allergic to any radical revolutionary elements across Europe that endangered the monarchical status quo. Even if these elements had a national purpose and aimed at freeing the suppressed. This is why the acknowledgement of the contribution of Filiki Etaireia (the organisation that promoted the initial uprising of the Greeks in the Danubian principalities of the Ottoman Empire) was downplayed. The political forces of the uprising deemed it politically costly to associate the revolution with Etaireia's radical elements. This explains why the contemporary national narrative of the struggle against Turks (another anachronism) is traced incorrectly in Peloponnese and not the failed attempt in Danube.

But the revolution is full of misconceptions and misrepresentations shaped in the last 200 years of forging of the spirit (and imagination) of the national narrative. Mazower underlines the sacrifices and the bravery of the Greeks who, against all odds, repelled the tyranny of the Ottoman rule. This is especially prominent in the contemporary Greek educational system. As a child I learned that the heroic figures of the main protagonists were exemplary in their bravery, devotion to the Greek cause, and unshakeable in their ethics. However, Mazower digging into primary sources reveals that the heroes of my childhood were more often than not mercenaries, switching sides, and whose main consideration was financial gain. Their regional political rivalries were often translated into civil wars while in the midst of a national one. The military men who were fighting the Ottoman forces were looting and often killing their fellow Greek folk. And the torture and killings of the Muslim population were matching those of the Ottoman army against Greeks.

The cause was successful not only because of the bravery and military resistance in the face of destitution and much larger Ottoman army. In the recent Greek history the role of the foreign powers in the liberation of the country has been downplayed. Greece was fortunate to witness a combination of economic boom in most affluent countries of western Europe, the rise of an active public opinion that could influence political realities, and a sympathetic audience that associated the country with its glorious ancient past. This reversed the non-interventionist policy of the Great Powers and resulted to a military battle at Navarino that led to the defeat of Ali Pasha and his Egyptian forces. Greece achieved its independence but over the last 200 years the country built into its national sub-conscience another Myth. The Myth of entitlement and national greatness due to the country's ancient past and the bastion of uprising - against all odds- against a muslim Empire. This sense of entitlement was evident during the Greek financial crisis of 2008-2010 and the subsequent financial bailouts offered to the country.

History is not as simple as historians like to present and there lies the value of The Greek Revolution. It is multifaceted and reveals all aspects of the struggle; the heroic and the despicable, the sacrificial and the atrocious. Mazower's narrative of individuals' stories is transformative of an era where human life was reduced to the contents of its owner. He underlined (and maybe overplayed) the significance of the newly formed Greek state's innovative constitution and its forward looking republican nature. The book is a masterpiece of historical writing, something expected from the author of the Dark Continent. 

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite two sentences in this book occur near the end, on page 449:

It may be worth noting that no king of Greece died quietly in office before 1947: Otto was driven out, George I was assassinated in 1913, Constantine was exiled twice, and Alexander’s brief reign ended with a monkey bite. George II, who managed it, is said to have remarked that “the most important tool for a king of Greece is a suitcase.”

I saw a single paperback copy of this book on sale at the small retail store (which otherwise was mostly devoted to sunscreen and snacks) downstairs at Athens airport, while on vacation in September 2023. I was waiting for a domestic flight to an island. At the moment, I was already foolishly carrying around in my suitcase more reading than I could possibly do, but I scribbled down the title and (somewhat to my surprise) found upon returning home that my local public library had a copy. Not only that but the library, perhaps recognizing that this book is a little dense, allowed me to instantly check this book out again after I used all my authorized renewals and appeared to make a personal appeal directly to a librarian, who may just have wanted to get rid of me. She told me, incredibly, that copies of this excellent book were even at that moment standing, unappreciated, on the shelves of two separate branch libraries nearby, so she'd have no problem reissuing the copy I had in hand right away.

