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The Memory of a Republican Revolution in a Monarchical State: Legacy of the Uprising of 1821 in the First Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire
Abstract
The uprising of 1821, since its inception by a group of conspirators during the post-Napoleonic Restoration, has been a contentious and divisive issue. Despite accounts of wholehearted support or opposition that are often disseminated by nationalist discourses, the revolt of 1821—similar to any revolutionary uprising aiming to radically change the political, social and economic reality—created a series of political divisions. This was the case in the Kingdom of Greece due to the republican and radical overtones of the revolt as a child of the Age of Revolutions in the region. However, its legacy has not yet been adequately studied in the Ottoman context. The revolution could have inspired secessionist nationalism among Ottoman Greeks, as a case where the Ottoman subjects rejected the authority of a monarch who claimed to rule without any popular accountability. However, Sultan’s experimentation with a constitution and a parliament in 1876-1878 revealed that his authority was under pressure from ideas of popular sovereignty. By starting my presentation from a debate that took place in the pages of Armenian and Greek newspapers in the spring of 1877 when Ottoman constitutional patriotism was at the peak of its popularity, I will examine how Ottomans dealt with the memory of the 1821 revolt. Did they try to erase it from the public sphere? What was their reaction to Paparigopoulos’ “History of the Greek Nation” which introduced the thesis of the historical continuity of the Greek nation since antiquity? How did they respond to the instances of popular mobilization in 1821? If possible, I will compare my findings with the legacy of other similar events such as the Serbian uprising of 1804.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Ottoman Empire
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries