Difference between revisions of "Greece"

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|align="center"|'''THE GREECE COAT OF ARMS'''<br>[[file:Coat of Arms of Greece (Ministries).svg|336px]]
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|align="center"|[[File:Greece location map (Island of Milos)-2.svg|336px]]<br>Location of Greece  within the continent of [[Europe]
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|align="center"|[[File:Dark Age Greece Map.jpg|336px]]<br>Map of Greece
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|align="center"|[[file:Greek animated Flag.gif|336px]]<br>Flag Description of Greece :The flag of historic Greece was officially adopted in 1822. It features a white cross, and a combination of nine blue and white horizontal stripes. Note that the shade of blue has varied over the years, and darker blue (shown) is now commonly used.
The cross is symbolic of the Greek religious faith and the nine stripes represent the nine syllables in the cry "Freedom or Death," one commonly used during the Greek war of independence. The white is said to reflect the purity of that struggle.
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'''Official name''' Ellinikí Dhimokratía (Hellenic Republic)<br>
'''Official name''' Ellinikí Dhimokratía (Hellenic Republic)<br>
'''Form of government''' unitary multiparty republic with one legislative house (Hellenic Parliament [300])<br>
'''Form of government''' unitary multiparty republic with one legislative house (Hellenic Parliament [300])<br>
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==Government and Society of Greece==
==Government and Society of Greece==
*Constitutional framework
Greece is a parliamentary republic. The current constitution, introduced in 1975 following the collapse of the 1967–74 military dictatorship, initially gave considerable powers to the president, but revisions to the constitution in 1986 made presidential powers largely ceremonial. The president, who is the head of state, is elected by the unicameral Hellenic Parliament (Vouli) and may serve two five-year terms.
The prime minister is the head of government and has extensive powers but must be able to command the confidence of the legislative branch. The latter, the unicameral Hellenic Parliament, consists of 300 deputies who are elected to four-year terms by direct universal vote; it has the power to revise the constitution. Voting is compulsory. A distinctive feature of the Greek electoral system has been the practice of incumbent governments amending the electoral law to suit their own political advantage. However, another round of constitutional revisions in 2001 introduced safeguards against political abuses, bringing about greater transparency in political operations.
*Local government
Reorganized administratively in 2011 according to the so-called Kallikratis Plan, Greece is divided into seven apokentroménes dioikíseis (decentralized administrations), the head of each of which is appointed by the central government. These units are further divided into 13 periféreies (regions), which mirror the 13 geographic diamerismata (regions) that existed under the previous administrative structure. At the next level of local government are the 74 perifereiakés enótites (regional units), the administrative and territorial constituents of parts of the regions. Finally, the most local of these administrative unis are the 325 dímoi (municipalities).
*Justice
The judiciary is essentially the Roman law system prevalent in continental Europe. The two highest courts are the Supreme Court (Areios Pagos), which deals with civil and criminal cases, and the Council of State (Symvoulion Epikrateias), which is responsible for administration disputes. A Court of State Auditors has jurisdiction in a number of financial matters. A Special Supreme Tribunal deals with disputes over the interpretation of the constitution and checks the validity of parliamentary elections and referenda.
*Political process
Many elements of traditional politics remain in Greece, most notably the personality-based nature of the party system. Parties are heavily dependent on the charisma of their leaders, and patronage is important at all levels.
In the early 21st century the major political parties included New Democracy (Nea Dimokratia; ND), the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima; PASOK), Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left), and the Communist Party of Greece (Kommunistiko Komma Elladas; KKE). New Democracy, founded by the veteran conservative politician Konstantinos Karamanlis, consistently supported “neoliberal” policies that aimed at limiting the power of the state and encouraging private initiatives and market economics. The PASOK retained a strong commitment to an independent foreign policy and a modified form of socialism. On the far left was the KKE, which continued to advocate Soviet-style communism.
*Security
The military, made up of an army, a navy, and an air force, was a major arbiter of political life during the 20th century. Greece’s expenditure on defense is one of the highest in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) but is largely motivated by its preoccupation with Turkey, the country’s traditional enemy. Conscription for men is universal, and women have the right to volunteer for service.
*Health and welfare
In the 1980s the government instituted a national health care system. Many Greek doctors train, at least partly, abroad, and they and the major hospitals meet international standards; however, Greeks often choose to travel abroad for medical care if they can afford it. The pension system in Greece is extraordinarily complex. Workers are insured under the Social Insurance Institute and the Agricultural Insurance Organization programs.
*Housing
New housing construction accelerated at the end of the 20th century, particularly in the larger cities. Urban areas are characterized by apartment buildings. In fact, about half of all housing units in the early 21st century were apartments. Discrimination in housing in Greece was noted by international observers, who cited poor access to adequate housing and forced eviction among the Roma (Gypsies).
*Education
Education has long been prized in Greece, both as an end in itself and as a means of upward social mobility. Wealthy Greeks of the diaspora have been major benefactors of schools and universities in their homeland. The state educational system is somewhat rigid, heavily centralized, and generally considered inadequate. As a consequence, many children attend private phrontistiria, institutions that tutor students outside normal school hours.
Education is free at all levels and is compulsory for children between ages 6 and 15. Nearly the entire population is literate. The oldest institutions of higher learning are the National Technical University of Athens (1836), the National and Capodistrian University of Athens (1837), and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1925). The latter institution has a tradition of innovation compared with the more conservative University of Athens. There are several other universities and polytechnical schools and a school of fine arts; however, those institutions are often inadequately equipped and lack a sufficient number of admission openings to satisfy the demand for higher education. Many Greek students therefore choose to study abroad.


==Culture Life of Greece==
==Culture Life of Greece==
*Cultural milieu
he important sites of Greek antiquity that first attracted aristocratic and upper-class Europeans to the Greek lands in the 18th century and which influenced architectural styles in the West continue to attract tourists from throughout the world. Excavated sites such as the supposed tomb of Philip II of Macedon at Verghina, the Pompeii-like remains at Akrotíri on the island of Thíra, and the Minoan palace at Zákros on Crete are a few examples of a remarkably rich heritage from antiquity that has still not been fully explored. Since the beginning of the 20th century, awareness has grown of the architectural and artistic influence of the Byzantine Empire on historic Greek churches, frescoes, mosaics, and icons. Recognized too is not only a minor renaissance of Greek art and culture during the many centuries under Venetian and western European rule (c. 1204–1669) but also the contributions of Greeks to the greater Renaissance of Italy. The Renaissance in Greece—and in Crete in particular—produced handsome buildings, frescoes, and icons as well as poetry and drama; examples of these include the Venetian Loggia in Iráklion, the paintings of Michael Damaskinos (Michail Damaskenos; flourished late 16th century), the romantic-epic poem Erotocritos by Vitséntzos Kornáros, and the pageant-wagon drama Abraham and Isaac. In addition, Greek scholars, translators, and printers of the period introduced the classics to western Europe.
Less known to foreigners but highly valued by Greeks today is the culture that emerged in the 19th century, both popular and high, as Greeks struggled to establish their new nation-state and language. They took pride in their traditional lore and poems, especially their “brigand songs,” which celebrated defiance of their oppressors, while such writers as Yannis Psicháris, Andréas Ioannídis Kalvos, Dhionísios Solomós, and Alexandros Papadiamándis helped to forge a new Greek identity—one that now took pride in prevailing across centuries against foreign occupiers, in preserving the demotic language and popular customs, and in reasserting Greece’s place in the history of Western civilization. Greeks celebrate their winning of independence from the Ottoman Empire with a national holiday on March 25.
*Daily life and social customs
In the hot summers, social life in Greece tends to be outdoors. In small towns and villages the tradition of the volta continues, when at sundown much of the population strolls up and down the main street or, on the islands, along the shore. In summer and winter much leisure time is passed in the numerous cafés and coffee shops, both of which have been traditionally a male preserve. It is also not uncommon to find in a single village one coffee shop where the adherents of a particular political party congregate. Television, the Internet, and forms of video entertainment have to some extent undermined these traditional leisure patterns.
Greek cuisine, particularly such sweets as baklava and kataifi, reflects the centuries of Turkish rule. The food in Thessaloníki—in northern Greece and part of the Ottoman Empire until 1912—in particular still reflects a strong Ottoman influence and is a testimony to the massive influx of refugees from Asia Minor in the 1920s. The traditional, healthy diet of Greek peasants in general was based on vegetables, fruit, olives, olive oil, cheese, bread, and seafood, meat being a luxury eaten only on special occasions. With the country’s growing affluence, meat has come to assume a more important place in the Greek diet, “fast foods” have taken hold in the cities, and the incidence of heart disease has risen accordingly.
Greek society is noted for its strong family structure and a low crime rate. The extended family, and the obligation placed on family members to provide mutual support, is of the utmost importance. The centrality of the family has been little affected by the rise of the middle class that has been a feature of the development of Greek society since the end of World War II. During the 1980s important changes were introduced in Greek family law. Civil marriage was instituted in parallel with religious marriage, the dowry system was abolished (though marriages are still sometimes seen to some degree as economic alliances in theory), divorce was made easier, and the hitherto dominant position of the father in the family was restricted. The great majority of the country’s businesses remain small, family-run enterprises. This is especially true of shipping, in which tightly knit clans of families dominate the industry. The family structure of industry acts as an impediment to modernization. The wheels of society continue to be lubricated by mesa (connections) and rouspheti (the reciprocal dispensation of favours).
The main holiday periods revolve around Easter and the Feast of Dormition (Assumption) of the Virgin in mid-August. Easter is the most important religious and family festival, with many people returning to their native villages for the traditional festivities, which include the vigil in church on Saturday evening, the lighting of the Holy Fire at midnight on Easter morning, and the roasting of whole lambs on spits for the Easter meal. August is the traditional vacation month.
*The arts
Against the background of this extraordinary cultural heritage, Greece enjoys a thriving artistic life. Greece has made its greatest contributions in the field of literature (see Greek literature). Constantine Cavafy, an ethnic Greek who lived most of his life in Alexandria, Egypt, is frequently ranked among the great poets of the early 20th century. His work is suffused with an ironic nostalgia for Greece’s past glories. Two Greek poets have won the Nobel Prize for Literature: George Seferis in 1963 and Odysseus Elytis in 1979. The novelist best known outside Greece is the Cretan Níkos Kazantzákis, whose Zorba the Greek (1946) was made into a popular film (1964). Other 20th-century Greek writers include Kostís Palamás, Angelos Sikelianós, Kostas Varnalis, Pandelís Prevelákis, Strátis Myrivílis, Yannis Ritsos, Nikephoros Vrettakos, and Nikos Gatsos. More-contemporary writers and poets include Dimitris Lyacos, Nina Rapi, Eleni Vakalo, Ersi Sotiropoulos, and Miltos Sachtouris.
A number of Greek composers have acquired an international reputation, including Nikos Skalkottas, Manos Hadjidakis, and Mikis Theodorakis, and the country has also given the world of music such notables as Dimitri Mitropoulos Maria Callas, and Gina Bachauer. Well-known Greek painters and sculptors include Nicolas Ghika, Yannis Tsarouchis, Yannis Moralis, Spyros Vassiliou, and Photis Kontoglou.
Internationally known Greek contributors to theatre and film include Karolos Koun, Melina Mercouri, Costa-Gavras, and Theo Angelopoulos. The traditional shadow puppet theatre, Karaghiozis, is now largely extinct, having been displaced by television and other leisure pursuits. There is, however, a lively Athenian theatrical tradition in which political satire plays an important part.
Perhaps most significant of all is the enormous influence of ancient Greek art (see Western sculpture; Western architecture; Western painting, Greek pottery) and Greek mythology on later Western art and literature. Of countless examples that can be offered, a few should suffice to demonstrate the reach of what is known as Greek civilization. Such Greek statuary as the kore and the kouros—themselves reflecting an interaction with other cultures (particularly that of Egypt)—and later developments represented by such works as the Louvre’s Winged Victory of Samothrace provide a major chapter in the art history of Europe and North America. In architecture, the Greek temple remains a classic form. Ancient Greek tragedies (such as Euripides’ Medea) and comedies (such as Aristophanes’ Lysistrata) were presented in various styles into the 21st century. One of the classic Greek tragedies—the fated marriage of Oedipus to his own mother, Jocasta, detailed in Sophocles’ Oedipus cycle—formed a keystone of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. Another resonant tale, Homer’s Odyssey (8th or 9th century bce), was the basis of Irishman James Joyce’s 20th-century masterwork Ulysses. A moment’s reflection can call to mind an abundance of paradigms.
*Cultural institutions
A myriad of venues in the capital supports this theatre life, which includes productions of Western classics as well as traditional works of political satire. The numerous arts festivals held at historical sites throughout Greece during the summer months feature both native and international artists. Huge audiences are attracted to performances of ancient Greek drama staged in the theatre of Epidaurus, which dates from the 4th century bce and whose acoustics are extraordinary; the 2nd-century-ce Roman theatre of Herodes Atticus, at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, also draws large crowds and is the location for concerts at the annual Athens Festival. Live performances of orchestral music in Athens, limited in comparison with those of other European capitals, were given a major boost with the opening in 1991 of a new concert hall, the Megaro Mousikis (“Palace of Music”).
The country’s archaeological heritage and emphasis on the Classical past has given the state’s Archaeological Service a particularly important role. Frequently working in cooperation with various foreign archaeological institutes, the service is responsible for excavating relics of the past and for running the country’s museums. Far and away, the most visited of these is the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. In 2009 the new Acropolis Museum was opened to the public, with a floor set aside for the long-sought return of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum. Access to public libraries is relatively limited, and there is no adequate national library. Distinctive of Greek intellectual life are the numerous societies devoted to the study of local and regional archaeology, history, and folklore, reflecting the strong regional loyalties of many Greeks. The country’s most prestigious learned society is the Academy of Athens.
*Sports and recreation
Greece’s national sport is football (soccer), and basketball has increased in popularity since the 1980s. The national basketball team won the European championship in 1987, and the national football team qualified for its first World Cup finals in 1994 and won the European Championship in 2004. Mountain sports—hiking, climbing, and skiing—and hunting are other popular activities, and field hockey, baseball, and cricket are played regionally. Gymnastics is an ancient sport in Greece, as is athletics (track and field). Competitive running and jumping events date to 776 bce, when the first Olympic Games were held, and Athens was host to the first modern Olympics in 1896. Over a century later, the Summer Games were again mounted in Athens, in 2004, refocusing attention on Greece’s impact on the world of sport.
*Media and publishing
During the 1980s traditional newspaper proprietors were to an extent displaced by new entrepreneurs, and most newspapers became tabloids. The circulation of morning papers declined while that of evening papers increased. Leading newspapers include Ekathimerini (“Daily”), Eleftherotypia (“Free Press”), To Vima (“Tribune,” which became an online and Sunday-only print publication in the wake of the 2009 economic crisis), and Ta Nea (“News”). A pair of free newspapers published in Athens, Metro and City Press, also became very popular beginning in the early 21st century. For the most part, the press tends to be partisan in its political comments. The government monopoly of television and radio broadcasting was broken in the 1980s, which gave rise to private stations. Like the print media, broadcasting is uncensored, particularly in its handling of political issues. Greece is home to scores of FM and AM radio stations and a few dozen television stations. By the early 21st century nearly half of all Greeks had Internet access.