As it turns out, the Greek islands we visited were not the location of most of the fighting against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek revolution of the 1820s as recounted in this book. Most of the action in this book takes place on the part of mainland Greece located on the Balkan peninsula, jutting into the Aegean on the west side of the country’s current space. A lot of the book is dedicated to the fighting in this area and the considerable suffering it caused, much of it by forces of the Ottoman Empire attempting to stop Greece from control of the sultan. However, quite a bit of misery was caused by Greeks (and some Albanians) victimizing Greeks in a quest for loot which, with the benefit of hindsight, seems pretty short-sighted. (Good maps at the beginning of the hardcover edition that I read allow you to follow the narrative with a little flipping back and forth.)

Greek islands were not completely out of the action, however. They also provide an interesting example of how accidents of geography cause history to play out in a specific way (starting around p. 148). Specifically: some Greek Islands (incl. Naxos and Santorini, which I visited) were formed with rich, fertile volcanic soil. As a result, they not only could feed themselves but exported food. Islands which were not so blessed turned, out of necessity, to shipbuilding and trade, in part because “there was no other means of livelihood open to them.” When the Greek revolution of the 1820s took shape, the seafaring islands lined up behind the nationalist revolution, but the farming islands were not so enthusiastic. “It is not by chance that on these islands there was plenty of resistance to the revolutionaries’ efforts to enlist them: they faced no economic crisis and many of the islanders mistrusted demands by a new power that was in some ways more arbitrary and intrusive in their lives than the Ottoman state.”

I had the patience to plow through the first 16 chapters (out of 18, plus epilogue), which was often about men (often, but not always, Greeks whose names have between 12 and 18 letters and ended in “s”) leading groups of armed thugs, forming alliances and then braking them, allowing their so-called armies free to rape, slaughter, and relieve people of the few possessions that they could call their own. (Other readers may find this too depressing.) The European powers started flexing their muscles, reluctantly at first, and then decisively (starting in chapter 17), when, at a moment went the Greek rebellion appeared about to collapse, Russia, France and England sent part of their navies which, almost accidentally, completely destroyed the Ottoman navy and made the establishment of an independent Greek state possible, even if it took nearly 100 years to achieve today's geographic boundaries.

The author makes a pretty convincing case that certain modern phenomena, familiar today, made their first appearance during the Greek Revolution. Among them was “soft power”, defined here as

a country’s ability to influence others without resorting to coercive pressure. In practice, that process entails countries projecting their values, ideals, and culture across borders to foster goodwill and strengthen partnerships.

Some of the cleverer Greek leaders realized that Greece, instead of an Ottoman backwater, could be rebranded as the birthplace of European, religious, and cultural life and, as such, something worth fighting for. This led to an early appearance of another familiar attribute of modern political life: the mobilization of public opinion (through fund-raising and agitation) to prod reluctant governments and politicians into intervention in far-off lands. Activity outside the direct theater of war was often motivated by concerns for suffering non-combatants, a new idea then and a problem sadly too familiar to us today. The author contends that the aftermath of the Greek Revolution also marked the first appearance of both internationally-coordinated anti-piracy initiatives as well as efforts to reunite families. Finally, post-revolution national rebuilding marked an early instance of soldiers working in a country after the fighting had completed “for what we now call peacekeeping” and infrastructure renewal, including roads and bridges but also in some cases completely redesigning leveled towns from the ground up.

There's a dramatic scene near the end of the book (p. 442) where foreign peacekeepers compel a reluctant remaining Ottoman garrison to abandon the Parthenon, ending the last vestige of the Sultan's authority in Greece. After their departure, one soldier

spent the first night with his men under the columns of the Parthenon, overwhelmed by the significance of the moment. He watched the sun set over the mountains of the Peloponnese and as the moon rose he saw before him, in a kind of reverie, the ghosts of Perikles, Socrates, Euripides, and Demosthenes. The next morning he was startled awake by the appearance of a stocky elderly Chiot sailor who introduced himself as kapetan Dimitris and said that he had come up from Piraeus with his son. In broken Italian, the son explained that the father had brought the Greek flag with him. [The soldiers] stood at attention and saluted with their swords as the old man raised it high amid a great shout of “Long live Greece, long live the king!”

