June 4, 2022 • 23 mins
The century between the end of the Venetian Period in the Morea and the beginning of the Greek Revolution was a time of unrest and change in the Ottoman Empire and across Europe.
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Jen (00:02):
On the 23rd of August 1817.
The same spot was again thescene of a similar disaster.
The earthquake was preceeded bya sudden explosion.
Which was compared to that of abattery of cannon.
The shock, which immediatelysucceeded.
Was said to have lasted a minuteand a half During which the sea
(00:24):
rose at the mouth of theSelinus, and extended so far as
to inundate all the levelimmediately below Vostitsa.
After its retreat, not a tracewas left of some magazines,
which had stood on the shore.
And the sand which had coveredthe beach was all carried away.
The ships anchored in the roadwere not injured.
(00:47):
But the smaller vessels werethrown a shore with more or less
damage.
In Vostitsa, 65 persons losttheir lives.
And two thirds of the buildingswere entirely ruined.
Including the Turkish mosque.
And the houses of the voivodaand kady.
Five villages in the plain weredestroyed.
(01:08):
Among which was that of upperTemeni or Temena.
In the bay of Trisonia on theopposite coast of Rumeli, the
sea rose in the same manner asat Vostitsa and advanced 200
paces into the plain.
This is from footnote a on page402 in volume three of William
(01:31):
Martin Leake's, 1830 book calledTravels in the Morea.
I'm Jen Glaubius.
And this is the Helonaki DeepDive a podcast about mapping and
analysis for historical andarcheological research.
In this episode, I'll describewhat happened in the Morea.
After the Ottomans took back thearea from the Venetians in 1715.
(01:54):
And the events that lead up tothe Greek revolution that
started in 1821.
Let's dive in.
Just as a note, originally, thisepisode included the Greek
revolution, but then it gotsuper long.
So I decided to cut it into two.
So this week you're getting theprelude to the revolution.
(02:18):
And then next week on Thursday,June 9th, you'll get the Greek
revolution itself.
And then the week after that onJune 16th, you'll get from the
Greek revolution into the 20thcentury, which will wrap up this
part of season two.
And then I'll take a breakbecause I'm going to excavate in
(02:39):
Greece.
And now back to the episode.
So where we left off last timeis at the end of the Venetian
period, when the Ottomans veryquickly took back control of the
Morea.
And just like when they firstconquered the Morea.
(03:02):
The Ottomans collected censusrecords.
Their defters to get anunderstanding of what the Morea
was now like after 30 years ofbeing under Venetian control
Unfortunately, I don't have atranslated one for Vostitsa,
but, in 2005, There was apublication of the defter in
(03:23):
Messenia, near modern Pylos.
And what we can see from recordsis that the Ottomans tried to
re-establish the timar systemwhere they would give control of
land revenue to theircavalryman.
But that system had already beenin trouble.
(03:47):
Land revenue was not going tothese cavalrymen anymore because
they were less and less usefulto the Ottoman military.
But instead becoming estates.
And because the Ottoman stateneeded money to pay the
Janissaries who were their mosteffective military force at that
(04:08):
time.
They changed the tax farmingsystem.
It had been a temporary contractwhere a person would bid on the
amount to collect the taxes andthen would then extract as much
money as they could from thatarea.
But now, tax farming was heldduring the person's lifetime.
So instead of having to bid onthis contract year after year,
(04:31):
they would hold it for theirlifetime.
Because of this, the elites ofthe Morea, both Muslim and
Christian were able to amass agreat amount of wealth.
Because they held thisconcession of the tax farm for
their lifetime.
And these elites that had beenaround during the Venetian
period and before that, and theycontinued to have a lot of money
(04:54):
and land.
And they were able to accumulateeven more wealth.
Because they were dealing withlarge amounts of money, they
were able to hire privatesecurity.
Now different families grewstrong over decades.
And by 1750, there was conflictbetween rival families in the
(05:18):
Morea.
The Ottomans stepped in andexecuted members of those elite
families to keep those familiesfrom continuing to fight each
other.
The next big thing that happensis in 1768, when the Ottomans
and Russians start the first ofa series of wars.