==History of Greece==
==History of Greece==
For detailed coverage of earlier history of Greece, see Aegean civilizations and ancient Greek civilization.
The geophysical structure of Greece played a significant role in shaping its pre-Classical and Classical history and continued to be influential into the medieval period, for, in spite of the administrative unity and relative effectiveness of the fiscal and military administration of the later Roman and Byzantine states, these still had to function in a geophysical context in which communications were particularly difficult. The southern Balkan Peninsula has no obvious geographic focal point. The main cities in the medieval period were Thessalonica (Modern Greek: Thessaloníki; historically, also called Salonika) and Constantinople (modern Istanbul), yet these were peripheral to the peninsula and its fragmented landscape. The degree of Byzantine political control during the Middle Ages is clearly reflected in this. In the largely inaccessible Rhodope (Rodópi) Mountains, as well as in the Pindus (Píndos) Mountains, state authority, whether Byzantine or Ottoman, always remained a rather distant factor in the lives of the inhabitants.
The relationship between this landscape of mountains, gulf-indented coasts, and valleys on the one hand and the sea on the other is fundamental to the cultural as well as to the political and the military history of Greece. The sea surrounds Greece except along its northern border. The extended coastline—including such gulfs as those of Corinth (Korinthiakós) and Thessalonica, which penetrate deep into the interior—has served as a means of communication with surrounding areas to the extent that even interior districts of the Balkans often share in the Mediterranean cultural world. The sea was also a source of danger: seaborne access from the west, from the south, or from the northeast via the Black Sea made Greece and the Peloponnese (Pelopónnisos) particularly vulnerable to invasion and dislocation.
'''Greece during the Byzantine period (c. 300 ce–c. 1453)'''
*LATE ROMAN ADMINISTRATION
At the beginning of the 4th century, the regions comprised by the modern state of Greece were divided into eight provinces: Rhodope, Macedonia, Epirus (Ípeiros) Nova, Epirus Vetus, Thessaly (Thessalía), Achaea, Crete (Kríti), and the Islands (Insulae). Of the eight provinces, all except Rhodope and the Islands were a part of the larger diocese of Moesia, which extended to the Danube River in the north. (The word diocese originally referred to a governmental area governed by a Roman imperial vicar. The secular diocese was subdivided into provinces, each with its own governor.) Rhodope belonged to the diocese of Thrace (Thráki), and the Islands were classed as part of the diocese of Asiana, consisting of the westernmost provinces of Asia Minor. By the early years of the 5th century, administrative readjustments had divided the older diocese of Moesia into two sections, creating in the north the diocese of Dacia and in the south that of Macedonia, made up of the provinces of Macedonia I and II, with Epirus Novus and Epirus Vetus, Thessaly, Achaea, and Crete. Further changes during the middle of the 6th century resulted in the establishment of a military command known as the quaestura exercitus, a zone made up of the Islands and Caria, from the diocese of Asiana, together with the province of Moesia II on the Danube; it was designed as a means of providing for the armies based along the northern frontier in regions that were too impoverished or devastated to adequately support them.
In turn, these diocesan groups were parts of larger administrative units—the praetorian prefectures. Most of the Greek provinces were in the praetorian prefecture of Illyricum, except Rhodope, which, as a province of the diocese of Thrace, was in the prefecture of Oriens, as were the Islands. This pattern was radically altered by the developments of the 7th century.
Some of the ancient names for the regions of Greece disappeared from everyday use. However, many continued to be used in literary and administrative contexts, especially in the administration of the church, or were revived by classicizing writers of the late Byzantine period. Thus, Aitolia, Akarnania, Achaea, Arcadia (Arkadía), and Lakedaimon were used in the 13th century and after. Similarly, in central Greece, Boeotia (Voiotía), Euboea (Évvoia), and Thessaly all survived but in different contexts. Typical of their history is Euboea, which was so called until the 8th century, after which it was referred to variously as Chalkis or Euripus. Western writers after 1204 identified it as Negroponte (“Black Bridge,” after the bridge connecting it to the mainland), although the Byzantines also called it Euboea. The names Epirus and Macedonia never dropped out of regular use. However, many new names were also coined during the Byzantine period; these tended to be geographic descriptions (such as Strymon [Strimón] or Boleron) used for both provincial and administrative divisions as well as to describe regions with a particular ethnic composition—for example, Vlachia in southern Thessaly.
*THE EVOLUTION OF BYZANTINE INSTITUTIONS
As in other parts of the Roman world, the function of cities in the administrative structure of the state underwent a gradual evolution from the 3rd century on as the central government found it increasingly necessary to intervene in municipal affairs in order to gain revenues. This need for intervention developed when the vitality of cities became eroded as a result of a range of factors, notably the economic damage to urban infrastructures that accompanied the civil wars and barbarian inroads of the 3rd century. The so-called “decline” of the curial order (the strata of local government officials known as decurions), caused by the weakening of the fiscal and economic independence of many towns by the tendency of urban elites to avoid municipal obligations, also played a role. Finally, in the eastern parts of the empire, the transformation of Byzantium into Constantinople as a new imperial capital in 330 had important results for patterns of internal trade and commerce as well as for social relations between provincial elites and the state. Nevertheless, the cities of the southern Balkans were able to survive the raids and devastation of both Goths and Huns in the 4th and 5th centuries, and there is no evidence that cities ceased to carry on their function as centres of market activity, local administration, and social life. Those cities that were artificial, or purely administrative creations of the Roman state, were the first to suffer, and, under difficult conditions, they generally disappeared. On the other hand, the state—through its regional and central military administration—also appears to have been involved in promoting different types of smaller defended urban centres, which were better adapted to these conditions.
In the 7th century a series of developments combined to further promote what was already in the process of becoming a radically different pattern of settlement and administration. In the first place, the results of the long-term developments already referred to, in terms of both social and economic stability, were factors. In particular, the municipal landowning elites transferred their attention—especially with respect to investment in the imperial system—away from their local cities to the imperial capital. In the second place, the economic disruption brought about by the infiltration of large numbers of Slav settlers and immigrants was exacerbated by the devastation and insecurity caused by the wars between the empire and the Avars, a Turco-Mongol confederacy that was able, from the 560s to the 630s, to harness the resources of those peoples in the plains of Hungary and in the Balkans to launch a series of extremely damaging and disruptive attacks on the Eastern Empire. Although the disruptions of the earlier invasions of the Huns and the Goths may have been as damaging in the short term, the Balkans were by this time suffering from the cumulative effects both of two centuries of constant insecurity and warfare and of endemic plague, which had struck the Eastern Empire in the 540s. It is clear from the imperial legislation of the late 5th and early 6th centuries dealing with the Danubian provinces and with Thrace, as well as from the archaeological record, that the final results of this economic disruption were to bring about the abandonment of the traditional pattern of urban economies. Even the construction of churches, which had experienced a certain efflorescence during the 6th century, virtually ceased in the 7th century. Secular construction also stopped, an extended process of ruralization of settlement and of economic life took place, and new populations penetrated far into the Peloponnese. The extent to which these new settlers replaced, or were able to live alongside, the indigenous population remains unclear.
As a consequence of these changes, the traditional administration collapsed, chiefly because the government at Constantinople could control only the coastal plains and some river valleys. The cities that remained in imperial hands, such as Corinth (Kórinthos) and Thessalonica (Thessaloníki), for example, were well-defended fortresses or had access to the sea, whence they could be supplied. Inland, tribal groupings and chieftaincies (sklaviniai) dominated many districts, and, though it appears that the empire claimed political sovereignty over such regions, it was rarely able to make this effective or to extract regular revenues, although tributes were obtained at times. The sklaviniai, however, did not control the entire inland region; there were many areas in which the indigenous population and the traditional patterns of local social structure and political organization may have survived and where imperial authority may have been recognized. The evidence is too sparse to draw definite conclusions.
Evidence for the degree of Byzantine control over the area is reflected dimly in the lists of signatories to ecclesiastical councils (especially those of 680 at Constantinople and of 787 at Nicaea [modern İznik, Turkey]) and in the various lists of bishoprics (Notitiae episcopatuum). From these it is clear that ecclesiastical administration in the south, especially in the Peloponnese, had suffered considerably. Many bishoprics were abandoned and had ceased to exist. At the council of 680, only 4 bishops from that region (Athens, Corinth, Lakedaimon, and Árgos) and 12 from Macedonia attended; what is believed to be a 7th-century episcopal list (the Pseudo-Epiphanios) records the names of only 5 metropolitan bishops from Greece, mostly from the north.
Administratively, those districts that remained under Byzantine control were organized from the later 7th century onward into the military province, or theme (Greek: thema), of Hellas, under its general (strategos). The theme initially encompassed only the easternmost parts of central Greece but gradually included parts of Thessaly and, possibly, of the Peloponnese, although in the latter case only the coastal regions were involved.
The islands of the Aegean remained largely in Byzantine hands. In late antiquity they had been relatively heavily populated, the larger ones among them—especially Lemnos (Límnos) and Thasos (Thásos) in the north—being well-known sources of agricultural produce. Arab piracy and raiding from the later 7th century onward altered this, causing many of the smaller islands to become deserted; however, the islands recovered during the 10th century.
Byzantine fortress-towns testify to the presence of sizable rural populations needing shelter from attack; the towns also served as refuges for people from the mainland fleeing Avar, Slav, or Bulgar raids. Administratively, in the second half of the 7th century they formed a component of the districts allotted to the naval theme (in the original sense of the term—an “army”) of the Karabisianoi (Greek: karabos, a light ship), which represented the rump of the quaestura exercitus (the Roman military command comprising the Islands, Caria, and Moesia II). During the first half of the 8th century this command appears to have been subdivided to form the naval themes of the Kibyrrhaiotai (including parts of western Asia Minor and named after the district and town of Kibyrrha in southwestern Asia Minor), Samos (Sámos), or the Kólpos (“Gulf”) in the southern zone, and Aigaion Pelagos covering the northern districts. Further subdivisions took place in the 10th–12th century, so that commands of the Dodecanese (Dodekánisa) Islands or the Cyclades (Kykládes) also appear in the sources.
It must be stressed that, even though the archaeological record clearly supports the conclusion that a dramatic collapse of traditional urban society and economic relations occurred, it also gives evidence of significant regional variations. The process of change was neither uniform across Greece nor was it always as extreme in one area as in another. The degree of access to imperial resources and the ability to maintain regular contact with the imperial government were factors that gave some areas a very different appearance from others. It is important that this be borne in mind when considering the history of the various regions of Greece in the following period.
*BYZANTINE RECOVERY
The Byzantine recovery of lost provinces began toward the end of the 8th century. The emperor Nicephorus I is traditionally credited with a major role in this, although the process was certainly under way before his accession. The degree of Slavicization appears to have varied considerably. For example, it is clear that by the 10th century many districts of the Peloponnese (Pelopónnisos) were Hellenized and Christianized, yet outposts of Slavic language and culture—sometimes partly Hellenized, often independent of central imperial control—survived in the less-accessible regions until the 13th and 14th centuries and perhaps beyond. Traces of the preconquest social and political structures of the northern Peloponnese may be reflected in the story of the widow Danelis, a rich landowner whose wealth was almost proverbial in the later 9th century and who may have represented the last in a line of Christianized but semiautonomous Slavic magnates who had dominated the region around Pátrai (Patras) in Achaea. She was a sponsor of the young Basil, later Basil I.
Different parts of Greece were reconquered at different times. Epirus (Ípeiros) in the northwest was gradually placed under Byzantine military administration, which was advancing inland from the coast during the first part of the 9th century. The themes of Cephallenia (Kefallinía) and Dyrrachium (Durazzo; modern Durrës, Albania) had been established by the 830s, and that of Nikopolis appeared at the end of the 9th century. The theme of the Peloponnese emerged as a separate region in 812, although it was almost certainly created before this date; that of Thessalonica (Thessaloníki) had probably been established by about 812 as well, although this remains debated; those of Strymon (Strymónas) and Boleron appeared likewise during the course of the 9th century. Crete, part of which had fallen to the Arabs in 824, would not be wholly regained by Byzantium until 961.
Ecclesiastical organization once again reflects this process. A 9th-century list of bishoprics contains 10 Greek metropolitan sees, including those of Patras and Athens, compared with the 5 that appear in earlier records. During the first half of the 8th century (in the context of the Iconoclastic Controversy, a religious controversy concerning the veneration of icons, or sacred images), the ecclesiastical provinces of the old prefecture of Illyricum, which had been subject to Rome, were withdrawn from papal authority by the emperor Leo III and placed under Constantinople, thus permitting a unified program of re-Christianization of much of this region.
As Byzantine control became firmer, and as Byzantine military and political expansion northward accelerated during the 10th and early 11th centuries, older themes were subdivided, forming a mosaic of small administrative divisions. Thus, the themes of Berroia, Drougoubiteia (clearly reflecting a Slavic tribal territory), Jericho (on the Adriatic coast between Dyrrachion and Nikopolis), and Edessa (Édhessa) or Vodena (northwest of Thessalonica) all appeared during the period from the late 9th to the 11th century.
*ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
Like other regions of the Byzantine Empire, Greece had suffered economically from the warfare of the 7th and 8th centuries. The rise of the khanate of the Bulgars, established south of the Danube after 681, whose rulers were able to exercise a hegemony over their politically fragmented Slavic neighbours, meant that warfare remained endemic and economic insecurity a factor of daily existence. However, the restoration of Byzantine military and political power from the later 8th century onward and the growth of Byzantine cultural and religious influence throughout the Balkans during the 9th and 10th centuries created a context favourable to economic and demographic recovery throughout the empire, especially in the southern Balkan region. During the 11th and 12th centuries Greece experienced a powerful economic upswing, certainly more so than Anatolia. Cities such as Thessalonica (Thessaloníki), Thebes (Thíva), and Corinth (Kórinthos) became centres of flourishing local industries and of market exchange, rivaling the imperial capital in many respects. The silk industry that developed around Thebes was especially important. The evidence for greater wealth, especially greater disposable wealth, in the hands of local elites is found not only in documentary sources but also in a number of endowed churches, some of which are still in existence today. Many other towns, particularly those with a harbour or shelter for ships, became flourishing centres of trade and commerce and were sought-after locations for the trading posts of the Italian merchant republics after the 11th century.
*RESULTS OF THE FOURTH CRUSADE
The Fourth Crusade, called by Pope Innocent III to reconquer the Holy Land, was diverted to Constantinople. Following the Crusaders’ seizure and sack of the city in 1204, the European territories of the Byzantine Empire were divided up among the Western magnates. Whereas Byzantine resistance in Asia Minor was successful, so that two independent successor empires were established (those of Nicaea and Trebizond), most of Greece was quickly and effectively placed under Frankish (Western Christian) rule. The principality of Achaea (the Morea) and the Latin duchy of the Archipelago were subject to the Latin emperor, who was the ruler of the Latin Empire (also referred to as Romania) set up in Constantinople in 1204 by the Latin (Western) Christians of the Fourth Crusade and claimed jurisdiction over the territories of the Byzantine state. A kingdom of Thessalonica was established, to whose ruler the lords of Athens and Thebes owed fidelity, while the county of Cephallenia (Kefallinía)—which, along with the islands of Ithaca (Itháki) and Zacynthus (Zákynthos), had in fact already been under Italian rule since 1194, under Matteo Orsini—was nominally subject to Venice, although it was autonomous and after 1214 recognized the prince of Achaea as overlord. Finally, the lord of Euboea (Évvoia, or Negroponte) was subject to the authority of both Thessalonica and Venice. Byzantine control remained in the form of the despotate of Epirus in the northwest, in the area around Monemvasía in the eastern Peloponnese, and in the mountain fastness of the Taïyetos in Achaea and Arcadia (Arkadía). In 1261, however, the Nicaean forces were able to recover Constantinople and put an end to the Latin Empire. The recovery of some of the territory held by Frankish rulers followed, although Monemvasía actually fell, for a while, to a Frankish force in 1248. By the end of the 13th century, parts of central Greece were once again in Byzantine hands, and the Byzantine despotate of the Morea controlled much of the central and southeastern Peloponnese, but to its north the principality of Achaea remained an important Frankish power.
The history of Greece reflects very closely its geopolitical structure. This fact is particularly clear in the period following the Fourth Crusade, when the former Byzantine administrative divisions were organized into various petty states, each having its own local history and political evolution.
*DESPOTATE OF EPIRUS
The so-called despotate of Epirus (ruled by a despotēs, or lord), which usually included Cephallenia (Kefallinía), was established by Michael I Komnenos Doukas, who established effective control after 1204 over northwestern Greece and a considerable part of Thessaly. His brother and successor Theodore was able to retake Thessalonica from the Latins in 1224, where he was crowned as emperor, thus challenging the emperor of Nicaea, who claimed imperial rule. However, in 1242 the Nicaean ruler John III Ducas Vatatzes compelled Theodore’s son and successor John to abandon the title of emperor, and by 1246 Thessalonica was under Nicaean rule. In 1259 much of Epirus came under Nicaean control, but this was lost by 1264. Thereafter Epirus continued to be ruled by independent despots (despotai) until 1318. Its sheltered geographic position, between the spine of the Pindus mountain range and the Adriatic Sea, facilitated a degree of political separatism and independence from Constantinople until the Ottoman conquest. The Byzantine emperors, however, always insisted on their rights to confer the title of despotēs, and for much of the 14th and 15th centuries they regarded the rulers of Epirus as rebels.
From 1318 until 1337 Epirus was ruled by the Italian Orsini family, and after a short Greek recovery it was taken by the Serbs in 1348, and Ioánnina and Árta were its main political centres. From 1366 to 1384 Ioánnina was ruled by Thomas Komnenos Palaeologus, also known as Preljubovič, the son of the caesar Gregory Preljub, who had been the Serbian governor of Thessaly under Stefan Uroš IV Dušan. He was able to assert Serbian control over northern Epirus and fought with the Albanian lords of Árta (Ghin Bua Spata and Peter Ljoša) in the south, eventually defeating them with the aid of the Ottomans. In 1382 his title of despotēs was confirmed by the Byzantine emperor at Constantinople. He was assassinated late in 1384, probably by members of the local nobility who objected to his rule. His widow, the Byzantine Maria Angelina Doukaina Palaiologina, married the Italian nobleman Esau Buondelmonti, who ruled as despotēs until about 1411. Thereafter the despotate came under the Italian house of Tocco, whose rulers were able to recover Árta from the Albanians. But in 1430 the Ottomans took Ioánnina and in 1449 they captured Árta, and, thus, Epirus became part of the Ottoman Empire. Cephallenia was taken in 1479, but Venice seized it in 1500.
*THESSALY AND SURROUNDING REGIONS
The political history of the other regions of Greece during this period is no less complex. Thessaly was ruled in its eastern parts by the Franks after 1204, while the western regions were disputed by the rulers of Epirus and Nicaea. About 1267 John I Doukas established himself as an independent ruler, with the Byzantine title sebastokrator, at Neopatras, but in expanding his control eastward he came into conflict with Michael VIII, whose attacks he repelled with the assistance of the dukes of Athens and Charles I of Anjou. Venetian support, the result of a favourable trading relationship (Thessaly exported agricultural produce), helped maintain Thessalian independence until the arrival in 1309 of the Catalan Grand Company. That band of Spanish mercenaries, who originally had been hired by Andronicus II to fight the Seljuqs in Anatolia turned against imperial authority and established themselves in the Gallipoli peninsula. From there they moved into Greece through Thrace and Macedonia, which they plundered, and from 1318 onward they occupied the southern districts of Thessaly. The northern regions remained independent under the ruler Stephen Gabrielopoulos until 1332, and then they were taken by John II Orsini of Epirus. In 1335 Thessaly was retaken by the Byzantine Empire, and from 1348 it acknowledged the overlordship of the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan. After his death (1355) the self-styled emperor Symeon Uroš, despotēs of Epirus and Akarnania, was able to seize control of both Epirus and Thessaly and rule independently following the death of Nikephoros II in 1358/59. He was succeeded by his son John, who adopted the monastic life in 1373. The caesar Alexios Angelos Philanthropenos took control, governing as a vassal of the Byzantine emperor John V, but in 1393 the conquest of Thessaly by Ottoman forces put an end to its independence.
*ATHENS, THEBES, AND CORINTH
In the south, Greece was divided among a number of competing political units. After 1204 the dukes of Athens (mostly of French or Italian origin) controlled much of central Greece, with their main base at Thebes. They had political interests to the north and in the Peloponnese. However, in 1311 the Catalan Grand Company established its power over the duchies of Athens and Thebes, turning out their Latin lords. Under the protection of the Aragonese king Frederick II of Sicily (three sons of whom became dukes of Athens), they dominated the region until the Navarrese Company (an army of mercenaries originally hired by Luis of Evreux, brother of Charles II of Navarre, to help assert his claim over Albania and then temporarily in the service of the Hospitallers, a military-monastic order) took Thebes in 1378 or 1379. This weakened Catalan power and opened the way for the Florentine Acciajuoli, lords of Corinth, to take Athens in 1388. The latter then ruled all three regions until their defeat at the hands of the Ottomans in the 1450s.
*THE PELOPONNESE
In the Peloponnese the political rivalry between the Byzantines and the Frankish principality of Achaea dominated. The principality was at its most successful under its prince William II Villehardouin (1246–78), but in 1259 he had to cede a number of fortresses, including Mistra, Monemvasiá, and Maina, to the Byzantines. Internecine squabbles weakened resistance to Byzantine pressure, especially from the 1370s onward, when Jacques de Baux hired the Navarrese Company to fight for his claim to the principality. Upon his death in 1383, the Navarrese exercised effective political control over the Frankish territories under the commanders of the company. The last Navarrese prince, Pierre de Saint-Superan, joined the Ottomans in 1401 to raid Byzantine possessions in the southern Peloponnese; he died in 1402. He was succeeded by his widow, Maria Zaccaria, representative of an important Genoese merchant and naval family. She passed the title to her nephew Centurione II Zaccaria, who lost much of the territory to the Byzantine despotate of the Morea. In 1430 he married his daughter to the Byzantine despotēs Thomas Palaeologus, handing over his remaining lands as her dowry. From that time on, the Byzantine despotate of the Morea effectively controlled most of the Peloponnese. However, the Ottoman presence and the fall of Constantinople to Sultan Mehmed II in 1453 effectively ended that final period of Byzantine rule. The Morea resisted Ottoman conquest until 1460, when it was finally incorporated into the Ottoman Empire (a year earlier than the empire of Trebizond, which fell in 1461). All of Greece was by that time under Ottoman authority, with the exception of some of the islands, which retained a tenuous independence under Venetian or Genoese protection.
*SERBIAN AND OTTOMAN ADVANCES
Byzantine power in the northern Greek regions was effectively destroyed by the expansion of the Serbian empire under Stefan Dušan, the results of which included the loss of Epirus, Thessaly, and eastern Macedonia. From the 1350s the Ottomans established themselves in Europe, taking the chief towns of Thrace in the 1360s and Thessalonica in 1387. Apart from the despotate of the Morea, therefore, and certain of the Aegean isles, there remained in Greece no Byzantine imperial possessions by the beginning of the 15th century.
*THE ISLANDS
A particularly complex picture is represented by the islands, which were a focus for the activities of the Seljuqs and later the Ottomans, the Venetians and Genoese, and the Byzantines. Following the Fourth Crusade, much of the southern part of the Aegean came under Venetian authority, and, although Byzantine power was restored for a while in the late 13th century, Náxos (Náchos) remained the centre of the Latin duchy of the Archipelago, established in 1207 among the Cyclades by Marco Sanudo, a relative of the Venetian doge, or magistrate, with a body of plundering merchants and nobles. Initially under the overlordship of the Latin emperor at Constantinople, the duchy later transferred its allegiance to Achaea in 1261 and to Naples in 1267, although Venice also claimed suzerainty. The Sanudo family was replaced in 1383 by the Lombard Crispi family, which retained its independence until 1566. At that time the duchy was conquered by the Ottomans, although it was ruled by an appointee of the sultan until 1579, when it was properly incorporated into the state.
Lindos [Credit: Spectrum Colour Library—Impact Photos/Heritage-Images]The remaining islands were held at different times by the Venetians, the Genoese, the Hospitallers, and the Turks. Rhodes played a particular role in the history of the Hospitallers’ opposition to the Ottomans. Until the early 13th century the island had been in the hands of a succession of Italian adventurers, most of whom acknowledged the overlordship of the emperor at Nicaea. In 1308 the Hospitallers took control, having been based on Cyprus since 1291, the time of their expulsion from the Holy Land. Rhodes fell in 1523, when the Hospitallers were permitted to remove to Malta. Of the northern Aegean islands, Lemnos remained Byzantine until 1453 before coming for a while under the rule of the Gattilusi of Lésbos, whose independence of the Ottomans ended in 1462. In 1460 it was awarded to Demetrius Palaeologus, formerly despotēs of the Morea, along with the island of Thasos (the latter having come under Ottoman domination in 1455). In 1479 it was occupied by Ottoman forces and officially incorporated into the Ottoman state. Other islands had equally checkered histories. Náxos and Chíos (Khíos) fell in 1566, although complete Ottoman control was not achieved until 1715, when Tenedos, which remained under Venetian control until that year, was taken.
The real exception to the Ottoman success in the Aegean, however, was Crete. Separately administered until the 820s, when it was seized by Spanish Arabs, it was conquered in 961 by the general and later Byzantine emperor Nicephoros II Phocas. After 1204 it was handed over to Boniface of Montferrat, who proceeded to sell it to Venice. Although oppressive and unpopular, Venetian rule witnessed the evolution of a flourishing Italo-Hellenic literary and political culture. After a long siege of Candia (now Irákleio) and the creation and collapse of temporary alliances between Venice and various Western powers on the one hand and the Ottomans and their supporters on the other, the island passed into Ottoman hands in 1669.
*ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS
In spite of the political instability after 1204, Greece seems to have experienced relative prosperity in the later Byzantine period. Population expansion accompanied an increase in production as marginal lands were brought under cultivation, and trade with major and minor Italian mercantile centres flourished. Although hostility at the level of state politics was endemic, social relations between the ruling elites of Byzantine- and Latin-dominated areas were not mutually exclusive. Intermarriage was not uncommon, and a certain way of life seems to have evolved. This contrasted with the attitude of the peasantry and the ordinary population, whose perceptions were shaped by the Orthodox church, Greek or Byzantine (“Roman”) identity, and hostility to the Western church and its ways. The Ottoman conquest was not seen as necessarily worse than Latin domination. In some cases it was certainly welcomed as less oppressive.
'''John Frederick Haldon'''
*CULTURAL CONTINUITY
The history of medieval Greece has played an important part in attempts to understand the relationship between ancient and modern Greece. The issue of the continuity between ancient and modern Greeks has been an extremely controversial one, in both scholarly and political contexts. The claim that modern Greeks are the direct cultural and biological descendants of the “ancient Hellenes” has long been a central tenet of the national ideology on which the Greek state was founded. Scholars such as the Austrian-born 19th-century German historian Jakob Fallmerayer argued that, as a result of the large Slav and Albanian invasions during the medieval period, the latter-day population of Greece could not be entirely of Greek “racial” origin. Greek scholars in such diverse disciplines as archaeology, linguistics, folklore, and history have attempted to identify “survivals” from ancient Greek culture that can still be found in its modern counterpart. Although there certainly are significant similarities that demonstrate continuities in some aspects of Greek culture, there are also equally important differences that demonstrate discontinuities in other aspects of Greek culture. Unfortunately, scholarship on this issue has often been overshadowed by nationalist and romantic political agendas of Greeks and non-Greeks alike.
*THE SLAVS
From the late 6th to the 8th century, a large number of Slavs entered what is now Greece. Although the evidence of place-names suggests some lasting Slavic influence in parts of Greece, it is qualified by the fact that the process of re-Hellenization that occurred from the later 8th century seems to have eradicated many traces of Slavic presence. Evidence of tribal names found in both the Peloponnese and northern Greece suggests that there were probably extensive Slavic-speaking populations in many districts, and from the 10th to the 15th century Slavic occupants of various parts of the Peloponnese appear in sources as plunderers or as fiercely independent warriors. Whereas the Slavs of the south appear to have adopted Greek, those of Macedonia and Thessaly retained their original dialects, becoming only partially Hellenophone in certain districts.
*THE ALBANIANS
The Albanians in the 14th century began to advance into Greece’s western coastal plain, where they served both Byzantine and Serbian overlords and ruled independently under various warlords and chiefly families. They were also present in considerable numbers in Thessaly, Boeotia, Attica (Attikí), and the Peloponnese, serving as soldiers and farmers and colonizing deserted lands. Albanians arrived in large numbers in the Peloponnese during the reign of the despotēs Manuel Kantakouzenos, who brought them there to serve as soldiers and to resettle depopulated regions. The reason for their migration to these areas remains debated. These early Albanian-speaking settlers constitute a group distinct from the economic migrants from Albania, who settled in Greece in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and who are simply known as “Albanians” (Greek: Alvanoi).
*THE AROMANI (AROMANIANS)
The Aromani (Vlachs) played an important role in central and southern Thessaly. They have generally been identified with the indigenous pre-Slav populations of Dacian and Thracian origin, many of whom migrated into the less-accessible mountainous areas of Greece and the northern Balkan region because of the Germanic and Avar-Slav invasions and immigration of the 5th–7th century. The Aromani maintained a transhumant pastoral economy in those areas. Their language belongs to the so-called Macedo-Romanian group and is closely related to that known from the 13th century on as Romanian (Daco-Romanian). It is essentially rooted in late Latin but heavily influenced by the Slavic dialects with which the Daco-Thracian populations were in regular contact. By the 11th century the Aromani are described as communities of shepherds who moved with their flocks between their winter pastures in Thessaly and summer pastures in Mount Gramoz and the Pindus range. They are found in Byzantine armies and are mentioned in many documents dealing with landholdings in northern Greece, where—as is often the case in relations between settled and nomadic populations—they were regarded as troublemakers and thieves. Byzantines were often imprecise in their use of ethnic names, and the Aromani seem frequently to have been confused with the Bulgarians, through whose territory they also wandered on their seasonal routes and pasturage. A major modern debate about the role of the Aromani in the establishment of the second Bulgarian empire after 1185 continues and is strongly marked by nationalist sentiment.
*EMERGING GREEK IDENTITY
As the Byzantine Empire declined, the predominant role of Greek culture, literature, and language became more apparent. For Christians of the early and middle Byzantine worlds, the terms Hellene and Hellenic generally (although not exclusively, since in certain literary contexts a classicizing style permitted a somewhat different usage) had a negative connotation, signifying pagan and non-Christian rather than “Greek.” From the 12th century, however, in the context of increasing conflict with western European culture on the one hand and the encroaching Turkish powers on the other, that situation changed. Gradually, a more self-consciously Greek consciousness began to develop, and a greater interest in “Hellenic” culture in a positive sense eventually evolved. Byzantines began to refer to themselves not just as “Romioi” (literally, “Roman,” referring to members of the Eastern Roman [that is, Byzantine] Empire). In the decades prior to the Greek War of Independence, the Greeks began to identify themselves as “Hellenes” and assert their identity with the ancient Hellenic world. Among learned circles a deep interest in the Classical past was cultivated. Although there was a powerful secularist tradition in this, culminating in the ideas of the Neoplatonic Byzantine philosopher George Gemistus Plethon, who argued for the implementation of the political-philosophical system outlined in Plato’s Republic, it was the combination of popular Orthodoxy (and strongly anti-Western ecclesiastical sentiment) with a specifically Greek identity that shaped the Byzantines’ notions of themselves in the twilight years of the empire. With the political extinction of the empire, it was the Greek Orthodox Church and the Greek-language community, in both “Greece” and Asia Minor, that continued to cultivate this identity as well as the ideology of a Byzantine imperial heritage rooted in both the Roman and the Classical Greek past.
'''Greece under Ottoman rule'''
Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks on May 29, 1453. The Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaeologus, was last seen fighting alongside his troops on the battlements. His death gave rise to the widely disseminated legend that the emperor had turned to marble but would one day return to liberate his people. By 1453 the Byzantine Empire had become but a pathetic shadow of its former glories. The fall of this symbolic bastion of Christendom in the struggle against Islam may have sent shock waves through Western Christendom, but the conquest was accepted with resignation by many of the inhabitants of the city. As they saw it, their plight was a consequence of the sinfulness of the Byzantine Empire. For many people, Ottoman rule and the maintenance of the integrity of the Orthodox faith were preferable to accepting the pretensions of the papacy, which was the price Western Christendom had sought to exact in return for military assistance to ward off the Turkish threat.
*THE MILLET SYSTEM
With the conquest of the territories that had constituted the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman sultans were faced with the problem of governing large non-Muslim populations. Christians and Jews, as “People of the Book,” were afforded a considerable degree of toleration. Indeed, it was to the Ottoman Empire rather than Christian Europe that many Spanish Jews migrated following their expulsion from Spain in 1492. The Ottomans confronted the problem of the governance of these large heterodox and polyglot populations by establishing millets. These were organized on the basis of religious confession rather than ethnic origin. The ruling millet within the empire was made up of the Muslims. Next in importance was the Orthodox Christian Rūm millet, which was often called the “Greek millet.” Although its head, the ecumenical patriarch, was invariably of Greek origin, the term Greek millet was something of a misnomer, for it included not only Greeks but also Romanians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians, Aromani, and substantial Arab populations who, as Orthodox Christians, were also members of the Rūm millet. With the rise of nationalism in the 18th and 19th centuries, the non-Greek members of the Greek millet became increasingly resentful of the Greek stranglehold on the higher reaches of the hierarchy of the Orthodox church, through which the millet was administered. There were also Armenian, Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant millets.
The powers of the ecumenical patriarch were extensive, although there is uncertainty as to the precise nature of the privileges granted by Sultan Mehmed II to the man whom he elevated to the highest office in the church. This was Gennadios II Scholarios, a known opponent of those who, in the last years of the Byzantine Empire, had advocated union with the Western church. Patriarchal authority was considerable and extended to civil as well as to strictly religious matters. In many respects, it was greater than that enjoyed by the patriarchs in Byzantine times. The privilege of a considerable degree of autonomy in directing the affairs of the millet carried with it the responsibility of ensuring that its members were unshaken in their loyalty to the Ottoman Porte. At the outbreak of the War of Greek Independence in 1821, the patriarch Grigorios V was executed in reprisal, despite the fact that he had vigorously condemned the insurgents, whose efforts to create an independent Greek state he saw as a threat to his power. In the West his execution was seen as an act of mindless barbarity. In the eyes of the Ottomans, however, Grigorios had failed to carry out his fundamental obligation to ensure that the adherents to the Orthodox faith remained loyal to the sultan.
*DISADVANTAGES FOR NON-MUSLIMS
In keeping with Islamic tradition, members of the Greek millet enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy in conducting their religious affairs. They were, however, at a disadvantage in a number of ways in comparison with members of the ruling Muslim millet. A Christian was not allowed to bear arms and was disbarred from military service (although the latter disability was in many ways a privilege) in exchange for paying a special tax, the haradj. In a court of law, a Muslim’s word was always accepted over that of a Christian, although disputes between Christians were generally settled in courts under the control of their own millet. A Christian could not marry a Muslim woman, and there was a strict prohibition against renouncing Islam. Those Christians who had embraced Islam and then reverted back to Christianity were, until well into the 19th century, punished by death. Those “neomartyrs,” however, helped sustain the faith of the Orthodox populations during the centuries of Ottoman rule.
The most serious disability to which Christians were subject, until the practice died out toward the end of the 17th century, was the Janissary levy (paidomazoma). Christian families in the Balkans were required, at irregular intervals, to deliver to the Ottoman authorities a given proportion of their most intelligent and handsome male children to serve, after being forcibly converted to Islam, as elite troops or civil servants. Inevitably, the levy was much feared, but those who were conscripted frequently rose to high office and were sometimes able to help their relatives or their native villages. There is evidence that some Muslim families sought to pass off their children as Christian in the hope that they would be included in the levy and would thus be able to better their prospects. Under such pressures there were numerous instances of Christian conversion to Islam on both an individual and a mass basis; such conversions were particularly prevalent in the 17th century. The conversions were often only nominal, however, and these crypto-Christians secretly practiced the rituals of their former faith.
*RESISTANCE TO OTTOMAN RULE
During much of the four centuries of the “Tourkokratia,” as the period of Ottoman rule in Greece is known, there was little hope that the Greeks would be able to free themselves by their own efforts. There were sporadic revolts, such as those that occurred on the mainland and on the islands of the Aegean following the defeat of the Ottoman navy in 1571 by Don John of Austria, the short-lived revolt launched by Dionysius Skylosophos in Epirus in 1611, and the abortive uprising in the Peloponnese in 1770 at the time of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–74. These uprisings had little chance of success, but during the Tourkokratia there was some armed resistance against the Turks by the klephts (social bandits or brigands). In their banditry the klephts did not distinguish between Greek and Turk, but their attacks on such manifest symbols of Ottoman authority as tax collectors led to their being seen by Greeks in later periods as acting on behalf of the Greeks against Ottoman oppressors. Certainly, they are viewed in this light in the corpus of klephtic ballads that emerged, extolling the bravery and military prowess of the klephts as well as their heroic resistance to the Ottomans.
In an effort to counter the plunderous activities of the klephts and to control the mountain passes that were their favoured areas of operation, the Ottomans established a militia of armatoloi. Like the klephts, these were Christians, and the distinction between klepht and armatolos was a narrow one. One day’s klepht might be the next day’s armatolos. The existence of such armed formations meant that when the War of Greek Independence broke out in 1821, the klephts formed an invaluable reserve of military talent.
*BELIEF IN DIVINE INTERVENTION
Greek aspirations for freedom were largely sustained by a collection of prophetic and messianic beliefs that foretold the eventual overthrow of the Turkish yoke as the result of divine rather than human intervention. Such were the oracles attributed to the Byzantine emperor Leo VI (the Wise), which foretold the liberation of Constantinople 320 years after its fall—in 1773. Many believed in that prophecy, for its fulfillment coincided with the great Russo-Turkish War of 1768–74, one of the periodic confrontations between the two great regional powers (see Russo-Turkish wars). The Russians were the only Orthodox power not under foreign domination, and they were widely identified with the legendary xanthon genos, a fair-haired race of future liberators from the north. The Russians were seen as forming part of a commonwealth, which linked the various parts of the Orthodox Christian world with its common centres of pilgrimage in the monastic republic of Mount Athos (forming one of the three fingers of the Chalcidice Peninsula) and Jerusalem.
*THE ROLE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
The Orthodox church was the only institution on which the Greeks could focus. Through the use of Greek in the liturgy and through its modest educational efforts, the church helped to some degree to keep alive a sense of Greek identity, but it could not prevent Turkish (which was written with Greek characters) from becoming the vernacular of a substantial proportion of the Greek population of Asia Minor and of the Ottoman capital itself.
The Orthodox church, however, fell victim to the institutionalized corruption of the Ottoman system of government. The combination of civil and religious power in the hands of the ecumenical patriarchate and the upper reaches of the hierarchy prompted furious competition for high office. The Ottomans encouraged such behaviour, and it soon became the norm that, on every occasion when a new patriarch was installed, a huge peshkesh, or bribe, would be paid to the grand vizier, the sultan’s chief minister. Despite the fact that, in theory, a patriarch was elected for life, there was a high turnover in office, and some even held the office more than once. Grigorios V was executed by the Ottomans in 1821 during his third patriarchate, whereas during the second half of the 17th century Dionysius IV Mouselimis was elected patriarch at least five times. It was this kind of behaviour that prompted an 18th-century Armenian chronicler to taunt the Greeks that they changed their patriarch more frequently than they changed their shirt.
Bribes had to be paid to secure offices at all levels, and these could be recouped only through the taxes placed on the Orthodox faithful as a whole. The clergy’s reputation for rapacity led to the growth of popular anticlericalism, particularly among the small nationalist intelligentsia that emerged in the course of the 18th century. The anonymous author of that fiery nationalist polemic the “Ellinikhí Nomarkhía” (“Hellenic Nomarchy”) in 1806 was a bitter critic of the sloth and self-indulgence of the higher clergy, while Adamántios Koraïs, the intellectual mentor of the national revival, though careful to steer between what he termed the Scylla of superstition and the Charybdis of atheism, condemned the obscurantism of the clergy. What particularly incensed Koraïs and his kind was the willingness of the Orthodox hierarchy to identify its interests with those of the Ottoman authorities. However, the views of men such as Anthimos, the patriarch of Jerusalem, who argued in 1798 that the Ottoman Empire was part of the divine dispensation granted by God to protect Orthodoxy from the taint of Roman Catholicism and of Western secularism and irreligion, were not unusual.
'''Transformation toward emancipation'''
During the 16th and 17th centuries the Greeks were mostly concerned with survival. In the course of the 18th century, however, a number of changes occurred both in the international situation and in Greek society itself that gave rise to hopes that the Greeks might themselves launch a revolt against Ottoman authority with some promise of success.
*SIGNS OF OTTOMAN DECLINE
By the end of the 17th century, the prolonged process of Ottoman decline was clearly under way. The failure of the Siege of Vienna in 1683 signaled the retreat of the Ottomans in the European provinces of the empire. The military triumphs of earlier centuries gave way to pressure on their empire from the Austrians, the Russians, and the Persians. The Russian threat culminated in the 1768–74 war with Turkey, and the Russians subsequently claimed the right to exercise a protectorate over all the Orthodox Christians of the Ottoman Empire on the basis of their interpretation of the terms of the peace settlement with the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca.
Forced onto the defensive, the empire lost territory, and the control of the Ottoman Porte over its enormous provinces weakened. In both European and Asiatic Turkey, provincial warlords supplanted the authority of the sultan. The example of successful defiance of the Porte carried out by powerful satraps such as Ali Paşa Tepelenë, the Muslim Albanian who ruled over a large portion of mainland Greece, gave encouragement to Greek nationalists because it demonstrated that the empire was no longer the invincible monolith it had once been.
*THE PHANARIOTES
Of critical importance to the ultimate success of the national movement was the transformation that Greek society was to undergo during the course of the 18th century. Significant among these developments was the rise to power and influence of the Phanariotes, a small caste of Greek (and Hellenized Romanian and Albanian) families who took their collective name from the Phanar, or Lighthouse, quarter of Constantinople, the home of the ecumenical patriarchate. The roots of their ascendancy can be traced to the Ottomans’ need for skilled negotiators as the power of their empire declined. No longer in a position to dictate peace terms to their vanquished enemies, they now had to rely on diplomats skilled in negotiation who might mitigate the consequences of military defeat, and these were drawn from the Phanariotes. From 1699, when the Treaty of Carlowitz with the Habsburg monarchy was signed, to 1821, the year of the outbreak of the War of Greek Independence, Phanariote grandees monopolized the post of chief interpreter to the Porte. This was a more important post than it appeared, for its holder bore considerable responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy. Similarly, Phanariotes were invariably interpreters to the kapudan pasha, the admiral of the Ottoman fleet. Again their powers were wider than the title suggests: these Phanariotes, in effect, acted as governors of the islands of the Aegean archipelago, whose Greek inhabitants were a potential source from which to draw men for service in the Ottoman fleet.
The most important posts held by Phanariotes were those of hospodar, or prince, of the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. Phanariotes ruled those potentially rich provinces as the viceroys of the sultans, and their luxurious courts in Jassy (now Iași, Romania) and Bucharest copied on a lesser scale the splendour of the imperial court in Constantinople. Just as there was furious and corrupt jockeying for high office in the Orthodox church, the appointment of the hospodars was also accompanied by intrigue and corruption. The average tenure in office of a Phanariote hospodar was less than three years. Because they needed to make up for their expenditures on bribes, hospodars acquired a somewhat justified reputation for greed and oppression. Some hospodars displayed an enlightened interest in legal and land reform; most acted as patrons of Greek culture, education, and printing. The princely academies attracted teachers and pupils from throughout the Orthodox commonwealth, and there was some contact with intellectual trends in Habsburg central Europe. For the most part, the Phanariotes were too closely joined to the Ottoman system of government, of which they were major beneficiaries, to play a significant part in the emergence of the Greek national movement. Their interests, however, coincided with the maintenance of the Ottoman status quo, and they provided a pool of individuals with experience in diplomacy and politics when armed struggle erupted in 1821.
*THE MERCANTILE MIDDLE CLASS
The single most important development in the Greek world during the 18th century was the emergence of an entrepreneurial, prosperous, and far-flung mercantile middle class, which played a major role in the economic life of the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere. Discouraged from investing their capital within the empire by the arbitrariness and rapacity of the state, these Greek merchants played an active role in developing commerce in Hungary and Transylvania, newly acquired by the Habsburg monarchy, and in southern Russia, where Empress Catherine II (the Great) encouraged them to settle after Russia’s borders had extended to the Black Sea. Greek became the common language of Balkan commerce as these merchants challenged the existing hold of British, French, and Dutch merchants on the import-export trade of the empire, importing Western manufactured goods and colonial produce and exporting raw materials. Greek merchant communities—or paroikies, each with its own church—were established through much of central Europe, on the Mediterranean coast, in southern Russia, and even as far away as India.
Paralleling this development, a substantial merchant marine, based on the three “nautical” islands of Hydra (Ídhra), Spétsai (Spétses), and Psará, came into existence. This merchant marine prospered from running the continental blockade imposed by Great Britain during the period of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. The existence of a reservoir of trained sailors proved to be an inestimable advantage once the war of independence broke out, and Greek fire ships (combustibles-laden ships set afire and guided toward the enemy) became a formidable weapon against the cumbersome ships of the Ottoman fleet.
The emergence of a mercantile middle class had a number of important consequences. Greeks were brought into contact with the ordered societies of western Europe, in which the state encouraged commerce. They compared that state of affairs with the prevailing one in the Ottoman Empire, where the absence of the rule of law and general arbitrariness militated against the generation and retention of capital. Most of the merchants were, like the Phanariotes, too much a part of the status quo to give active encouragement to the national movement and thus potentially threaten their newfound prosperity. Indirectly, they made a major contribution to the emerging national movement, for it was their wealth that provided the material basis for the intellectual revival that was such a significant feature of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Impelled by a sense of local patriotism which had always been strong in the Greek world, they endowed schools and libraries. It was no accident that the three most important schools-cum-colleges in the Greek world on the eve of the war of independence were situated in Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey), Chíos, and Ayvalık (on the coast of Asia Minor opposite the island of Lésbos), all three major centres of Greek commerce.
*THE INTELLECTUAL REVIVAL
A significant number of schoolteachers studied, with the financial backing of their merchant benefactors, in the universities of western Europe, particularly those of Italy and the German states. There they came under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment and encountered the fervent nationalist doctrines emanating from the French Revolution. They became aware of the reverence with which the language and culture of ancient Greece were beheld throughout Europe. This realization kindled in them a consciousness of their own past, a recognition of being the heirs to this same civilization and of speaking a language that had changed remarkably little in the two and a half millennia since the time of Pericles. During the 50 years or so before 1821, a veritable flood of books on the language, literature, and history of the ancient Greek world was published for a Greek readership, though most of it was outside the Greek domains.
A leading role in the rediscovery of the past was played by Adamántios Koraïs. A native of Smyrna, where he was born in 1748, Koraïs sought, unsuccessfully, to establish himself as a merchant in Amsterdam. After studying medicine at the University of Montpellier, he moved to Paris in 1788, where he soon experienced the French Revolution. The main interest of his life, however, was Classical philology, of which he became one of the foremost scholars in Europe of his day. He devoted his years in Paris to the study of that subject as well as to inspiring in his compatriots an appreciation of their Classical ancestry (until his death in 1833). With the help of a family of rich merchants of Ioánnina (Janina), he published a whole series of editions of Classical authors, which he prefaced with appeals to his compatriots to cast off their Byzantine ignorance by reviving the glories of the ancient world and by imitating the French—the people of modern Europe who, in his estimation, most resembled his Classical ancestors. His panacea for the degraded condition of the Greeks was education; it would enable them to free themselves from the double yoke of the Ottoman Turks and the Orthodox church.
The practice of naming children and ships after the heroes of ancient Greece, a custom dating from the first decade of the 19th century, is one example of what is sometimes referred to as an obsession with antiquity on the part of the small nationalist intelligentsia. Another is the vigorous debate that got under way on the appropriate form of language to be used in a regenerated Greece. Some advocated using the spoken language, the Demotic, as the language of educated discourse. Others favoured the Katharevousa, or purified Greek, which would render it more akin to Attic Greek. Still others, such as Koraïs, advocated a middle path.
Much of the intellectual revival of the half century or so before 1821 took place in the Greek communities of the diaspora, and the nationalist enthusiasms of the intelligentsia left the great mass of the peasantry, most of whom were illiterate, largely unmoved. The elites of preindependent Greek society—the higher clerics, the wealthy merchants, the Phanariotes, and the kodjabashis, the wealthy provincial notables, whose lifestyle sometimes led to their being derisively referred to as “Christian Turks”—were mostly supporters of the status quo under the Ottomans. Whatever the faith Koraïs pinned on education, cultural revival by itself was not going to remove the oppressive Turks.
'''From insurgence to independence'''
*RIGAS VELESTINLIS
Toward the end of the 18th century, Rigas Velestinlis (also known as Rigas Pheraios), a Hellenized Vlach from Thessaly, began to dream of and actively plan for an armed revolt against the Turks. Rigas, who had served a number of Phanariote hospodars in the Danubian principalities, spent part of the 1790s in Vienna. There he had come under the influence of the French Revolution, which is apparent in a number of revolutionary tracts he had printed, intending to distribute them to help stimulate a Pan-Balkan uprising against the Ottomans. These tracts included a Declaration of the Rights of Man and a New Political Constitution of the Inhabitants of Rumeli, Asia Minor, the Islands of the Aegean, and the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The latter proposed the establishment of what basically would have been a revived Byzantine Empire, but an empire in which monarchical institutions would have been replaced by republican institutions on the French model. Rigas’s insistence on the cultural predominance of the Greeks, however, and on the use of the Greek language, meant that his schemes stirred little interest among the other peoples of the Balkan Peninsula. In any case, Rigas’s ambitious schemes failed. Before he had even set foot on Ottoman soil, he was betrayed by a fellow Greek to the Habsburg authorities, who promptly handed him and a small group of coconspirators over to the Ottoman authorities; he was subsequently strangled by them in Belgrade in the summer of 1798. At one level Rigas’s conspiracy had thus been a miserable failure, but his almost single-handed crusade served as an inspiration to future generations of Greek nationalists.
*WESTERN ENCROACHMENTS
The arrest of Rigas alarmed both the Ottoman authorities and the hierarchy of the Orthodox church, for it almost coincided with the occupation of the Ionian (Iónia) Islands in 1797 by the forces of revolutionary France and with Napoléon Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt in 1798. These developments caused panic in Constantinople, for they seemed to indicate that the seditious and atheistic doctrines of the French Revolution had penetrated the borders of the empire. The brief period of French rule in the Ionian Islands, which was attended by the rhetoric of revolutionary liberation, soon gave way to a short-lived Russo-Turkish condominium, a further period of French rule, and finally, after 1815, the establishment of a British protectorate. Although governed like a colony, the Ionian Islands under British rule, in theory, constituted an independent state and an example of free Greek soil, adjacent to but not under the control of the Ottoman Empire.
*PHILIKÍ ETAIREÍA
The example of Rigas Velestinlis was very much in the minds of the three young Greeks, lowly members of the Greek mercantile diaspora, who in 1814 in Odessa (then in southern Russia, now in Ukraine), the centre of a thriving Greek community, founded the Philikí Etaireía, or “Friendly Society.” Their specific aim was to lay the foundations for a coordinated, armed uprising against the Turks. The three founders—Emmanuil Xanthos, Nikolaos Skouphas, and Athanasios Tsakalov—had little vision of the shape of the independent Greece they sought beyond the liberation of the motherland.
The initiation rituals of the Philikí Etaireía were strongly influenced by those of the Freemasons. There were four categories of membership, ranging from the lowly vlamis (brother) to the poimin (shepherd). Those who betrayed the conspiracy were ruthlessly dispatched. Initially the society’s attempt to recruit members throughout the Greek world met with little success, but from 1818 onward it made some headway, finding an important source of recruits in the communities of the diaspora. From the outset the leadership of the society—aware that the majority of the Greek people considered their fellow Orthodox believers, the Russians, to be their most likely liberators—misleadingly suggested that the conspiracy was backed by the Russian authorities.
Two attempts were made to recruit Count Ioánnis Kapodístrias—a Greek from Corfu (Kérkyra) who since 1816 had served as joint foreign minister to Tsar Alexander I of Russia and who was well versed in the ways of European diplomacy—as leader of the conspiracy. The conservative Kapodístrias, however, was dismissive of the plot and urged the Greeks to bide their time until there was another war between the Russian and Ottoman empires, when they might hope to achieve the kind of quasi-autonomy gained by Serbia in 1813. Although he could see no future in the plans of the members of the Philikí Etaireía, Kapodístrias did not betray the secret of the conspiracy. The leadership of the conspiracy was then transferred to another Greek in the Russian service, Prince Alexander Ypsilantis, a Phanariote who held the position of aide-de-camp to Alexander but who lacked the political experience of Kapodístrias.
Like Rigas Velestinlis, the conspirators were hoping for the support of the Romanians and the Bulgarians, but there was little enthusiasm for the project on the part of the other Balkan peoples, who were inclined to view the Greeks—with their privileged position in the Ottoman Empire and their enthusiasm for the ecclesiastical and cultural Hellenization of the other Balkan Christians—as scarcely less oppressive than the Turks.