This serious but well-written book is well worth the effort it takes to read it, and also worth pestering your librarian about, even if you never get to the many, many places where the actual fighting of the Greek Revolution took place.

[Rob M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mazowar is a fantastic historian who consistently hits the sweet spot between readability and scholarliness. He's not afraid to write an engaging narrative built around an argument, but he's too professional to let his narratives run ahead of reality.

A major argument presented in The Greek Revolution is that the revolution is much more significant than its place in our collective historical consciousness allows for. It feels as though Mazowar has therefore set out to do for the Greek Revolution what CLR James did for the Haitian. I believe he has succeeded.

We learn about the origins of revolutionary nationalism among the widely dispersed but unusually well connected Greeks of the Ottoman and Russian Empires. We see how Western European fascination with ancient Greece was superimposed onto the Orthodox messianism of actual Greeks, leading to a decade-long conflagration in a heartland of the Ottoman Empire.

Against enormous odds, and despite many avoidable setbacks and fucks ups, the Greek revolution critically weakened the foundations of the Empire and eventually gave birth to one of the first post-imperial nation states.

I bought this book partly on the strength of the author's name and partly because it looked so attractive on the display shelf at Foyles on Charing Cross Road. I wasn't especially interested in Greece or its revolution. But now I've read the book I am convinced this is an important piece of history that should be much more widely known and understood.

[Konstantinos Boulis · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I found fascinating about this book was an inside view on how history is made. Not just Greek revolution history but any history. A series of events that could have very well turned the other way but because of a sequence of accidents things happened the way they did. I will not provide spoilers here and just mention that what I found fascinating was what we call history was not a result of any iron-clad planning and what an amazing lesson is this for the present and the future. Nothing is predetermined, certainties are thrown out of the way and the history (and the future) is written by those that showed up.

Also, growing up in Greece the telling of the Greek revolution in schools was highly romanticized with the good (the Greek heroes) and the bad (the Turks). Well, it was never that cut and dry of course. Heroes had multiple aspects that can only be understood under the prisms of that time.

One of the questions I always had was why did the 3 major powers of the time, England, Russia France decide to send their combined fleet in Morea on what transcribed as the defining battle of Navarino? Again I will provide no spoilers here but it was wonderful that I found the answer that I was looking for without the author force-feeding it to me.

Definitely a very enjoyable and educational read.

[MassiveMichael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I would only recommend this book to people with a strong interest in Greek history. Some parts were just too detailed about the infighting between local chiefs on a random little island. The most interesting part was Mazowers argument of the Greek revolution making modern Europe e.g. through the first formulation of a responsibility to protect by Western powers. Also exciting to read was the role of western Philhellenes fighting on the side of the Greeks and the hypocrisy of parts of the West decrying the enslavement of Greeks by the Ottomans while at the same having a brutal slave trading system of their own. Another striking aspect was the role of the many people that switched sides (sometimes several times), between the Greeks and the Ottomans, like many Albanians or Greek merchants that sometimes supplied both besieged Greeks in a fortress and the besieging Ottomans.

[Elizabeth Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

“You’re skipping the Acropolis because you want to go to the National Historical Museum?” Our tour guide was incredulous. Hadn’t I rather spend the morning exploring the Parthenon with the group, have lunch at the Covered Market with the rest of them, and “do” the museum after lunch?

No, thanks. I had recently read Mark Mazower’s The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe, and I wanted to see what the National Historical Museum in Athens made of the events described in it. And I wanted plenty of time and a clear, fresh mind for it. According to conflicting sources, the museum closed at 2 pm or 4 pm.

Our tour guide was incredulous; the people at the museum were delighted. “It is closer to our hearts,” they told me. I’d thought it might be, and I’d expected a lot of flag-waving, a display steeped in a blinkered kind of patriotism. How wrong I was!