(05:39):
The Russians had been expandingsouthwards to increase their
territory.
And this is in the time of theCzarina Catherine the second,
better known as Catherine theGreat.
And she had this idea.
What she called the Greekproject, where she wanted to
(06:00):
recreate a Byzantine Orthodoxempire and establish a Capitol
at Constantinople.
The problem, of course.
Is that the Ottomans who hadtheir capital.
Of Istanbul, which was stillcalled Constantinople at this
point, were not in favor ofthis.
(06:26):
In 1768 the Russians were reallytrying to gain access to the
Black Sea and they also wantedthe Crimean peninsula.
Part of the Russian strategy wasto encourage rebellions of
Orthodox Ottoman subjects.
(06:47):
So that the Ottomans would bedistracted from fighting the
Russians near the Black Sea.
They ended up getting localuprisings in Montenegro, Bosnia,
Herzegovina.
Albania.
And the Morea.
None of these went well, theywere all put down fairly
quickly.
(07:08):
In the Morea, a small Russianforce landed at Kalamata, in the
Southern Morea, and they wereable to take Kalamata.
But Then they split theirforces, attacked Koroni and
Methoni.
While Another group went andattacked Mystra, which they were
able to capture.
And then they killed off theMuslim population of Mystra.
(07:28):
There was another uprising inthe northwestern part of the
Peloponnese.
They attacked Patras and thetown of Kalavryta.
But this uprising in the Moreawas very soon put down.
The Ottomans brought inmercenaries some were of
Albanian descent.
They weren't very well paid.
(07:50):
And so as they're putting downthis uprising, they're also
looting the local area in theMorea, and killing a lot of
people.
Then the Ottomans decided not topay them or they couldn't pay
them.
And so these mercenaries stayedin the Morea continuing to kill
and loot and just devastatingthe land.
(08:12):
Until the Ottomans finally hadto team up with Greek, brigands
to restore order in the area.
So the land was very devastated.
The population decreased andalso decreased because a lot of
people left as refugees toRussian held territory.
The Russians had won this war.
(08:34):
And they got control of land,especially Crimea and around the
Black Sea.
The Russians offered free landand a decade of exemption from
taxes to Greek people in thePeloponnese, who had been
affected by the failed uprisingin 1770.
And many people from thePeloponnese went.
(08:57):
They ended up settling inCrimea.
Also in the city of Odessa andalong the sea of Azov.
In the 1780s, Greek settlersfounded the city of Mariupol.
Which unfortunately has been inthe news lately, in the present
day.
Since to the Russians as part oftheir invasion of Ukraine here
(09:20):
in 2022 have destroyed the cityof Mariupol.
The Ottomans oppressed the Moreaeven more So relations between
the Russians and the Ottomanswere not great through the
1770s- 80s, they will fightanother war in the 1790s.
This is the period whenConstantinople officially became
(09:45):
Istanbul.
Catherine the Great was stillreally interested in creating a
very large Orthodox empire.
And in 1779, she had acommemorative medal created with
the image of Hagia Sophia, theOrthodox church in
(10:06):
Constantinople.
Which signaled her intention totake Constantinople from the
Ottomans.
When the Russians and theOttomans started fighting their
next war in 1787.
The sultan ordered that coinsthat were struck by the
government would no longer readthat they were made in
(10:28):
Constantinople but insteadIstanbul and that seems to be
the official change in the nameof the city.
The Ottomans lost this latestwar to Russia.
Because they had a very weakmilitary at this point.
The Janissaries were no longeran elite fighting force, but
(10:50):
rather a drain on the treasury.
That resisted any modernizationthat the Ottoman Sultan wanted
to do.
As a result of their loss inthis latest war, the Ottomans
had to pay a large indemnity toRussia.
(11:12):
So that plus all the money thatthe janissaries took up meant
that the Ottomans needed moneyin their treasury.
To make up lost money in thetreasury, the Ottoman government
increased taxes.
Which of course, made peopleunhappy.
They also debased the coinage,which increased inflation.
(11:36):
And again, it made peopleunhappy.
And because they still didn'thave enough money in the
treasury.