Although unable to rely on the other Balkan peoples, the leadership of the conspiracy succeeded in exploiting the internal problems of the Ottoman Empire to its advantage. Sultan Mahmud II, who had ascended the throne in 1808, was bent on restoring the authority of the central government. In 1820, he launched an attack against Ali Paşa Tepelenë, a provincial warlord who, from his capital in Ioánnina, exercised control over large areas of mainland Greece. Although he nominally paid allegiance to the sultan, his virtual independence had for many years exasperated the Ottoman authorities. Taking advantage of the fact that large numbers of Ottoman troops were participating in the campaign against Ali Paşa, Alexander Ypsilantis launched an attack from Russian territory across the Pruth River in March 1821, invoking the glories of ancient Greece in his call to arms from Jassy (Iasi), the Moldavian capital. His campaign met little success, and he encountered no enthusiasm on the part of the supporters of Tudor Vladimirescu, who had risen against the oppression of the local Romanian boyars, or notables. Memories of Phanariote Greek oppression were altogether too vivid and recent. In June of 1821 Ypsilantis and his motley army were defeated at the battle of Drăgătsani, and Ypsilantis was forced dishonourably to flee into Habsburg territory, where he died in captivity in 1828.
*REVOLT IN THE PELOPONNESE
Shortly after Ypsilantis’s raid into Moldavia, scattered violent incidents coalesced into a major revolt in the Peloponnese. It is said to have begun on March 25, 1821—still celebrated as Greek Independence Day—when Germanos, archbishop of Pátrai, unfurled a Greek flag at the monastery of Ayia Lavra near Kalávrita. With atrocities being committed by both sides, the Turks, very much in a minority, were forced to retreat to their coastal fortresses. The diversion of Ottoman forces for the attack on Ali Paşa, the element of surprise, and the military and especially naval skills on which the Greeks could draw gave the Greeks an advantage in the early years of what proved to be a lengthy struggle.
The revolt caught the public’s attention in western Europe, even if in the early years the reactionary governments of post-Napoleonic Europe were not prepared to face any disturbance of the existing order. Public sympathy in western Europe was translated into more concrete expressions of support with the arrival in the Peloponnese of philhellene volunteers, the best-known of whom was the poet Lord Byron, who had traveled extensively in the Greek lands before 1821. The military contribution of the philhellenes was limited, and some became disillusioned when they discovered that Greek reality differed from the idealized vision of Periclean Athens in which they had been nurtured in their home countries. The philhellenic committees that sprang up in Europe and the United States, however, soon raised money for the prosecution of the war and the relief of its victims, such as the survivors of the great massacre on Chíos in 1822, immortalized by the French painter Eugène Delacroix.
*FACTIONALISM IN THE EMERGING STATE
At a very early stage in the fighting, the question of the governance of the liberated territories came to light. Initially no fewer than three provisional governments coexisted, while in 1822 a constitution, which by the standards of the day was highly democratic, was adopted with the hope of securing the support of the people in Europe. A revised constitution was adopted in 1823, at which time the three local governments were unified in a central authority. However, unification did not bring unity. Feuding between rival groups culminated in outright civil war in 1824, prompting one chieftain, Makriyannis, to protest that he had not taken up arms against the Turks in order to end up fighting Greeks.
Such factionalism derived from a number of causes. There was a basic tension between the kodjabashis, or notables, of the Peloponnese, who were anxious to ensure that they retained the privileged status they had held under the Ottomans, and the military element, associated with such klephtic leaders as Theodoros Kolokotronis, who sought recognition in terms of political power for their contribution to the war effort. The island shipowners, whose contribution to the prosecution of the war at sea was vital, likewise laid claim to a share of power, while the small intelligentsia argued for the adoption of liberal parliamentary institutions. To some degree the clash can be seen as a confrontation between Westernizers and traditional elites and to some degree as a clash between the military and civilian parties. The Westernizers, who were nationalistic and whose attitudes were expressed by their adoption of a Western lifestyle, wanted independent Greece to develop along the lines of a European state, with a regular army and with a curb on the traditional powers of the church. The traditional elites, on the other hand, tended to see the struggle in terms of a religious crusade against the Muslims, and their national consciousness was less fully articulated. Anxious to maintain the power and privileges they had enjoyed before the struggle began, they were chiefly concerned with substituting the oligarchy of the Turks with one of their own.
The insurgents could not permit internecine fighting. Mahmud II had by this time forged an alliance with his nominal subject, Muḥammad ʿAlī, the ruler of Egypt, and his son Ibrahim Pasha, who were promised lavish territorial rewards in return for their assistance in suppressing the revolt. Beginning in early 1825, Ibrahim Pasha engaged in a bitter war with the insurgents. As their initially favourable military position deteriorated, the insurgents looked increasingly for salvation from the great powers (Russia, France, and Great Britain), which, from a combination of mutual suspicion as to each other’s objectives and concern at the damage being done to their commercial interests, gradually moved toward a more interventionist position.
In 1826, by the Protocol of St. Petersburg, Britain and Russia committed themselves to a policy of mediation, to which France became a party through the Treaty of London of 1827. A policy of “peaceful interference,” as the British prime minister Lord Canning described it, culminated in the somewhat planned destruction of the Turco-Egyptian fleet by a combined British, French, and Russian fleet at the Battle of Navarino in October 1827, the last great naval battle of the age of sail. This intervention by the great powers was instrumental in ensuring that some form of independent Greece came into existence, although its precise borders, which ran from Árta in the west to Vólos in the east, took some years to negotiate. This process was overseen by Count Ioánnis Kapodístrias, who was elected the first president of Greece by the Assembly of Troezene, which in 1827 enacted the third constitution of the independence period. Besides overseeing the negotiation of the boundaries of the new state, in which his extensive diplomatic experience in the Russian imperial service was fully employed, Kapodístrias was also completely engaged in trying to establish the infrastructure of a state in a country that had been ravaged by a vicious and destructive war. Schooled in the traditions of Russian autocracy, Kapodístrias chafed under the provisions of the 1827 constitution, which, like its predecessors, was a remarkably liberal document, and he abolished it. His paternalist and authoritarian style of government offended a number of key elements in the hierarchy of the embryonic Greek state. Growing unrest culminated in his assassination in Nauplia (Návplio), the provisional capital, in October 1831.
*Building the nation, 1832–1913
Greece’s existence as an independent state gained formal recognition in the treaty of 1832 between Bavaria and the great powers, but the Greeks themselves were not involved in the making of the treaty. Greece formally became a sovereign state, and the Greeks became the first of the subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire to gain full independence. However, the state contained within its borders less than one-third of the Greek population of the Middle East, and the struggle to expand the country’s borders came to dominate the first century of independent statehood. In 1947, with the incorporation of the Dodecanese (Dodekánisa)—a group of islands off the southwestern coast of Turkey that were under Italian rule—Greece’s present borders were established.
*GREECE UNDER OTTO OF WITTELSBACH
The sovereignty of the small Greek state was not absolute, despite gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire, and the great powers, which retained certain ill-defined rights of intervention, determined that Greece should become a monarchy. The great powers chose Otto of Wittelsbach—the 17-year-old son of King Louis I (Ludwig) of Bavaria—as king of Greece. Because he was still a minor, the great powers determined that, until Otto came of age, the country was to be ruled by three Bavarian regents while the army was to be composed of Bavarians. The period of the “Bavarokratia,” as the regency was termed, was not a happy one, for the regents showed little sensitivity for the mores of Otto’s adopted countrymen and imported European models of government, law, and education without regard to local conditions. The legal and educational systems were thus heavily influenced by German and French models, as was the church settlement of 1833, which ended the traditional authority of the ecumenical patriarch and subjected ecclesiastical affairs to civil control.
Even after the formal ending of the regency in 1835, the Bavarian presence remained strong and was increasingly resented by those who had fought for independence. Another source of frustration for some was Otto’s failure to grant a constitution, as had been provided for in the negotiations preceding independence. Despite the absence of a constitution, however, political parties of some sort came into existence; the “British,” “Russian,” and “French” parties were associated with the diplomatic representatives of the great powers, and their main appeal was strong personalities rather than well-defined ideologies.
Toward the end of the decade of the 1830s, people became increasingly discontent with Otto’s rule. There was no indication that he would concede a constitution; Bavarians were still influential; his marriage to Queen Amalia had not produced an heir; the king remained a Roman Catholic in an Orthodox country with a strong anti-Catholic tradition; and much of the country’s revenues were being expended in servicing the loan granted on independence by the protecting powers (France, Russia, and Great Britain).
These various strands of discontent coalesced in the military coup of September 1843. Nearly bloodless, the coup was the first of many military interventions in Greece’s political process. Otto was forced to grant a constitution (promulgated in 1844), which was a liberal document by the standards of the day, providing for virtually universal manhood suffrage (although women were barred from voting until as late as 1952). However, Otto, together with his crafty prime minister, Ioánnis Koléttis, was able to overturn the new constitution by establishing a kind of parliamentary dictatorship. The attempt to implant a liberal constitutional democracy onto an essentially premodern, traditional society that had evolved in quite a different fashion from those of western Europe gave rise to tensions both within the political system and in the relations between state and society, which have carried on into modern times. Rouspheti (the reciprocal dispensation of favours), patronage, manipulation, and, at times, outright force continued to characterize the politics of the postconstitutional period.
*THE GREAT IDEA
It was during the debates that preceded the promulgation of the 1844 constitution that Koléttis first coined the expression the “Great Idea” (Greek: Megáli Idéa). This was a visionary nationalist aspiration that was to dominate foreign relations and, to a significant extent, to determine the domestic politics of the Greek state for much of the first century of its independent existence.
If the expression was new in 1844, the concept was deeply rooted in the Greek popular psyche, nurtured by the prophecies and oracles that had kept hopes of eventual emancipation from the Turkish yoke alive and real during the dark centuries of the Tourkokratia. The Great Idea envisaged the restoration of the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire, with its capital once again established in Constantinople, which would be achieved by incorporating within the bounds of a single state all the areas of Greek settlement in the Middle East. Besides the Greek populations settled over a wide area in the southern Balkan Peninsula, there were extensive Greek populations in the Ottoman capital, Constantinople (Istanbul), itself; along the shores of the Sea of Marmara; along the western coastal region of Asia Minor, particularly in the region of Smyrna (İzmir); in central Anatolia (ancient Cappadocia), where much of the Greek populace was Turkish-speaking but employed the Greek alphabet to write Turkish; and in the Pontus region of northeastern Asia Minor, whose geographic isolation had given rise to an obscure form of Greek that was not understood elsewhere in the Greek world.
The Great Idea, the liberation by the Greek state of the “unredeemed” Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, was to be achieved through a combination of military means—an ambitious objective for a state with such limited resources—and a far-reaching program of educational and cultural propaganda aimed at instilling a sense of Hellenic identity in the very large Greek populations that remained under Ottoman rule. The University of Athens (1837) attracted people from all parts of the Greek world to be trained as students and apostles of Hellenism.
Greece hoped to profit from the Crimean War (1854–56) fought between Russia—the only sovereign Orthodox power—and the Ottoman Empire and its British and French allies. However, Greek neutrality in the conflict was enforced by a British and French occupation of Piraeus, the port of Athens; this was just one of several interventions in Greece’s internal affairs by the great powers that made light of Greece’s sovereign status.
King Otto’s enthusiasm for the Great Idea at the time of the Crimean War was popular with his subjects, but during the 1850s there was renewed discontent. The manipulation of the 1844 constitution had alienated a younger generation of politicians who had not been directly involved in the war of independence. Otto had also still not converted to the Orthodox church, nor had he an heir. The king was driven into exile following a coup in 1862 and spent the rest of his days in exile in Bavaria.
*REFORM, EXPANSION, AND DEFEAT
The downfall of King Otto forced the great powers to search for a new sovereign who could not be drawn from their own dynasties. Their choice was a prince of the Danish Glücksburg family, who reigned as King George I of the Hellenes from 1863 to 1913; thereafter the Glücksburg dynasty reigned intermittently until the 1974 referendum rejected the institution of monarchy. To mark the beginning of the new reign, Britain ceded to Greece the Ionian Islands, over which it had exercised a protectorate since 1815—the first accession of territory to the Greek state since independence.
POLITICAL MODERNIZATION
A new constitution in 1864 amplified the democratic freedoms of the 1844 constitution, although the sovereign retained substantial, and somewhat vaguely defined, powers in foreign policy. However, the realities of politics remained much as before, with numerous elections and even more frequent changes of administration as politicians formed short-lived coalitions, jockeying for power in the disproportionately large parliament. In 1875 a decisive step was taken toward political modernization when King George acknowledged that he would entrust the government to the political leader that demonstrated the confidence of a majority of the deputies in parliament. During the last quarter of the 19th century the kaleidoscopic coalitions of earlier years gave way to a two-party system in which power alternated between two men: Kharílaos Trikoúpis and Theódoros Dhiliyiánnis. Trikoúpis represented the modernizing, Westernizing trend in politics, and Dhiliyiánnis was a political boss in the traditional mold with no real program other than overturning the reforms of his archrival. Believing the modernization of the political system and economic development to be the essential preconditions of territorial expansion, Trikoúpis struggled to establish Greece’s credit in international markets and encouraged the country to industrialize. He also promoted such infrastructural projects as road building, railway construction, the building of the Corinth Canal, and the draining of Lake Kopaïs in Thessaly. Such measures, however, in addition to Trikoúpis’s parallel efforts to modernize the country’s armed forces, required funding, and the increased taxation they entailed proved an easy target for a populist demagogue such as Dhiliyiánnis. Dhiliyiánnis became increasingly popular by advocating an aggressive policy toward the Ottoman Empire, but his belligerence was to have disastrous economic consequences.
*EXTENSION OF GREEK BORDERS
If Britain had hoped to suppress irredentist enthusiasm by ceding the Ionian Islands, it was sorely mistaken. The continuing agitation on the “Great Island” of Crete for union with the Greek kingdom, which erupted in periodic uprisings, caused inevitable friction in relations with the Ottoman Empire. Greece also made a rather inept attempt to exploit the latter’s discomfiture in the great Middle Eastern crisis of 1875–78, which gave rise to a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The great powers, meeting in Berlin in 1878, in addition to cutting down the size of “Big Bulgaria,” which had arisen from the conflict, pressed the Ottoman government to cede the rich agricultural province of Thessaly and a part of Epirus to Greece. In 1881 the second extension of the territory of the independent state came into being, like the first—the cession of the Ionian Islands—as a result of mediation by the great powers rather than of armed conflict. In 1878, again as part of the Berlin settlement, the island of Cyprus, with its largely Greek population, came under British administration but remained formally under Ottoman sovereignty. The island was annexed by Britain in 1914, after the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers, and became a crown colony in 1925.
*RECTIFICATION OF FRONTIERS
The incorporation of Thessaly brought the northern frontier of Greece to the borders of Macedonia, which, with its mixed population of Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians, Turks, Vlachs, and Roma (Gypsies), was characterized by a great deal of ethnic complexity. It also brought Greece into contention with Serbia and Bulgaria, both of which also looked to Macedonia, which remained under Ottoman rule, with covetous eyes. The contest was initially conducted by means of ecclesiastical, educational, and cultural propaganda, but at the turn of the century rival guerrilla bands, financed by their respective governments (and supported by the public), sought to achieve by terror what they could not achieve by more peaceful means.
While Trikoúpis argued for the strengthening of the state as the basic precondition of territorial expansion, Deliyannis showed no such caution. His mobilization of forces in 1885 in an attempt to exploit a crisis over Bulgaria resulted in the establishment of a naval blockade by the great powers, while his support for the insurgents in Crete in 1897 led to a humiliating defeat in the Thirty Days’ War with Turkey. Greece was forced to pay compensation and to accept the adjustments made to its frontier. Another humiliation sovereign Greece faced was the installation of an international financial commission to oversee the repayment of its substantial external debts.
*EMIGRATION
Military endeavours compounded serious economic problems, which culminated in national bankruptcy in 1893. Economic difficulties were primarily responsible for the great wave of emigration, principally from the Peloponnese to the United States, that characterized the late 19th and early 20th centuries. About one-sixth of the entire population participated in this great exodus, the vast majority being male. The early emigrants had little intention of settling permanently overseas, though few ever returned to their homeland. Migrant remittances to relatives in the old country subsequently made a significant contribution to the country’s balance of payments.
*THE EARLY VENIZÉLOS YEARS
What the Greeks learned from the 1897 war was that, however weakened the Ottoman state might be, Greece was in no position to engage in single-handed military confrontation. Allies and the reinvigoration of the ill-constructed state and economy were the necessary prerequisites for a successful military threat. The latter came about under the inspired leadership of Eleuthérios Venizélos, who had emerged in the politics of his native Crete, where an autonomous regime had been established following the 1897 war. A charismatic figure who was adored and denounced in equal measure, Venizélos dominated Greek politics during the first three decades of the 20th century.
*THE GOUDI COUP
Venizélos was projected from the provincial to the national stage as a consequence of a coup staged by the Military League, formed by disaffected army officers, from Goudi (at the outskirts of Athens) in 1909; this coup ushered in a persistent pattern of military involvement in politics during the 20th century. The conspirators demanded thorough reforms of both a nonmilitary and a military nature, the latter including the removal of the royal princes, who often promoted their own protégés, from the armed forces.
*VENIZÉLOS’S REFORMIST PROGRAM
The short-lived but forceful intervention of the military compelled the discredited political establishment to make way for Venizélos, who had not been compromised by involvement in the petty politics of the kingdom. In elections held in December 1910 Venizélos and his newly founded Liberal Party won more than four-fifths of the seats in parliament. His power legitimized through elections, Venizélos plunged into a wide-ranging program of constitutional reform, political modernization, and economic development, which he combined with an energetic enthusiasm for the Great Idea. Some 50 amendments to the 1864 constitution were enacted; provision was made for land reform; innovations were made in the educational system; and legislation benefiting the working population was introduced. However, these moderately reformist policies inhibited the development of the powerful agrarian and socialist movements that developed elsewhere in the Balkans. British naval and French military missions were brought in to overhaul the armed forces. Venizélos’s continuing political ascendancy was confirmed with a sweeping victory in elections held in 1912.
*THE BALKAN WARS
The defeat of 1897 had induced much pessimism but gave way to a period of optimism, in which Greece splendiferously saw itself as a rising power poised to displace a declining Ottoman Empire as the leading power in the Middle East. In 1911, when Italy attacked the Ottoman Empire—in the process occupying the largely Greek-populated Dodecanese—Greece, no less than the other Balkan states, wanted its share of the spoils from the ever more likely collapse of Ottoman rule in the Balkans. However, Greece’s situation differed from that of its Balkan neighbours, whose populations were relatively and compactly settled within the Balkan Peninsula. The Greeks, on the other hand, were widely dispersed throughout the Middle East and thus vulnerable to Turkish reprisals in the event of a war. But Greece could scarcely stand aside from the network of alliances being formed among the Balkan states. These culminated in October 1912 in the First Balkan War, with Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro declaring war on the Ottoman Empire. In contrast to earlier Balkan crises, the great powers did not intervene, and the heavily outnumbered Ottoman forces were forced into rapid retreat. Within less than a month, Thessaloníki (Salonika; Thessalonica), the most important port in the northern Aegean, coveted by Bulgaria as well as by Greece, was captured by Greek forces. In February 1913 Greek forces took Ioánnina, the capital of Epirus. Meanwhile the Greek navy rapidly occupied the Aegean islands still under Ottoman rule.
The Balkan alliance was always a somewhat fragile affair in view of rivalries over Macedonia. Bulgaria, in particular, felt that its sacrifices had been in vain and turned against its former allies Greece and Serbia. This brief Second Balkan War (June to July 1913) led to the Treaty of Bucharest (August 1913), in which Bulgaria was forced to acknowledge the acquisition by Greece and Serbia of a substantial proportion of Macedonia. At the same time the formal union of Crete with the kingdom was recognized, although Greek hopes for the annexation of northern Epirus, with its large Greek population, were thwarted when the region was incorporated into newly independent Albania.
The expansion of Greece’s territories in the First and Second Balkan Wars was extensive. Its land area had increased by more than three-fifths, and so had its population (from about 2.8 million to 4.8 million), but by no means were all of its newly acquired citizens ethnic Greeks. In the city of Thessaloníki the largest single element in the city’s population was made up of Sephardic Jews, the descendants of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, most of whom continued to speak Ladino. Elsewhere in “New Greece,” as the recently acquired territories came to be known, there were substantial Slavic, Muslim (mainly Turkish), Vlach, and Roma populations. Like the Jews, many of these populations did not look upon the Greeks as liberators. The integration of “New” with “Old” Greece, the conservative core of the original kingdom, would not be an easy process, but the problems it created did not emerge until much later.
At the conclusion of hostilities and under the charismatic leadership of Venizélos, the irredentist aspirations enshrined in the Great Idea appeared to be within reach. When King George I died at the hands of a deranged assassin in March 1913, there were demands that his successor, Crown Prince Constantine, be crowned not Constantine I (as he was) but Constantine XII to symbolize continuity with Constantine XI Palaeologus, the last emperor of Byzantium.
'''Greek history since World War I'''
*FROM THE NATIONAL SCHISM TO DICTATORSHIP
The dynamism and sense of national unity that had characterized the early Venizélos years gave way to rancour and vengefulness that were to poison the country’s political life throughout World War I and the interwar period. Greece was torn apart by the “National Schism,” a division of the country into irreconcilable camps supporting either King Constantine I or his prime minister, Venizélos. The immediate grounds for tension were differences between the king and the prime minister as to Greece’s alignment during World War I, although there were deeper causes underlying the split. The king advocated neutrality, while Venizélos was an enthusiastic supporter of the Triple Entente—Britain, France, and Russia—which he regarded as the alliance most likely to favour the implementation of Greece’s remaining irredentist ambitions. The entente had, in an effort to lure Greece into the war, held out the luring prospect of territorial gain for Greece at the expense of Turkey, which had aligned itself with the Central Powers. Increasingly bitter disagreements between king and prime minister resulted in the latter twice resigning in 1915, despite a convincing electoral victory.
The breach between the two became irrevocable when Venizélos in October 1916 established a rival government in Thessaloníki, which, like most of “New Greece,” was passionately loyal to Venizélos. In June 1917 the entente allies ousted King Constantine and installed Venizélos as prime minister of a formally united but bitterly divided Greece. Venizélos duly brought Greece, which was up to that time neutral, into the war on the side of the entente. Naturally, he expected to reap the rewards for his loyalty at the Paris Peace Conference. In May of 1919 Greece was permitted to land troops in İzmir (Smyrna), the major port city in Asia Minor, with a large Greek population. Greece also was a major beneficiary of the Treaty of Sèvres of August 1920, the peace treaty with the defeated Ottoman Empire. However, for the Turkish nationalists, incited by the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), the treaty was from the outset a dead letter and the Greek landings a challenge they were prepared to meet.
In November 1920 Venizélos was somewhat surprisingly defeated in elections, and the exiled King Constantine I was restored to his throne after a fraudulent plebiscite—to the obvious displeasure of Britain and France. Meanwhile, the military situation in Asia Minor steadily deteriorated; a Turkish nationalist offensive in August–September 1922 resulted in a dramatic rout of the Greek armies in Asia Minor. Much of İzmir was burned, and many Greeks and Armenians were killed. Tens of thousands of destitute Greek refugees fled to the kingdom of Greece, thus ending a 2,500-year Greek presence in Asia Minor and with it the elusive vision of the Great Idea.
A military junta seized power in 1922 as King Constantine abdicated, and five royalist politicians and the commander of the Asia Minor forces were tried and executed on a charge of high treason, although there was no evidence of deliberate treachery. The “Trial of the Six” was to poison the climate of interwar politics, exacerbating the already bitter feud between the supporters of Venizélos and of the monarchy.
At a peace conference in Lausanne, Greece and the newly established Turkish Republic agreed on an exchange of populations between the two countries. Religion was the criterion for the project, which resulted in the exchange of thousands of Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians for Greek-speaking Muslims. The ecumenical patriarchate was allowed to remain in Constantinople, as were the Greek inhabitants of that city and of two islands, Imbros (now Gökçe) and Tenedos (Turkish: Bozcaada), which straddled the entrance to the strategically sensitive Dardanelles. In return, the Muslims of Greek Thrace were allowed to remain. An influx of some 1.3 million refugees—including significant numbers from Russia and Bulgaria—strongly tested the social fabric of a country exhausted by some 10 years of intermittent war. Leaving aside the prejudice that they encountered on the part of the indigenous population, the process of their integration into Greek society was remarkably successful. The economy, benefiting from the entrepreneurial skills of the refugees, underwent a significant degree of industrialization during the interwar period. The remaining large estates were broken up to provide smallholdings for the newcomers, and rural Greece became a society of peasant smallholders, which made for social stability rather than for economic efficiency. The majority of the refugees were settled in the territories of “New Greece,” thereby consolidating the area’s “Greekness.” Although refugees were disproportionately represented in the leadership of the newly founded Communist Party of Greece (KKE), they largely remained intensely loyal to Venizélos. Their vote was clearly instrumental in the formal establishment of a republic in 1923, shortly after the departure of King George II, who had briefly succeeded to the throne following his father’s abdication in 1922. The refugees and the army acted as the arbiters of political life during the interwar period.
In 1928 Venizélos made a political comeback, two years after the downfall of the short-lived military dictatorship headed by Gen. Theodoros Pangalos in 1925–26. Although Venizélos initiated a good-neighbour policy with Italy and Greece’s Balkan neighbours and brought about a remarkable rapprochement with Turkey, his government felt the repercussions of the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929. Because Greece was dependent on the export of agricultural products such as olive oil, tobacco, and currants and on migrant remittances, it was severely affected by the decline in world trade.
After four years of relative stability, politics reverted to the chaos of the early 1920s. When the anti-Venizélists won the 1933 elections, Col. Nikólaos Plastíras, a staunch supporter of Venizélos and the mastermind behind the 1922 coup, sought to restore Venizélos to power by force. His coup was unsuccessful and was subsequently followed by an assassination attempt on Venizélos. The political arena was once again split between supporters of Venizélos and of the monarchy. Fear of a royalist restoration lay behind another attempted coup by Venizélist officers in March 1935. His proven involvement on this occasion forced Venizélos into exile in France, where he died shortly afterward, but not before he urged his supporters to reconcile with the king.
The royalists were the main beneficiaries of the abortive 1935 coup, in the aftermath of which King George II had been restored to his throne, following another dubious plebiscite. Like Venizélos in exile, the king on his return to Greece was in a conciliatory mood. However, elections held under a system of proportional representation in January 1936 produced a deadlock between the two main parliamentary blocs, the Venizélists and the royalists. Both blocs engaged in secret negotiations with the communists, who up to that time had been an insignificant force, but now, with 15 seats in the 300-seat parliament, held the balance of power.
*THE METAXAS REGIME AND WORLD WAR II
Public disillusionment with the endless political corruption, which had been growing swiftly in the preceding years, was exacerbated when the news broke that the main political blocs were secretly negotiating with the communists. When the nonpolitical figure who headed a caretaker government charged with overseeing the elections died, he was replaced as prime minister by Gen. Ioannis Metaxas, a right-wing and lesser-known figure. Metaxas exploited labour unrest and a threatened general strike to persuade the king in August 1936 to suspend key articles of the constitution. Although the suspension was intended to be temporary, parliament did not reconvene for another decade.
Backed by the army and tolerated by the king, the Metaxas dictatorship lasted more than four years. The dictator—whose paternalistic style was signaled by the adoption of such titles as “National Father,” “First Peasant,” and “First Worker”—shared a dislike for parliamentary democracy, liberalism, and communism that was characteristic of German Nazism and Italian Fascism, but the “Regime of the Fourth of August 1936” simply lacked their dynamism. The government led by Metaxas did not seek alliances with the European dictatorships. On the contrary, with the support of the king, Metaxas strove to maintain the country’s traditional alignment toward Britain. The dictator, however, endeavoured to recast the Greek character in a more disciplined mode, invoking the values of ancient Greece and, in particular, of the Spartans. He also sought to fuse them with the values of the medieval Christian empire of Byzantium, thus fashioning what he pompously described as the “Third Hellenic Civilization.”
At the outbreak of World War II, Metaxas tried to maintain neutrality, but Greece was increasingly subject to pressure from Italy, whose dictator Benito Mussolini sought an easy military triumph to match those of his ally Adolf Hitler. A series of provocations culminated in the delivery of a humiliating ultimatum on October 28, 1940. Metaxas, reflecting the mood of the entire country, rejected this with a simple answer: “No!” The Italians immediately invaded Greece from Albania, which they had occupied 18 months previously. Any hopes of a lightning military triumph were quickly lost. Within weeks not only had the Italians been driven from Greek territory, but Greek forces had pushed on to occupy much of what the Greeks term “Northern Epirus,” the area of southern Albania with a substantial Greek minority.
Though he accepted token British military aid, Metaxas, until his death in January 1941, was anxious to avoid provoking German intervention in the conflict. However, his successor agreed to accept a British expeditionary force as it became apparent that Hitler’s aggressive designs extended to the Balkans. The combined Greek and British forces, however, were able to offer only limited resistance when the Germans crossed the borders in April 1941. British and Commonwealth troops were forced to retreat from superior German forces but managed to get to Crete, where they held out for 10 days against German parachute and glider troops. By the beginning of June the country was overrun and subjected to a harsh tripartite German, Italian, and Bulgarian occupation. King George II and his government-in-exile fled to the Middle East. The requisitioning of food stocks resulted in a terrible famine during the winter of 1941–42, in which as many as 100,000 people died. In 1943 virtually the entire Jewish population was deported to German death camps—most to Auschwitz. A devastatingly high rate of inflation added to the miseries and humiliations of everyday life.
Almost from the outset of the occupation, acts of resistance were recorded. These took a more systematic form after the Communist Party in September 1941 founded the National Liberation Front (Ethnikón Apeleftherotikón Métopon; EAM), whose military arm was known as the Ellinikós Laikos Apeleftherotikós Strátos (ELAS). Although the communists had been a marginal force during the interwar period, EAM-ELAS became the largest resistance organization. Other groups came into being, the most important of which, the Greek Democratic Army (Ellinikós Dímokratikos Ethnikós Strátos; EDES), opposed—as did EAM-ELAS—the return of the king upon liberation. With the support of a British military mission, the guerrillas engaged in some spectacular acts of resistance, most notably the destruction in November 1942 of the Gorgopotamos viaduct, which carried the railway line from Thessaloníki to Athens, and in April 1944 the kidnapping and removal to Egypt of the German commander on Crete.
During this time of grave national crisis, just as during the war of independence and World War I, conflicts within groups divided the resistance organizations. Besides fighting the Axis occupation, they jockeyed for postwar power. During the winter of 1943–44, civil war broke out in the mountains of Greece between EAM-ELAS and the much smaller British-backed EDES, which had become increasingly alarmed at the prospect of a postliberation seizure of power by the communists.
Not for the first time in Greek history, the country’s fate was to be determined by the great powers. The British prime minister, Winston Churchill, eager to restore King George II to his throne, engaged in the summer and autumn of 1944 in some high-level negotiations with the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, trading Russian predominance in postwar Romania for British predominance in Greece. It would seem that Stalin gave no encouragement to the Greek communists to make a bid for power in the autumn of 1944 as the Germans began their withdrawal, but by this time they were by far the most powerful force in occupied Greece.
The confrontation was only postponed, however, for bloody fighting broke out in Athens in December 1944 between EAM-ELAS and the small British force that had accompanied the Greek government on its return from exile in October. It was a sign of Churchill’s obsession with the crisis in Greece that he flew to Athens on Christmas Eve 1944 in an unsuccessful attempt to resolve the conflict. The British prime minister, however, was able to persuade King George II not to return to Greece pending a plebiscite on the monarchy and to accept the regency of Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens. A temporary respite in the struggle between left and right was achieved at the Varkiza conference in February 1945, which aimed at a political settlement of the crisis.
*CIVIL WAR AND ITS LEGACY
The first elections since the fateful ones of 1936 were held in March 1946. These were flawed and, with the far left abstaining, resulted in a sweeping victory for the royalist right. In September a plebiscite issued a vote for the return of King George II; he died within six months and his brother Paul succeeded him. Against this background the country slid toward civil war, as the far left was undecided as to whether to work within the political system or to make an armed bid for power.
The turning point came with the establishment in October 1946 of a communist-controlled Democratic Army, and the following year the communists established a Provisional Democratic Government. Although heavily outnumbered, the communists were able—with the logistical support from the newly established communist regimes to the north, coupled with skillful use of guerrilla tactics—to control a wide area of northern Greece for a substantial period of time. Following the declaration of the Truman Doctrine in March 1947, which pledged support for “free peoples” in their fight against internal subversion, the tide gradually began to turn. The United States, assuming Britain’s former mantle as Greece’s chief external patron, soon provided military equipment and advice. American intervention and the consequences of the break between Josip Broz Tito (under whose leadership the Yugoslav state would eventually unite) and Stalin, combined with factionalism and altered military tactics on the left, all contributed to the defeat of the communist guerrillas in the summer of 1949.
Greece emerged from the laborious 1940s in a state of devastation. The post-civil-war political regime was distinctly authoritarian, and from the mid-1950s Greece underwent a rapid but unevenly distributed process of economic and social development, far surpassing its communist neighbours to the north in standard of living. The population of greater Athens more than doubled in size between 1951 and 1981, and by the early 1990s about one-third of the entire population was concentrated in the area of the capital. However, if urbanization progressed quickly and living standards rose rapidly, the country’s political institutions failed to keep pace with rapid change. The right maintained a firm grip on power for the majority of the period from 1952 to 1963 and was none too careful in the means it employed to retain it.
By the early 1960s, however, the electorate—which now included women—had become increasingly disillusioned with the repressive legacy of the civil war and sought change. Georgios Papandreou, whose Centre Union Party secured a sweeping victory in 1964, responded to this need as prime minister; yet the promise of reform and modernization was cast aside with renewed crisis in Cyprus, and groups within the army conspired to subvert the country’s democratic institutions. A guerrilla campaign in Cyprus—fought from the mid-1950s onward with tenacity and ruthlessness by the Greek-Cypriot general Georgios Grivas—had resulted in 1960 in the British conceding not the union with the Greek state sought by the overwhelming Greek-Cypriot majority on the island but rather independence. However, within three years the elaborate power-sharing arrangements between the Greek majority and the Turkish minority on the island had collapsed.
During and following the civil war, Greece’s armed forces had come to look upon themselves not only as the country’s guardians against foreign aggression but also as its defenders against internal subversion. They increasingly viewed Georgios Papandreou as a stalking horse for his much more radical American-educated son, Andreas Papandreou, who had returned to Greece and joined his father’s government.
In April 1967, middle-ranking officers led by Col. Georgios Papadopoulos launched a coup designed to thwart an expected Centre Union victory in elections planned for May of that year. The conspirators took advantage of a prolonged political crisis, which had its origins in a dispute between the young King Constantine II, who had succeeded his father, King Paul, to the throne in 1964, and his prime minister, Georgios Papandreou. Alternating between policies that were heavy-handed and absurd, the “Colonels,” as the military junta came to be known, misruled the country from 1967 to 1974. After a failed countercoup in December 1967, King Constantine went into exile, with Papadopoulos assuming the role of regent. In 1973 the monarchy was abolished, and Greece was declared a republic. That year, following student protests, which were violently suppressed, Papadopoulos himself was overthrown from within the junta and replaced by the even more repressive Gen. Demetrios Ioannidis, the head of the much-feared military police.
In July 1974, in the wake of an increasingly bitter dispute between Greece and Turkey over oil rights in the Aegean Sea, Ioannidis, seeking a nationalist triumph, launched a coup to depose Makarios III, the archbishop and president of Cyprus since 1960. Makarios survived, but the coup triggered the invasion of the northern part of the island by Turkey, which, together with Britain and Greece, was a guarantor of the 1960 constitutional settlement. The Turkish army occupied nearly two-fifths of the land area of the island, despite the fact that the Turkish population constituted less than one-fifth of the total population. Ioannidis responded to the Turkish invasion by mobilizing for war with Turkey. The mobilization proved chaotic, however, and the regime, bitterly unpopular domestically and totally isolated diplomatically, collapsed.
*RESTORATION OF DEMOCRACY
Konstantinos Karamanlis, a conservative politician who had served as prime minister from 1955 to 1963, was summoned back from self-imposed exile in France to restore democracy and rebuild a country ravaged by seven years of brutal and inefficient military rule. The turnaround he accomplished was remarkable. He defused the threat of outright war with Turkey and ensured that the Greek army returned to the barracks. He acknowledged the way in which opposition to the junta had brought together politicians of all political backgrounds by legalizing the Communist Party, which had been outlawed in 1947. He moved rapidly to legitimize his power through elections held in November 1974, in which he secured a sweeping victory. In December a referendum on the future of the monarchy resulted in a majority vote against the monarchy and against the return of King Constantine.
Karamanlis’s second premiership lasted from 1974 to 1980, when he was elected president. By this time he had achieved his main objective, early membership in the European Economic Community (later succeeded by the European Union [EU]), which Greece joined in January 1981. His failure to counter the populist appeal of Andreas Papandreou’s Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), however, resulted in a stunning parliamentary electoral victory for PASOK in 1981.
The smooth transfer of power from a right-wing government that had ruled for much of the postwar period to a radical (at the level of rhetoric, at least) socialist government appeared to indicate that Greece’s newly reestablished democratic institutions were firmly in place. Nevertheless, during almost a decade as prime minister, Papandreou failed to deliver on his promises of change, and a dramatic reorientation in the country’s domestic politics and external relations never came about. Ambitious plans to “socialize” key sections of industry failed to materialize, and the attempt to create a welfare state could be sustained only by enormous borrowing. Important reforms were, however, introduced in family law, and society was liberalized in other respects. It was testimony to Papandreou’s ability to articulate both the aspirations and the frustrations of a large segment of the electorate that, despite a poor economic record and amid accusations of large-scale corruption in the higher reaches of the party, the conservative New Democracy party (ND) barely regained power in 1990. The new government, with Konstantinos Mitsotakis as prime minister, was committed to a policy of economic liberalism and the diminution of the powers of the state, but the problems that confronted it were formidable. The rigid economic policies introduced by Mitsotakis and, in particular, proposals for the privatization of the large state sector, were unpopular with much of the electorate. In 1993 Papandreou’s PASOK returned to power with a share of the vote only marginally smaller than it had received at the time of its electoral triumph in 1981.
However, the underlying economic and infrastructural problems facing Greece remained, and Papandreou was unable to do much to stop the rising deficits, inflation, interest rates, and unemployment as attempts to put Greece’s finances on a sounder footing conflicted with PASOK’s promises of social reforms. With Papandreou now in his mid-70s and in failing health, there were also disagreements within PASOK on who should become his successor. By January 1996, Papandreou was so incapacitated that he resigned; he died later that year. Konstantinos (Kostas) Simitis was elected as the new prime minister by the PASOK parliamentary deputies.
Simitis, more a pragmatic reformist than an ideological socialist, tried to control state spending and even to privatize some state industries. Hoping to capitalize on his apparent popularity, he called for elections in September, barely defeating the ND. In the late 1990s, Simitis’s efforts to introduce some fundamental restructuring of Greece’s economy brought some successes but also resistance from many Greeks. Much of the impetus for reforming Greece’s economy came from its membership in the EU, though Greece struggled to meet the conditions needed to adopt in January 1999 the euro, the common currency of the EU.
In its foreign relations too, Greece continued to be preoccupied with disputes that upset other EU members. For years Greece refused to recognize the existence of the Republic of Macedonia, which had emerged as an independent country in 1991 after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Then Greece, after imposing a devastating economic embargo against Macedonia, reluctantly agreed in September 1995 to accept its existence under the name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Greece has prevented Macedonia from becoming a member of NATO and of the EU, insisting that Greece has exclusive rights to the use of the name “Macedonia.” (See Researcher’s Note: Macedonia: a contested name.) Albanians, both in their homeland and in Greece, continued to be a source of irritation to Greeks, and, when NATO conducted its bombing campaign against Serbia in the spring of 1999 in support of the Albanian Kosovars, Greece refused to participate in the air attacks.
Earthquakes that devastated Turkey and Greece in the summer of 1999 led each country to provide rescue teams to aid the other, helping to thaw somewhat the centuries-old “cold war” between the two countries. And relations between them remained relatively stable, with solutions sought for problems related to Cyprus as that divided island prepared to join the EU. Tensions between the countries heated up again, however, in 2004 when Greek Cypriots voted against a UN-sponsored referendum on unification, and again in 2006, when a Greek and a Turkish plane collided, highlighting the countries’ long-standing dispute over airspace.
Greece’s economy maintained slow but steady growth throughout the early years of the 21st century, while the country prepared for Athens to host the 2004 Olympic Games. Despite construction delays, the needed infrastructure was in place on time, and the Games were a success that burnished Greece’s international standing as a country with both a rich heritage and a promising future. The decade-long rule of PASOK came to a close in 2004 when Simitis’s successor, Georgios Papandreou, son of Andreas Papandreou, lost to an ND led by Kostas Karamanlis (the nephew of Konstantinos Karamanlis), who was installed as prime minister. The economic reforms he introduced brought protests from some who dismissed them as neoliberal, but Karamanlis and his party retained control of the government in elections in 2007. The political mix remained volatile, and in December 2008 the killing of a teenage boy by a police officer in Athens set off weeks of rioting in the capital and other cities, primarily by angry, disaffected youth.
*GREECE’S DEBT CRISIS
The Greek economy, like those of so many other countries, entered a period of uncertainty as a result of the international economic crisis of 2009, and the ND’s hold on government appeared tenuous. In an attempt to reinforce his government’s efforts to right the economy and seeking to shore up his position within his own party, Karamanlis called for snap elections in October 2009. The ND was swept from office in dramatic fashion, with a resurgent PASOK claiming 160 parliamentary seats—more than enough for an absolute majority. Karamanlis resigned as leader of the ND, and George Papandreou became the third member of his family to hold the post of prime minister.
Greece [Credit: © Vicspacewalker/Shutterstock.com]In the wake of the election, it became clear that Greece’s economic troubles were far worse than previously imagined. The borrowing by the ND government even before the international financial crisis, masked by misleading accounting, was revealed to have been excessive, and, with the onset of the broader economic meltdown, the Greek economy crumbled. Estimates of the Greek government’s budget deficit put it at several times greater than that allowed by the rules governing the euro zone (countries whose currency is the euro). The reactive broad austerity measures that were introduced by the Papandreou goverment met with widespread protest and wildcat strikes domestically and were neither enough to provide for the government’s short-term budget needs nor enough to stem the international financial market’s concern with the impact of the Greek crisis on the value and stability of the euro. In March and April 2010 the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came to the rescue with two massive loan packages for Greece.
Greece [Credit: © Portokalis/Shutterstock.com]Even with the EU-IMF rescue, the Greek economy continued to struggle mightily. Growing dissatisfaction with the draconian budget cuts, reductions in benefits and pensions, and tax increases, as well as with Papandreou’s handling of the crisis in general, led to more strikes and demonstrations in Athens, Thessaloníki, and elsewhere in the country. In June 2011 weeks of mass demonstrations outside the Greek parliament building—by protesters labeled the “indignants” (associated with similarly disenchanted Spaniards who had taken to the streets in response to the Spanish government’s handling of its own debt crisis)—culminated in an eruption of violence. After failing in his attempts to form a government of “national unity,” Papandreou reshuffled his cabinet, most notably appointing a new finance minister. All these events came as the EU and IMF contemplated delivery of the latest installment of the bailout, which was contingent on Greek implementation of ever-greater austerity measures along with the partial privatization of some state-owned companies. On June 21—facing the looming threat of default and all the ramifications it would entail for Greece and the euro zone—Papandreou’s government narrowly survived a vote of confidence that set the stage for parliament to pass the necessary austerity measures on June 29 (contingent upon enactment the next day of new laws to facilitate the specific measures). Again the legislation was greeted with angry protests outside the parliament building, where demonstrators clashed with police.
EU leaders concluded an agreement on July 21 that extended more than €100 billion ($140 billion) in loans to Greece in an effort to stabilize the Greek economy and contain the potential damage to the euro zone as a whole. Interest rates for existing bailout loans were reduced, and the repayment periods were drastically lengthened. These changes came at a cost to private bondholders, however, and ratings agencies classified the restructuring as a “restricted default.” This marked the first government debt default by a euro zone country since the implementation of the single currency.
At the end of October euro-zone leaders summited in Brussels in an attempt to hammer out a lasting solution for both the Greek and the broader European debt crisis. German Pres. Angela Merkel and French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy met privately with Greece’s creditors and engineered a bond swap that effectively cut the value of Greek debt in half. Only days after the plan was agreed upon, a firestorm of controversy erupted on October 31 when Papandreou announced his intention to submit the latest bailout plan to Greek voters in a referendum. Other European leaders, fearful that a no vote would render all their efforts moot and lead to dire consequences for the whole euro zone, were furious, and Papandreou’s actions and motives were questioned not just by the Greek opposition but by many within his own party. As accusations and recriminations flew, Papandreou canceled the referendum after being assured of support for the bailout plan by ND leader Antonis Samaras, who nevertheless demanded Papandreou’s resignation. Seemingly attempting to cling to power, Papandreou submitted to a vote of confidence on November 4, which he won by a small margin. He then agreed to step down as prime minister to pave the way for the formation of a “unity” government to facilitate approval of the most recent bailout plan. On November 11 Lucas Papademos—an adviser to Papandreou, and former vice president of the European Central Bank (ECB), who had overseen Greece’s adoption of the euro as the governor of the Bank of Greece—became interim prime minister at the head of a coalition government. An economist, Papademos was widely seen as someone who would approach the challenge as a technocrat.
In February 2012 the Greek parliament approved more spending cuts that opened the door to an additional €130 billion (about $173 billion) in bailout funds from the ECB, the EU, and the IMF. Violent clashes between police and demonstrators erupted in Athens in April in response to the death near Greece’s parliament of a man who committed suicide as an act of protest against deepening pension cuts. The widespread disenchantment among Greeks at the government’s austerity measures was reflected in the results of parliamentary elections in May, which dealt a major blow to the country’s longtime ruling parties. The ND finished first but garnered only about 19 percent of the vote. PASOK managed to get only some 13 percent of the vote, finishing third, behind the Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left), which captured about 17 percent of the vote and was just one of a number of smaller antiausterity parties who were the real winners in the election, including the ultraright-wing nationalist Golden Dawn party, which registered about 7 percent of the vote. As the winner, the ND had the first opportunity to try to form a coalition government but was unable to do so, as were Syriza and PASOK, forcing a new election on June 17. This time the ND had a stronger showing, though again it only narrowly defeated Syriza, capturing about 30 percent of the vote to roughly 27 percent for Syriza and 12 percent for PASOK. Mindful that a minority of Greeks had voted for pro-bailout parties but still committed to the bailout (though hopeful that some of its terms might be renegotiated), ND leader Antonis Samaras took office as prime minister at the head of a coalition government that included PASOK and the smaller Democratic Left party.
Economic and public-sector reform (including planned layoffs of civil servants) remained at centre stage in Greece in 2013, with the government trying to limit the social and political costs of both while securing continued aid payments from the country’s international lenders. In June 2013 the Democratic Left pulled out of the government in protest of the closure of state-run Greek Radio-Television (ERT). The remaining ND-PASOK coalition government survived a no-confidence vote in November and projected that a return to economic growth was in the offing for 2014, despite the economy’s contraction for the sixth straight year in 2013.
Tsipras, Alexis [Credit: Milos Bicanski—Getty Images News/Thinkstock]In autumn 2013, after a member of the Golden Dawn party was charged with the murder of a leftist hip-hop artist, the government cracked down on the party, arresting its leaders and several members of parliament on charges that included the establishment of a criminal organization, murder, attempted murder, and blackmail. Nevertheless, Golden Dawn not only was able to participate in elections for the European Parliament in May 2014 but finished third, capturing three seats. Syriza also surged in that election, winning the popular vote (with some 27 percent of the total vote to 23 percent for the second-place ND) and six seats. The election had been cast by the opposition as a referendum on the government, which seemed to weather the worst of the storm by avoiding an overwhelming defeat, though Prime Minister Samaras’s slim parliamentary majority remained tenuous. With the term of Pres. Karolos Papoulias set to end by March 2015, Samaras nominated Stavros Dimas of the ND as his replacement. In three parliamentary votes in December, however, Dimas failed to muster the majority required to elect him. Consequently, on December 30 parliament was dissolved, and early parliamentary elections were called for January 25, 2015. In the event, those who opposed austerity were triumphant, as Syriza and its youthful leader, Alexis Tsipras, who had promised to renegotiate the terms of the bailout, captured some 36 percent of the vote to about 28 percent for the ND. By winning 149 seats, Syriza fell two seats short of an absolute majority, but Tsipras quickly formed a ruling coalition with another smaller anti-austerity party, the Independent Greeks (which won 13 seats), and was sworn in as prime minister on January 26..
Once in office Tsipras sought support from elsewhere within the EU for his intention to abrogate the policies and austerity measures implemented by the previous Greek government under the terms of the bailout agreement. Instead of broad support, his efforts were met with a hard line from the institutions responsible for the bailout—the ECB, the EU, and the IMF, collectively referred to as the troika—and the countries behind them, most notably Germany. By late February, circumstances compelled Tsipras to undertake negotiations with the troika. In return for Greece’s pledge not to overturn already implemented austerity policies, the troika extended the bailout for another four months, though it refused to deliver the bailout’s final tranche of €7.2 billion until an agreement was reached on reform measures (which hinged primarily on differences over policies related to pensions, labour rules, and taxation). Absent an agreement and the infusion of funds it would have brought, Greece was barely able to make its scheduled May payment on the bailout loan, raising the spectre of a default on its June payments if an agreement with the troika could not be reached.
Tsipras brought the 11th-hour negotiations to a standstill on June 26, when he asked for an extension of the June 30 deadline for the June loan payment so that a referendum could be held in Greece on July 5 on the terms of the bailout agreement. Not only did the euro-zone finance ministers refuse to grant the extension, but the ECB announced that it would approve no more increases to the emergency funds for Greek banks. The Greek government then closed the country’s banks until the referendum could be held. Although some Greek voters interpreted the vote as a referendum on their country’s continued participation in the euro zone, Tsipras cast the referendum as a mandate that would put him in a better position to receive more-favourable terms in subsequent negotiations with the troika. He called on Greeks to vote “no” on the referendum, and 61 percent of those who voted did so, rejecting the terms of the bailout—which actually already had expired with the passing of the June 30 deadline that also marked the official end of the bailout.
By July 10, however, Tsipras had asked Greece’s creditors for a new loan and presented them with a detailed proposal for reforms that were even more draconian than those rejected in the referendum and that embraced almost all the tax and pension changes that had been called for by the troika. Tsipras won parliamentary approval of the proposed three-year roughly €86 billion ($95 billion) loan but only with the support of opposition parties and over the opposition of many within his ruling coalition. Before negotiations on that proposed loan agreement could begin, the process had to be approved by some national legislatures among the creditor countries, most notably Germany. After the German Bundestag voted on July 17 to approve negotiations, a “bridging” loan of about €7 billion ($7.6 billion) was extended to Greece by the EU to help the country meet its short-term loan repayment obligations as detailed negotiations on the new agreement ramped up. On July 20 Greek banks were able to reopen, and the first of the new austerity measures began to take effect.
The action heated up again about one month later, when, on August 14, the Greek parliament voted to accept the final version of the new bailout agreement despite the opposition or abstention of nearly one-third of Syriza’s members. On August 20 Greece received the first tranche of the new bailout (€13 billion [$14.6 billion]), and that night Tsipras appeared on television to resign and seek a snap parliamentary election in which he hoped to win a new mandate from the Greek people. More than two dozen deputies on Syriza’s far left responded by walking out to form a new party.
Syriza won the election held on September 20, capturing some 35 percent of the vote to about 28 percent for the second-place-finishing ND. Golden Dawn came in third with about 7 percent of the vote. By finishing first, Syriza was awarded an additional 50 seats, bringing its representation in the new parliament to 145 seats (just below the total earned in its January victory). With the additional 10 seats won by the Independent Greeks, Syriza’s partner in the previous government, Tsipras became prime minister again without having to broaden his ruling coalition to include a third party. During the months in which the debt crisis and election had been on centre stage, Greece became embroiled in another crisis, the flight of a huge wave of migrants and refugees seeking to escape turmoil in the Middle East and Africa by resettling in Europe. Many of those migrants—whose ultimate destination often was one of the prosperous countries of northern Europe—made Greece the first stop on their journey north through the Balkans by attempting perilous boat crossings from Turkey to one of the Greek islands. Like many of the other members of the EU, Greece struggled to meet the challenges of dealing compassionately with the influx of humanity.


