Reappraising the historiography of the 1821 Greek Revolution
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Reappraising the historiography of the 1821 Greek Revolution
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8 December 2021
Abstract
How have historians explored the Greek Revolution? What interpretive frameworks have they used when discussing the 1821, as the revolution is commonly known to historians of the Greek world? What are the epistemological and methodological bases of these frameworks, and in what way could literature on the Greek Revolution be enhanced? This study answers these questions, by assessing a number of works (in Greek and in other languages) that have shaped academic debates on the Greek Revolution of 1821. The study has two goals and is structured accordingly. The first is to critically assess this scholarship. Thus, the first three sections present the three main interpretative frameworks with which historians and others have explored the Greek Revolution from the nineteenth century to today. As it is argued, these frameworks have all assumed the form of a debate, to an extent polemical, between two interpretative poles. The first and oldest framework (“national versus social”), was gradually, but not totally, sidelined after the 1970s by the “modern versus traditional” framework. The third, most recent and indeed less polemical, framework has been the “European” versus “Ottoman” framework. The distinction is of course analytical, as there were, and continue to be, many overlaps between frameworks and poles. In tracing these frameworks, the study focuses on their main lines of argument, the reasons behind their specific framings, and, most importantly, their limitations.
The second goal of the article (as evidenced in the fourth and the last section) is to propose ways for the further integration of the Greek case within recent international scholarship which has significantly complicated our understanding of the Age of Revolutions. Indeed, by enlarging the geographical scope of study (to include regions such as Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean) and by stressing global connections, this literature has severely criticised the teleological, diffusionist and Euro-and-Western-centric frameworks with which the Age of Revolutions has been conventionally studied. In so doing, it has decentred our narrative about European history, revising in the process our assumptions about the nature of revolutionary culture and ideas, and the origins of political modernity. In some cases, historians have also proposed alternative chronologies of historical change. This is particularly the case of scholars working on Latin America and the Mediterranean during the 1820s – a conjuncture of liberal movements that are increasingly seen as interconnected and constitutive of a global constitutional moment that shaped the international order and indeed the modern world as we know it. Although the Greek Revolution was a key event in his global moment, it has still to find its place in this literature.
By drawing thus on recent works, and without any pretension of being exhaustive, the last section proposes an agenda for future research that draws on the “conceptual”, “spatial”, and “global” turns of this recent literature. It also shows the significance of the Greek Revolution not only in its own right, but as a case which had many similarities with that of extra-European and colonial settings. As such, so the article suggests, it can enhance our understanding of the Revolutionary Age, not least by making us rethink the usefulness of the conventional divide between the European periphery and the extra-European world that still characterises a significant part of the relevant historical scholarship.
(Edited and translated extract from RCH website)
The second goal of the article (as evidenced in the fourth and the last section) is to propose ways for the further integration of the Greek case within recent international scholarship which has significantly complicated our understanding of the Age of Revolutions. Indeed, by enlarging the geographical scope of study (to include regions such as Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean) and by stressing global connections, this literature has severely criticised the teleological, diffusionist and Euro-and-Western-centric frameworks with which the Age of Revolutions has been conventionally studied. In so doing, it has decentred our narrative about European history, revising in the process our assumptions about the nature of revolutionary culture and ideas, and the origins of political modernity. In some cases, historians have also proposed alternative chronologies of historical change. This is particularly the case of scholars working on Latin America and the Mediterranean during the 1820s – a conjuncture of liberal movements that are increasingly seen as interconnected and constitutive of a global constitutional moment that shaped the international order and indeed the modern world as we know it. Although the Greek Revolution was a key event in his global moment, it has still to find its place in this literature.
By drawing thus on recent works, and without any pretension of being exhaustive, the last section proposes an agenda for future research that draws on the “conceptual”, “spatial”, and “global” turns of this recent literature. It also shows the significance of the Greek Revolution not only in its own right, but as a case which had many similarities with that of extra-European and colonial settings. As such, so the article suggests, it can enhance our understanding of the Revolutionary Age, not least by making us rethink the usefulness of the conventional divide between the European periphery and the extra-European world that still characterises a significant part of the relevant historical scholarship.
(Edited and translated extract from RCH website)
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Part of RCH's series "Digital Library 1821".
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