They also confiscated, estatesof high ranking disgraced
officials.
And this made elites unhappy.
Because they lost tax farmingrevenue that they otherwise
would've gotten, but insteadwent directly into the Ottoman
(11:59):
treasury.
In addition to needing money,the central Ottoman government
was very weak during this time.
They ended up having their ownofficials.
Carving out fiefdoms in parts ofthe empire.
One of these was Ali Pasha ofIoannina who became in charge of
(12:22):
that region in 1788 and thenconsolidated power to the point
where he was almost independentof the Sultan.
And we'll talk more about him.
Next time.
The late 18th century was alsoan age of revolutions.
In the Western hemisphere.
(12:42):
The uprising that separated theUnited States of America from
Great Britain started in 1776.
In 1791, Haiti also had arevolution against France.
Which back in Europe, France,two years earlier had its own
(13:02):
revolution against the monarchy.
The French revolution wouldcause a lot of disorder and
warfare in Europe.
Mostly not involving theOttomans, although we'll get to
how they were involved in a bit.
The French revolutiontransitioned into, Napoleon's
(13:23):
empire.
And Napoleon invaded Egypt,which was a part of the Ottoman
empire in 1798.
And this was a shock because theFrench and the Ottomans had been
allies for a long time.
So he invaded Egypt in 1798.
And along with his military, hebrought, scientists and
(13:44):
archeologists to basically takestock of the country.
Very soon after Napoleon left in1799, they lost Egypt.
But they created.
This description of Egypt, whichwas basically an encyclopedia of
the area.
Once Napoleon's forces leftEgypt, the British would hold it
(14:07):
for a few years.
But the Ottomans sent in theirforces as well to take back the
region.
One of the most important ofthese.
Who rose through the ranks was aman named Mehmed Ali.
Who was possibly of Albaniandescent.
And he rose through the ranksand then basically took over
(14:29):
rule of Egypt for himself.
And he will be important lateron.
Meanwhile, Napoleon left Egyptwent back to Europe and this is
the period of the Napoleonicwars from about 1803 through
1815.
And so you have fighting goingon the continent of Europe,
(14:53):
large scale.
While the Ottomans did notparticipate in the Napoleonic
wars.
Those wars did have an effect onpeople in the Ottoman Empire.
Greek merchants were spreadacross Europe and they did
really good business during theNapoleonic wars as did Greek
(15:14):
ship owners.
from The Greek islands, whoended up getting pretty rich.
In addition you also had Greekpeople who fought in the
Napoleonic wars or receivedmilitary training during that
time.
And so you have Greek peoplegetting a lot of military
(15:36):
experience and access to guns atthis point.
After the defeat of Napoleon,the Congress of Vienna in
1814-1815 was a meeting betweenAustria, Prussia, Britain,
France, and Russia to restorepeace.
And after all the upset, thathad started with a French
(15:58):
revolution, they were like nomore revolutions.
They also wanted to strengthenmonarchies.
And interestingly enough.
In the entourage of the RussiansCzar at this Congress of Vienna.
Was a 38 year old man namedIoannis Kapodistrias who
originally was from Corfu, butwho had gone to Russia and was
(16:21):
part of the Russian state.
He would afterwards become theRussian foreign minister.
And this just shows us veryclose ties that many Greeks and
Russians had so many Greeks hadmade their way to Russia.
In addition to the Greeks whowere in Russia and elsewhere in
(16:45):
Europe.
In the early 1800s, westernEuropeans started traveling to
Greece in greater numbers.
Some of them traveled around andthen wrote accounts of what they
saw such as Leake who wroteabout that earthquake at
Vostitsa in 1817.
(17:09):
Others, like Dodwell, whotraveled in this period, was an
artist.
He made drawings of classicaland older architecture.
And so bringing the ideas ofwhat was in Greece to Western
Europe.
Of course, this was done a bitmore directly and destructively
(17:32):
by Lord Elgin.
Who took sculptures off of theParthenon and Erechtheion, and
Propylea, on the AthenianAcropolis and transported them
back to London.
But through all these ways.