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THE GREECE COAT OF ARMS
Coat of Arms of Greece (Ministries).svg
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Location of Greece within the continent of [[Europe]
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Map of Greece
Greek animated Flag.gif
Flag Description of Greece :The flag of historic Greece was officially adopted in 1822. It features a white cross, and a combination of nine blue and white horizontal stripes. Note that the shade of blue has varied over the years, and darker blue (shown) is now commonly used.

The cross is symbolic of the Greek religious faith and the nine stripes represent the nine syllables in the cry "Freedom or Death," one commonly used during the Greek war of independence. The white is said to reflect the purity of that struggle.

Moringa Oleifera contains more than 92 nutrients and 46 types of antioxidants. Moringa is said to cure about three hundred diseases and almost have all the vitamins found in fruits and vegetables. Even in a larger proportions. With all the health benefits of this miracle herb, it can easily be termed as the most nutritious herb on Earth.

Moringa Oleifera has no side-effects which also has tried, tested, documented and proved evidence to support the same. It can be consumed by small children and adults. Today, millions world over have started using Moringa based products in porridge, pastas, bread and to reap the everlasting health benefits of the extraordinary ‘Moringa’ herb.


Official name Ellinikí Dhimokratía (Hellenic Republic)
Form of government unitary multiparty republic with one legislative house (Hellenic Parliament [300])
Head of state President: Karolos Papoulias
Head of government Prime Minister: Alexis Tsipras
Capital Athens
Official language Greek
Official religion See footnote 1.
Monetary unit euro (€)
Population (2014 est.) 10,932,000COLLAPSE
Total area (sq mi) 50,949
Total area (sq km) 131,957
Urban-rural population Urban: (2010) 61.2%
Rural: (2010) 38.8%
Life expectancy at birth Male: (2012) 77.5 years
Female: (2012) 82.8 years
Literacy: percentage of population age 15 and over literate Male: (2010) 98.3%
Female: (2010) 96.1%
GNI per capita (U.S.$) (2012) 23,260


About Greece

Greece achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830. During the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, it gradually added neighboring islands and territories, most with Greek-speaking populations. In World War II, Greece was first invaded by Italy (1940) and subsequently occupied by Germany (1941-44); fighting endured in a protracted civil war between supporters of the king and other anti-communist and communist rebels. Following the latter's defeat in 1949, Greece joined NATO in 1952. In 1967, a group of military officers seized power, establishing a military dictatorship that suspended many political liberties and forced the king to flee the country. In 1974, democratic elections and a referendum created a parliamentary republic and abolished the monarchy. In 1981, Greece joined the EC (now the EU); it became the 12th member of the European Economic and Monetary Union in 2001. In 2010, the prospect of a Greek default on its euro-denominated debt created severe strains within the EMU and raised the question of whether a member country might voluntarily leave the common currency or be removed.

It is the southernmost of the countries of the Balkan Peninsula. Geography has greatly influenced the country’s development. Mountains have historically restricted internal communications, but the sea has opened up wider horizons. The total land area of Greece (one-fifth of which is made up of the Greek islands) is comparable in size to England or the U.S. state of Alabama.

Greece has more than 2,000 islands, of which about 170 are inhabited; some of the easternmost Aegean islands lie just a few miles off the Turkish coast. The country’s capital is Athens, which expanded rapidly in the second half of the 20th century. Attikí (ancient Greek: Attica), the area around the capital, is now home to about one-third of the country’s entire population.

A Greek legend has it that God distributed soil through a sieve and used the stones that remained to build Greece. The country’s barren landscape has historically caused the people to migrate. The Greeks, like the Jews and the Armenians, traditionally have been a people of diaspora, and several million people of Greek descent live in various parts of the world. Xeniteia, or sojourning in foreign lands, with its strong overtones of nostalgia for the faraway homeland, has been a central element in the historical experience of the Greek people.

Greece is a country that is at once European, Balkan, Mediterranean, and Near Eastern. It lies at the juncture of Europe, Asia, and Africa and is heir to the heritages of Classical Greece, the Byzantine Empire, and nearly four centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule.


Geography of Greece

The Land

Greece is bordered to the east by the Aegean Sea, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, and to the west by the Ionian Sea. Only to the north and northeast does it have land borders (totaling some 735 miles [1,180 km]), with, from west to east, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia (see Researcher’s Note: Macedonia: the provenance of the name), Bulgaria, and Turkey. The Greek landscape is conspicuous not only for its rugged beauty but also for its complexity and variety. Three elements dominate: the sea, the mountains, and the lowland. The Greek mainland is sharply indented; arms and inlets of the sea penetrate so deeply that only a small, wedge-shaped portion of the interior is more than 50 miles (80 km) from the coast. The rocky headlands and peninsulas extend outward to the sea where there are many island arcs and archipelagoes. The southernmost part of mainland Greece, the Pelopónnisos (ancient Greek: Peloponnese) peninsula, connects to the mainland only by the narrow isthmus at the head of the Gulf of Korinthiakós (Corinth). Greece’s mountainous terrain covers some four-fifths of the country, much of which is deeply dissected. A series of mainland mountain chains running northwest-southeast enclose narrow parallel valleys and numerous small basins that once held lakes. With riverine plains and thin, discontinuous strips of coastal plain, these interior valleys and basins constitute the lowland. Although it accounts for only about one-fifth of the country’s land area, the lowland has played an important role in the life of the country.

Relief'

Three characteristics of geology and structure underlie these landscape elements. First, northeastern Greece is occupied by a stable block of ancient (Hercynian) hard rock. Second, younger and weaker rocks, the majority of which are of limestone origin, make up western and southern Greece. These were heavily folded during the Alp-building phase of the Paleogene and Neogene periods (about 65 to 2.6 million years ago), when Earth movements thrust the softer sediments east-northeast against the unyielding Hercynian block and produced a series of roughly parallel tectonic zones that gave rise to the mountain-and-valley relief. Third, both the Hercynian block and the Hellenidic (Alpine) ranges were subsequently raised and fractured by tectonic movements. These dislocations created the sunken basins of the Ionian and Aegean seas as well as the jagged edges so typical of Greece’s landscape. Earthquakes are frequent reminders that similar earth movements continue, particularly along the major fault lines. One result of the region’s geologic instability is the widespread presence of marble, which is limestone that has been altered by pressure and heat. Seismic disturbances are sometimes associated with volcanic explosions, especially those involving the island of Thíra (ancient Greek: Thera; also called Santoríni), which was virtually destroyed by a major eruption in the 2nd millennium bce. The vents of the Kaméni islands in the sea-filled explosion crater of Thíra remain active. The island of Mílos (Melos), which rises to 2,465 feet (751 metres) above sea level, is composed of young volcanic rocks.

Relief and geology provide the basis for describing the Greek landscape in terms of six major regions: central, northeastern, eastern, southern, and western mainland Greece, along with the islands.

CENTRAL GREECE: THE PÍNDOS MOUNTAINS

The central mountain range, the Píndos (ancient Greek: Pindus) Mountains, forms the core of mainland Greece. Following the general northwest-southeast trend of the mountains of the Balkan Peninsula, the Píndos sweep down from the Albanian and Macedonian frontiers, creating a powerful barrier. The two passes of Métsovon and Mount Timfristós divide the range into three units: a fairly open segment in the north where impervious shales and sandstones have weathered and formed into extensive upland valleys and gently inclining hills; the Píndos proper in the centre, some 20 miles (32 km) wide and predominantly limestone; and an almost uncrossable zone in the south, about 50 miles (80 km) wide, deeply cut by winding rivers and composed of a mixture of limestone, slates, and sandstones. The range’s highest point, Mount Smólikas, 8,652 feet (2,637 metres) high, is found in the north.

NORTHEASTERN GREECE: MAKEDONÍA AND THRÁKI

Several topographic regions surround the main mountainous core and are often penetrated by extensions of it. The northernmost part, roughly the regions of Greek Makedonía (Macedonia) and Thráki (Thrace), extends in a long, narrow, east-west band between the Aegean coast and the frontier with the countries of Macedonia and Bulgaria. It consists of forest-clad, crystalline mountain massifs and plateaus created by the fracturing of the Hercynian block and separated from each other by the alluvial deposits of the five great rivers of northern Greece: the Maritsa (Évros), Néstos, Strymónas (Struma), Vardaráis (Vardar; Axiós;), and Aliákmonos (Aliákmon). The fracturing of the Hercynian also accounts for the odd three-pronged shape of the Chalkidikí (Chalcidice) Peninsula, on whose easternmost prong is located Mount Athos (Holy Mountain), which is the famous site of Greek Orthodox monastic communities. Along and beyond the Bulgarian border rise the Rodópi (Rhodope) Mountains, mainly composed of sharp-edged and sloping plateaus, reaching 7,260 feet (2,213 metres) at Mount Órvilos. The Maritsa River, in its low-lying, marshy valley, marks the Turkish border. From there to the lower Strymónas River extends a succession of plains, some of which are often swampy, such as the deltaic plain of the lower Néstos, and others have been turned into fertile agricultural land, as is the case in the former Lake Akhinós. Inland there are basins of structural origin, such as the Plain of Drámas (Drama). Lakes Koróneia (Korónia) and Vólvi, which separate the Chalkidikí Peninsula from the rest of the coastal region, also occupy structural depressions. Farther west, the large plain drained by the Vardaráis and lower Aliákmonos rivers is being continually extended as the river deltas push out into the Gulf of Thermaïkós (Thérmai). The forested Vérmion (Vérmio) Mountains and, beyond them, the barren inland basins around Lakes Vegorítida (Vegorrítis) and Kardítsa mark the boundary with the Píndos Mountains.

EASTERN GREECE: THESSALÍA AND ATTIKÍ

The western part of this region contains the massive limestone formations so characteristic of northern and western Greece, while to the east the peninsula of Attiikí (Attica) represents the western margin of the Hercynian crystalline rocks of the Aegean shores. Essentially an upland area, its relief is articulated by four northwest–southeast-trending spurs thrusting out from the main Píndos mass. A number of distinctive basins and plains lie amid these upland ribs. The northernmost, a rather broken spur called the Kamvoúnia Mountains, runs along the coast of the Gulf of Thermaïkós and continues south to form the peninsula bounding one side of Vólou Bay. Among its peaks are Mount Ólympos (Olympus)—the mythical seat of the gods, whose often cloud-topped summit rises to 9,570 feet (2,917 metres), the highest point in Greece—and the equally fine peaks of Mounts Kisszavos (Ossa) and Pílios (Pelion). The next spur to the west is the Óthris mountain range, which continues across the narrow Oreón Channel in the northern sector of the long, narrow island of Évvoia (Euboea). Between the two spurs lie the ancient basins (formerly the site of lakes) of Thessalía (Thessaly), Tríkala , and Lárisa, drained by the Pineiós (Piniós) River. Just to the south the basin of Almyrós (Almirós), of similar origin, lies around Vólou Bay.

To the southwest the third spur leaving the Píndos is that of the Oíti, which continues in the Óchi (Ókhi) Mountains of southern Évvoia. Just before the Oíti reaches the sea, near the head of the Gulf of Maliakós, is the pass of Thermopýles (Thermopylae, scene of the famous battle of antiquity). The last (and perhaps the most important) of the four spurs thrusting down into eastern Greece is the one that curves away to the southeast through the twin-peaked mass of Mount Parnassós (Parnassus). This mountain, rising to an elevation of 8,061 feet (2,457 metres), was held to be the home of the Muses. The view from its summit at sunrise, with a broad expanse of the heart of Greece gradually unfolding, is regarded as one of the finest in the world. The range continues as the backbone of the peninsula lying between the Gulf of Évvoia and the Gulf of Korinthiakós (Corinth), and it reaches as far as Mount Párnis, just to the north of Athens. To its north lie the plains of Fokída (Phocis) and Voiotía (Boeotia), and around its southern tip lie the hotter and more arid depressions of Attiikí.

SOUTHERN GREECE: THE PELOPÓNNISOS

The entire southern portion of mainland Greece forms a peninsula lying to the south of the Gulf of Korinthiakós. Technically, this region, the Pelopónnisos, also known as the Morea, is now an island, for the 3.9-mile (6.3-km) Korinthiakós Canal cuts across the narrow neck of land that formerly separated the Gulf of Korinthiakós from that of Aígina (Aíyina). The Pelopónnisos consists of an oval-shaped mountain mass with peaks rising to 7,800 feet (2,400 metres) and four peninsular prongs, which point southward toward the island of Crete (Modern Greek: Kríti). At its heart are the arid limestone plateaus of Arkadía (Arcadia), where streams disappear underground into the soluble rock and from which the barren upland of the Táygetos (Taïyetos) Mountains, reaching an elevation of 7,800 feet, extends southward to form the backbone of one of the southern peninsulas. A thin fringe of fertile coastal plain in the north and west, together with the larger alluvial depressions forming the Gulfs of Lakonia (Laconia), Messenía (Kalamata), and Argolikós (Árgolis), surrounds this mountainous core. The coast is indented and has some harbours.

WESTERN GREECE: ÍPEIROS AND AKARNANÍA

Western Greece consists of Ípeiros (Epirus) and Akarnanía (Acarnania), which is the area north of the Gulf of Korinthiakós to the Albanian frontier, and is often considered to include the offshore Iónia (Ionian) Islands. The distinctiveness of western Greece is enhanced by the fact that the barrier effect of the Píndos and the ameliorating climatic influences from the west result in a quite different landscape from that of the rest of Greece. The west’s physical attributes have exaggerated its historical isolation from the other areas of mainland Greece. Fertile basins are not well developed, constricted as they are by the parallel ranges of the coastal mountains. The mountain regions themselves, however, are adequately supplied with precipitation. The flat, alluvial plain of Árta, built up from detritus brought down by the Árachthos (Árakhthos) River has become, with irrigation, a fertile agricultural region.

THE ISLANDS OF GREECE

The Ionian Islands off the western coast of Greece structurally resemble the folded mountains of Ípeiros. Of the six main islands, Corfu (Modern Greek: Kérkyra), opposite the Albanian frontier, is the northernmost; it is fertile and amply endowed with well-watered lowland. The other islands, Paxoí (Paxos), Lefkáda (Leucas), Itháki (Ithaca), Kefalonía (Cephallenia), and Zákynthos (Zacynthus), lie farther south; lack of rainfall accentuates their gaunt, broken limestone relief, although Lefkáda and Zákynthos have sheltered eastern plains. A seventh island, Kýthira (Cythera), is grouped with the Ionian Islands for administrative purposes but is geographically discrete. The Aegean islands, also exhibiting the characteristic landforms of the mainland, are situated in distinct clusters in the Aegean Sea, east of the Greek mainland.

In the north, off Thráki (Thrace), lie Thásos, an oval block of ancient mineral rocks similar in composition to neighbouring blocks on the mainland, and harbourless Samothráki (Samothrace), an island of volcanic origin. Límnos (Lemnos), situated midway between Asia Minor and the Mount Athós peninsula, is almost cut in two by the northern Pourniás Bay and the deep southern harbour afforded by the Bay of Moúdros (Moúdhrou).

To the southeast the rocky but sheltered islands of Lésbos (Lésvos), Chíos (Khíos), and Sámos lie close to the Turkish coast and are extensions of peninsulas on the coast of Asia Minor. Across the central Aegean, near northern Évvoia, lie the Northern Sporades (“Scattered Islands”); their crystalline rocks are similar to those of the Greek mainland. Farther south, in the heart of the Aegean, lie the Kykládes (Cyclades; “Islands in a Circle”). These roughly centre on Dílos (Delos) and represent the tips of drowned mountain ridges continuing the structural trends of Évvoia and the region around Athens.

Between the Kykládes and the Turkish coast, Dodekánisa (the Dodecanese group), of which Ródos (Rhodes) is the largest of a dozen major islands, has a varied geologic structure ranging from the gray limestones of Kálymnos (Kálimnos), Sými (Sími), and Chálki to the complete ancient volcanic cone that forms Nísuros (Nísiros).

Finally, the long narrow shape of Crete stands to the south at the entrance of the Aegean. With an area of 3,190 square miles (8,262 square km), it is by far the largest of the Aegean islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean. Crete is geologically linked to the south and west of mainland Greece. Its rugged, deeply ravined, asymmetrical limestone massif, falling steeply to the south, from a distance resembles four separate islands: the westernmost Lefká (Levká) Mountains; the central Psíloreítis (Ídi) Mountains, with Crete’s highest point, the summit of Mount Psíloreítis, called Timios Stavrós, 8,058 feet (2,456 metres) high; the east-central Díkti Mountains; and the far eastern Tryptí (Thriptís) Mountains. Another range, the Asteroúsia (Kófinas) Mountains, runs along the south-central coast between the Mesarás Plain and the Libyan Sea. Of Crete’s 650 miles (1,050 km) of rocky coastline, it is the more gradual slope on the northern side of the island that provides several natural harbours and coastal plains.

Drainage

The main rivers of Greece share several characteristics: in their upper courses most flow in broad, gently sloping valleys; in their middle courses they plunge through a series of intermontane basins in narrow, often spectacular gorges; and in their lower courses they meander across the coastal plain to reach the sea in marshy, ever-growing deltas. Most rivers are short. In limestone districts a generally permeable surface with sinkholes (katavóthra) leading to underground channels complicates the drainage network. River regimes in all regions are erratic, unsuitable for navigation, and of limited usefulness for irrigation. The Vardaráis, Strymónas, and Néstos, which cross Greek Makedonía and Thráki to enter the northern Aegean, are the major rivers, but only because they drain large regions beyond the Greek frontier. Also in the northeast are the eastward-flowing Aliákmonos and Piniós, and in the Pelopónnisos is the Evrótas, which flows southeastward into the Gulf of Lakonia.

Soils

Throughout the rocky highland areas of Greece, which are characterized by their limestone formations, the soil is thin and relatively poor. The valley areas contain claylike soil known as terra rosa, reddened earth that originates from the residue of limestone rocks. These areas are adequate for farming. The most fertile regions, however, are along coastal plains and beside rivers. The clay and loam soils that predominate there may even require drainage prior to cultivation.

Climate

The Mediterranean climate of Greece is subject to a number of regional and local variations based on the country’s physical diversity. In winter the belt of low-pressure disturbances moving in from the North Atlantic Ocean shifts southward, bringing with it warm, moist, westerly winds. As the low-pressure areas enter the Aegean region, they may draw in cold air from those eastern regions of the Balkans that, sheltered by the Dinaric mountain system from western influences, are open to climatic extremes emanating from the heart of Eurasia. This icy wind is known as the boreas. Partly as a result, Thessaloníki (Salonika; Thessalonica) has an average January temperature in the low 40s F (about 6 °C), while in Athens it is in the low 50s F (about 10 °C), and in Iráklieo (Candia) on Crete it is in the low to mid-50s F (about 12 °C). Occasionally the warmer sirocco (shilok) winds are drawn in from the south. The western climatic influences bring plenty of precipitation to the Ionian coast and the mountains behind it; winter rain starts early, and snow lingers into spring. On Corfu, January temperatures average in the low 50s F (10 °C), and the island’s average annual precipitation is about 52 inches (1,320 mm), compared with that on Crete of about 25 inches (640 mm) and that at Athens of about 16 inches (400 mm). Few populated areas have lasting snowfalls, but snow is commonly found on the highest peaks.

