When Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, or Byzantium prior to Constantinople), the queen of cities, fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the millennia-old Roman Empire, in the form of the Byzantine Empire, was lost to the world. But the memory of Byzantium did not die, and the Romaioi (Romans), the Greek-speaking population of the former Byzantine Empire, yearned for freedom and the restoration of their long-lost empire. When Greece officially became independent in 1832, this dream of restoring Byzantium became Greek national policy, and was aggressively pursued for the next nine decades, shaping the development of the modern Greek state. This is known as the Megali Idea.
Michael Goodyear explains.
Eleftherios Venizelos, who became Greek Prime Minister in 1910.
400 Years of Ottoman Rule
Following the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire quickly conquered the remaining independent Greek-Byzantine territories. These new Ottoman subjects were subjected to restrictions and obligations based on their religion, including being subject to a poll tax in lieu of military service and the devşirme levy on Christian boys for imperial service.[1]On the other hand, the Ottoman Empire practiced much greater religious tolerance than European nations at that time.[2] The Ottomans categorized their subjects based on religion, and this kept ethnic Greeks looking to Constantinople and its Patriarch, as their identity as Orthodox Christians was of preeminence under the Ottoman Empire. This in turn maintained the Greek memory of Constantinople as their great city, and Greeks continued to think of themselves as Romans. For example, when the Greek political thinker Rigas Feraios thought of a Pan-Balkan federation in the late eighteenth century, he was thinking of the Byzantine Empire as a model.[3]
When Greeks started agitating for independence, they looked to the greater Greek community living in the Ottoman Empire. The Byzantine Empire served as a model of independence. Revolution broke out in 1821, and through eight years of bloody struggles, and the assistance of Great Britain, France, and Russia, a newly independent Greek state emerged. Constituting little more than southern Greece and a few islands, the nascent modern Greece would quickly develop ambitions to recover all territory that had been Greek.
Once More They Shall Be Ours
Due to its small size, from its inception, modern Greece wanted to grow and recover more territory where ethnic Greeks resided. This irredentist mission to rescue the Greeks remaining under Ottoman rule ultimately took form as the policy of the Megali Idea (the Great Idea). In 1844, Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Kolettis first used the term in a political context to advocate for the recovery of “any land associated with Greek history or the Greek race.”[4] The contemporary Greek historian Constantine Paparrigopoulos connected Kolettis’ vision with Byzantium, fleshing out the Megali Idea as the dream to restore the Byzantine Empire, the last “Greek” polity prior to Ottoman rule.[5] While the goal was to recover all historically Greek lands, there was a clear goal: Constantinople. As Kolettis had put it, “Constantinople is the great capital, the dream and hope of all Greeks.”[6]
Throughout the nineteenth century, Greece embarked on a slow but steady expansion. In 1864, Greece acquired the Ionian Islands from Great Britain as a present for the new Greek king, George I. When George was crowned, his title was King of the Hellenes, rather than just Greece, and thus a direct claim to the mantle of the Megali Idea. In 1881, Greece acquired Thessaly from the Ottoman Empire. But Greek expansion was stalled in 1897; the Greek army attempted to assist the island of Crete, which was rebelling against Ottoman rule, but the Ottoman army crushed the Greeks. Yet even in military defeat, the Megali Idea was preserved. The Great Powers intervened and forced the Ottomans to make Crete an autonomous province inside the Ottoman Empire, with George I appointed as the High Commissioner of the Cretan State.
Zenith and Fall
The height of the Megali Idea, however, was at the start of the twentieth century. As the new century dawned, the Ottoman Empire was the Sick Man of Europe. The nations of Europe waited for its imminent demise, and the newly independent countries of the Balkans hungrily eyed the decaying corpse. One of the leading proponents of the Megali Idea, Eleftherios Venizelos, became the Greek prime minister in 1910. Venizelos was a native Cretan, and as an ethnic Greek born outside of Greece, he actively wanted to recover former Greek territory from the Ottomans. Venizelos allied with the other Balkan states against the Ottoman Empire. In 1912-1913, this Balkan League quickly obliterated the Ottoman military and occupied practically all of Ottoman Europe, even advancing on Constantinople itself. Greece occupied former core territories of the Byzantine Empire: Epirus and the Aegean islands, including Crete, were taken. The greatest prize was the taking of Macedonia, and its provincial capital of Thessaloniki, the former second city of the Byzantine Empire.