And also through the Homericepics and plays from the
(17:57):
classical and Hellenisticperiods, Western Europeans
sometimes had this veryromanticized idea of Greece.
So there's this idea of greecefor the Europeans that was very
much centered in the past, likeover two millennia in the past.
(18:18):
The conception of what Greecewas or what it meant to be Greek
was very fluid in this period.
There was a shared Greeklanguage.
So that could be the commonalityof what it meant to be Greek.
But there was also sometimes ashared, Orthodox religion.
(18:38):
But orthodoxy included peopleswho were not Greek like Russians
and others.
You could also say that to beGreek was to originate from the
area of Greece, but there wereno boundaries.
There were no borders.
And people from the area that wecall Greece would more likely
say.
(18:59):
What island they were from.
Or which portion of the country,where they from the Morea, the
Peloponnese.
Or from Rumeli, which is centralGreece or some other part.
And so it's very interesting.
To see as the war ofindependence develops.
How a Greek identity actuallycoalesces.
(19:23):
And on the ground in the Morea.
You have elite landowners whohad built up their wealth as tax
farmers and they have privatearmies.
And some of them wouldn't mindindependence, similar to what
happened in 1204, right beforethe Fourth Crusade.
But so many others, like theymade a lot of money.
(19:45):
They worked really well in thesystem.
And so you have elite landownerswho are divided.
You also have a category ofGreeks who are called
Phanariots.
Who were merchants in the Phanardistrict of Constantinople now,
Istanbul.
And they had built up wealthfrom trade.
(20:07):
And many of them had serveddifferent parts of the Ottoman
administration.
Some of them then ended up inRussia.
And so you have this group veryhighly educated and rich.
But they're not from the areathat we think of as Greece.
And so you also have the commonpeople, mostly farmers.
Engaged in agriculture in theMorea and Rumeli, who thought of
(20:34):
themselves as Orthodox and thenthought of themselves as being
from the Morea or Rumeli.
But you also have the Ottomanempire increasingly being weak.
About at this time, the Ottomanempire was referred to as the
old man of Europe.
'cause it was being propped up.
It was in trouble.
And you have large portions ofthe Ottoman empire ruled by
(20:56):
fiefdoms.
So Ali Pasha, in Epirus,northwestern part of Greece.
You've got Mehmed Ali who ruledEgypt.
And with all this weakness andthe ideas of revolution that
were going on in Europe ingeneral.
You have this secret societycalled Philiki Etaireia, that
(21:18):
formed in Odessa in 1814.
So in Russian territory.
It was a secret society based onFreemasons and they built up a
network of support.
They built up support of Greeksin different parts of Europe and
Russia in Istanbul itself.
And.
(21:39):
The different islands and theMorea.
The secret society PhilikiEtaireia would kick off the
Greek revolution in 1821.
But that's for next time.
So for end notes.
I've been listening to season 10of the Revolutions podcast.
(22:03):
I haven't listened to any of theearlier seasons yet, but I'm
definitely going to go back intoit.
Season 10 is all about theRussian revolution.
And it's really interesting.
The podcast is by Mike Duncanand he gives really good
detailed background into theserevolutions.
He's done most of the majorrevolutions.
The US revolution, Haiti,Mexico.
(22:26):
The French revolution, 1848revolutions.
The Russian revolution now.
But he is not going to do theGreek revolution.
So.
Sadly, we won't get to hear histreatment of the Greek
revolution.
Anyway.
Thanks for listening.
Email questions or comments todeepdive@helonaki.com or ask
(22:50):
them on the Helonaki Deep DiveFacebook page.
Show notes with links toresources mentioned in this
episode will be available athelonaki.com.
That's H E L O N A K I.com.
You can also find ways tosupport the show now, including
merch such as t-shirts mugs andstickers with the Helonaki Deep
(23:11):
Dive logo athelonaki.com/support.
My thanks to Patreon supportersat the geospatial analyst level,
Leah Varrell and Janice andJerry Farrell.
Your support keeps the HelonakiDeep Dive going.
The Helonaki Deep Dive iswritten and produced by me, Jen
Glaubius of the Helonaki.