In summer, when the low-pressure belt swings away again, the climate is hot and dry almost everywhere. The average July sea-level temperature approaches 80 °F (27 °C), although heat waves can push the temperature well above 100 °F (38 °C) for a day or so. Topography is again a modifying factor: the interior northern mountains continue to experience some precipitation, while along the winding coast the afternoon heat is eased slightly by sea breezes. In other regions, such as Crete, the hot, dry summers are accentuated by the parching meltemi, or etesian winds, which become drier as they are drawn southward.

In all seasons—perhaps especially in summer—the quality of light is one of Greece’s most appealing attractions. However, atmospheric pollution has become a serious problem in the cities, notably Athens, obscuring the sky and posing a hazard to the ancient monuments.

Plant and animal life

As in other Balkan countries, the vegetation of Greece is open to influences from several major biogeographic zones, with the major Mediterranean and western Asian elements supplemented by plants and animals from the central European interior. The subtle but complex vegetation mosaic is a product of the climatic effects of elevation, the contrast between north and south, local relief, and eight or nine millennia of human settlement and land use. Degraded plant associations (areas where the variety and size of species and the density of plant cover are reduced) and soil erosion are common.

Vegetation types from central Europe prevail on the mountain flanks and generally in the north. In central and southern regions and in the narrow belts along the valleys of the mountains, about half the land is under scrub of various kinds; and maquis—the classic Mediterranean scrub, with oleander, bay, evergreen oak, olive, and juniper—is especially prevalent in the Pelopónnisos. Evergreen trees and shrubs and herbaceous plants are found in the lowland, their flowers offering brilliant patterns in springtime. Pines, plane trees, and poplars line the rivers, the higher slopes, and the coastal plains. Forests and scrub are found at the highest elevations; black pine forests cover Mount Ólympos. Oak, chestnut, and other deciduous trees are found in the north, giving way at higher elevations to coniferous forests dominated by the Grecian fir, in which clearings are carpeted in spring and summer with irises, crocuses, and tulips. Greece is home to about 6,000 species of wildflowers, of which some 600 are endemic.

The forested zones, especially in the north, harbour such European mammals as wildcats, martens, brown bears, roe deer, and, more rarely, wolves, wild boars, and lynx. Animals of the Mediterranean regions include hares, wild goats, and porcupines, all adapted to the heat and lack of moisture. Birds include owls, vultures, pelicans, storks, and herons, and many varieties from farther north spend the winter in Greece, while others stop on Greek land and water while migrating to and from Africa. Reptile and marine life have come under increasing pressure, the former by overdevelopment and the latter by exhaustive fishing.

Demography of Greece

The People

  • Ethnic groups

The population of Greece, in particular that of northern Greece, has always been characterized by a great deal of ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity. Migrations, invasions, imperial conquests, and 20th-century wars all contributed to this cultural diversity, which continues to characterize modern Greece—in spite of several instances of population exchanges, which occurred as a result of treaties between Greece and Bulgaria in 1919 and between Greece and Turkey in 1923, along with long-standing government policies of assimilation, or Hellenization. According to the dominant ideology of the Greek state, all the people of Greece are, or should be, Greek. As a result, the existence of ethnic and national diversity in the country has remained a sensitive issue. The Greek government’s official position is that there are no ethnic or national minorities in the country and that virtually the entire population is Greek. The only minority officially recognized by the Greek government is a religious minority, the Muslim minority of Thráki (Thrace), whose existence was acknowledged in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Nonetheless, the population of Greece includes people who identify themselves as Turks, Macedonians, Albanians, Aromanians (Vlachs), and Roma (Gypsies). Greek is the language of the majority of Cyprus’s population, and enclaves of Greeks—as defined by the language they speak—are to be found to different degrees in southern Albania, southern Italy, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Greek expatriate communities play a distinctive role in Europe, North and South America, Australia, and South Africa.

  • Languages

The Greek language is one of the oldest attested Indo-European languages, its earliest written form (Linear B) dating to about the 15th century bce. Koine (the language of the New Testament) and Byzantine Greek represent the middle phases of Greek. Those ultimately gave way in the 19th century to Modern Greek (except in the liturgy of the Greek Orthodox Church, which still uses Koine), although from roughly the 15th century onward, the language had a very modern aspect to it. Modern Greek comprises Standard Modern Greek and the various regional dialects. Standard Modern Greek is the official state language, and it is an amalgamation of two historical forms: Demotic, which is widely spoken, and Katharevusa, a deliberately archaizing form that was primarily written, appearing in official government documents and newspapers until the mid-1970s. Separate transliteration tables are generally used for Classical and Modern Greek; however, changes in the pronunciation of the Greek language and conflicting transliteration conventions have resulted in widespread discrepancies, even in the rendering of Modern Greek names in Roman orthography. Although not officially recognized, minority languages spoken in the country include Turkish, Macedonian, Albanian (especially in the dialect known as Arvanítika, a variety of Tosk Albanian taken to Greece in the 15th century by settlers from what is now Albania), Bulgarian, Romany, Aromanian (a form of Eastern Romance, akin to Daco-Romanian, spoken by the Aromanians and also called Macedo-Romanian), and Megleno-Romanian (another form of Eastern Romance, spoken in a few villages in the north). The form of Greek known as Tsakonian is different enough from other varieties that it could be considered a separate language too, and a similar claim could be made for the Pontic variety and the Cappadocian variety as spoken now in Greece (these last two occurring in Greece as a result of the population movements mandated by the Treaty of Lausanne).

  • Religion

Despite the long Ottoman administration, virtually all of the population belongs to the Church of Greece (Greek Orthodox Church). An autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodox church, this body appoints its own ecclesiastical hierarchy and is headed by a synod of 12 metropolitans under the presidency of the archbishop of Athens. Almost all Cretans belong to a special branch of the Church of Greece headed by the archbishop of Crete, who is directly responsible to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, as are the monks of Mount Athos, who constitute a semiautonomous entity with a Greek governor but with their own administration.

The Muslim (primarily Sunni) minority, which constitutes most of the non-Orthodox sector of the population, is mainly Turkish and concentrated in western Thráki and the Dodecanese. Roman and Greek Catholics, predominantly located in Athens and the western islands formerly under Italian rule, account for the rest, except for a few thousand adherents of Protestantism and Judaism. Greece’s Jewish population was almost wiped out by the Nazi genocide of World War II. (See Holocaust.)

  • Settlement patterns

In terms of human geography, Greece can be described as “classical Mediterranean” and “Balkan.” History, rather than the physical environment, accounts for the variations in settlement patterns, social composition, and demographic trends that cannot be explained by differentiating between “Old Greece” and the territories annexed in the early 20th century. For example, although Greece is considered an “old country”—relatively densely populated in prehistoric times and well settled and much exploited in and since ancient times (as the large number of Classical monuments and important archaeological sites testifies)—instability is as characteristic of Greece’s settlement pattern as it is of Greece’s history. New villages, associated not only with Ottoman colonization but also with agrarian reform in the first three decades of the 20th century, are neighbours to some of the most ancient towns of Mediterranean Europe, notably Khaniá (Chaniá), Pýlos, Thíra (Santoríni), Árgos, Athens, Spárti (Sparta), and Thíva (Thebes). Traditionally, towns and villages have depended on the fertility of the surrounding land. Isolation, which contributes to this self-sufficiency (the autarkeia of the ancient city-states), survives in the remote villages of mountainous Greece. Only Corinth (Modern Greek: Kórinthos) and Athens were major trading centres in ancient times. The other trading areas were located where sea and land routes coincided with cultivable land. From the Byzantine period onward, fortification became an essential factor for both monastic and secular settlement, emphasizing the importance of the mountain regions and of “perched” sites above lowland. As late as the 1960s, about two-fifths of Greece’s population lived in mountain regions. A return to the plains took place during intermittent periods of relative stability, and the settlement pattern, dispersed or nucleated and often geometrically laid out, thus always seems to be “new.”

Greeks have preserved a strong sense of community, and village life remains a powerful influence. This holds true despite the decline of the rural population, which now constitutes about two-fifths of Greece’s total population. At the other end of the urban scale, Greece’s larger towns and cities have gained considerably in size and commercial importance since the 1970s. The Athens metropolitan area is by far the largest urban concentration, but towns such as Thessaloníki, Pátrai, Vólos, Lárissa (Lárisa), and Irákleio (on Crete) are all fast-growing centres. Of the three-fifths of the population that is urban, a relatively small slice is classified as semi-urban. Urbanization is extending into the countryside, where agrarian reform has severely fragmented landholdings and attracted urban-based financial and marketing entrepreneurs.

  • Demographic trends

Most of the country’s growth in the years after Greece gained its independence from the Ottomans in 1832 resulted from two factors: annexations of surrounding areas—the Ionian Islands (1864); Thessalía and Árta (1881); Ípeiros, Greek Makedonía, and Crete (1913); Thráki (1920); and the Dodecanese (1947)—and the influx of some 1.5 million Greek refugees from Asia Minor in the 1920s as a result of the Treaty of Lausanne. Emigration was significant in 1911–15, and it became particularly heavy after World War II. The most common destinations of the emigrants were the United States, Canada, Australia, and, somewhat later, Germany, Belgium, and Italy.

The 1950s and ’60s were demographically stagnant, but in the 1970s population growth was revitalized. This was, however, almost wholly because of international population movements rather than from an increase in natural growth rates, which remained low. At the middle of the first decade of the new millennium, the majority of immigrants were from central and eastern Europe, primarily Albania, followed by Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine. Within Greece the contrast between regions losing population (two-thirds of the southern Pelopónnisos; all the Ionian Islands except Corfu; the mountains of central, southwestern, and northeastern mainland Greece; and most of the islands of the eastern Aegean) and those rapidly gaining people (Attikí and other districts outside the major cities) held social and political implications. In the early 21st century, as the fertility rate remained below the replacement rate and as immigration slowed, the overall population growth rate declined. Although the life expectancy of Greek men and women was for some time slightly longer than that in other western European countries, the difference has been decreasing since the late 20th century because of changes in the diet and activities of Greeks.

Economy of Greece

Greece’s economy underwent rapid growth in the post-World War II period, but it has remained one of the least developed in the European Union (EU). The country’s natural resources are limited, its industrialization process has been slow, and it has struggled with the balance of payments. Shipping, tourism, and remittances from expatriate workers (the last of which have been decreasing steadily) are the mainstays of the economy.

Although the Greek economy traditionally has been based on free enterprise, many sectors of the economy have come under direct or, through the banks, indirect government control. This process of establishing state ownership of the economy has been associated with both right and centre-left governments; however, in the first decade of the 21st century, the centre-right government—partly in response to pressure from the EU—showed an inclination for privatizing some sectors. Trade unions, which are fragmented and highly politicized, wield significant power only in the public sector. Measures taken since the late 1980s, however, have begun to decrease the degree of state control of economic activity. Following entry into the European Economic Community (later succeeded by the EU), Greece became a major beneficiary of the Common Agricultural Policy, which provided subsidies to the country’s generally inefficient agricultural sector and for projects to improve its infrastructure. Rates of productivity, however, have remained low for both agriculture and industry, and the development of the country’s economy has lagged behind that of its EU partners. Unemployment, which historically has been low, grew in the last decades of the 20th century as temporary migrant workers returned to Greece and as demand for immigrant labour has declined in other European countries. Some sectors of the economy, notably shipping and tourism, have shown considerable dynamism but have been highly vulnerable to international developments.

In late 2009 the Greek economy went into a tailspin. This economic and financial crisis had been partly precipitated by the global financial downturn that soured economies throughout the world in 2008–09 in the wake of the burst of the “housing bubble” in the United States in 2007, which left banks around the world awash in “toxic” debt. Beyond the difficulties tied to the international situation, however, it became clear that Greece had its own acute problems derived largely from excessive government borrowing and misleading accounting that had hidden the extent of the government’s extraordinary debt. Severe austerity measures were not enough to rescue the Greek economy and government, and in March and April of 2010 the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—fearing the collapse of the euro currency zone, which Greece had joined in 2001—stepped in with two huge aid packages that came loaded with new demands for austerity measures.

  • Agriculture, forestry, and fishing

Greece’s agricultural potential is hampered by poor soil, inadequate levels of precipitation, a landholding system that has served to increase the number of unproductive smallholdings, and population migration from the countryside to cities and towns. Less than one-third of the land area is cultivable, with the remainder consisting of pasture, scrub, and forest. Only in the plains of Thessalía, Makedonía, and Thráki is cultivation possible on a reasonably large scale. There corn (maize), wheat, barley, sugar beets, peaches, tomatoes, cotton (of which Greece is the only EU producer), and tobacco are grown.

Other crops grown in considerable quantities are olives (for olive oil), grapes, melons, potatoes, and oranges, all of which are exported to other EU countries. Since the last quarter of the 20th century, Greece also has been exporting hothouse-grown vegetables to northern Europe during the winter. Greek wine, including the resin-flavoured retsina, has been produced primarily for domestic consumption, but by the 1990s Greece was producing wines of higher quality for the world market. Sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and chickens are raised for export and local consumption.

Although inefficient, Greek agriculture has benefited substantially from EU subsidies, and there are many signs of growing rural prosperity. In general, however, the importance of the agricultural sector to the economy is diminishing.

Forests, mostly state-owned, cover approximately one-fifth of the land area, but they are prone to major forest fires. Forest products make no significant contribution to the economy.

Greece’s extensive coastline and numerous islands have always supported intensive fishing activity. However, overfishing and the failure to conserve fish stocks properly, a problem throughout the Mediterranean, have reduced the contribution of fishing to the economy.

  • Resources and power

Greece has few natural resources. Its only substantial mineral deposits are of nonferrous metals, notably bauxite. The country also has small deposits of silver ore and marble, which are mined. Fossil fuels, with the exception of lignite, are in short supply: there are no deposits of bituminous coal, and oil production, based on the Prinos field near the island of Thásos, is limited. After the Thásos discovery, a dispute developed in the 1970s between Greece and Turkey over the delineation of the two countries’ respective continental shelves and has remained unresolved. At the start of the 21st century, about nine-tenths of Greece’s electrical power needs were supplied by fossil fuels (primarily by lignite-fueled power stations), and nearly one-tenth by hydroelectric power, with a still considerably smaller slice provided by nuclear energy. From the late 1990s the country began developing solar and wind power.

  • Manufacturing

The manufacturing sector in Greece is weak. An established tradition exists only for the production of textiles, processed foods, and cement. One of the world’s largest cement factories is located in Vólos. In the past, private investment was oriented much more toward real estate than toward industry, and concrete apartment blocks proliferated throughout the country. In the 1960s and ’70s Greek shipowners took advantage of an investment regime that benefited from foreign capital by investing in such sectors as oil refining and shipbuilding. Shipping continues to be a key industrial sector—the merchant fleet being one of the largest in the world—though many of Greece’s ships are older than those of other leading countries. In the 1970s many ships that had hitherto registered under flags of convenience returned to the Greek flag; only a small proportion remains under foreign registry. Greek ships, which are predominantly bulk carriers, are extremely vulnerable to downturns in international economic activity, as they are principally engaged in carrying cargoes between developing countries. In the early 21st century about one-fifth of the labour force was employed in manufacturing and construction.

  • Finance

The central bank is the Bank of Greece, which issued the drachma, the national currency, until 2001, when Greece adopted the euro as its sole currency. Greece has been a member of the EU since 1981. A significant number of the country’s commercial banks are state-controlled. The state also exercises considerable control over the insurance sector.

There is a stock exchange in Athens, but, for many Greeks, real estate, foreign currency, gold, and jewelry have proved to be more attractive investments than securities and bonds. Although Greece has a pension and social insurance system of considerable complexity, many Greeks have opposed changes to it. By the late 1990s it had become easier for Greeks to obtain their pensions and get medical care. The main social security fund, the Social Insurance Institute (IKA), is prone to recurrent funding crises.

  • Trade

At the beginning of the 21st century, about two-fifths of Greece’s trade was with the other member countries of the EU, and its main trading partners were Germany and Italy. The principal exports included food (especially fruit and nuts), clothing and apparel, machinery, and refined petroleum and petroleum-based products. Machinery and transportation equipment, chemicals and chemical products, foodstuffs, ships and boats, and crude petroleum are the country’s main imports.

The emergence of a consumer society has created a huge demand for imported consumer goods—in particular, automobiles—which has had negative consequences for the country’s balance of trade. In the early 21st century, the deficit in the balance of payments was offset by the borrowing that would eventually be responsible for the country’s economic collapse, as well as by limited foreign investment, and, to a lesser extent, by remittances from emigrants.

  • Services

Services have become the dominant sector of Greece’s economy, contributing about two-thirds of the gross domestic product (GDP) and employing about the same proportion of the workforce by the early 2000s. Government services were significantly reduced, however, as part of the austerity measures undertaken in response to the economic crisis at the end of the decade.

A host of World Heritage sites are found in Greece, including the Acropolis in Athens (designated a World Heritage site in 1987), the medieval city of Rhodes (1988), and the archaeological site of Olympia (1989), to name but a few. Starting in the 1960s, the number of tourists, notably those from European countries, increased significantly, although Greece faced increasing competition from countries such as Portugal and Turkey. Improved road transport and infrastructure and the creation of a network of truck- and car-carrying ferries linking mainland Greece to the numerous islands and to Italy were instrumental to this growth. By the beginning of the 21st century, some 14 million visitors were arriving annually, many of them from the United Kingdom and Germany, and there was a new emphasis on attracting tourists from China.

  • Labour and taxation

In the mid-1970s, with the return of parliamentary democracy, trade unions became mobilized. For the next decade and a half there was a period of increased strike activity, characterized by greater militancy and expanding membership in organized labour. By the early 1990s, however, as the Greek economy became more stable and less industrial, trade union membership and bargaining power were diminished. Though not officially recognized, there are trade union factions belonging to each of the major political parties. Overall, however, union labour in Greece is primarily represented by the General Confederation of Greek Workers (Geniki Synomospondia Ergaton Ellados; GSEE). The Civil Servants’ Confederation (Anotati Diikisis Enoseon Dimosion Ypallilon; ADEDY) is the next most important labour organization. Whether they belong to unions or not, Greeks in a wide variety of occupations—from physicians to public transportation workers—have shown a willingness to undertake wildcat strikes. There was widespread union opposition to the austerity measures (which included reductions in benefits and pensions) introduced by the government in response to the economic crisis that began in 2009.

Greece instituted a value-added tax (VAT) in 1987. In the first decade of the 21st century, the government began to reduce the corporate income tax rate. Individual income tax is progressive, with rates as high as 45 percent in the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century.

  • Transportation and telecommunications

Only since the last half of the 20th century have all the country’s villages become accessible to wheeled traffic and linked to the national electricity grid. There are no navigable rivers and only one waterway, the Korinthiakós (Corinth) Canal, which divides the Pelopónnisos from mainland Greece. Although the canal significantly shortens the sea route from the Italian ports to Piraeus (the port of Athens), it has never fulfilled the economic expectations of its builders, because of its shallow draft and narrow width. There are also major ports at Patras and Thessaloníki.

Railway construction began in the 1880s and, given the rugged terrain of the country, involved some difficult feats of engineering. Today the extensive railway system includes a narrow-gauge railway network in the Pelopónnisos. A program to modernize the railway system with the aid of EU funding commenced in the mid-1990s. Public transport in the Athens metropolitan area is heavily dependent on an often overcrowded and sometimes unreliable bus network. Much of Athens is serviced by the Metro; construction of that subway system began in the 1990s but proceeded relatively slowly, as the digging unearthed a treasure trove of antiquities. More subway lines are planned for the Metro, which is supplemented by a small suburban railroad network linking the northern suburb of Kifisiá with the port of Piraeus.

The extensive nationwide bus-and-ferry network has been augmented since the 1960s by the development of a flight network linking Athens with a few dozen domestic airports. The country’s main airports are in suburban Athens and Makedonía, near Thessaloníki. International airports are found also at Alexandroúpoli (Alexandroúpolis) in Thráki and Andravída in the northwestern Pelopónnisos, while others service the country’s important tourist destinations on the islands. For several decades Olympic Airlines was owned by the government and had a virtual monopoly on air travel within Greece, but in 2009 it was acquired by a private investment group. Meanwhile, several small, privately owned airlines began offering limited service, primarily within Greece.

In the early 21st century the saturation rate of cellular phone use was extremely high, with almost as many subscriptions as there were citizens.

Government and Society of Greece

  • Constitutional framework

Greece is a parliamentary republic. The current constitution, introduced in 1975 following the collapse of the 1967–74 military dictatorship, initially gave considerable powers to the president, but revisions to the constitution in 1986 made presidential powers largely ceremonial. The president, who is the head of state, is elected by the unicameral Hellenic Parliament (Vouli) and may serve two five-year terms.

The prime minister is the head of government and has extensive powers but must be able to command the confidence of the legislative branch. The latter, the unicameral Hellenic Parliament, consists of 300 deputies who are elected to four-year terms by direct universal vote; it has the power to revise the constitution. Voting is compulsory. A distinctive feature of the Greek electoral system has been the practice of incumbent governments amending the electoral law to suit their own political advantage. However, another round of constitutional revisions in 2001 introduced safeguards against political abuses, bringing about greater transparency in political operations.

  • Local government

Reorganized administratively in 2011 according to the so-called Kallikratis Plan, Greece is divided into seven apokentroménes dioikíseis (decentralized administrations), the head of each of which is appointed by the central government. These units are further divided into 13 periféreies (regions), which mirror the 13 geographic diamerismata (regions) that existed under the previous administrative structure. At the next level of local government are the 74 perifereiakés enótites (regional units), the administrative and territorial constituents of parts of the regions. Finally, the most local of these administrative unis are the 325 dímoi (municipalities).

  • Justice

The judiciary is essentially the Roman law system prevalent in continental Europe. The two highest courts are the Supreme Court (Areios Pagos), which deals with civil and criminal cases, and the Council of State (Symvoulion Epikrateias), which is responsible for administration disputes. A Court of State Auditors has jurisdiction in a number of financial matters. A Special Supreme Tribunal deals with disputes over the interpretation of the constitution and checks the validity of parliamentary elections and referenda.

  • Political process

Many elements of traditional politics remain in Greece, most notably the personality-based nature of the party system. Parties are heavily dependent on the charisma of their leaders, and patronage is important at all levels.

In the early 21st century the major political parties included New Democracy (Nea Dimokratia; ND), the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima; PASOK), Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left), and the Communist Party of Greece (Kommunistiko Komma Elladas; KKE). New Democracy, founded by the veteran conservative politician Konstantinos Karamanlis, consistently supported “neoliberal” policies that aimed at limiting the power of the state and encouraging private initiatives and market economics. The PASOK retained a strong commitment to an independent foreign policy and a modified form of socialism. On the far left was the KKE, which continued to advocate Soviet-style communism.

  • Security

The military, made up of an army, a navy, and an air force, was a major arbiter of political life during the 20th century. Greece’s expenditure on defense is one of the highest in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) but is largely motivated by its preoccupation with Turkey, the country’s traditional enemy. Conscription for men is universal, and women have the right to volunteer for service.

  • Health and welfare

In the 1980s the government instituted a national health care system. Many Greek doctors train, at least partly, abroad, and they and the major hospitals meet international standards; however, Greeks often choose to travel abroad for medical care if they can afford it. The pension system in Greece is extraordinarily complex. Workers are insured under the Social Insurance Institute and the Agricultural Insurance Organization programs.

  • Housing

New housing construction accelerated at the end of the 20th century, particularly in the larger cities. Urban areas are characterized by apartment buildings. In fact, about half of all housing units in the early 21st century were apartments. Discrimination in housing in Greece was noted by international observers, who cited poor access to adequate housing and forced eviction among the Roma (Gypsies).

  • Education

Education has long been prized in Greece, both as an end in itself and as a means of upward social mobility. Wealthy Greeks of the diaspora have been major benefactors of schools and universities in their homeland. The state educational system is somewhat rigid, heavily centralized, and generally considered inadequate. As a consequence, many children attend private phrontistiria, institutions that tutor students outside normal school hours.

Education is free at all levels and is compulsory for children between ages 6 and 15. Nearly the entire population is literate. The oldest institutions of higher learning are the National Technical University of Athens (1836), the National and Capodistrian University of Athens (1837), and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1925). The latter institution has a tradition of innovation compared with the more conservative University of Athens. There are several other universities and polytechnical schools and a school of fine arts; however, those institutions are often inadequately equipped and lack a sufficient number of admission openings to satisfy the demand for higher education. Many Greek students therefore choose to study abroad.

Culture Life of Greece

  • Cultural milieu

he important sites of Greek antiquity that first attracted aristocratic and upper-class Europeans to the Greek lands in the 18th century and which influenced architectural styles in the West continue to attract tourists from throughout the world. Excavated sites such as the supposed tomb of Philip II of Macedon at Verghina, the Pompeii-like remains at Akrotíri on the island of Thíra, and the Minoan palace at Zákros on Crete are a few examples of a remarkably rich heritage from antiquity that has still not been fully explored. Since the beginning of the 20th century, awareness has grown of the architectural and artistic influence of the Byzantine Empire on historic Greek churches, frescoes, mosaics, and icons. Recognized too is not only a minor renaissance of Greek art and culture during the many centuries under Venetian and western European rule (c. 1204–1669) but also the contributions of Greeks to the greater Renaissance of Italy. The Renaissance in Greece—and in Crete in particular—produced handsome buildings, frescoes, and icons as well as poetry and drama; examples of these include the Venetian Loggia in Iráklion, the paintings of Michael Damaskinos (Michail Damaskenos; flourished late 16th century), the romantic-epic poem Erotocritos by Vitséntzos Kornáros, and the pageant-wagon drama Abraham and Isaac. In addition, Greek scholars, translators, and printers of the period introduced the classics to western Europe.

Less known to foreigners but highly valued by Greeks today is the culture that emerged in the 19th century, both popular and high, as Greeks struggled to establish their new nation-state and language. They took pride in their traditional lore and poems, especially their “brigand songs,” which celebrated defiance of their oppressors, while such writers as Yannis Psicháris, Andréas Ioannídis Kalvos, Dhionísios Solomós, and Alexandros Papadiamándis helped to forge a new Greek identity—one that now took pride in prevailing across centuries against foreign occupiers, in preserving the demotic language and popular customs, and in reasserting Greece’s place in the history of Western civilization. Greeks celebrate their winning of independence from the Ottoman Empire with a national holiday on March 25.

  • Daily life and social customs

In the hot summers, social life in Greece tends to be outdoors. In small towns and villages the tradition of the volta continues, when at sundown much of the population strolls up and down the main street or, on the islands, along the shore. In summer and winter much leisure time is passed in the numerous cafés and coffee shops, both of which have been traditionally a male preserve. It is also not uncommon to find in a single village one coffee shop where the adherents of a particular political party congregate. Television, the Internet, and forms of video entertainment have to some extent undermined these traditional leisure patterns.

Greek cuisine, particularly such sweets as baklava and kataifi, reflects the centuries of Turkish rule. The food in Thessaloníki—in northern Greece and part of the Ottoman Empire until 1912—in particular still reflects a strong Ottoman influence and is a testimony to the massive influx of refugees from Asia Minor in the 1920s. The traditional, healthy diet of Greek peasants in general was based on vegetables, fruit, olives, olive oil, cheese, bread, and seafood, meat being a luxury eaten only on special occasions. With the country’s growing affluence, meat has come to assume a more important place in the Greek diet, “fast foods” have taken hold in the cities, and the incidence of heart disease has risen accordingly.

Greek society is noted for its strong family structure and a low crime rate. The extended family, and the obligation placed on family members to provide mutual support, is of the utmost importance. The centrality of the family has been little affected by the rise of the middle class that has been a feature of the development of Greek society since the end of World War II. During the 1980s important changes were introduced in Greek family law. Civil marriage was instituted in parallel with religious marriage, the dowry system was abolished (though marriages are still sometimes seen to some degree as economic alliances in theory), divorce was made easier, and the hitherto dominant position of the father in the family was restricted. The great majority of the country’s businesses remain small, family-run enterprises. This is especially true of shipping, in which tightly knit clans of families dominate the industry. The family structure of industry acts as an impediment to modernization. The wheels of society continue to be lubricated by mesa (connections) and rouspheti (the reciprocal dispensation of favours).

The main holiday periods revolve around Easter and the Feast of Dormition (Assumption) of the Virgin in mid-August. Easter is the most important religious and family festival, with many people returning to their native villages for the traditional festivities, which include the vigil in church on Saturday evening, the lighting of the Holy Fire at midnight on Easter morning, and the roasting of whole lambs on spits for the Easter meal. August is the traditional vacation month.

  • The arts

Against the background of this extraordinary cultural heritage, Greece enjoys a thriving artistic life. Greece has made its greatest contributions in the field of literature (see Greek literature). Constantine Cavafy, an ethnic Greek who lived most of his life in Alexandria, Egypt, is frequently ranked among the great poets of the early 20th century. His work is suffused with an ironic nostalgia for Greece’s past glories. Two Greek poets have won the Nobel Prize for Literature: George Seferis in 1963 and Odysseus Elytis in 1979. The novelist best known outside Greece is the Cretan Níkos Kazantzákis, whose Zorba the Greek (1946) was made into a popular film (1964). Other 20th-century Greek writers include Kostís Palamás, Angelos Sikelianós, Kostas Varnalis, Pandelís Prevelákis, Strátis Myrivílis, Yannis Ritsos, Nikephoros Vrettakos, and Nikos Gatsos. More-contemporary writers and poets include Dimitris Lyacos, Nina Rapi, Eleni Vakalo, Ersi Sotiropoulos, and Miltos Sachtouris.

A number of Greek composers have acquired an international reputation, including Nikos Skalkottas, Manos Hadjidakis, and Mikis Theodorakis, and the country has also given the world of music such notables as Dimitri Mitropoulos Maria Callas, and Gina Bachauer. Well-known Greek painters and sculptors include Nicolas Ghika, Yannis Tsarouchis, Yannis Moralis, Spyros Vassiliou, and Photis Kontoglou.

Internationally known Greek contributors to theatre and film include Karolos Koun, Melina Mercouri, Costa-Gavras, and Theo Angelopoulos. The traditional shadow puppet theatre, Karaghiozis, is now largely extinct, having been displaced by television and other leisure pursuits. There is, however, a lively Athenian theatrical tradition in which political satire plays an important part.

Perhaps most significant of all is the enormous influence of ancient Greek art (see Western sculpture; Western architecture; Western painting, Greek pottery) and Greek mythology on later Western art and literature. Of countless examples that can be offered, a few should suffice to demonstrate the reach of what is known as Greek civilization. Such Greek statuary as the kore and the kouros—themselves reflecting an interaction with other cultures (particularly that of Egypt)—and later developments represented by such works as the Louvre’s Winged Victory of Samothrace provide a major chapter in the art history of Europe and North America. In architecture, the Greek temple remains a classic form. Ancient Greek tragedies (such as Euripides’ Medea) and comedies (such as Aristophanes’ Lysistrata) were presented in various styles into the 21st century. One of the classic Greek tragedies—the fated marriage of Oedipus to his own mother, Jocasta, detailed in Sophocles’ Oedipus cycle—formed a keystone of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. Another resonant tale, Homer’s Odyssey (8th or 9th century bce), was the basis of Irishman James Joyce’s 20th-century masterwork Ulysses. A moment’s reflection can call to mind an abundance of paradigms.

  • Cultural institutions

A myriad of venues in the capital supports this theatre life, which includes productions of Western classics as well as traditional works of political satire. The numerous arts festivals held at historical sites throughout Greece during the summer months feature both native and international artists. Huge audiences are attracted to performances of ancient Greek drama staged in the theatre of Epidaurus, which dates from the 4th century bce and whose acoustics are extraordinary; the 2nd-century-ce Roman theatre of Herodes Atticus, at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, also draws large crowds and is the location for concerts at the annual Athens Festival. Live performances of orchestral music in Athens, limited in comparison with those of other European capitals, were given a major boost with the opening in 1991 of a new concert hall, the Megaro Mousikis (“Palace of Music”).

The country’s archaeological heritage and emphasis on the Classical past has given the state’s Archaeological Service a particularly important role. Frequently working in cooperation with various foreign archaeological institutes, the service is responsible for excavating relics of the past and for running the country’s museums. Far and away, the most visited of these is the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. In 2009 the new Acropolis Museum was opened to the public, with a floor set aside for the long-sought return of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum. Access to public libraries is relatively limited, and there is no adequate national library. Distinctive of Greek intellectual life are the numerous societies devoted to the study of local and regional archaeology, history, and folklore, reflecting the strong regional loyalties of many Greeks. The country’s most prestigious learned society is the Academy of Athens.

  • Sports and recreation

Greece’s national sport is football (soccer), and basketball has increased in popularity since the 1980s. The national basketball team won the European championship in 1987, and the national football team qualified for its first World Cup finals in 1994 and won the European Championship in 2004. Mountain sports—hiking, climbing, and skiing—and hunting are other popular activities, and field hockey, baseball, and cricket are played regionally. Gymnastics is an ancient sport in Greece, as is athletics (track and field). Competitive running and jumping events date to 776 bce, when the first Olympic Games were held, and Athens was host to the first modern Olympics in 1896. Over a century later, the Summer Games were again mounted in Athens, in 2004, refocusing attention on Greece’s impact on the world of sport.

  • Media and publishing

During the 1980s traditional newspaper proprietors were to an extent displaced by new entrepreneurs, and most newspapers became tabloids. The circulation of morning papers declined while that of evening papers increased. Leading newspapers include Ekathimerini (“Daily”), Eleftherotypia (“Free Press”), To Vima (“Tribune,” which became an online and Sunday-only print publication in the wake of the 2009 economic crisis), and Ta Nea (“News”). A pair of free newspapers published in Athens, Metro and City Press, also became very popular beginning in the early 21st century. For the most part, the press tends to be partisan in its political comments. The government monopoly of television and radio broadcasting was broken in the 1980s, which gave rise to private stations. Like the print media, broadcasting is uncensored, particularly in its handling of political issues. Greece is home to scores of FM and AM radio stations and a few dozen television stations. By the early 21st century nearly half of all Greeks had Internet access.

History of Greece

For detailed coverage of earlier history of Greece, see Aegean civilizations and ancient Greek civilization.

The geophysical structure of Greece played a significant role in shaping its pre-Classical and Classical history and continued to be influential into the medieval period, for, in spite of the administrative unity and relative effectiveness of the fiscal and military administration of the later Roman and Byzantine states, these still had to function in a geophysical context in which communications were particularly difficult. The southern Balkan Peninsula has no obvious geographic focal point. The main cities in the medieval period were Thessalonica (Modern Greek: Thessaloníki; historically, also called Salonika) and Constantinople (modern Istanbul), yet these were peripheral to the peninsula and its fragmented landscape. The degree of Byzantine political control during the Middle Ages is clearly reflected in this. In the largely inaccessible Rhodope (Rodópi) Mountains, as well as in the Pindus (Píndos) Mountains, state authority, whether Byzantine or Ottoman, always remained a rather distant factor in the lives of the inhabitants.