While patriotism certainly motivated the new nation’s citizens to donate their cherished keepsakes to the museum when it was founded in 1882 (something set out in clear detail with regard to the museum’s costumes section by Maria Lada-Minotas in her “Documentation” in Greek Costumes: Collection of the National Historical Museum, Athens 2017, pp. XI-XXIV), the museum’s curators, judging by the presentation and wall texts, are thoughtful, clear-headed, up-to-date academics with a knack for summarizing complex events in a precise and pithy manner. Either they have very good English, or good translators.

This makes the museum well worth a visit. If you know nothing at all about the history of the Greek nation, you will effortlessly learn a lot. If you’ve just read Mark Mazower’s book, you will be impressed, fascinated, and deeply moved. Here are the regalia of Ali Pasha, Lion of Ioannina! Encrypted documents of the Filiki Etaireia secret society, a snuffbox belonging to Petros Mavromihalis, arms of Souliot fighters, the coat of General Makriyiannis and a series of paintings he commissioned to illustrate his Memoirs. Theodoros Kolokotronis’s famous helmet is there, as well as his sword and guns, the first printing press ever to be brought to Greece, and the figureheads of various ships involved in the struggle, including that of Karteria, the first steam-powered ship to operate in combat. There’s a case of philhellenic merchandising objects and a little altar for Byron worshippers.

Mazower does a lovely job introducing the key figures, their background and motivations, in a way that makes them easy to remember. He paints a vivid and detailed picture of Ottoman Greece, showing us how its society functioned within the Ottoman Empire.

The independence narrative is part of present-day Greek identity. Wherever you look, wherever you go, you see and hear references to “the dark centuries”, “years of enslavement” or “four centuries of foreign occupation” terminated by the revolution. It is to Mazower’s credit that, as a reader, you can finish his book wholeheartedly embracing this view – or thinking that the revolution was a mad, bad, and dangerous venture that only succeeded thanks to the Tsar of Russia dying at just the right moment for a more belligerent successor to take the reins or, rather, the helm.

For curiously enough, for all the valiant struggle and patient endurance of the people of the Mani, the Morea, the Islands, Rumelia, and so on, it was Western intervention that won the day. Were it not for the Battle of Navarino, the rebellion might have gone on and on and on … And it seems important to remember that, from the Ottoman and for a long time from the European point of view as well, the Greek struggle was a rebellion against legitimate rule. I wonder if Mahmud II, like Metternich, believed in a great conspiracy, or whether he merely saw a series of violent outbreaks that flared up in various places, incoherent, inchoate, increasingly annoying, but bound to peter out if suppressed and ferociously penalized.

If I have a niggle, it is that the Ottoman side of the picture remains obscure. Mazower does a superb job giving us the background about the Western mindset, how it developed in the 1820s, and how this affected the course of the Greek rebellion, and ultimately, of European history. We learn little about what motivated Ottoman decisions, however, leaving us with the rather worn stereotype of high-handed tyranny and opaque processes. Some insights into the mechanics of decision-making at the Porte, the people and ideas involved, would have been interesting, although admittedly perhaps beyond the scope of just one book.

Another niggle is that while Mazower, in his introduction, promises to elucidate the economics of the revolutionary process, there is very little of that until you get to the conclusion!

I discovered Mazower’s book thanks to Alwynne’s review. Spot on as always, she summarizes the Greek Revolution as “an unlikely convergence of forces and political interests that led to a seemingly impossible success.”

[Ted Richards · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sadly, this is just not as good as I'd hoped it would be.

It's tough to go into a book with high expectations, and honestly I'm not sure why my own were so high in this case. The book is well reviewed and was popular upon release, but probably it was how nice the cover was. Either way, this book is not as interesting or engaging as it ought to be.