The theme music is Deep OceanInstrumental by Dan-o of
(23:35):
danosongs.com additional soundsfrom zapsplat.com.
Thanks for listening.
On the 23rd of August 1817.
The same spot was again thescene of a similar disaster.
The earthquake was preceeded bya sudden explosion.
Which was compared to that of abattery of cannon.
The shock, which immediatelysucceeded.
Was said to have lasted a minuteand a half During which the sea
(00:24):
rose at the mouth of theSelinus, and extended so far as
to inundate all the levelimmediately below Vostitsa.
After its retreat, not a tracewas left of some magazines,
which had stood on the shore.
And the sand which had coveredthe beach was all carried away.
The ships anchored in the roadwere not injured.
(00:47):
But the smaller vessels werethrown a shore with more or less
damage.
In Vostitsa, 65 persons losttheir lives.
And two thirds of the buildingswere entirely ruined.
Including the Turkish mosque.
And the houses of the voivodaand kady.
Five villages in the plain weredestroyed.
(01:08):
Among which was that of upperTemeni or Temena.
In the bay of Trisonia on theopposite coast of Rumeli, the
sea rose in the same manner asat Vostitsa and advanced 200
paces into the plain.
This is from footnote a on page402 in volume three of William
(01:31):
Martin Leake's, 1830 book calledTravels in the Morea.
I'm Jen Glaubius.
And this is the Helonaki DeepDive a podcast about mapping and
analysis for historical andarcheological research.
In this episode, I'll describewhat happened in the Morea.
After the Ottomans took back thearea from the Venetians in 1715.
(01:54):
And the events that lead up tothe Greek revolution that
started in 1821.
Let's dive in.
Just as a note, originally, thisepisode included the Greek
revolution, but then it gotsuper long.
So I decided to cut it into two.
So this week you're getting theprelude to the revolution.
(02:18):
And then next week on Thursday,June 9th, you'll get the Greek
revolution itself.
And then the week after that onJune 16th, you'll get from the
Greek revolution into the 20thcentury, which will wrap up this
part of season two.
And then I'll take a breakbecause I'm going to excavate in
(02:39):
Greece.
And now back to the episode.
So where we left off last timeis at the end of the Venetian
period, when the Ottomans veryquickly took back control of the
Morea.
And just like when they firstconquered the Morea.
(03:02):
The Ottomans collected censusrecords.
Their defters to get anunderstanding of what the Morea
was now like after 30 years ofbeing under Venetian control
Unfortunately, I don't have atranslated one for Vostitsa,
but, in 2005, There was apublication of the defter in
(03:23):
Messenia, near modern Pylos.
And what we can see from recordsis that the Ottomans tried to
re-establish the timar systemwhere they would give control of
land revenue to theircavalryman.
But that system had already beenin trouble.
(03:47):
Land revenue was not going tothese cavalrymen anymore because
they were less and less usefulto the Ottoman military.
But instead becoming estates.
And because the Ottoman stateneeded money to pay the
Janissaries who were their mosteffective military force at that
(04:08):
time.
They changed the tax farmingsystem.
It had been a temporary contractwhere a person would bid on the
amount to collect the taxes andthen would then extract as much
money as they could from thatarea.
But now, tax farming was heldduring the person's lifetime.
So instead of having to bid onthis contract year after year,
(04:31):
they would hold it for theirlifetime.
Because of this, the elites ofthe Morea, both Muslim and
Christian were able to amass agreat amount of wealth.
Because they held thisconcession of the tax farm for
their lifetime.
And these elites that had beenaround during the Venetian
period and before that, and theycontinued to have a lot of money
(04:54):
and land.
And they were able to accumulateeven more wealth.
Because they were dealing withlarge amounts of money, they
were able to hire privatesecurity.
Now different families grewstrong over decades.
And by 1750, there was conflictbetween rival families in the
(05:18):
Morea.
The Ottomans stepped in andexecuted members of those elite
families to keep those familiesfrom continuing to fight each
other.
The next big thing that happensis in 1768, when the Ottomans
and Russians start the first ofa series of wars.
(05:39):
The Russians had been expandingsouthwards to increase their
territory.
