Philhellenic discourse in the press of the Greek Revolution: Its political role and ideological importance

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6 February 2021

Abstract

"Recent literature on nationalism has underlined the crucial role intellectuals and the press play in forming national identity. This is certainly the case of the newspapers that came out during the years of the Greek Revolution. In these papers, Greek-speaking scholars undertook to write political articles and theoretical treatises, but they were not the only ones. Philhellenes did so as well. Smaller or bigger philhellenic texts were translated and published in the Greek press of the period, advising the revolutionaries and proposing various solutions on political, social and ethical matters that arose under the circumstances of war. At the same time, this philhellenic literature offered readers a much more important service: it formed, along with the Greek intelligentsia, the Greek national idea, it forged “national” unity and “national” public opinion, it defined the “national” past and planned the “national” future to come. In this historical context, the questions asked by Europeans writers of the time, together with the answers given, can be of great interest: Who are the “Greeks”, which is their “country”, who is their enemy, what is their “history”, and what is their “mission” to be fulfilled? What are the ties connecting them with Europe, and what is their relationship towards classical antiquity? And their Christian religion, how could it be understood in relation to their nationalist movement? Raising such issues from the viewpoint of the history of ideas, this paper wishes to contribute to the further understanding of the nationalist phenomenon: By investigating philhellenic discourse, it attempts to assess its crucial significance in the making of the Greek nation within an extremely complex framework of political, cultural and social transformation, which was in full swing during the 1820s."

(Slightly modified abstract from the Initiative 1821-2021 website)

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Language

Greek

Bibliographic Citation

https://www.protovoulia21.gr/draseis/ethnika-kinimata-kai-filellinismos/

https://www.blod.gr/lectures/synedria-vi-i-syzitisi-gia-tin-elliniki-epanastasi-sti-dimosia-sfaira/

Number Of Pages - Duration

00:20:00

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BY-NC-SA Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

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Universities - Research Centers: Conferences - events

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