The relationship between this landscape of mountains, gulf-indented coasts, and valleys on the one hand and the sea on the other is fundamental to the cultural as well as to the political and the military history of Greece. The sea surrounds Greece except along its northern border. The extended coastline—including such gulfs as those of Corinth (Korinthiakós) and Thessalonica, which penetrate deep into the interior—has served as a means of communication with surrounding areas to the extent that even interior districts of the Balkans often share in the Mediterranean cultural world. The sea was also a source of danger: seaborne access from the west, from the south, or from the northeast via the Black Sea made Greece and the Peloponnese (Pelopónnisos) particularly vulnerable to invasion and dislocation.


Greece during the Byzantine period (c. 300 ce–c. 1453)

  • LATE ROMAN ADMINISTRATION

At the beginning of the 4th century, the regions comprised by the modern state of Greece were divided into eight provinces: Rhodope, Macedonia, Epirus (Ípeiros) Nova, Epirus Vetus, Thessaly (Thessalía), Achaea, Crete (Kríti), and the Islands (Insulae). Of the eight provinces, all except Rhodope and the Islands were a part of the larger diocese of Moesia, which extended to the Danube River in the north. (The word diocese originally referred to a governmental area governed by a Roman imperial vicar. The secular diocese was subdivided into provinces, each with its own governor.) Rhodope belonged to the diocese of Thrace (Thráki), and the Islands were classed as part of the diocese of Asiana, consisting of the westernmost provinces of Asia Minor. By the early years of the 5th century, administrative readjustments had divided the older diocese of Moesia into two sections, creating in the north the diocese of Dacia and in the south that of Macedonia, made up of the provinces of Macedonia I and II, with Epirus Novus and Epirus Vetus, Thessaly, Achaea, and Crete. Further changes during the middle of the 6th century resulted in the establishment of a military command known as the quaestura exercitus, a zone made up of the Islands and Caria, from the diocese of Asiana, together with the province of Moesia II on the Danube; it was designed as a means of providing for the armies based along the northern frontier in regions that were too impoverished or devastated to adequately support them.

In turn, these diocesan groups were parts of larger administrative units—the praetorian prefectures. Most of the Greek provinces were in the praetorian prefecture of Illyricum, except Rhodope, which, as a province of the diocese of Thrace, was in the prefecture of Oriens, as were the Islands. This pattern was radically altered by the developments of the 7th century.

Some of the ancient names for the regions of Greece disappeared from everyday use. However, many continued to be used in literary and administrative contexts, especially in the administration of the church, or were revived by classicizing writers of the late Byzantine period. Thus, Aitolia, Akarnania, Achaea, Arcadia (Arkadía), and Lakedaimon were used in the 13th century and after. Similarly, in central Greece, Boeotia (Voiotía), Euboea (Évvoia), and Thessaly all survived but in different contexts. Typical of their history is Euboea, which was so called until the 8th century, after which it was referred to variously as Chalkis or Euripus. Western writers after 1204 identified it as Negroponte (“Black Bridge,” after the bridge connecting it to the mainland), although the Byzantines also called it Euboea. The names Epirus and Macedonia never dropped out of regular use. However, many new names were also coined during the Byzantine period; these tended to be geographic descriptions (such as Strymon [Strimón] or Boleron) used for both provincial and administrative divisions as well as to describe regions with a particular ethnic composition—for example, Vlachia in southern Thessaly.


  • THE EVOLUTION OF BYZANTINE INSTITUTIONS

As in other parts of the Roman world, the function of cities in the administrative structure of the state underwent a gradual evolution from the 3rd century on as the central government found it increasingly necessary to intervene in municipal affairs in order to gain revenues. This need for intervention developed when the vitality of cities became eroded as a result of a range of factors, notably the economic damage to urban infrastructures that accompanied the civil wars and barbarian inroads of the 3rd century. The so-called “decline” of the curial order (the strata of local government officials known as decurions), caused by the weakening of the fiscal and economic independence of many towns by the tendency of urban elites to avoid municipal obligations, also played a role. Finally, in the eastern parts of the empire, the transformation of Byzantium into Constantinople as a new imperial capital in 330 had important results for patterns of internal trade and commerce as well as for social relations between provincial elites and the state. Nevertheless, the cities of the southern Balkans were able to survive the raids and devastation of both Goths and Huns in the 4th and 5th centuries, and there is no evidence that cities ceased to carry on their function as centres of market activity, local administration, and social life. Those cities that were artificial, or purely administrative creations of the Roman state, were the first to suffer, and, under difficult conditions, they generally disappeared. On the other hand, the state—through its regional and central military administration—also appears to have been involved in promoting different types of smaller defended urban centres, which were better adapted to these conditions.

In the 7th century a series of developments combined to further promote what was already in the process of becoming a radically different pattern of settlement and administration. In the first place, the results of the long-term developments already referred to, in terms of both social and economic stability, were factors. In particular, the municipal landowning elites transferred their attention—especially with respect to investment in the imperial system—away from their local cities to the imperial capital. In the second place, the economic disruption brought about by the infiltration of large numbers of Slav settlers and immigrants was exacerbated by the devastation and insecurity caused by the wars between the empire and the Avars, a Turco-Mongol confederacy that was able, from the 560s to the 630s, to harness the resources of those peoples in the plains of Hungary and in the Balkans to launch a series of extremely damaging and disruptive attacks on the Eastern Empire. Although the disruptions of the earlier invasions of the Huns and the Goths may have been as damaging in the short term, the Balkans were by this time suffering from the cumulative effects both of two centuries of constant insecurity and warfare and of endemic plague, which had struck the Eastern Empire in the 540s. It is clear from the imperial legislation of the late 5th and early 6th centuries dealing with the Danubian provinces and with Thrace, as well as from the archaeological record, that the final results of this economic disruption were to bring about the abandonment of the traditional pattern of urban economies. Even the construction of churches, which had experienced a certain efflorescence during the 6th century, virtually ceased in the 7th century. Secular construction also stopped, an extended process of ruralization of settlement and of economic life took place, and new populations penetrated far into the Peloponnese. The extent to which these new settlers replaced, or were able to live alongside, the indigenous population remains unclear.

As a consequence of these changes, the traditional administration collapsed, chiefly because the government at Constantinople could control only the coastal plains and some river valleys. The cities that remained in imperial hands, such as Corinth (Kórinthos) and Thessalonica (Thessaloníki), for example, were well-defended fortresses or had access to the sea, whence they could be supplied. Inland, tribal groupings and chieftaincies (sklaviniai) dominated many districts, and, though it appears that the empire claimed political sovereignty over such regions, it was rarely able to make this effective or to extract regular revenues, although tributes were obtained at times. The sklaviniai, however, did not control the entire inland region; there were many areas in which the indigenous population and the traditional patterns of local social structure and political organization may have survived and where imperial authority may have been recognized. The evidence is too sparse to draw definite conclusions.

Evidence for the degree of Byzantine control over the area is reflected dimly in the lists of signatories to ecclesiastical councils (especially those of 680 at Constantinople and of 787 at Nicaea [modern İznik, Turkey]) and in the various lists of bishoprics (Notitiae episcopatuum). From these it is clear that ecclesiastical administration in the south, especially in the Peloponnese, had suffered considerably. Many bishoprics were abandoned and had ceased to exist. At the council of 680, only 4 bishops from that region (Athens, Corinth, Lakedaimon, and Árgos) and 12 from Macedonia attended; what is believed to be a 7th-century episcopal list (the Pseudo-Epiphanios) records the names of only 5 metropolitan bishops from Greece, mostly from the north.

Administratively, those districts that remained under Byzantine control were organized from the later 7th century onward into the military province, or theme (Greek: thema), of Hellas, under its general (strategos). The theme initially encompassed only the easternmost parts of central Greece but gradually included parts of Thessaly and, possibly, of the Peloponnese, although in the latter case only the coastal regions were involved.

The islands of the Aegean remained largely in Byzantine hands. In late antiquity they had been relatively heavily populated, the larger ones among them—especially Lemnos (Límnos) and Thasos (Thásos) in the north—being well-known sources of agricultural produce. Arab piracy and raiding from the later 7th century onward altered this, causing many of the smaller islands to become deserted; however, the islands recovered during the 10th century.

Byzantine fortress-towns testify to the presence of sizable rural populations needing shelter from attack; the towns also served as refuges for people from the mainland fleeing Avar, Slav, or Bulgar raids. Administratively, in the second half of the 7th century they formed a component of the districts allotted to the naval theme (in the original sense of the term—an “army”) of the Karabisianoi (Greek: karabos, a light ship), which represented the rump of the quaestura exercitus (the Roman military command comprising the Islands, Caria, and Moesia II). During the first half of the 8th century this command appears to have been subdivided to form the naval themes of the Kibyrrhaiotai (including parts of western Asia Minor and named after the district and town of Kibyrrha in southwestern Asia Minor), Samos (Sámos), or the Kólpos (“Gulf”) in the southern zone, and Aigaion Pelagos covering the northern districts. Further subdivisions took place in the 10th–12th century, so that commands of the Dodecanese (Dodekánisa) Islands or the Cyclades (Kykládes) also appear in the sources.

It must be stressed that, even though the archaeological record clearly supports the conclusion that a dramatic collapse of traditional urban society and economic relations occurred, it also gives evidence of significant regional variations. The process of change was neither uniform across Greece nor was it always as extreme in one area as in another. The degree of access to imperial resources and the ability to maintain regular contact with the imperial government were factors that gave some areas a very different appearance from others. It is important that this be borne in mind when considering the history of the various regions of Greece in the following period.

  • BYZANTINE RECOVERY

The Byzantine recovery of lost provinces began toward the end of the 8th century. The emperor Nicephorus I is traditionally credited with a major role in this, although the process was certainly under way before his accession. The degree of Slavicization appears to have varied considerably. For example, it is clear that by the 10th century many districts of the Peloponnese (Pelopónnisos) were Hellenized and Christianized, yet outposts of Slavic language and culture—sometimes partly Hellenized, often independent of central imperial control—survived in the less-accessible regions until the 13th and 14th centuries and perhaps beyond. Traces of the preconquest social and political structures of the northern Peloponnese may be reflected in the story of the widow Danelis, a rich landowner whose wealth was almost proverbial in the later 9th century and who may have represented the last in a line of Christianized but semiautonomous Slavic magnates who had dominated the region around Pátrai (Patras) in Achaea. She was a sponsor of the young Basil, later Basil I.

Different parts of Greece were reconquered at different times. Epirus (Ípeiros) in the northwest was gradually placed under Byzantine military administration, which was advancing inland from the coast during the first part of the 9th century. The themes of Cephallenia (Kefallinía) and Dyrrachium (Durazzo; modern Durrës, Albania) had been established by the 830s, and that of Nikopolis appeared at the end of the 9th century. The theme of the Peloponnese emerged as a separate region in 812, although it was almost certainly created before this date; that of Thessalonica (Thessaloníki) had probably been established by about 812 as well, although this remains debated; those of Strymon (Strymónas) and Boleron appeared likewise during the course of the 9th century. Crete, part of which had fallen to the Arabs in 824, would not be wholly regained by Byzantium until 961.

Ecclesiastical organization once again reflects this process. A 9th-century list of bishoprics contains 10 Greek metropolitan sees, including those of Patras and Athens, compared with the 5 that appear in earlier records. During the first half of the 8th century (in the context of the Iconoclastic Controversy, a religious controversy concerning the veneration of icons, or sacred images), the ecclesiastical provinces of the old prefecture of Illyricum, which had been subject to Rome, were withdrawn from papal authority by the emperor Leo III and placed under Constantinople, thus permitting a unified program of re-Christianization of much of this region.

As Byzantine control became firmer, and as Byzantine military and political expansion northward accelerated during the 10th and early 11th centuries, older themes were subdivided, forming a mosaic of small administrative divisions. Thus, the themes of Berroia, Drougoubiteia (clearly reflecting a Slavic tribal territory), Jericho (on the Adriatic coast between Dyrrachion and Nikopolis), and Edessa (Édhessa) or Vodena (northwest of Thessalonica) all appeared during the period from the late 9th to the 11th century.

  • ECONOMY AND SOCIETY

Like other regions of the Byzantine Empire, Greece had suffered economically from the warfare of the 7th and 8th centuries. The rise of the khanate of the Bulgars, established south of the Danube after 681, whose rulers were able to exercise a hegemony over their politically fragmented Slavic neighbours, meant that warfare remained endemic and economic insecurity a factor of daily existence. However, the restoration of Byzantine military and political power from the later 8th century onward and the growth of Byzantine cultural and religious influence throughout the Balkans during the 9th and 10th centuries created a context favourable to economic and demographic recovery throughout the empire, especially in the southern Balkan region. During the 11th and 12th centuries Greece experienced a powerful economic upswing, certainly more so than Anatolia. Cities such as Thessalonica (Thessaloníki), Thebes (Thíva), and Corinth (Kórinthos) became centres of flourishing local industries and of market exchange, rivaling the imperial capital in many respects. The silk industry that developed around Thebes was especially important. The evidence for greater wealth, especially greater disposable wealth, in the hands of local elites is found not only in documentary sources but also in a number of endowed churches, some of which are still in existence today. Many other towns, particularly those with a harbour or shelter for ships, became flourishing centres of trade and commerce and were sought-after locations for the trading posts of the Italian merchant republics after the 11th century.

  • RESULTS OF THE FOURTH CRUSADE

The Fourth Crusade, called by Pope Innocent III to reconquer the Holy Land, was diverted to Constantinople. Following the Crusaders’ seizure and sack of the city in 1204, the European territories of the Byzantine Empire were divided up among the Western magnates. Whereas Byzantine resistance in Asia Minor was successful, so that two independent successor empires were established (those of Nicaea and Trebizond), most of Greece was quickly and effectively placed under Frankish (Western Christian) rule. The principality of Achaea (the Morea) and the Latin duchy of the Archipelago were subject to the Latin emperor, who was the ruler of the Latin Empire (also referred to as Romania) set up in Constantinople in 1204 by the Latin (Western) Christians of the Fourth Crusade and claimed jurisdiction over the territories of the Byzantine state. A kingdom of Thessalonica was established, to whose ruler the lords of Athens and Thebes owed fidelity, while the county of Cephallenia (Kefallinía)—which, along with the islands of Ithaca (Itháki) and Zacynthus (Zákynthos), had in fact already been under Italian rule since 1194, under Matteo Orsini—was nominally subject to Venice, although it was autonomous and after 1214 recognized the prince of Achaea as overlord. Finally, the lord of Euboea (Évvoia, or Negroponte) was subject to the authority of both Thessalonica and Venice. Byzantine control remained in the form of the despotate of Epirus in the northwest, in the area around Monemvasía in the eastern Peloponnese, and in the mountain fastness of the Taïyetos in Achaea and Arcadia (Arkadía). In 1261, however, the Nicaean forces were able to recover Constantinople and put an end to the Latin Empire. The recovery of some of the territory held by Frankish rulers followed, although Monemvasía actually fell, for a while, to a Frankish force in 1248. By the end of the 13th century, parts of central Greece were once again in Byzantine hands, and the Byzantine despotate of the Morea controlled much of the central and southeastern Peloponnese, but to its north the principality of Achaea remained an important Frankish power.

The history of Greece reflects very closely its geopolitical structure. This fact is particularly clear in the period following the Fourth Crusade, when the former Byzantine administrative divisions were organized into various petty states, each having its own local history and political evolution.

  • DESPOTATE OF EPIRUS

The so-called despotate of Epirus (ruled by a despotēs, or lord), which usually included Cephallenia (Kefallinía), was established by Michael I Komnenos Doukas, who established effective control after 1204 over northwestern Greece and a considerable part of Thessaly. His brother and successor Theodore was able to retake Thessalonica from the Latins in 1224, where he was crowned as emperor, thus challenging the emperor of Nicaea, who claimed imperial rule. However, in 1242 the Nicaean ruler John III Ducas Vatatzes compelled Theodore’s son and successor John to abandon the title of emperor, and by 1246 Thessalonica was under Nicaean rule. In 1259 much of Epirus came under Nicaean control, but this was lost by 1264. Thereafter Epirus continued to be ruled by independent despots (despotai) until 1318. Its sheltered geographic position, between the spine of the Pindus mountain range and the Adriatic Sea, facilitated a degree of political separatism and independence from Constantinople until the Ottoman conquest. The Byzantine emperors, however, always insisted on their rights to confer the title of despotēs, and for much of the 14th and 15th centuries they regarded the rulers of Epirus as rebels.

From 1318 until 1337 Epirus was ruled by the Italian Orsini family, and after a short Greek recovery it was taken by the Serbs in 1348, and Ioánnina and Árta were its main political centres. From 1366 to 1384 Ioánnina was ruled by Thomas Komnenos Palaeologus, also known as Preljubovič, the son of the caesar Gregory Preljub, who had been the Serbian governor of Thessaly under Stefan Uroš IV Dušan. He was able to assert Serbian control over northern Epirus and fought with the Albanian lords of Árta (Ghin Bua Spata and Peter Ljoša) in the south, eventually defeating them with the aid of the Ottomans. In 1382 his title of despotēs was confirmed by the Byzantine emperor at Constantinople. He was assassinated late in 1384, probably by members of the local nobility who objected to his rule. His widow, the Byzantine Maria Angelina Doukaina Palaiologina, married the Italian nobleman Esau Buondelmonti, who ruled as despotēs until about 1411. Thereafter the despotate came under the Italian house of Tocco, whose rulers were able to recover Árta from the Albanians. But in 1430 the Ottomans took Ioánnina and in 1449 they captured Árta, and, thus, Epirus became part of the Ottoman Empire. Cephallenia was taken in 1479, but Venice seized it in 1500.

  • THESSALY AND SURROUNDING REGIONS

The political history of the other regions of Greece during this period is no less complex. Thessaly was ruled in its eastern parts by the Franks after 1204, while the western regions were disputed by the rulers of Epirus and Nicaea. About 1267 John I Doukas established himself as an independent ruler, with the Byzantine title sebastokrator, at Neopatras, but in expanding his control eastward he came into conflict with Michael VIII, whose attacks he repelled with the assistance of the dukes of Athens and Charles I of Anjou. Venetian support, the result of a favourable trading relationship (Thessaly exported agricultural produce), helped maintain Thessalian independence until the arrival in 1309 of the Catalan Grand Company. That band of Spanish mercenaries, who originally had been hired by Andronicus II to fight the Seljuqs in Anatolia turned against imperial authority and established themselves in the Gallipoli peninsula. From there they moved into Greece through Thrace and Macedonia, which they plundered, and from 1318 onward they occupied the southern districts of Thessaly. The northern regions remained independent under the ruler Stephen Gabrielopoulos until 1332, and then they were taken by John II Orsini of Epirus. In 1335 Thessaly was retaken by the Byzantine Empire, and from 1348 it acknowledged the overlordship of the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan. After his death (1355) the self-styled emperor Symeon Uroš, despotēs of Epirus and Akarnania, was able to seize control of both Epirus and Thessaly and rule independently following the death of Nikephoros II in 1358/59. He was succeeded by his son John, who adopted the monastic life in 1373. The caesar Alexios Angelos Philanthropenos took control, governing as a vassal of the Byzantine emperor John V, but in 1393 the conquest of Thessaly by Ottoman forces put an end to its independence.

  • ATHENS, THEBES, AND CORINTH

In the south, Greece was divided among a number of competing political units. After 1204 the dukes of Athens (mostly of French or Italian origin) controlled much of central Greece, with their main base at Thebes. They had political interests to the north and in the Peloponnese. However, in 1311 the Catalan Grand Company established its power over the duchies of Athens and Thebes, turning out their Latin lords. Under the protection of the Aragonese king Frederick II of Sicily (three sons of whom became dukes of Athens), they dominated the region until the Navarrese Company (an army of mercenaries originally hired by Luis of Evreux, brother of Charles II of Navarre, to help assert his claim over Albania and then temporarily in the service of the Hospitallers, a military-monastic order) took Thebes in 1378 or 1379. This weakened Catalan power and opened the way for the Florentine Acciajuoli, lords of Corinth, to take Athens in 1388. The latter then ruled all three regions until their defeat at the hands of the Ottomans in the 1450s.

  • THE PELOPONNESE

In the Peloponnese the political rivalry between the Byzantines and the Frankish principality of Achaea dominated. The principality was at its most successful under its prince William II Villehardouin (1246–78), but in 1259 he had to cede a number of fortresses, including Mistra, Monemvasiá, and Maina, to the Byzantines. Internecine squabbles weakened resistance to Byzantine pressure, especially from the 1370s onward, when Jacques de Baux hired the Navarrese Company to fight for his claim to the principality. Upon his death in 1383, the Navarrese exercised effective political control over the Frankish territories under the commanders of the company. The last Navarrese prince, Pierre de Saint-Superan, joined the Ottomans in 1401 to raid Byzantine possessions in the southern Peloponnese; he died in 1402. He was succeeded by his widow, Maria Zaccaria, representative of an important Genoese merchant and naval family. She passed the title to her nephew Centurione II Zaccaria, who lost much of the territory to the Byzantine despotate of the Morea. In 1430 he married his daughter to the Byzantine despotēs Thomas Palaeologus, handing over his remaining lands as her dowry. From that time on, the Byzantine despotate of the Morea effectively controlled most of the Peloponnese. However, the Ottoman presence and the fall of Constantinople to Sultan Mehmed II in 1453 effectively ended that final period of Byzantine rule. The Morea resisted Ottoman conquest until 1460, when it was finally incorporated into the Ottoman Empire (a year earlier than the empire of Trebizond, which fell in 1461). All of Greece was by that time under Ottoman authority, with the exception of some of the islands, which retained a tenuous independence under Venetian or Genoese protection.

  • SERBIAN AND OTTOMAN ADVANCES

Byzantine power in the northern Greek regions was effectively destroyed by the expansion of the Serbian empire under Stefan Dušan, the results of which included the loss of Epirus, Thessaly, and eastern Macedonia. From the 1350s the Ottomans established themselves in Europe, taking the chief towns of Thrace in the 1360s and Thessalonica in 1387. Apart from the despotate of the Morea, therefore, and certain of the Aegean isles, there remained in Greece no Byzantine imperial possessions by the beginning of the 15th century.

  • THE ISLANDS

A particularly complex picture is represented by the islands, which were a focus for the activities of the Seljuqs and later the Ottomans, the Venetians and Genoese, and the Byzantines. Following the Fourth Crusade, much of the southern part of the Aegean came under Venetian authority, and, although Byzantine power was restored for a while in the late 13th century, Náxos (Náchos) remained the centre of the Latin duchy of the Archipelago, established in 1207 among the Cyclades by Marco Sanudo, a relative of the Venetian doge, or magistrate, with a body of plundering merchants and nobles. Initially under the overlordship of the Latin emperor at Constantinople, the duchy later transferred its allegiance to Achaea in 1261 and to Naples in 1267, although Venice also claimed suzerainty. The Sanudo family was replaced in 1383 by the Lombard Crispi family, which retained its independence until 1566. At that time the duchy was conquered by the Ottomans, although it was ruled by an appointee of the sultan until 1579, when it was properly incorporated into the state.

Lindos [Credit: Spectrum Colour Library—Impact Photos/Heritage-Images]The remaining islands were held at different times by the Venetians, the Genoese, the Hospitallers, and the Turks. Rhodes played a particular role in the history of the Hospitallers’ opposition to the Ottomans. Until the early 13th century the island had been in the hands of a succession of Italian adventurers, most of whom acknowledged the overlordship of the emperor at Nicaea. In 1308 the Hospitallers took control, having been based on Cyprus since 1291, the time of their expulsion from the Holy Land. Rhodes fell in 1523, when the Hospitallers were permitted to remove to Malta. Of the northern Aegean islands, Lemnos remained Byzantine until 1453 before coming for a while under the rule of the Gattilusi of Lésbos, whose independence of the Ottomans ended in 1462. In 1460 it was awarded to Demetrius Palaeologus, formerly despotēs of the Morea, along with the island of Thasos (the latter having come under Ottoman domination in 1455). In 1479 it was occupied by Ottoman forces and officially incorporated into the Ottoman state. Other islands had equally checkered histories. Náxos and Chíos (Khíos) fell in 1566, although complete Ottoman control was not achieved until 1715, when Tenedos, which remained under Venetian control until that year, was taken.

The real exception to the Ottoman success in the Aegean, however, was Crete. Separately administered until the 820s, when it was seized by Spanish Arabs, it was conquered in 961 by the general and later Byzantine emperor Nicephoros II Phocas. After 1204 it was handed over to Boniface of Montferrat, who proceeded to sell it to Venice. Although oppressive and unpopular, Venetian rule witnessed the evolution of a flourishing Italo-Hellenic literary and political culture. After a long siege of Candia (now Irákleio) and the creation and collapse of temporary alliances between Venice and various Western powers on the one hand and the Ottomans and their supporters on the other, the island passed into Ottoman hands in 1669.

  • ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS

In spite of the political instability after 1204, Greece seems to have experienced relative prosperity in the later Byzantine period. Population expansion accompanied an increase in production as marginal lands were brought under cultivation, and trade with major and minor Italian mercantile centres flourished. Although hostility at the level of state politics was endemic, social relations between the ruling elites of Byzantine- and Latin-dominated areas were not mutually exclusive. Intermarriage was not uncommon, and a certain way of life seems to have evolved. This contrasted with the attitude of the peasantry and the ordinary population, whose perceptions were shaped by the Orthodox church, Greek or Byzantine (“Roman”) identity, and hostility to the Western church and its ways. The Ottoman conquest was not seen as necessarily worse than Latin domination. In some cases it was certainly welcomed as less oppressive.


John Frederick Haldon

  • CULTURAL CONTINUITY

The history of medieval Greece has played an important part in attempts to understand the relationship between ancient and modern Greece. The issue of the continuity between ancient and modern Greeks has been an extremely controversial one, in both scholarly and political contexts. The claim that modern Greeks are the direct cultural and biological descendants of the “ancient Hellenes” has long been a central tenet of the national ideology on which the Greek state was founded. Scholars such as the Austrian-born 19th-century German historian Jakob Fallmerayer argued that, as a result of the large Slav and Albanian invasions during the medieval period, the latter-day population of Greece could not be entirely of Greek “racial” origin. Greek scholars in such diverse disciplines as archaeology, linguistics, folklore, and history have attempted to identify “survivals” from ancient Greek culture that can still be found in its modern counterpart. Although there certainly are significant similarities that demonstrate continuities in some aspects of Greek culture, there are also equally important differences that demonstrate discontinuities in other aspects of Greek culture. Unfortunately, scholarship on this issue has often been overshadowed by nationalist and romantic political agendas of Greeks and non-Greeks alike.

  • THE SLAVS

From the late 6th to the 8th century, a large number of Slavs entered what is now Greece. Although the evidence of place-names suggests some lasting Slavic influence in parts of Greece, it is qualified by the fact that the process of re-Hellenization that occurred from the later 8th century seems to have eradicated many traces of Slavic presence. Evidence of tribal names found in both the Peloponnese and northern Greece suggests that there were probably extensive Slavic-speaking populations in many districts, and from the 10th to the 15th century Slavic occupants of various parts of the Peloponnese appear in sources as plunderers or as fiercely independent warriors. Whereas the Slavs of the south appear to have adopted Greek, those of Macedonia and Thessaly retained their original dialects, becoming only partially Hellenophone in certain districts.

  • THE ALBANIANS

The Albanians in the 14th century began to advance into Greece’s western coastal plain, where they served both Byzantine and Serbian overlords and ruled independently under various warlords and chiefly families. They were also present in considerable numbers in Thessaly, Boeotia, Attica (Attikí), and the Peloponnese, serving as soldiers and farmers and colonizing deserted lands. Albanians arrived in large numbers in the Peloponnese during the reign of the despotēs Manuel Kantakouzenos, who brought them there to serve as soldiers and to resettle depopulated regions. The reason for their migration to these areas remains debated. These early Albanian-speaking settlers constitute a group distinct from the economic migrants from Albania, who settled in Greece in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and who are simply known as “Albanians” (Greek: Alvanoi).

  • THE AROMANI (AROMANIANS)

The Aromani (Vlachs) played an important role in central and southern Thessaly. They have generally been identified with the indigenous pre-Slav populations of Dacian and Thracian origin, many of whom migrated into the less-accessible mountainous areas of Greece and the northern Balkan region because of the Germanic and Avar-Slav invasions and immigration of the 5th–7th century. The Aromani maintained a transhumant pastoral economy in those areas. Their language belongs to the so-called Macedo-Romanian group and is closely related to that known from the 13th century on as Romanian (Daco-Romanian). It is essentially rooted in late Latin but heavily influenced by the Slavic dialects with which the Daco-Thracian populations were in regular contact. By the 11th century the Aromani are described as communities of shepherds who moved with their flocks between their winter pastures in Thessaly and summer pastures in Mount Gramoz and the Pindus range. They are found in Byzantine armies and are mentioned in many documents dealing with landholdings in northern Greece, where—as is often the case in relations between settled and nomadic populations—they were regarded as troublemakers and thieves. Byzantines were often imprecise in their use of ethnic names, and the Aromani seem frequently to have been confused with the Bulgarians, through whose territory they also wandered on their seasonal routes and pasturage. A major modern debate about the role of the Aromani in the establishment of the second Bulgarian empire after 1185 continues and is strongly marked by nationalist sentiment.

  • EMERGING GREEK IDENTITY

As the Byzantine Empire declined, the predominant role of Greek culture, literature, and language became more apparent. For Christians of the early and middle Byzantine worlds, the terms Hellene and Hellenic generally (although not exclusively, since in certain literary contexts a classicizing style permitted a somewhat different usage) had a negative connotation, signifying pagan and non-Christian rather than “Greek.” From the 12th century, however, in the context of increasing conflict with western European culture on the one hand and the encroaching Turkish powers on the other, that situation changed. Gradually, a more self-consciously Greek consciousness began to develop, and a greater interest in “Hellenic” culture in a positive sense eventually evolved. Byzantines began to refer to themselves not just as “Romioi” (literally, “Roman,” referring to members of the Eastern Roman [that is, Byzantine] Empire). In the decades prior to the Greek War of Independence, the Greeks began to identify themselves as “Hellenes” and assert their identity with the ancient Hellenic world. Among learned circles a deep interest in the Classical past was cultivated. Although there was a powerful secularist tradition in this, culminating in the ideas of the Neoplatonic Byzantine philosopher George Gemistus Plethon, who argued for the implementation of the political-philosophical system outlined in Plato’s Republic, it was the combination of popular Orthodoxy (and strongly anti-Western ecclesiastical sentiment) with a specifically Greek identity that shaped the Byzantines’ notions of themselves in the twilight years of the empire. With the political extinction of the empire, it was the Greek Orthodox Church and the Greek-language community, in both “Greece” and Asia Minor, that continued to cultivate this identity as well as the ideology of a Byzantine imperial heritage rooted in both the Roman and the Classical Greek past.


Greece under Ottoman rule

Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks on May 29, 1453. The Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaeologus, was last seen fighting alongside his troops on the battlements. His death gave rise to the widely disseminated legend that the emperor had turned to marble but would one day return to liberate his people. By 1453 the Byzantine Empire had become but a pathetic shadow of its former glories. The fall of this symbolic bastion of Christendom in the struggle against Islam may have sent shock waves through Western Christendom, but the conquest was accepted with resignation by many of the inhabitants of the city. As they saw it, their plight was a consequence of the sinfulness of the Byzantine Empire. For many people, Ottoman rule and the maintenance of the integrity of the Orthodox faith were preferable to accepting the pretensions of the papacy, which was the price Western Christendom had sought to exact in return for military assistance to ward off the Turkish threat.


  • THE MILLET SYSTEM

With the conquest of the territories that had constituted the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman sultans were faced with the problem of governing large non-Muslim populations. Christians and Jews, as “People of the Book,” were afforded a considerable degree of toleration. Indeed, it was to the Ottoman Empire rather than Christian Europe that many Spanish Jews migrated following their expulsion from Spain in 1492. The Ottomans confronted the problem of the governance of these large heterodox and polyglot populations by establishing millets. These were organized on the basis of religious confession rather than ethnic origin. The ruling millet within the empire was made up of the Muslims. Next in importance was the Orthodox Christian Rūm millet, which was often called the “Greek millet.” Although its head, the ecumenical patriarch, was invariably of Greek origin, the term Greek millet was something of a misnomer, for it included not only Greeks but also Romanians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians, Aromani, and substantial Arab populations who, as Orthodox Christians, were also members of the Rūm millet. With the rise of nationalism in the 18th and 19th centuries, the non-Greek members of the Greek millet became increasingly resentful of the Greek stranglehold on the higher reaches of the hierarchy of the Orthodox church, through which the millet was administered. There were also Armenian, Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant millets.

The powers of the ecumenical patriarch were extensive, although there is uncertainty as to the precise nature of the privileges granted by Sultan Mehmed II to the man whom he elevated to the highest office in the church. This was Gennadios II Scholarios, a known opponent of those who, in the last years of the Byzantine Empire, had advocated union with the Western church. Patriarchal authority was considerable and extended to civil as well as to strictly religious matters. In many respects, it was greater than that enjoyed by the patriarchs in Byzantine times. The privilege of a considerable degree of autonomy in directing the affairs of the millet carried with it the responsibility of ensuring that its members were unshaken in their loyalty to the Ottoman Porte. At the outbreak of the War of Greek Independence in 1821, the patriarch Grigorios V was executed in reprisal, despite the fact that he had vigorously condemned the insurgents, whose efforts to create an independent Greek state he saw as a threat to his power. In the West his execution was seen as an act of mindless barbarity. In the eyes of the Ottomans, however, Grigorios had failed to carry out his fundamental obligation to ensure that the adherents to the Orthodox faith remained loyal to the sultan.

  • DISADVANTAGES FOR NON-MUSLIMS

In keeping with Islamic tradition, members of the Greek millet enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy in conducting their religious affairs. They were, however, at a disadvantage in a number of ways in comparison with members of the ruling Muslim millet. A Christian was not allowed to bear arms and was disbarred from military service (although the latter disability was in many ways a privilege) in exchange for paying a special tax, the haradj. In a court of law, a Muslim’s word was always accepted over that of a Christian, although disputes between Christians were generally settled in courts under the control of their own millet. A Christian could not marry a Muslim woman, and there was a strict prohibition against renouncing Islam. Those Christians who had embraced Islam and then reverted back to Christianity were, until well into the 19th century, punished by death. Those “neomartyrs,” however, helped sustain the faith of the Orthodox populations during the centuries of Ottoman rule.

The most serious disability to which Christians were subject, until the practice died out toward the end of the 17th century, was the Janissary levy (paidomazoma). Christian families in the Balkans were required, at irregular intervals, to deliver to the Ottoman authorities a given proportion of their most intelligent and handsome male children to serve, after being forcibly converted to Islam, as elite troops or civil servants. Inevitably, the levy was much feared, but those who were conscripted frequently rose to high office and were sometimes able to help their relatives or their native villages. There is evidence that some Muslim families sought to pass off their children as Christian in the hope that they would be included in the levy and would thus be able to better their prospects. Under such pressures there were numerous instances of Christian conversion to Islam on both an individual and a mass basis; such conversions were particularly prevalent in the 17th century. The conversions were often only nominal, however, and these crypto-Christians secretly practiced the rituals of their former faith.