And this is in the time of theCzarina Catherine the second,
better known as Catherine theGreat.
And she had this idea.
What she called the Greekproject, where she wanted to
(06:00):
recreate a Byzantine Orthodoxempire and establish a Capitol
at Constantinople.
The problem, of course.
Is that the Ottomans who hadtheir capital.
Of Istanbul, which was stillcalled Constantinople at this
point, were not in favor ofthis.
(06:26):
In 1768 the Russians were reallytrying to gain access to the
Black Sea and they also wantedthe Crimean peninsula.
Part of the Russian strategy wasto encourage rebellions of
Orthodox Ottoman subjects.
(06:47):
So that the Ottomans would bedistracted from fighting the
Russians near the Black Sea.
They ended up getting localuprisings in Montenegro, Bosnia,
Herzegovina.
Albania.
And the Morea.
None of these went well, theywere all put down fairly
quickly.
(07:08):
In the Morea, a small Russianforce landed at Kalamata, in the
Southern Morea, and they wereable to take Kalamata.
But Then they split theirforces, attacked Koroni and
Methoni.
While Another group went andattacked Mystra, which they were
able to capture.
And then they killed off theMuslim population of Mystra.
(07:28):
There was another uprising inthe northwestern part of the
Peloponnese.
They attacked Patras and thetown of Kalavryta.
But this uprising in the Moreawas very soon put down.
The Ottomans brought inmercenaries some were of
Albanian descent.
They weren't very well paid.
(07:50):
And so as they're putting downthis uprising, they're also
looting the local area in theMorea, and killing a lot of
people.
Then the Ottomans decided not topay them or they couldn't pay
them.
And so these mercenaries stayedin the Morea continuing to kill
and loot and just devastatingthe land.
(08:12):
Until the Ottomans finally hadto team up with Greek, brigands
to restore order in the area.
So the land was very devastated.
The population decreased andalso decreased because a lot of
people left as refugees toRussian held territory.
The Russians had won this war.
(08:34):
And they got control of land,especially Crimea and around the
Black Sea.
The Russians offered free landand a decade of exemption from
taxes to Greek people in thePeloponnese, who had been
affected by the failed uprisingin 1770.
And many people from thePeloponnese went.
(08:57):
They ended up settling inCrimea.
Also in the city of Odessa andalong the sea of Azov.
In the 1780s, Greek settlersfounded the city of Mariupol.
Which unfortunately has been inthe news lately, in the present
day.
Since to the Russians as part oftheir invasion of Ukraine here
(09:20):
in 2022 have destroyed the cityof Mariupol.
The Ottomans oppressed the Moreaeven more So relations between
the Russians and the Ottomanswere not great through the
1770s- 80s, they will fightanother war in the 1790s.
This is the period whenConstantinople officially became
(09:45):
Istanbul.
Catherine the Great was stillreally interested in creating a
very large Orthodox empire.
And in 1779, she had acommemorative medal created with
the image of Hagia Sophia, theOrthodox church in
(10:06):
Constantinople.
Which signaled her intention totake Constantinople from the
Ottomans.
When the Russians and theOttomans started fighting their
next war in 1787.
The sultan ordered that coinsthat were struck by the
government would no longer readthat they were made in
(10:28):
Constantinople but insteadIstanbul and that seems to be
the official change in the nameof the city.
The Ottomans lost this latestwar to Russia.
Because they had a very weakmilitary at this point.
The Janissaries were no longeran elite fighting force, but
(10:50):
rather a drain on the treasury.
That resisted any modernizationthat the Ottoman Sultan wanted
to do.
As a result of their loss inthis latest war, the Ottomans
had to pay a large indemnity toRussia.
(11:12):
So that plus all the money thatthe janissaries took up meant
that the Ottomans needed moneyin their treasury.
To make up lost money in thetreasury, the Ottoman government
increased taxes.
Which of course, made peopleunhappy.
They also debased the coinage,which increased inflation.
(11:36):
And again, it made peopleunhappy.
And because they still didn'thave enough money in the
treasury.
They also confiscated, estatesof high ranking disgraced
officials.
And this made elites unhappy.
