The article focuses on the revolutionary period of 1821 and examines how the bloody uprising of the Greeks against the Ottomans, in conjunction with the international environment, transformed the notion of the nation. Before the revolution, the term "nation" had mostly cultural connotations and, from a political point of view, was a neutral category within an imperial framework, without claims to be the primary and the dominant element of political identity. The revolutionary period transformed the perception of the nation into an active political and social force and into the most important actor/subject of the historical and political processes.
This article seeks to examine the construction of the notion of Europe not from a West–East perspective but from a more complex geographical and conceptual vantage point, including the north and the south in relation to the West and East and, more specifically, from the point of view of the Ggreek orthodox and Russian worlds in the postnapoleonic era. Following the political, religious and intellectual activity of two expatriates and close friends, Alexander Sturdza and Konstantinos Oikonomos, it explores how the idea of Europe was visited and how these two intellectuals and politicians negotiated and renegotiated to what extent their respective communities (Russian and Greek) were part of Europe, with religion as the central axis and the notions of the Orthodox world and Orthodox East in the arsenal of both. The first decades of the nineteenth century brought Russia and the Greeks to the forefront of the European scene. First, Russia, in the wake of its military campaigns against Napoleon's empire (1812–1814), at the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) found itself in a leading position in European politics and as the pacesetter in the elaboration of the idea of a united Europe. a little later, the Greek struggle for independence, the first protracted successful national struggle in Europe, raised the principle of nationalities (as national self-determination was called in the nineteenth century) for the first time as one to be reckoned with in Europe. as i argue, in the early nineteenth century the rise of Russian power provided fertile ground to challenge the idea of the secondary character of Eastern Orthodoxy in comparison to the Latin West and of the Eastern peripheral character of both Russia and Greece, and to elaborate the idea of the cultural and political equality of West and East.
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book is a comprehensive presentation of humanitarian intervention in theory and practice during the course of the nineteenth century. Through four case studies, it sheds new light on the international law debate and the political theory on intervention, linking them to ongoing issues, and paying particular attention to the lesser known Russian dimension.The book begins by tracing the genealogy of the idea of humanitarian intervention to the Renaissance, evaluating the Eurocentric gaze of the civilisation-barbarity dichotomy, and elucidates the international legal arguments of both advocates and opponents of intervention, as well as the views of major political theorists. It then goes on to examine four cases as humanitarian interventions: the Greek War of Independence (1821-31), the Lebanon and Syria (1860-61), the Bulgarian atrocities (1876-78), and the U.S. intervention in Cuba (1895-98). Humanitarian intervention in the long nineteenth century will be of benefit to scholars and students of International Relations, international history, international law and international political theory
This book is a comprehensive presentation of humanitarian intervention in theory and practice during the course of the nineteenth century. Through four case studies, it sheds new light on the international law debate and the political theory on intervention, linking them to ongoing issues, and paying particular attention to the lesser known Russian dimension.The book begins by tracing the genealogy of the idea of humanitarian intervention to the Renaissance, evaluating the Eurocentric gaze of the civilisation-barbarity dichotomy, and elucidates the international legal arguments of both advocates and opponents of intervention, as well as the views of major political theorists. It then goes on to examine four cases as humanitarian interventions: the Greek War of Independence (1821-31), the Lebanon and Syria (1860-61), the Bulgarian atrocities (1876-78), and the U.S. intervention in Cuba (1895-98).
This special issue is the outcome of a renewed interest in the study of 1821 and has its own history. It is the result of a series of workshops co-organised by New York University under the auspices of the Jordan Center for Advanced Study of Russia (New York) and the Research Centre for the Humanities (Athens). These workshops brought together historians and social scientists from different universities, and different national and academic environments, to discuss how the history of 1821 could be reconceptualised. 1821 was and still is, par excellence, an example of the political uses and abuses of history. So we seek to understand the revolution in terms of its own present. We titled these workshops as "1821: What Made it Greek and Revolutionary" because we aimed to view the events as if visiting them for the first time and reconsider them beyond the teleology which so much characterises any kind of revolutionary narrative.