  • RESISTANCE TO OTTOMAN RULE

During much of the four centuries of the “Tourkokratia,” as the period of Ottoman rule in Greece is known, there was little hope that the Greeks would be able to free themselves by their own efforts. There were sporadic revolts, such as those that occurred on the mainland and on the islands of the Aegean following the defeat of the Ottoman navy in 1571 by Don John of Austria, the short-lived revolt launched by Dionysius Skylosophos in Epirus in 1611, and the abortive uprising in the Peloponnese in 1770 at the time of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–74. These uprisings had little chance of success, but during the Tourkokratia there was some armed resistance against the Turks by the klephts (social bandits or brigands). In their banditry the klephts did not distinguish between Greek and Turk, but their attacks on such manifest symbols of Ottoman authority as tax collectors led to their being seen by Greeks in later periods as acting on behalf of the Greeks against Ottoman oppressors. Certainly, they are viewed in this light in the corpus of klephtic ballads that emerged, extolling the bravery and military prowess of the klephts as well as their heroic resistance to the Ottomans.

In an effort to counter the plunderous activities of the klephts and to control the mountain passes that were their favoured areas of operation, the Ottomans established a militia of armatoloi. Like the klephts, these were Christians, and the distinction between klepht and armatolos was a narrow one. One day’s klepht might be the next day’s armatolos. The existence of such armed formations meant that when the War of Greek Independence broke out in 1821, the klephts formed an invaluable reserve of military talent.

  • BELIEF IN DIVINE INTERVENTION

Greek aspirations for freedom were largely sustained by a collection of prophetic and messianic beliefs that foretold the eventual overthrow of the Turkish yoke as the result of divine rather than human intervention. Such were the oracles attributed to the Byzantine emperor Leo VI (the Wise), which foretold the liberation of Constantinople 320 years after its fall—in 1773. Many believed in that prophecy, for its fulfillment coincided with the great Russo-Turkish War of 1768–74, one of the periodic confrontations between the two great regional powers (see Russo-Turkish wars). The Russians were the only Orthodox power not under foreign domination, and they were widely identified with the legendary xanthon genos, a fair-haired race of future liberators from the north. The Russians were seen as forming part of a commonwealth, which linked the various parts of the Orthodox Christian world with its common centres of pilgrimage in the monastic republic of Mount Athos (forming one of the three fingers of the Chalcidice Peninsula) and Jerusalem.

  • THE ROLE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH

The Orthodox church was the only institution on which the Greeks could focus. Through the use of Greek in the liturgy and through its modest educational efforts, the church helped to some degree to keep alive a sense of Greek identity, but it could not prevent Turkish (which was written with Greek characters) from becoming the vernacular of a substantial proportion of the Greek population of Asia Minor and of the Ottoman capital itself.

The Orthodox church, however, fell victim to the institutionalized corruption of the Ottoman system of government. The combination of civil and religious power in the hands of the ecumenical patriarchate and the upper reaches of the hierarchy prompted furious competition for high office. The Ottomans encouraged such behaviour, and it soon became the norm that, on every occasion when a new patriarch was installed, a huge peshkesh, or bribe, would be paid to the grand vizier, the sultan’s chief minister. Despite the fact that, in theory, a patriarch was elected for life, there was a high turnover in office, and some even held the office more than once. Grigorios V was executed by the Ottomans in 1821 during his third patriarchate, whereas during the second half of the 17th century Dionysius IV Mouselimis was elected patriarch at least five times. It was this kind of behaviour that prompted an 18th-century Armenian chronicler to taunt the Greeks that they changed their patriarch more frequently than they changed their shirt.

Bribes had to be paid to secure offices at all levels, and these could be recouped only through the taxes placed on the Orthodox faithful as a whole. The clergy’s reputation for rapacity led to the growth of popular anticlericalism, particularly among the small nationalist intelligentsia that emerged in the course of the 18th century. The anonymous author of that fiery nationalist polemic the “Ellinikhí Nomarkhía” (“Hellenic Nomarchy”) in 1806 was a bitter critic of the sloth and self-indulgence of the higher clergy, while Adamántios Koraïs, the intellectual mentor of the national revival, though careful to steer between what he termed the Scylla of superstition and the Charybdis of atheism, condemned the obscurantism of the clergy. What particularly incensed Koraïs and his kind was the willingness of the Orthodox hierarchy to identify its interests with those of the Ottoman authorities. However, the views of men such as Anthimos, the patriarch of Jerusalem, who argued in 1798 that the Ottoman Empire was part of the divine dispensation granted by God to protect Orthodoxy from the taint of Roman Catholicism and of Western secularism and irreligion, were not unusual.


Transformation toward emancipation

During the 16th and 17th centuries the Greeks were mostly concerned with survival. In the course of the 18th century, however, a number of changes occurred both in the international situation and in Greek society itself that gave rise to hopes that the Greeks might themselves launch a revolt against Ottoman authority with some promise of success.

  • SIGNS OF OTTOMAN DECLINE

By the end of the 17th century, the prolonged process of Ottoman decline was clearly under way. The failure of the Siege of Vienna in 1683 signaled the retreat of the Ottomans in the European provinces of the empire. The military triumphs of earlier centuries gave way to pressure on their empire from the Austrians, the Russians, and the Persians. The Russian threat culminated in the 1768–74 war with Turkey, and the Russians subsequently claimed the right to exercise a protectorate over all the Orthodox Christians of the Ottoman Empire on the basis of their interpretation of the terms of the peace settlement with the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca.

Forced onto the defensive, the empire lost territory, and the control of the Ottoman Porte over its enormous provinces weakened. In both European and Asiatic Turkey, provincial warlords supplanted the authority of the sultan. The example of successful defiance of the Porte carried out by powerful satraps such as Ali Paşa Tepelenë, the Muslim Albanian who ruled over a large portion of mainland Greece, gave encouragement to Greek nationalists because it demonstrated that the empire was no longer the invincible monolith it had once been.

  • THE PHANARIOTES

Of critical importance to the ultimate success of the national movement was the transformation that Greek society was to undergo during the course of the 18th century. Significant among these developments was the rise to power and influence of the Phanariotes, a small caste of Greek (and Hellenized Romanian and Albanian) families who took their collective name from the Phanar, or Lighthouse, quarter of Constantinople, the home of the ecumenical patriarchate. The roots of their ascendancy can be traced to the Ottomans’ need for skilled negotiators as the power of their empire declined. No longer in a position to dictate peace terms to their vanquished enemies, they now had to rely on diplomats skilled in negotiation who might mitigate the consequences of military defeat, and these were drawn from the Phanariotes. From 1699, when the Treaty of Carlowitz with the Habsburg monarchy was signed, to 1821, the year of the outbreak of the War of Greek Independence, Phanariote grandees monopolized the post of chief interpreter to the Porte. This was a more important post than it appeared, for its holder bore considerable responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy. Similarly, Phanariotes were invariably interpreters to the kapudan pasha, the admiral of the Ottoman fleet. Again their powers were wider than the title suggests: these Phanariotes, in effect, acted as governors of the islands of the Aegean archipelago, whose Greek inhabitants were a potential source from which to draw men for service in the Ottoman fleet.

The most important posts held by Phanariotes were those of hospodar, or prince, of the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. Phanariotes ruled those potentially rich provinces as the viceroys of the sultans, and their luxurious courts in Jassy (now Iași, Romania) and Bucharest copied on a lesser scale the splendour of the imperial court in Constantinople. Just as there was furious and corrupt jockeying for high office in the Orthodox church, the appointment of the hospodars was also accompanied by intrigue and corruption. The average tenure in office of a Phanariote hospodar was less than three years. Because they needed to make up for their expenditures on bribes, hospodars acquired a somewhat justified reputation for greed and oppression. Some hospodars displayed an enlightened interest in legal and land reform; most acted as patrons of Greek culture, education, and printing. The princely academies attracted teachers and pupils from throughout the Orthodox commonwealth, and there was some contact with intellectual trends in Habsburg central Europe. For the most part, the Phanariotes were too closely joined to the Ottoman system of government, of which they were major beneficiaries, to play a significant part in the emergence of the Greek national movement. Their interests, however, coincided with the maintenance of the Ottoman status quo, and they provided a pool of individuals with experience in diplomacy and politics when armed struggle erupted in 1821.


  • THE MERCANTILE MIDDLE CLASS

The single most important development in the Greek world during the 18th century was the emergence of an entrepreneurial, prosperous, and far-flung mercantile middle class, which played a major role in the economic life of the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere. Discouraged from investing their capital within the empire by the arbitrariness and rapacity of the state, these Greek merchants played an active role in developing commerce in Hungary and Transylvania, newly acquired by the Habsburg monarchy, and in southern Russia, where Empress Catherine II (the Great) encouraged them to settle after Russia’s borders had extended to the Black Sea. Greek became the common language of Balkan commerce as these merchants challenged the existing hold of British, French, and Dutch merchants on the import-export trade of the empire, importing Western manufactured goods and colonial produce and exporting raw materials. Greek merchant communities—or paroikies, each with its own church—were established through much of central Europe, on the Mediterranean coast, in southern Russia, and even as far away as India.

Paralleling this development, a substantial merchant marine, based on the three “nautical” islands of Hydra (Ídhra), Spétsai (Spétses), and Psará, came into existence. This merchant marine prospered from running the continental blockade imposed by Great Britain during the period of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. The existence of a reservoir of trained sailors proved to be an inestimable advantage once the war of independence broke out, and Greek fire ships (combustibles-laden ships set afire and guided toward the enemy) became a formidable weapon against the cumbersome ships of the Ottoman fleet.

The emergence of a mercantile middle class had a number of important consequences. Greeks were brought into contact with the ordered societies of western Europe, in which the state encouraged commerce. They compared that state of affairs with the prevailing one in the Ottoman Empire, where the absence of the rule of law and general arbitrariness militated against the generation and retention of capital. Most of the merchants were, like the Phanariotes, too much a part of the status quo to give active encouragement to the national movement and thus potentially threaten their newfound prosperity. Indirectly, they made a major contribution to the emerging national movement, for it was their wealth that provided the material basis for the intellectual revival that was such a significant feature of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Impelled by a sense of local patriotism which had always been strong in the Greek world, they endowed schools and libraries. It was no accident that the three most important schools-cum-colleges in the Greek world on the eve of the war of independence were situated in Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey), Chíos, and Ayvalık (on the coast of Asia Minor opposite the island of Lésbos), all three major centres of Greek commerce.

  • THE INTELLECTUAL REVIVAL

A significant number of schoolteachers studied, with the financial backing of their merchant benefactors, in the universities of western Europe, particularly those of Italy and the German states. There they came under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment and encountered the fervent nationalist doctrines emanating from the French Revolution. They became aware of the reverence with which the language and culture of ancient Greece were beheld throughout Europe. This realization kindled in them a consciousness of their own past, a recognition of being the heirs to this same civilization and of speaking a language that had changed remarkably little in the two and a half millennia since the time of Pericles. During the 50 years or so before 1821, a veritable flood of books on the language, literature, and history of the ancient Greek world was published for a Greek readership, though most of it was outside the Greek domains.

A leading role in the rediscovery of the past was played by Adamántios Koraïs. A native of Smyrna, where he was born in 1748, Koraïs sought, unsuccessfully, to establish himself as a merchant in Amsterdam. After studying medicine at the University of Montpellier, he moved to Paris in 1788, where he soon experienced the French Revolution. The main interest of his life, however, was Classical philology, of which he became one of the foremost scholars in Europe of his day. He devoted his years in Paris to the study of that subject as well as to inspiring in his compatriots an appreciation of their Classical ancestry (until his death in 1833). With the help of a family of rich merchants of Ioánnina (Janina), he published a whole series of editions of Classical authors, which he prefaced with appeals to his compatriots to cast off their Byzantine ignorance by reviving the glories of the ancient world and by imitating the French—the people of modern Europe who, in his estimation, most resembled his Classical ancestors. His panacea for the degraded condition of the Greeks was education; it would enable them to free themselves from the double yoke of the Ottoman Turks and the Orthodox church.

The practice of naming children and ships after the heroes of ancient Greece, a custom dating from the first decade of the 19th century, is one example of what is sometimes referred to as an obsession with antiquity on the part of the small nationalist intelligentsia. Another is the vigorous debate that got under way on the appropriate form of language to be used in a regenerated Greece. Some advocated using the spoken language, the Demotic, as the language of educated discourse. Others favoured the Katharevousa, or purified Greek, which would render it more akin to Attic Greek. Still others, such as Koraïs, advocated a middle path.

Much of the intellectual revival of the half century or so before 1821 took place in the Greek communities of the diaspora, and the nationalist enthusiasms of the intelligentsia left the great mass of the peasantry, most of whom were illiterate, largely unmoved. The elites of preindependent Greek society—the higher clerics, the wealthy merchants, the Phanariotes, and the kodjabashis, the wealthy provincial notables, whose lifestyle sometimes led to their being derisively referred to as “Christian Turks”—were mostly supporters of the status quo under the Ottomans. Whatever the faith Koraïs pinned on education, cultural revival by itself was not going to remove the oppressive Turks.


From insurgence to independence

  • RIGAS VELESTINLIS

Toward the end of the 18th century, Rigas Velestinlis (also known as Rigas Pheraios), a Hellenized Vlach from Thessaly, began to dream of and actively plan for an armed revolt against the Turks. Rigas, who had served a number of Phanariote hospodars in the Danubian principalities, spent part of the 1790s in Vienna. There he had come under the influence of the French Revolution, which is apparent in a number of revolutionary tracts he had printed, intending to distribute them to help stimulate a Pan-Balkan uprising against the Ottomans. These tracts included a Declaration of the Rights of Man and a New Political Constitution of the Inhabitants of Rumeli, Asia Minor, the Islands of the Aegean, and the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The latter proposed the establishment of what basically would have been a revived Byzantine Empire, but an empire in which monarchical institutions would have been replaced by republican institutions on the French model. Rigas’s insistence on the cultural predominance of the Greeks, however, and on the use of the Greek language, meant that his schemes stirred little interest among the other peoples of the Balkan Peninsula. In any case, Rigas’s ambitious schemes failed. Before he had even set foot on Ottoman soil, he was betrayed by a fellow Greek to the Habsburg authorities, who promptly handed him and a small group of coconspirators over to the Ottoman authorities; he was subsequently strangled by them in Belgrade in the summer of 1798. At one level Rigas’s conspiracy had thus been a miserable failure, but his almost single-handed crusade served as an inspiration to future generations of Greek nationalists.

  • WESTERN ENCROACHMENTS

The arrest of Rigas alarmed both the Ottoman authorities and the hierarchy of the Orthodox church, for it almost coincided with the occupation of the Ionian (Iónia) Islands in 1797 by the forces of revolutionary France and with Napoléon Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt in 1798. These developments caused panic in Constantinople, for they seemed to indicate that the seditious and atheistic doctrines of the French Revolution had penetrated the borders of the empire. The brief period of French rule in the Ionian Islands, which was attended by the rhetoric of revolutionary liberation, soon gave way to a short-lived Russo-Turkish condominium, a further period of French rule, and finally, after 1815, the establishment of a British protectorate. Although governed like a colony, the Ionian Islands under British rule, in theory, constituted an independent state and an example of free Greek soil, adjacent to but not under the control of the Ottoman Empire.


  • PHILIKÍ ETAIREÍA

The example of Rigas Velestinlis was very much in the minds of the three young Greeks, lowly members of the Greek mercantile diaspora, who in 1814 in Odessa (then in southern Russia, now in Ukraine), the centre of a thriving Greek community, founded the Philikí Etaireía, or “Friendly Society.” Their specific aim was to lay the foundations for a coordinated, armed uprising against the Turks. The three founders—Emmanuil Xanthos, Nikolaos Skouphas, and Athanasios Tsakalov—had little vision of the shape of the independent Greece they sought beyond the liberation of the motherland.

The initiation rituals of the Philikí Etaireía were strongly influenced by those of the Freemasons. There were four categories of membership, ranging from the lowly vlamis (brother) to the poimin (shepherd). Those who betrayed the conspiracy were ruthlessly dispatched. Initially the society’s attempt to recruit members throughout the Greek world met with little success, but from 1818 onward it made some headway, finding an important source of recruits in the communities of the diaspora. From the outset the leadership of the society—aware that the majority of the Greek people considered their fellow Orthodox believers, the Russians, to be their most likely liberators—misleadingly suggested that the conspiracy was backed by the Russian authorities.

Two attempts were made to recruit Count Ioánnis Kapodístrias—a Greek from Corfu (Kérkyra) who since 1816 had served as joint foreign minister to Tsar Alexander I of Russia and who was well versed in the ways of European diplomacy—as leader of the conspiracy. The conservative Kapodístrias, however, was dismissive of the plot and urged the Greeks to bide their time until there was another war between the Russian and Ottoman empires, when they might hope to achieve the kind of quasi-autonomy gained by Serbia in 1813. Although he could see no future in the plans of the members of the Philikí Etaireía, Kapodístrias did not betray the secret of the conspiracy. The leadership of the conspiracy was then transferred to another Greek in the Russian service, Prince Alexander Ypsilantis, a Phanariote who held the position of aide-de-camp to Alexander but who lacked the political experience of Kapodístrias.

Like Rigas Velestinlis, the conspirators were hoping for the support of the Romanians and the Bulgarians, but there was little enthusiasm for the project on the part of the other Balkan peoples, who were inclined to view the Greeks—with their privileged position in the Ottoman Empire and their enthusiasm for the ecclesiastical and cultural Hellenization of the other Balkan Christians—as scarcely less oppressive than the Turks.

Although unable to rely on the other Balkan peoples, the leadership of the conspiracy succeeded in exploiting the internal problems of the Ottoman Empire to its advantage. Sultan Mahmud II, who had ascended the throne in 1808, was bent on restoring the authority of the central government. In 1820, he launched an attack against Ali Paşa Tepelenë, a provincial warlord who, from his capital in Ioánnina, exercised control over large areas of mainland Greece. Although he nominally paid allegiance to the sultan, his virtual independence had for many years exasperated the Ottoman authorities. Taking advantage of the fact that large numbers of Ottoman troops were participating in the campaign against Ali Paşa, Alexander Ypsilantis launched an attack from Russian territory across the Pruth River in March 1821, invoking the glories of ancient Greece in his call to arms from Jassy (Iasi), the Moldavian capital. His campaign met little success, and he encountered no enthusiasm on the part of the supporters of Tudor Vladimirescu, who had risen against the oppression of the local Romanian boyars, or notables. Memories of Phanariote Greek oppression were altogether too vivid and recent. In June of 1821 Ypsilantis and his motley army were defeated at the battle of Drăgătsani, and Ypsilantis was forced dishonourably to flee into Habsburg territory, where he died in captivity in 1828.

  • REVOLT IN THE PELOPONNESE

Shortly after Ypsilantis’s raid into Moldavia, scattered violent incidents coalesced into a major revolt in the Peloponnese. It is said to have begun on March 25, 1821—still celebrated as Greek Independence Day—when Germanos, archbishop of Pátrai, unfurled a Greek flag at the monastery of Ayia Lavra near Kalávrita. With atrocities being committed by both sides, the Turks, very much in a minority, were forced to retreat to their coastal fortresses. The diversion of Ottoman forces for the attack on Ali Paşa, the element of surprise, and the military and especially naval skills on which the Greeks could draw gave the Greeks an advantage in the early years of what proved to be a lengthy struggle.

The revolt caught the public’s attention in western Europe, even if in the early years the reactionary governments of post-Napoleonic Europe were not prepared to face any disturbance of the existing order. Public sympathy in western Europe was translated into more concrete expressions of support with the arrival in the Peloponnese of philhellene volunteers, the best-known of whom was the poet Lord Byron, who had traveled extensively in the Greek lands before 1821. The military contribution of the philhellenes was limited, and some became disillusioned when they discovered that Greek reality differed from the idealized vision of Periclean Athens in which they had been nurtured in their home countries. The philhellenic committees that sprang up in Europe and the United States, however, soon raised money for the prosecution of the war and the relief of its victims, such as the survivors of the great massacre on Chíos in 1822, immortalized by the French painter Eugène Delacroix.

  • FACTIONALISM IN THE EMERGING STATE

At a very early stage in the fighting, the question of the governance of the liberated territories came to light. Initially no fewer than three provisional governments coexisted, while in 1822 a constitution, which by the standards of the day was highly democratic, was adopted with the hope of securing the support of the people in Europe. A revised constitution was adopted in 1823, at which time the three local governments were unified in a central authority. However, unification did not bring unity. Feuding between rival groups culminated in outright civil war in 1824, prompting one chieftain, Makriyannis, to protest that he had not taken up arms against the Turks in order to end up fighting Greeks.

Such factionalism derived from a number of causes. There was a basic tension between the kodjabashis, or notables, of the Peloponnese, who were anxious to ensure that they retained the privileged status they had held under the Ottomans, and the military element, associated with such klephtic leaders as Theodoros Kolokotronis, who sought recognition in terms of political power for their contribution to the war effort. The island shipowners, whose contribution to the prosecution of the war at sea was vital, likewise laid claim to a share of power, while the small intelligentsia argued for the adoption of liberal parliamentary institutions. To some degree the clash can be seen as a confrontation between Westernizers and traditional elites and to some degree as a clash between the military and civilian parties. The Westernizers, who were nationalistic and whose attitudes were expressed by their adoption of a Western lifestyle, wanted independent Greece to develop along the lines of a European state, with a regular army and with a curb on the traditional powers of the church. The traditional elites, on the other hand, tended to see the struggle in terms of a religious crusade against the Muslims, and their national consciousness was less fully articulated. Anxious to maintain the power and privileges they had enjoyed before the struggle began, they were chiefly concerned with substituting the oligarchy of the Turks with one of their own.

The insurgents could not permit internecine fighting. Mahmud II had by this time forged an alliance with his nominal subject, Muḥammad ʿAlī, the ruler of Egypt, and his son Ibrahim Pasha, who were promised lavish territorial rewards in return for their assistance in suppressing the revolt. Beginning in early 1825, Ibrahim Pasha engaged in a bitter war with the insurgents. As their initially favourable military position deteriorated, the insurgents looked increasingly for salvation from the great powers (Russia, France, and Great Britain), which, from a combination of mutual suspicion as to each other’s objectives and concern at the damage being done to their commercial interests, gradually moved toward a more interventionist position.

In 1826, by the Protocol of St. Petersburg, Britain and Russia committed themselves to a policy of mediation, to which France became a party through the Treaty of London of 1827. A policy of “peaceful interference,” as the British prime minister Lord Canning described it, culminated in the somewhat planned destruction of the Turco-Egyptian fleet by a combined British, French, and Russian fleet at the Battle of Navarino in October 1827, the last great naval battle of the age of sail. This intervention by the great powers was instrumental in ensuring that some form of independent Greece came into existence, although its precise borders, which ran from Árta in the west to Vólos in the east, took some years to negotiate. This process was overseen by Count Ioánnis Kapodístrias, who was elected the first president of Greece by the Assembly of Troezene, which in 1827 enacted the third constitution of the independence period. Besides overseeing the negotiation of the boundaries of the new state, in which his extensive diplomatic experience in the Russian imperial service was fully employed, Kapodístrias was also completely engaged in trying to establish the infrastructure of a state in a country that had been ravaged by a vicious and destructive war. Schooled in the traditions of Russian autocracy, Kapodístrias chafed under the provisions of the 1827 constitution, which, like its predecessors, was a remarkably liberal document, and he abolished it. His paternalist and authoritarian style of government offended a number of key elements in the hierarchy of the embryonic Greek state. Growing unrest culminated in his assassination in Nauplia (Návplio), the provisional capital, in October 1831.

  • Building the nation, 1832–1913

Greece’s existence as an independent state gained formal recognition in the treaty of 1832 between Bavaria and the great powers, but the Greeks themselves were not involved in the making of the treaty. Greece formally became a sovereign state, and the Greeks became the first of the subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire to gain full independence. However, the state contained within its borders less than one-third of the Greek population of the Middle East, and the struggle to expand the country’s borders came to dominate the first century of independent statehood. In 1947, with the incorporation of the Dodecanese (Dodekánisa)—a group of islands off the southwestern coast of Turkey that were under Italian rule—Greece’s present borders were established.

  • GREECE UNDER OTTO OF WITTELSBACH

The sovereignty of the small Greek state was not absolute, despite gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire, and the great powers, which retained certain ill-defined rights of intervention, determined that Greece should become a monarchy. The great powers chose Otto of Wittelsbach—the 17-year-old son of King Louis I (Ludwig) of Bavaria—as king of Greece. Because he was still a minor, the great powers determined that, until Otto came of age, the country was to be ruled by three Bavarian regents while the army was to be composed of Bavarians. The period of the “Bavarokratia,” as the regency was termed, was not a happy one, for the regents showed little sensitivity for the mores of Otto’s adopted countrymen and imported European models of government, law, and education without regard to local conditions. The legal and educational systems were thus heavily influenced by German and French models, as was the church settlement of 1833, which ended the traditional authority of the ecumenical patriarch and subjected ecclesiastical affairs to civil control.

Even after the formal ending of the regency in 1835, the Bavarian presence remained strong and was increasingly resented by those who had fought for independence. Another source of frustration for some was Otto’s failure to grant a constitution, as had been provided for in the negotiations preceding independence. Despite the absence of a constitution, however, political parties of some sort came into existence; the “British,” “Russian,” and “French” parties were associated with the diplomatic representatives of the great powers, and their main appeal was strong personalities rather than well-defined ideologies.

Toward the end of the decade of the 1830s, people became increasingly discontent with Otto’s rule. There was no indication that he would concede a constitution; Bavarians were still influential; his marriage to Queen Amalia had not produced an heir; the king remained a Roman Catholic in an Orthodox country with a strong anti-Catholic tradition; and much of the country’s revenues were being expended in servicing the loan granted on independence by the protecting powers (France, Russia, and Great Britain).

These various strands of discontent coalesced in the military coup of September 1843. Nearly bloodless, the coup was the first of many military interventions in Greece’s political process. Otto was forced to grant a constitution (promulgated in 1844), which was a liberal document by the standards of the day, providing for virtually universal manhood suffrage (although women were barred from voting until as late as 1952). However, Otto, together with his crafty prime minister, Ioánnis Koléttis, was able to overturn the new constitution by establishing a kind of parliamentary dictatorship. The attempt to implant a liberal constitutional democracy onto an essentially premodern, traditional society that had evolved in quite a different fashion from those of western Europe gave rise to tensions both within the political system and in the relations between state and society, which have carried on into modern times. Rouspheti (the reciprocal dispensation of favours), patronage, manipulation, and, at times, outright force continued to characterize the politics of the postconstitutional period.

  • THE GREAT IDEA

It was during the debates that preceded the promulgation of the 1844 constitution that Koléttis first coined the expression the “Great Idea” (Greek: Megáli Idéa). This was a visionary nationalist aspiration that was to dominate foreign relations and, to a significant extent, to determine the domestic politics of the Greek state for much of the first century of its independent existence.

If the expression was new in 1844, the concept was deeply rooted in the Greek popular psyche, nurtured by the prophecies and oracles that had kept hopes of eventual emancipation from the Turkish yoke alive and real during the dark centuries of the Tourkokratia. The Great Idea envisaged the restoration of the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire, with its capital once again established in Constantinople, which would be achieved by incorporating within the bounds of a single state all the areas of Greek settlement in the Middle East. Besides the Greek populations settled over a wide area in the southern Balkan Peninsula, there were extensive Greek populations in the Ottoman capital, Constantinople (Istanbul), itself; along the shores of the Sea of Marmara; along the western coastal region of Asia Minor, particularly in the region of Smyrna (İzmir); in central Anatolia (ancient Cappadocia), where much of the Greek populace was Turkish-speaking but employed the Greek alphabet to write Turkish; and in the Pontus region of northeastern Asia Minor, whose geographic isolation had given rise to an obscure form of Greek that was not understood elsewhere in the Greek world.

The Great Idea, the liberation by the Greek state of the “unredeemed” Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, was to be achieved through a combination of military means—an ambitious objective for a state with such limited resources—and a far-reaching program of educational and cultural propaganda aimed at instilling a sense of Hellenic identity in the very large Greek populations that remained under Ottoman rule. The University of Athens (1837) attracted people from all parts of the Greek world to be trained as students and apostles of Hellenism.

Greece hoped to profit from the Crimean War (1854–56) fought between Russia—the only sovereign Orthodox power—and the Ottoman Empire and its British and French allies. However, Greek neutrality in the conflict was enforced by a British and French occupation of Piraeus, the port of Athens; this was just one of several interventions in Greece’s internal affairs by the great powers that made light of Greece’s sovereign status.

King Otto’s enthusiasm for the Great Idea at the time of the Crimean War was popular with his subjects, but during the 1850s there was renewed discontent. The manipulation of the 1844 constitution had alienated a younger generation of politicians who had not been directly involved in the war of independence. Otto had also still not converted to the Orthodox church, nor had he an heir. The king was driven into exile following a coup in 1862 and spent the rest of his days in exile in Bavaria.

  • REFORM, EXPANSION, AND DEFEAT

The downfall of King Otto forced the great powers to search for a new sovereign who could not be drawn from their own dynasties. Their choice was a prince of the Danish Glücksburg family, who reigned as King George I of the Hellenes from 1863 to 1913; thereafter the Glücksburg dynasty reigned intermittently until the 1974 referendum rejected the institution of monarchy. To mark the beginning of the new reign, Britain ceded to Greece the Ionian Islands, over which it had exercised a protectorate since 1815—the first accession of territory to the Greek state since independence.

POLITICAL MODERNIZATION A new constitution in 1864 amplified the democratic freedoms of the 1844 constitution, although the sovereign retained substantial, and somewhat vaguely defined, powers in foreign policy. However, the realities of politics remained much as before, with numerous elections and even more frequent changes of administration as politicians formed short-lived coalitions, jockeying for power in the disproportionately large parliament. In 1875 a decisive step was taken toward political modernization when King George acknowledged that he would entrust the government to the political leader that demonstrated the confidence of a majority of the deputies in parliament. During the last quarter of the 19th century the kaleidoscopic coalitions of earlier years gave way to a two-party system in which power alternated between two men: Kharílaos Trikoúpis and Theódoros Dhiliyiánnis. Trikoúpis represented the modernizing, Westernizing trend in politics, and Dhiliyiánnis was a political boss in the traditional mold with no real program other than overturning the reforms of his archrival. Believing the modernization of the political system and economic development to be the essential preconditions of territorial expansion, Trikoúpis struggled to establish Greece’s credit in international markets and encouraged the country to industrialize. He also promoted such infrastructural projects as road building, railway construction, the building of the Corinth Canal, and the draining of Lake Kopaïs in Thessaly. Such measures, however, in addition to Trikoúpis’s parallel efforts to modernize the country’s armed forces, required funding, and the increased taxation they entailed proved an easy target for a populist demagogue such as Dhiliyiánnis. Dhiliyiánnis became increasingly popular by advocating an aggressive policy toward the Ottoman Empire, but his belligerence was to have disastrous economic consequences.


  • EXTENSION OF GREEK BORDERS

If Britain had hoped to suppress irredentist enthusiasm by ceding the Ionian Islands, it was sorely mistaken. The continuing agitation on the “Great Island” of Crete for union with the Greek kingdom, which erupted in periodic uprisings, caused inevitable friction in relations with the Ottoman Empire. Greece also made a rather inept attempt to exploit the latter’s discomfiture in the great Middle Eastern crisis of 1875–78, which gave rise to a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The great powers, meeting in Berlin in 1878, in addition to cutting down the size of “Big Bulgaria,” which had arisen from the conflict, pressed the Ottoman government to cede the rich agricultural province of Thessaly and a part of Epirus to Greece. In 1881 the second extension of the territory of the independent state came into being, like the first—the cession of the Ionian Islands—as a result of mediation by the great powers rather than of armed conflict. In 1878, again as part of the Berlin settlement, the island of Cyprus, with its largely Greek population, came under British administration but remained formally under Ottoman sovereignty. The island was annexed by Britain in 1914, after the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers, and became a crown colony in 1925.

  • RECTIFICATION OF FRONTIERS

The incorporation of Thessaly brought the northern frontier of Greece to the borders of Macedonia, which, with its mixed population of Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians, Turks, Vlachs, and Roma (Gypsies), was characterized by a great deal of ethnic complexity. It also brought Greece into contention with Serbia and Bulgaria, both of which also looked to Macedonia, which remained under Ottoman rule, with covetous eyes. The contest was initially conducted by means of ecclesiastical, educational, and cultural propaganda, but at the turn of the century rival guerrilla bands, financed by their respective governments (and supported by the public), sought to achieve by terror what they could not achieve by more peaceful means.

While Trikoúpis argued for the strengthening of the state as the basic precondition of territorial expansion, Deliyannis showed no such caution. His mobilization of forces in 1885 in an attempt to exploit a crisis over Bulgaria resulted in the establishment of a naval blockade by the great powers, while his support for the insurgents in Crete in 1897 led to a humiliating defeat in the Thirty Days’ War with Turkey. Greece was forced to pay compensation and to accept the adjustments made to its frontier. Another humiliation sovereign Greece faced was the installation of an international financial commission to oversee the repayment of its substantial external debts.

  • EMIGRATION

Military endeavours compounded serious economic problems, which culminated in national bankruptcy in 1893. Economic difficulties were primarily responsible for the great wave of emigration, principally from the Peloponnese to the United States, that characterized the late 19th and early 20th centuries. About one-sixth of the entire population participated in this great exodus, the vast majority being male. The early emigrants had little intention of settling permanently overseas, though few ever returned to their homeland. Migrant remittances to relatives in the old country subsequently made a significant contribution to the country’s balance of payments.

  • THE EARLY VENIZÉLOS YEARS

What the Greeks learned from the 1897 war was that, however weakened the Ottoman state might be, Greece was in no position to engage in single-handed military confrontation. Allies and the reinvigoration of the ill-constructed state and economy were the necessary prerequisites for a successful military threat. The latter came about under the inspired leadership of Eleuthérios Venizélos, who had emerged in the politics of his native Crete, where an autonomous regime had been established following the 1897 war. A charismatic figure who was adored and denounced in equal measure, Venizélos dominated Greek politics during the first three decades of the 20th century.

  • THE GOUDI COUP

Venizélos was projected from the provincial to the national stage as a consequence of a coup staged by the Military League, formed by disaffected army officers, from Goudi (at the outskirts of Athens) in 1909; this coup ushered in a persistent pattern of military involvement in politics during the 20th century. The conspirators demanded thorough reforms of both a nonmilitary and a military nature, the latter including the removal of the royal princes, who often promoted their own protégés, from the armed forces.

  • VENIZÉLOS’S REFORMIST PROGRAM

The short-lived but forceful intervention of the military compelled the discredited political establishment to make way for Venizélos, who had not been compromised by involvement in the petty politics of the kingdom. In elections held in December 1910 Venizélos and his newly founded Liberal Party won more than four-fifths of the seats in parliament. His power legitimized through elections, Venizélos plunged into a wide-ranging program of constitutional reform, political modernization, and economic development, which he combined with an energetic enthusiasm for the Great Idea. Some 50 amendments to the 1864 constitution were enacted; provision was made for land reform; innovations were made in the educational system; and legislation benefiting the working population was introduced. However, these moderately reformist policies inhibited the development of the powerful agrarian and socialist movements that developed elsewhere in the Balkans. British naval and French military missions were brought in to overhaul the armed forces. Venizélos’s continuing political ascendancy was confirmed with a sweeping victory in elections held in 1912.