Because they lost tax farmingrevenue that they otherwise
would've gotten, but insteadwent directly into the Ottoman
(11:59):
treasury.
In addition to needing money,the central Ottoman government
was very weak during this time.
They ended up having their ownofficials.
Carving out fiefdoms in parts ofthe empire.
One of these was Ali Pasha ofIoannina who became in charge of
(12:22):
that region in 1788 and thenconsolidated power to the point
where he was almost independentof the Sultan.
And we'll talk more about him.
Next time.
The late 18th century was alsoan age of revolutions.
In the Western hemisphere.
(12:42):
The uprising that separated theUnited States of America from
Great Britain started in 1776.
In 1791, Haiti also had arevolution against France.
Which back in Europe, France,two years earlier had its own
(13:02):
revolution against the monarchy.
The French revolution wouldcause a lot of disorder and
warfare in Europe.
Mostly not involving theOttomans, although we'll get to
how they were involved in a bit.
The French revolutiontransitioned into, Napoleon's
(13:23):
empire.
And Napoleon invaded Egypt,which was a part of the Ottoman
empire in 1798.
And this was a shock because theFrench and the Ottomans had been
allies for a long time.
So he invaded Egypt in 1798.
And along with his military, hebrought, scientists and
(13:44):
archeologists to basically takestock of the country.
Very soon after Napoleon left in1799, they lost Egypt.
But they created.
This description of Egypt, whichwas basically an encyclopedia of
the area.
Once Napoleon's forces leftEgypt, the British would hold it
(14:07):
for a few years.
But the Ottomans sent in theirforces as well to take back the
region.
One of the most important ofthese.
Who rose through the ranks was aman named Mehmed Ali.
Who was possibly of Albaniandescent.
And he rose through the ranksand then basically took over
(14:29):
rule of Egypt for himself.
And he will be important lateron.
Meanwhile, Napoleon left Egyptwent back to Europe and this is
the period of the Napoleonicwars from about 1803 through
1815.
And so you have fighting goingon the continent of Europe,
(14:53):
large scale.
While the Ottomans did notparticipate in the Napoleonic
wars.
Those wars did have an effect onpeople in the Ottoman Empire.
Greek merchants were spreadacross Europe and they did
really good business during theNapoleonic wars as did Greek
(15:14):
ship owners.
from The Greek islands, whoended up getting pretty rich.
In addition you also had Greekpeople who fought in the
Napoleonic wars or receivedmilitary training during that
time.
And so you have Greek peoplegetting a lot of military
(15:36):
experience and access to guns atthis point.
After the defeat of Napoleon,the Congress of Vienna in
1814-1815 was a meeting betweenAustria, Prussia, Britain,
France, and Russia to restorepeace.
And after all the upset, thathad started with a French
(15:58):
revolution, they were like nomore revolutions.
They also wanted to strengthenmonarchies.
And interestingly enough.
In the entourage of the RussiansCzar at this Congress of Vienna.
Was a 38 year old man namedIoannis Kapodistrias who
originally was from Corfu, butwho had gone to Russia and was
(16:21):
part of the Russian state.
He would afterwards become theRussian foreign minister.
And this just shows us veryclose ties that many Greeks and
Russians had so many Greeks hadmade their way to Russia.
In addition to the Greeks whowere in Russia and elsewhere in
(16:45):
Europe.
In the early 1800s, westernEuropeans started traveling to
Greece in greater numbers.
Some of them traveled around andthen wrote accounts of what they
saw such as Leake who wroteabout that earthquake at
Vostitsa in 1817.
(17:09):
Others, like Dodwell, whotraveled in this period, was an
artist.
He made drawings of classicaland older architecture.
And so bringing the ideas ofwhat was in Greece to Western
Europe.
Of course, this was done a bitmore directly and destructively
(17:32):
by Lord Elgin.
Who took sculptures off of theParthenon and Erechtheion, and
Propylea, on the AthenianAcropolis and transported them
back to London.
But through all these ways.
And also through the Homericepics and plays from the
(17:57):
classical and Hellenisticperiods, Western Europeans
sometimes had this veryromanticized idea of Greece.