One of the big issues is that his is a narrative history. It is the type of book built for further research. It will be supremely useful for breaching a new topic of study in this area, and Mark Mazower does make a powerful argument here. The issue is that an argument which can be made in 200 pages is stretched to almost 500. Mazower begins with the outbreak of revolution in 1821 across the northern points of Ottoman rule, and traces the routes such a revolution took to get to the Peloponnese. His central argument is that it was this revolution, far more than the renowned mid-19th century revolutions, that shaped the idea of the modern nation state in Europe. It was also the first successful revolution in Europe, which will be helpful for pub quizzes.

There is a good topic here. It is interesting and Mazower is wrestling with a topic that, as he says, does not lend itself well to great narratives. There are no magnificent heroes, or spectacular turning points. The grounds for revolution are somewhat flat. The secrecy that might have driven the reader's interests in groups like the Etaireia, is quickly dispelled by Mazower. I am not well read in military history, but this absolutely feels like the type of book people who like that style may enjoy. Besides painting a narrative of events I have precious little prior knowledge about, this has little engagement, and too few big historical debates.

It is a shame I didn't click with this as much as I would have liked. By all means a more careful, interested reader will likely have a better experience, but for me, it just fell flat.

[Askatasuno · Rating 4 out of 5]

El relat de Mazower és molt sòlid i ben estructurat. Queda tot un volum per escriure del que passa anoartir de 1834, què està molt resumit i fa pinta de ser igualment interessant. L'Indepedència de Grècia seria l'antítesis de la revolució dels somriures... caps tallats, esclaus i gent morint de gana sòn un continuu. Quan vaig llegir el de Tessalònica la idea de que els grecs moderns no són una nació homogènia estava molt pressent. Aquí també... spesiotes, idriotes, rumeliotes... un lligam tènue i un final inesperat. Una lectura llarga però molt satisfactòria. I si, el romeïko no acabarà fins que Constantinopla no sigui alliberada del turc.

[Stijn Jager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interessante deep dive in een onderwerp waar ik nog niet zo veel vanaf wist. Tegen 2/3 raakte de vaart wel een beetje uit het verhaal. Het boek voelt ook niet zozeer aan als een antwoord op de vraag "waarom", maar op "hoe".

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book does describe the Greek Revolution in an extremely detailed manner that is much appreciated, however the dense chapters make it hard to create an understandable narrative. The title of the book also suggests a larger focus on how the Greek Revolution impacted the making of a modern Europe, and I don't believe that Mazower succeeds in that respect.

[None Ofyourbusiness Loves Israel · Rating 5 out of 5]

From illustrious figures such as Byron and Monroe to turncoats that were buried to their necks, faces smeared with honey to be killed by insects, this fantastic book covers all aspects of the momentous and influential revolution that gave us much more than Greece. Absolutely incredible!

[David Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great history of a hugely consequential and largely forgotten (outside of that part of the world, anyway) revolution: the 1820s Greek War of Independence.

Mazower uses an able storytelling technique of themed chapters that move in mostly chronological order. This keeps each chapter tightly focused on a concept, while sometimes an event will be mentioned in passing and then returned to for a more thorough dive. It can require a little work on the part of the reader — especially with a blizzard of Greek and Turkish names to keep track of — but produces a very satisfying result. (I could have used some more refreshers on who was who throughout the book, though.)

The actual revolution saw the Greeks achieve some early successes, especially through irregular warfare, then major setbacks as the Ottomans and their Egyptian subjects/allies struck back, before achieving victory when Britain, France and Russia intervened and (without ever quite intending to) destroyed the Ottoman/Egyptian fleet. In some ways it mimicked the flow of the American War of Independence two generations earlier, though with an order of magnitude more bloodshed and atrocities (spurred in part by the elements of religious war at play here).

The war was also notable for provoking massive foreign support, dubbed "Philhellenism." This took the form of fundraising, loans, art, and volunteers traveling to Greece to fight directly (with rather mixed results), before finally culminating in direct military intervention. It's all extremely relevant reading in light of the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War!