  • THE BALKAN WARS

The defeat of 1897 had induced much pessimism but gave way to a period of optimism, in which Greece splendiferously saw itself as a rising power poised to displace a declining Ottoman Empire as the leading power in the Middle East. In 1911, when Italy attacked the Ottoman Empire—in the process occupying the largely Greek-populated Dodecanese—Greece, no less than the other Balkan states, wanted its share of the spoils from the ever more likely collapse of Ottoman rule in the Balkans. However, Greece’s situation differed from that of its Balkan neighbours, whose populations were relatively and compactly settled within the Balkan Peninsula. The Greeks, on the other hand, were widely dispersed throughout the Middle East and thus vulnerable to Turkish reprisals in the event of a war. But Greece could scarcely stand aside from the network of alliances being formed among the Balkan states. These culminated in October 1912 in the First Balkan War, with Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro declaring war on the Ottoman Empire. In contrast to earlier Balkan crises, the great powers did not intervene, and the heavily outnumbered Ottoman forces were forced into rapid retreat. Within less than a month, Thessaloníki (Salonika; Thessalonica), the most important port in the northern Aegean, coveted by Bulgaria as well as by Greece, was captured by Greek forces. In February 1913 Greek forces took Ioánnina, the capital of Epirus. Meanwhile the Greek navy rapidly occupied the Aegean islands still under Ottoman rule.

The Balkan alliance was always a somewhat fragile affair in view of rivalries over Macedonia. Bulgaria, in particular, felt that its sacrifices had been in vain and turned against its former allies Greece and Serbia. This brief Second Balkan War (June to July 1913) led to the Treaty of Bucharest (August 1913), in which Bulgaria was forced to acknowledge the acquisition by Greece and Serbia of a substantial proportion of Macedonia. At the same time the formal union of Crete with the kingdom was recognized, although Greek hopes for the annexation of northern Epirus, with its large Greek population, were thwarted when the region was incorporated into newly independent Albania.

The expansion of Greece’s territories in the First and Second Balkan Wars was extensive. Its land area had increased by more than three-fifths, and so had its population (from about 2.8 million to 4.8 million), but by no means were all of its newly acquired citizens ethnic Greeks. In the city of Thessaloníki the largest single element in the city’s population was made up of Sephardic Jews, the descendants of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, most of whom continued to speak Ladino. Elsewhere in “New Greece,” as the recently acquired territories came to be known, there were substantial Slavic, Muslim (mainly Turkish), Vlach, and Roma populations. Like the Jews, many of these populations did not look upon the Greeks as liberators. The integration of “New” with “Old” Greece, the conservative core of the original kingdom, would not be an easy process, but the problems it created did not emerge until much later.

At the conclusion of hostilities and under the charismatic leadership of Venizélos, the irredentist aspirations enshrined in the Great Idea appeared to be within reach. When King George I died at the hands of a deranged assassin in March 1913, there were demands that his successor, Crown Prince Constantine, be crowned not Constantine I (as he was) but Constantine XII to symbolize continuity with Constantine XI Palaeologus, the last emperor of Byzantium.

Greek history since World War I

  • FROM THE NATIONAL SCHISM TO DICTATORSHIP

The dynamism and sense of national unity that had characterized the early Venizélos years gave way to rancour and vengefulness that were to poison the country’s political life throughout World War I and the interwar period. Greece was torn apart by the “National Schism,” a division of the country into irreconcilable camps supporting either King Constantine I or his prime minister, Venizélos. The immediate grounds for tension were differences between the king and the prime minister as to Greece’s alignment during World War I, although there were deeper causes underlying the split. The king advocated neutrality, while Venizélos was an enthusiastic supporter of the Triple Entente—Britain, France, and Russia—which he regarded as the alliance most likely to favour the implementation of Greece’s remaining irredentist ambitions. The entente had, in an effort to lure Greece into the war, held out the luring prospect of territorial gain for Greece at the expense of Turkey, which had aligned itself with the Central Powers. Increasingly bitter disagreements between king and prime minister resulted in the latter twice resigning in 1915, despite a convincing electoral victory.

The breach between the two became irrevocable when Venizélos in October 1916 established a rival government in Thessaloníki, which, like most of “New Greece,” was passionately loyal to Venizélos. In June 1917 the entente allies ousted King Constantine and installed Venizélos as prime minister of a formally united but bitterly divided Greece. Venizélos duly brought Greece, which was up to that time neutral, into the war on the side of the entente. Naturally, he expected to reap the rewards for his loyalty at the Paris Peace Conference. In May of 1919 Greece was permitted to land troops in İzmir (Smyrna), the major port city in Asia Minor, with a large Greek population. Greece also was a major beneficiary of the Treaty of Sèvres of August 1920, the peace treaty with the defeated Ottoman Empire. However, for the Turkish nationalists, incited by the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), the treaty was from the outset a dead letter and the Greek landings a challenge they were prepared to meet.

In November 1920 Venizélos was somewhat surprisingly defeated in elections, and the exiled King Constantine I was restored to his throne after a fraudulent plebiscite—to the obvious displeasure of Britain and France. Meanwhile, the military situation in Asia Minor steadily deteriorated; a Turkish nationalist offensive in August–September 1922 resulted in a dramatic rout of the Greek armies in Asia Minor. Much of İzmir was burned, and many Greeks and Armenians were killed. Tens of thousands of destitute Greek refugees fled to the kingdom of Greece, thus ending a 2,500-year Greek presence in Asia Minor and with it the elusive vision of the Great Idea.

A military junta seized power in 1922 as King Constantine abdicated, and five royalist politicians and the commander of the Asia Minor forces were tried and executed on a charge of high treason, although there was no evidence of deliberate treachery. The “Trial of the Six” was to poison the climate of interwar politics, exacerbating the already bitter feud between the supporters of Venizélos and of the monarchy.

At a peace conference in Lausanne, Greece and the newly established Turkish Republic agreed on an exchange of populations between the two countries. Religion was the criterion for the project, which resulted in the exchange of thousands of Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians for Greek-speaking Muslims. The ecumenical patriarchate was allowed to remain in Constantinople, as were the Greek inhabitants of that city and of two islands, Imbros (now Gökçe) and Tenedos (Turkish: Bozcaada), which straddled the entrance to the strategically sensitive Dardanelles. In return, the Muslims of Greek Thrace were allowed to remain. An influx of some 1.3 million refugees—including significant numbers from Russia and Bulgaria—strongly tested the social fabric of a country exhausted by some 10 years of intermittent war. Leaving aside the prejudice that they encountered on the part of the indigenous population, the process of their integration into Greek society was remarkably successful. The economy, benefiting from the entrepreneurial skills of the refugees, underwent a significant degree of industrialization during the interwar period. The remaining large estates were broken up to provide smallholdings for the newcomers, and rural Greece became a society of peasant smallholders, which made for social stability rather than for economic efficiency. The majority of the refugees were settled in the territories of “New Greece,” thereby consolidating the area’s “Greekness.” Although refugees were disproportionately represented in the leadership of the newly founded Communist Party of Greece (KKE), they largely remained intensely loyal to Venizélos. Their vote was clearly instrumental in the formal establishment of a republic in 1923, shortly after the departure of King George II, who had briefly succeeded to the throne following his father’s abdication in 1922. The refugees and the army acted as the arbiters of political life during the interwar period.

In 1928 Venizélos made a political comeback, two years after the downfall of the short-lived military dictatorship headed by Gen. Theodoros Pangalos in 1925–26. Although Venizélos initiated a good-neighbour policy with Italy and Greece’s Balkan neighbours and brought about a remarkable rapprochement with Turkey, his government felt the repercussions of the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929. Because Greece was dependent on the export of agricultural products such as olive oil, tobacco, and currants and on migrant remittances, it was severely affected by the decline in world trade.

After four years of relative stability, politics reverted to the chaos of the early 1920s. When the anti-Venizélists won the 1933 elections, Col. Nikólaos Plastíras, a staunch supporter of Venizélos and the mastermind behind the 1922 coup, sought to restore Venizélos to power by force. His coup was unsuccessful and was subsequently followed by an assassination attempt on Venizélos. The political arena was once again split between supporters of Venizélos and of the monarchy. Fear of a royalist restoration lay behind another attempted coup by Venizélist officers in March 1935. His proven involvement on this occasion forced Venizélos into exile in France, where he died shortly afterward, but not before he urged his supporters to reconcile with the king.

The royalists were the main beneficiaries of the abortive 1935 coup, in the aftermath of which King George II had been restored to his throne, following another dubious plebiscite. Like Venizélos in exile, the king on his return to Greece was in a conciliatory mood. However, elections held under a system of proportional representation in January 1936 produced a deadlock between the two main parliamentary blocs, the Venizélists and the royalists. Both blocs engaged in secret negotiations with the communists, who up to that time had been an insignificant force, but now, with 15 seats in the 300-seat parliament, held the balance of power.

  • THE METAXAS REGIME AND WORLD WAR II

Public disillusionment with the endless political corruption, which had been growing swiftly in the preceding years, was exacerbated when the news broke that the main political blocs were secretly negotiating with the communists. When the nonpolitical figure who headed a caretaker government charged with overseeing the elections died, he was replaced as prime minister by Gen. Ioannis Metaxas, a right-wing and lesser-known figure. Metaxas exploited labour unrest and a threatened general strike to persuade the king in August 1936 to suspend key articles of the constitution. Although the suspension was intended to be temporary, parliament did not reconvene for another decade.

Backed by the army and tolerated by the king, the Metaxas dictatorship lasted more than four years. The dictator—whose paternalistic style was signaled by the adoption of such titles as “National Father,” “First Peasant,” and “First Worker”—shared a dislike for parliamentary democracy, liberalism, and communism that was characteristic of German Nazism and Italian Fascism, but the “Regime of the Fourth of August 1936” simply lacked their dynamism. The government led by Metaxas did not seek alliances with the European dictatorships. On the contrary, with the support of the king, Metaxas strove to maintain the country’s traditional alignment toward Britain. The dictator, however, endeavoured to recast the Greek character in a more disciplined mode, invoking the values of ancient Greece and, in particular, of the Spartans. He also sought to fuse them with the values of the medieval Christian empire of Byzantium, thus fashioning what he pompously described as the “Third Hellenic Civilization.”

At the outbreak of World War II, Metaxas tried to maintain neutrality, but Greece was increasingly subject to pressure from Italy, whose dictator Benito Mussolini sought an easy military triumph to match those of his ally Adolf Hitler. A series of provocations culminated in the delivery of a humiliating ultimatum on October 28, 1940. Metaxas, reflecting the mood of the entire country, rejected this with a simple answer: “No!” The Italians immediately invaded Greece from Albania, which they had occupied 18 months previously. Any hopes of a lightning military triumph were quickly lost. Within weeks not only had the Italians been driven from Greek territory, but Greek forces had pushed on to occupy much of what the Greeks term “Northern Epirus,” the area of southern Albania with a substantial Greek minority.

Though he accepted token British military aid, Metaxas, until his death in January 1941, was anxious to avoid provoking German intervention in the conflict. However, his successor agreed to accept a British expeditionary force as it became apparent that Hitler’s aggressive designs extended to the Balkans. The combined Greek and British forces, however, were able to offer only limited resistance when the Germans crossed the borders in April 1941. British and Commonwealth troops were forced to retreat from superior German forces but managed to get to Crete, where they held out for 10 days against German parachute and glider troops. By the beginning of June the country was overrun and subjected to a harsh tripartite German, Italian, and Bulgarian occupation. King George II and his government-in-exile fled to the Middle East. The requisitioning of food stocks resulted in a terrible famine during the winter of 1941–42, in which as many as 100,000 people died. In 1943 virtually the entire Jewish population was deported to German death camps—most to Auschwitz. A devastatingly high rate of inflation added to the miseries and humiliations of everyday life.

Almost from the outset of the occupation, acts of resistance were recorded. These took a more systematic form after the Communist Party in September 1941 founded the National Liberation Front (Ethnikón Apeleftherotikón Métopon; EAM), whose military arm was known as the Ellinikós Laikos Apeleftherotikós Strátos (ELAS). Although the communists had been a marginal force during the interwar period, EAM-ELAS became the largest resistance organization. Other groups came into being, the most important of which, the Greek Democratic Army (Ellinikós Dímokratikos Ethnikós Strátos; EDES), opposed—as did EAM-ELAS—the return of the king upon liberation. With the support of a British military mission, the guerrillas engaged in some spectacular acts of resistance, most notably the destruction in November 1942 of the Gorgopotamos viaduct, which carried the railway line from Thessaloníki to Athens, and in April 1944 the kidnapping and removal to Egypt of the German commander on Crete.

During this time of grave national crisis, just as during the war of independence and World War I, conflicts within groups divided the resistance organizations. Besides fighting the Axis occupation, they jockeyed for postwar power. During the winter of 1943–44, civil war broke out in the mountains of Greece between EAM-ELAS and the much smaller British-backed EDES, which had become increasingly alarmed at the prospect of a postliberation seizure of power by the communists.

Not for the first time in Greek history, the country’s fate was to be determined by the great powers. The British prime minister, Winston Churchill, eager to restore King George II to his throne, engaged in the summer and autumn of 1944 in some high-level negotiations with the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, trading Russian predominance in postwar Romania for British predominance in Greece. It would seem that Stalin gave no encouragement to the Greek communists to make a bid for power in the autumn of 1944 as the Germans began their withdrawal, but by this time they were by far the most powerful force in occupied Greece.

The confrontation was only postponed, however, for bloody fighting broke out in Athens in December 1944 between EAM-ELAS and the small British force that had accompanied the Greek government on its return from exile in October. It was a sign of Churchill’s obsession with the crisis in Greece that he flew to Athens on Christmas Eve 1944 in an unsuccessful attempt to resolve the conflict. The British prime minister, however, was able to persuade King George II not to return to Greece pending a plebiscite on the monarchy and to accept the regency of Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens. A temporary respite in the struggle between left and right was achieved at the Varkiza conference in February 1945, which aimed at a political settlement of the crisis.


  • CIVIL WAR AND ITS LEGACY

The first elections since the fateful ones of 1936 were held in March 1946. These were flawed and, with the far left abstaining, resulted in a sweeping victory for the royalist right. In September a plebiscite issued a vote for the return of King George II; he died within six months and his brother Paul succeeded him. Against this background the country slid toward civil war, as the far left was undecided as to whether to work within the political system or to make an armed bid for power.

The turning point came with the establishment in October 1946 of a communist-controlled Democratic Army, and the following year the communists established a Provisional Democratic Government. Although heavily outnumbered, the communists were able—with the logistical support from the newly established communist regimes to the north, coupled with skillful use of guerrilla tactics—to control a wide area of northern Greece for a substantial period of time. Following the declaration of the Truman Doctrine in March 1947, which pledged support for “free peoples” in their fight against internal subversion, the tide gradually began to turn. The United States, assuming Britain’s former mantle as Greece’s chief external patron, soon provided military equipment and advice. American intervention and the consequences of the break between Josip Broz Tito (under whose leadership the Yugoslav state would eventually unite) and Stalin, combined with factionalism and altered military tactics on the left, all contributed to the defeat of the communist guerrillas in the summer of 1949.

Greece emerged from the laborious 1940s in a state of devastation. The post-civil-war political regime was distinctly authoritarian, and from the mid-1950s Greece underwent a rapid but unevenly distributed process of economic and social development, far surpassing its communist neighbours to the north in standard of living. The population of greater Athens more than doubled in size between 1951 and 1981, and by the early 1990s about one-third of the entire population was concentrated in the area of the capital. However, if urbanization progressed quickly and living standards rose rapidly, the country’s political institutions failed to keep pace with rapid change. The right maintained a firm grip on power for the majority of the period from 1952 to 1963 and was none too careful in the means it employed to retain it.

By the early 1960s, however, the electorate—which now included women—had become increasingly disillusioned with the repressive legacy of the civil war and sought change. Georgios Papandreou, whose Centre Union Party secured a sweeping victory in 1964, responded to this need as prime minister; yet the promise of reform and modernization was cast aside with renewed crisis in Cyprus, and groups within the army conspired to subvert the country’s democratic institutions. A guerrilla campaign in Cyprus—fought from the mid-1950s onward with tenacity and ruthlessness by the Greek-Cypriot general Georgios Grivas—had resulted in 1960 in the British conceding not the union with the Greek state sought by the overwhelming Greek-Cypriot majority on the island but rather independence. However, within three years the elaborate power-sharing arrangements between the Greek majority and the Turkish minority on the island had collapsed.

During and following the civil war, Greece’s armed forces had come to look upon themselves not only as the country’s guardians against foreign aggression but also as its defenders against internal subversion. They increasingly viewed Georgios Papandreou as a stalking horse for his much more radical American-educated son, Andreas Papandreou, who had returned to Greece and joined his father’s government.

In April 1967, middle-ranking officers led by Col. Georgios Papadopoulos launched a coup designed to thwart an expected Centre Union victory in elections planned for May of that year. The conspirators took advantage of a prolonged political crisis, which had its origins in a dispute between the young King Constantine II, who had succeeded his father, King Paul, to the throne in 1964, and his prime minister, Georgios Papandreou. Alternating between policies that were heavy-handed and absurd, the “Colonels,” as the military junta came to be known, misruled the country from 1967 to 1974. After a failed countercoup in December 1967, King Constantine went into exile, with Papadopoulos assuming the role of regent. In 1973 the monarchy was abolished, and Greece was declared a republic. That year, following student protests, which were violently suppressed, Papadopoulos himself was overthrown from within the junta and replaced by the even more repressive Gen. Demetrios Ioannidis, the head of the much-feared military police.

In July 1974, in the wake of an increasingly bitter dispute between Greece and Turkey over oil rights in the Aegean Sea, Ioannidis, seeking a nationalist triumph, launched a coup to depose Makarios III, the archbishop and president of Cyprus since 1960. Makarios survived, but the coup triggered the invasion of the northern part of the island by Turkey, which, together with Britain and Greece, was a guarantor of the 1960 constitutional settlement. The Turkish army occupied nearly two-fifths of the land area of the island, despite the fact that the Turkish population constituted less than one-fifth of the total population. Ioannidis responded to the Turkish invasion by mobilizing for war with Turkey. The mobilization proved chaotic, however, and the regime, bitterly unpopular domestically and totally isolated diplomatically, collapsed.

  • RESTORATION OF DEMOCRACY

Konstantinos Karamanlis, a conservative politician who had served as prime minister from 1955 to 1963, was summoned back from self-imposed exile in France to restore democracy and rebuild a country ravaged by seven years of brutal and inefficient military rule. The turnaround he accomplished was remarkable. He defused the threat of outright war with Turkey and ensured that the Greek army returned to the barracks. He acknowledged the way in which opposition to the junta had brought together politicians of all political backgrounds by legalizing the Communist Party, which had been outlawed in 1947. He moved rapidly to legitimize his power through elections held in November 1974, in which he secured a sweeping victory. In December a referendum on the future of the monarchy resulted in a majority vote against the monarchy and against the return of King Constantine.

Karamanlis’s second premiership lasted from 1974 to 1980, when he was elected president. By this time he had achieved his main objective, early membership in the European Economic Community (later succeeded by the European Union [EU]), which Greece joined in January 1981. His failure to counter the populist appeal of Andreas Papandreou’s Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), however, resulted in a stunning parliamentary electoral victory for PASOK in 1981.

The smooth transfer of power from a right-wing government that had ruled for much of the postwar period to a radical (at the level of rhetoric, at least) socialist government appeared to indicate that Greece’s newly reestablished democratic institutions were firmly in place. Nevertheless, during almost a decade as prime minister, Papandreou failed to deliver on his promises of change, and a dramatic reorientation in the country’s domestic politics and external relations never came about. Ambitious plans to “socialize” key sections of industry failed to materialize, and the attempt to create a welfare state could be sustained only by enormous borrowing. Important reforms were, however, introduced in family law, and society was liberalized in other respects. It was testimony to Papandreou’s ability to articulate both the aspirations and the frustrations of a large segment of the electorate that, despite a poor economic record and amid accusations of large-scale corruption in the higher reaches of the party, the conservative New Democracy party (ND) barely regained power in 1990. The new government, with Konstantinos Mitsotakis as prime minister, was committed to a policy of economic liberalism and the diminution of the powers of the state, but the problems that confronted it were formidable. The rigid economic policies introduced by Mitsotakis and, in particular, proposals for the privatization of the large state sector, were unpopular with much of the electorate. In 1993 Papandreou’s PASOK returned to power with a share of the vote only marginally smaller than it had received at the time of its electoral triumph in 1981.

However, the underlying economic and infrastructural problems facing Greece remained, and Papandreou was unable to do much to stop the rising deficits, inflation, interest rates, and unemployment as attempts to put Greece’s finances on a sounder footing conflicted with PASOK’s promises of social reforms. With Papandreou now in his mid-70s and in failing health, there were also disagreements within PASOK on who should become his successor. By January 1996, Papandreou was so incapacitated that he resigned; he died later that year. Konstantinos (Kostas) Simitis was elected as the new prime minister by the PASOK parliamentary deputies.

Simitis, more a pragmatic reformist than an ideological socialist, tried to control state spending and even to privatize some state industries. Hoping to capitalize on his apparent popularity, he called for elections in September, barely defeating the ND. In the late 1990s, Simitis’s efforts to introduce some fundamental restructuring of Greece’s economy brought some successes but also resistance from many Greeks. Much of the impetus for reforming Greece’s economy came from its membership in the EU, though Greece struggled to meet the conditions needed to adopt in January 1999 the euro, the common currency of the EU.

In its foreign relations too, Greece continued to be preoccupied with disputes that upset other EU members. For years Greece refused to recognize the existence of the Republic of Macedonia, which had emerged as an independent country in 1991 after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Then Greece, after imposing a devastating economic embargo against Macedonia, reluctantly agreed in September 1995 to accept its existence under the name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Greece has prevented Macedonia from becoming a member of NATO and of the EU, insisting that Greece has exclusive rights to the use of the name “Macedonia.” (See Researcher’s Note: Macedonia: a contested name.) Albanians, both in their homeland and in Greece, continued to be a source of irritation to Greeks, and, when NATO conducted its bombing campaign against Serbia in the spring of 1999 in support of the Albanian Kosovars, Greece refused to participate in the air attacks.

Earthquakes that devastated Turkey and Greece in the summer of 1999 led each country to provide rescue teams to aid the other, helping to thaw somewhat the centuries-old “cold war” between the two countries. And relations between them remained relatively stable, with solutions sought for problems related to Cyprus as that divided island prepared to join the EU. Tensions between the countries heated up again, however, in 2004 when Greek Cypriots voted against a UN-sponsored referendum on unification, and again in 2006, when a Greek and a Turkish plane collided, highlighting the countries’ long-standing dispute over airspace.

Greece’s economy maintained slow but steady growth throughout the early years of the 21st century, while the country prepared for Athens to host the 2004 Olympic Games. Despite construction delays, the needed infrastructure was in place on time, and the Games were a success that burnished Greece’s international standing as a country with both a rich heritage and a promising future. The decade-long rule of PASOK came to a close in 2004 when Simitis’s successor, Georgios Papandreou, son of Andreas Papandreou, lost to an ND led by Kostas Karamanlis (the nephew of Konstantinos Karamanlis), who was installed as prime minister. The economic reforms he introduced brought protests from some who dismissed them as neoliberal, but Karamanlis and his party retained control of the government in elections in 2007. The political mix remained volatile, and in December 2008 the killing of a teenage boy by a police officer in Athens set off weeks of rioting in the capital and other cities, primarily by angry, disaffected youth.

  • GREECE’S DEBT CRISIS

The Greek economy, like those of so many other countries, entered a period of uncertainty as a result of the international economic crisis of 2009, and the ND’s hold on government appeared tenuous. In an attempt to reinforce his government’s efforts to right the economy and seeking to shore up his position within his own party, Karamanlis called for snap elections in October 2009. The ND was swept from office in dramatic fashion, with a resurgent PASOK claiming 160 parliamentary seats—more than enough for an absolute majority. Karamanlis resigned as leader of the ND, and George Papandreou became the third member of his family to hold the post of prime minister.

Greece [Credit: © Vicspacewalker/Shutterstock.com]In the wake of the election, it became clear that Greece’s economic troubles were far worse than previously imagined. The borrowing by the ND government even before the international financial crisis, masked by misleading accounting, was revealed to have been excessive, and, with the onset of the broader economic meltdown, the Greek economy crumbled. Estimates of the Greek government’s budget deficit put it at several times greater than that allowed by the rules governing the euro zone (countries whose currency is the euro). The reactive broad austerity measures that were introduced by the Papandreou goverment met with widespread protest and wildcat strikes domestically and were neither enough to provide for the government’s short-term budget needs nor enough to stem the international financial market’s concern with the impact of the Greek crisis on the value and stability of the euro. In March and April 2010 the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came to the rescue with two massive loan packages for Greece.

Greece [Credit: © Portokalis/Shutterstock.com]Even with the EU-IMF rescue, the Greek economy continued to struggle mightily. Growing dissatisfaction with the draconian budget cuts, reductions in benefits and pensions, and tax increases, as well as with Papandreou’s handling of the crisis in general, led to more strikes and demonstrations in Athens, Thessaloníki, and elsewhere in the country. In June 2011 weeks of mass demonstrations outside the Greek parliament building—by protesters labeled the “indignants” (associated with similarly disenchanted Spaniards who had taken to the streets in response to the Spanish government’s handling of its own debt crisis)—culminated in an eruption of violence. After failing in his attempts to form a government of “national unity,” Papandreou reshuffled his cabinet, most notably appointing a new finance minister. All these events came as the EU and IMF contemplated delivery of the latest installment of the bailout, which was contingent on Greek implementation of ever-greater austerity measures along with the partial privatization of some state-owned companies. On June 21—facing the looming threat of default and all the ramifications it would entail for Greece and the euro zone—Papandreou’s government narrowly survived a vote of confidence that set the stage for parliament to pass the necessary austerity measures on June 29 (contingent upon enactment the next day of new laws to facilitate the specific measures). Again the legislation was greeted with angry protests outside the parliament building, where demonstrators clashed with police.

EU leaders concluded an agreement on July 21 that extended more than €100 billion ($140 billion) in loans to Greece in an effort to stabilize the Greek economy and contain the potential damage to the euro zone as a whole. Interest rates for existing bailout loans were reduced, and the repayment periods were drastically lengthened. These changes came at a cost to private bondholders, however, and ratings agencies classified the restructuring as a “restricted default.” This marked the first government debt default by a euro zone country since the implementation of the single currency.

At the end of October euro-zone leaders summited in Brussels in an attempt to hammer out a lasting solution for both the Greek and the broader European debt crisis. German Pres. Angela Merkel and French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy met privately with Greece’s creditors and engineered a bond swap that effectively cut the value of Greek debt in half. Only days after the plan was agreed upon, a firestorm of controversy erupted on October 31 when Papandreou announced his intention to submit the latest bailout plan to Greek voters in a referendum. Other European leaders, fearful that a no vote would render all their efforts moot and lead to dire consequences for the whole euro zone, were furious, and Papandreou’s actions and motives were questioned not just by the Greek opposition but by many within his own party. As accusations and recriminations flew, Papandreou canceled the referendum after being assured of support for the bailout plan by ND leader Antonis Samaras, who nevertheless demanded Papandreou’s resignation. Seemingly attempting to cling to power, Papandreou submitted to a vote of confidence on November 4, which he won by a small margin. He then agreed to step down as prime minister to pave the way for the formation of a “unity” government to facilitate approval of the most recent bailout plan. On November 11 Lucas Papademos—an adviser to Papandreou, and former vice president of the European Central Bank (ECB), who had overseen Greece’s adoption of the euro as the governor of the Bank of Greece—became interim prime minister at the head of a coalition government. An economist, Papademos was widely seen as someone who would approach the challenge as a technocrat.

In February 2012 the Greek parliament approved more spending cuts that opened the door to an additional €130 billion (about $173 billion) in bailout funds from the ECB, the EU, and the IMF. Violent clashes between police and demonstrators erupted in Athens in April in response to the death near Greece’s parliament of a man who committed suicide as an act of protest against deepening pension cuts. The widespread disenchantment among Greeks at the government’s austerity measures was reflected in the results of parliamentary elections in May, which dealt a major blow to the country’s longtime ruling parties. The ND finished first but garnered only about 19 percent of the vote. PASOK managed to get only some 13 percent of the vote, finishing third, behind the Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left), which captured about 17 percent of the vote and was just one of a number of smaller antiausterity parties who were the real winners in the election, including the ultraright-wing nationalist Golden Dawn party, which registered about 7 percent of the vote. As the winner, the ND had the first opportunity to try to form a coalition government but was unable to do so, as were Syriza and PASOK, forcing a new election on June 17. This time the ND had a stronger showing, though again it only narrowly defeated Syriza, capturing about 30 percent of the vote to roughly 27 percent for Syriza and 12 percent for PASOK. Mindful that a minority of Greeks had voted for pro-bailout parties but still committed to the bailout (though hopeful that some of its terms might be renegotiated), ND leader Antonis Samaras took office as prime minister at the head of a coalition government that included PASOK and the smaller Democratic Left party.

Economic and public-sector reform (including planned layoffs of civil servants) remained at centre stage in Greece in 2013, with the government trying to limit the social and political costs of both while securing continued aid payments from the country’s international lenders. In June 2013 the Democratic Left pulled out of the government in protest of the closure of state-run Greek Radio-Television (ERT). The remaining ND-PASOK coalition government survived a no-confidence vote in November and projected that a return to economic growth was in the offing for 2014, despite the economy’s contraction for the sixth straight year in 2013.

Tsipras, Alexis [Credit: Milos Bicanski—Getty Images News/Thinkstock]In autumn 2013, after a member of the Golden Dawn party was charged with the murder of a leftist hip-hop artist, the government cracked down on the party, arresting its leaders and several members of parliament on charges that included the establishment of a criminal organization, murder, attempted murder, and blackmail. Nevertheless, Golden Dawn not only was able to participate in elections for the European Parliament in May 2014 but finished third, capturing three seats. Syriza also surged in that election, winning the popular vote (with some 27 percent of the total vote to 23 percent for the second-place ND) and six seats. The election had been cast by the opposition as a referendum on the government, which seemed to weather the worst of the storm by avoiding an overwhelming defeat, though Prime Minister Samaras’s slim parliamentary majority remained tenuous. With the term of Pres. Karolos Papoulias set to end by March 2015, Samaras nominated Stavros Dimas of the ND as his replacement. In three parliamentary votes in December, however, Dimas failed to muster the majority required to elect him. Consequently, on December 30 parliament was dissolved, and early parliamentary elections were called for January 25, 2015. In the event, those who opposed austerity were triumphant, as Syriza and its youthful leader, Alexis Tsipras, who had promised to renegotiate the terms of the bailout, captured some 36 percent of the vote to about 28 percent for the ND. By winning 149 seats, Syriza fell two seats short of an absolute majority, but Tsipras quickly formed a ruling coalition with another smaller anti-austerity party, the Independent Greeks (which won 13 seats), and was sworn in as prime minister on January 26..

Once in office Tsipras sought support from elsewhere within the EU for his intention to abrogate the policies and austerity measures implemented by the previous Greek government under the terms of the bailout agreement. Instead of broad support, his efforts were met with a hard line from the institutions responsible for the bailout—the ECB, the EU, and the IMF, collectively referred to as the troika—and the countries behind them, most notably Germany. By late February, circumstances compelled Tsipras to undertake negotiations with the troika. In return for Greece’s pledge not to overturn already implemented austerity policies, the troika extended the bailout for another four months, though it refused to deliver the bailout’s final tranche of €7.2 billion until an agreement was reached on reform measures (which hinged primarily on differences over policies related to pensions, labour rules, and taxation). Absent an agreement and the infusion of funds it would have brought, Greece was barely able to make its scheduled May payment on the bailout loan, raising the spectre of a default on its June payments if an agreement with the troika could not be reached.

Tsipras brought the 11th-hour negotiations to a standstill on June 26, when he asked for an extension of the June 30 deadline for the June loan payment so that a referendum could be held in Greece on July 5 on the terms of the bailout agreement. Not only did the euro-zone finance ministers refuse to grant the extension, but the ECB announced that it would approve no more increases to the emergency funds for Greek banks. The Greek government then closed the country’s banks until the referendum could be held. Although some Greek voters interpreted the vote as a referendum on their country’s continued participation in the euro zone, Tsipras cast the referendum as a mandate that would put him in a better position to receive more-favourable terms in subsequent negotiations with the troika. He called on Greeks to vote “no” on the referendum, and 61 percent of those who voted did so, rejecting the terms of the bailout—which actually already had expired with the passing of the June 30 deadline that also marked the official end of the bailout.

By July 10, however, Tsipras had asked Greece’s creditors for a new loan and presented them with a detailed proposal for reforms that were even more draconian than those rejected in the referendum and that embraced almost all the tax and pension changes that had been called for by the troika. Tsipras won parliamentary approval of the proposed three-year roughly €86 billion ($95 billion) loan but only with the support of opposition parties and over the opposition of many within his ruling coalition. Before negotiations on that proposed loan agreement could begin, the process had to be approved by some national legislatures among the creditor countries, most notably Germany. After the German Bundestag voted on July 17 to approve negotiations, a “bridging” loan of about €7 billion ($7.6 billion) was extended to Greece by the EU to help the country meet its short-term loan repayment obligations as detailed negotiations on the new agreement ramped up. On July 20 Greek banks were able to reopen, and the first of the new austerity measures began to take effect.

The action heated up again about one month later, when, on August 14, the Greek parliament voted to accept the final version of the new bailout agreement despite the opposition or abstention of nearly one-third of Syriza’s members. On August 20 Greece received the first tranche of the new bailout (€13 billion [$14.6 billion]), and that night Tsipras appeared on television to resign and seek a snap parliamentary election in which he hoped to win a new mandate from the Greek people. More than two dozen deputies on Syriza’s far left responded by walking out to form a new party.

Syriza won the election held on September 20, capturing some 35 percent of the vote to about 28 percent for the second-place-finishing ND. Golden Dawn came in third with about 7 percent of the vote. By finishing first, Syriza was awarded an additional 50 seats, bringing its representation in the new parliament to 145 seats (just below the total earned in its January victory). With the additional 10 seats won by the Independent Greeks, Syriza’s partner in the previous government, Tsipras became prime minister again without having to broaden his ruling coalition to include a third party. During the months in which the debt crisis and election had been on centre stage, Greece became embroiled in another crisis, the flight of a huge wave of migrants and refugees seeking to escape turmoil in the Middle East and Africa by resettling in Europe. Many of those migrants—whose ultimate destination often was one of the prosperous countries of northern Europe—made Greece the first stop on their journey north through the Balkans by attempting perilous boat crossings from Turkey to one of the Greek islands. Like many of the other members of the EU, Greece struggled to meet the challenges of dealing compassionately with the influx of humanity.

Disclaimer

This is not the official site of this country. Most of the information in this site were taken from the U.S. Department of State, The Central Intelligence Agency, The United Nations, [1],[2], [3], [4], [5],[6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14],[15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24],[25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30],[31], [32], [33], [34], and the [35].

Other sources of information will be mentioned as they are posted.

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