So there's this idea of greecefor the Europeans that was very
much centered in the past, likeover two millennia in the past.
(18:18):
The conception of what Greecewas or what it meant to be Greek
was very fluid in this period.
There was a shared Greeklanguage.
So that could be the commonalityof what it meant to be Greek.
But there was also sometimes ashared, Orthodox religion.
(18:38):
But orthodoxy included peopleswho were not Greek like Russians
and others.
You could also say that to beGreek was to originate from the
area of Greece, but there wereno boundaries.
There were no borders.
And people from the area that wecall Greece would more likely
say.
(18:59):
What island they were from.
Or which portion of the country,where they from the Morea, the
Peloponnese.
Or from Rumeli, which is centralGreece or some other part.
And so it's very interesting.
To see as the war ofindependence develops.
How a Greek identity actuallycoalesces.
(19:23):
And on the ground in the Morea.
You have elite landowners whohad built up their wealth as tax
farmers and they have privatearmies.
And some of them wouldn't mindindependence, similar to what
happened in 1204, right beforethe Fourth Crusade.
But so many others, like theymade a lot of money.
(19:45):
They worked really well in thesystem.
And so you have elite landownerswho are divided.
You also have a category ofGreeks who are called
Phanariots.
Who were merchants in the Phanardistrict of Constantinople now,
Istanbul.
And they had built up wealthfrom trade.
(20:07):
And many of them had serveddifferent parts of the Ottoman
administration.
Some of them then ended up inRussia.
And so you have this group veryhighly educated and rich.
But they're not from the areathat we think of as Greece.
And so you also have the commonpeople, mostly farmers.
Engaged in agriculture in theMorea and Rumeli, who thought of
(20:34):
themselves as Orthodox and thenthought of themselves as being
from the Morea or Rumeli.
But you also have the Ottomanempire increasingly being weak.
About at this time, the Ottomanempire was referred to as the
old man of Europe.
'cause it was being propped up.
It was in trouble.
And you have large portions ofthe Ottoman empire ruled by
(20:56):
fiefdoms.
So Ali Pasha, in Epirus,northwestern part of Greece.
You've got Mehmed Ali who ruledEgypt.
And with all this weakness andthe ideas of revolution that
were going on in Europe ingeneral.
You have this secret societycalled Philiki Etaireia, that
(21:18):
formed in Odessa in 1814.
So in Russian territory.
It was a secret society based onFreemasons and they built up a
network of support.
They built up support of Greeksin different parts of Europe and
Russia in Istanbul itself.
And.
(21:39):
The different islands and theMorea.
The secret society PhilikiEtaireia would kick off the
Greek revolution in 1821.
But that's for next time.
So for end notes.
I've been listening to season 10of the Revolutions podcast.
(22:03):
I haven't listened to any of theearlier seasons yet, but I'm
definitely going to go back intoit.
Season 10 is all about theRussian revolution.
And it's really interesting.
The podcast is by Mike Duncanand he gives really good
detailed background into theserevolutions.
He's done most of the majorrevolutions.
The US revolution, Haiti,Mexico.
(22:26):
The French revolution, 1848revolutions.
The Russian revolution now.
But he is not going to do theGreek revolution.
So.
Sadly, we won't get to hear histreatment of the Greek
revolution.
Anyway.
Thanks for listening.
Email questions or comments todeepdive@helonaki.com or ask
(22:50):
them on the Helonaki Deep DiveFacebook page.
Show notes with links toresources mentioned in this
episode will be available athelonaki.com.
That's H E L O N A K I.com.
You can also find ways tosupport the show now, including
merch such as t-shirts mugs andstickers with the Helonaki Deep
(23:11):
Dive logo athelonaki.com/support.
My thanks to Patreon supportersat the geospatial analyst level,
Leah Varrell and Janice andJerry Farrell.
Your support keeps the HelonakiDeep Dive going.
The Helonaki Deep Dive iswritten and produced by me, Jen
Glaubius of the Helonaki.
The theme music is Deep OceanInstrumental by Dan-o of
(23:35):
danosongs.com additional soundsfrom zapsplat.com.
Thanks for listening.
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