George I was assassinated upon entering Thessaloniki as the victor, but this hardly slowed the advance of the Megali Idea. George I’s successor, Constantine I, was even named in honor of the Megali Idea; the last emperor of Byzantium was Constantine XI, so Constantine I was also known as Constantine XII. The start of World War I in 1914 was a potential problem, as Constantine supported the Central Powers while Venizelos supported the Entente, and although a national schism ensued between the two, Venizelos prevailed and authorized the Entente to use Thessaloniki as a forward base against the Central Powers. Venizelos’ gamble paid off: when the Ottoman Empire capitulated in the Treaty of Sevres, Greece was given Thrace and the area around the major Anatolian port city of Smyrna. Greek territory now surrounded the Aegean and approached the very gates of Constantinople.
Greece, seeing an opportunity, landed troops in Smyrna and conducted operations to occupy more Ottoman land to the east and northeast. The timing seemed ideal: the Ottoman Empire had effectively disintegrated and Constantinople was occupied by Allied forces. But the future president of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal, was rallying Turkish forces in the east, and in late 1920, the briefly deposed Constantine I returned and Venizelos fell from power. The purge of Venizelists from the army substantially weakened its effectiveness and the Greek Army, which was numerically small, was stretched thin across western Anatolia. Kemal’s forces halted the Greek advance at the Battle of Sakarya in 1921, and the next year Turkish forces began the counter attack. The Greek army had never properly reorganized after Sakarya and their withered forces were decimated by the Turks at the Battle of Dumlupınar. The remnants of the Greek army fled to Smyrna. Greek soldiers, citizens, and local Christians crowded the docks of Smyrna as Turkish soldiers started to burn the city behind them. The dreams of a restored Byzantium perished in those flames.
Lingering Memory
In 1923, a new treaty was signed between Greece and Turkey, the Treaty of Lausanne, which returned all Anatolian land and Eastern Thrace to Turkey. In addition, Greece and Turkey exchanged their local populations of Greeks and Turks: over a million ethnic Greeks moved from Turkey to Greece and 400,000 Turks moved from Greece to Turkey. Irredentism was effectively dead, as almost all of the Greeks in Turkey had now moved to Greece. This massive influx of people would significantly affect the Greek economy and society, with neighborhoods such as Nea Smyrni (New Smyrna in Athens) and the distinctive rebetiko music serving as lingering examples of the Megali Idea in Greece. But the idea has not completely died; Ioannis Metaxas invoked it during his dictatorship from 1936-1941 and similar ideas emerged over the issue of Cyprus in the mid-twentieth century. Even today, the ultranationalist far right Greek political party Golden Dawn has claimed Constantinople.[7] These lingering memories leave little doubt of how irredentist dreams of restoring a lost medieval empire shaped the course of modern Greek history.
How important do you think regaining Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul has been to modern Greece? Let us know below.
[1] David Brewer, Greece, the Hidden Centuries: Turkish Rule from the Fall of Constantinople to Greek Independence 51, 115 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010).
[2] Id. at 35-36.
[3] See Peter Mackridge, Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766-1976 45-46 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
[4] See Yannis Hamilakis, The Nation and Its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece 107, 114-115 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
[5] Id. at 115; see also Paschalis M. Kitromilides, “On the Intellectual Content of Greek Nationalism: Paparrigopoulos, Byzantium and the Great Idea,” in Byzantium and the Modern Greek Identity (David Ricks & Paul Magdalino, eds.) (Hampshire, UK: Ashgate, 1998).
[6] Hamilakis, supra note 4, at 114-115.
[7] “Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Says Istanbul Will Be Greek,” Hurriyet Daily News (June 1, 2012), http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/neo-nazi-golden-dawn-says-istanbul-will-be-greek.aspx?pageID=238&nID=22118&NewsCatID=351.
