I Kath'inas Anatoli: Studies in Ottoman Greek History 9781463225872

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I Kath'inas Anatoli

Analecta Isisiana: Ottoman and Turkish Studies

77

A co-publication with The Isis Press, Istanbul, the series consists of collections of thematic essays focused on specific themes of Ottoman and Turkish studies. These scholarly volumes address important issues throughout Turkish history, offering in a single volume the accumulated insights of a single author over a career of research on the subject.

I Kath'inas Anatoli

Studies in Ottoman Greek History

Richard Clogg

The Isis Press, Istanbul

pre** 2010

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2010 by The Isis Press, Istanbul Originally published in 2004 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of The Isis Press, Istanbul. 2010

ISBN 978-1-61719-134-3

Printed in the United States of America

Richard Clogg was born in 1939 and is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh. He is a Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, having previously taught at the Universities of Edinburgh and London. History

His publications include A

Concise

of Greece (Cambridge University Press 1992, second edition 2002:

translated into Turkish, Greek, Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, Serbian and Italian, with Romanian, Russian and Bulgarian translations pending); A Short History

of Greece (Cambridge University Press 1979; second edition 1986);

Politics and the Academy: Arnold Toynbee and the Koraes Chair (Frank Cass 1986); Parties and Elections in Greece: the Search for Legitimacy (Hurst 1987); The Movement for Greek Independence

1770-1821 : a Collection of

Documents

(Macmillan 1976); Anatolica: Studies in the Greek East in the Eighteenth Nineteenth

and

Centuries (Variorum 1996); Anglo-Greek Attitudes: Studies in History

(Macmillan 2000); Greece 1940-1949:

Occupation,

Documentary History (Palgrave Macmillan 2002).

Resistance,

Civil War: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface 'The Greeks and their Past,' in Dennis Deletant and Harry Hanak, eds., Historians as Nation Builders: Central and SouthEastern Europe (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1988) 15-31 'The Correspondence of Adhamantios Korais with Thomas Burgess 1789-1792,' Anzeiger der phil.-hist. Klasse der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, CVI (1969)

7

17

40-72 'The Smyrna "Rebellion" of 1797: Some Documents from the British Archives,' Deltio Kentrou Mikrasiatikon Spoudon, III

33

(1982)71-125 . 'The Library of the Levant Company's Factory in Smyrna (1805),' O Eranistis, XI ( 1974) 112-124 "The Foundation of the Smyrna Bible Society (1818),' Mikrasiatika Khronika, XIV (1970) 31-49 'Two Accounts of the Academy of Ayvalik (Kydonies) in 18181819,' Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes, X (1972) 633-67 'Two American Philhellenes at the Academy of Chios in 1820,' in Evangelos Konstantinou, ed., Europäischer Philhellenismus. Die europäische philhellenische Literatur bis zur 1. Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt: Peter Lang 1992) 31-39. ... 'The Classics and the Movement for Greek Independence,' in Margriet Haagsma, Pim den Boer and Eric Moormann, eds., The Impact of Classical Greece on National and European Identities, Studies of the Netherlands Institute at Athens (Amsterdam: Gieben 2003) 25-46 'Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives in the Public Record Office,' Mikrasiatika Khronika, XV (1972)313-355 'Aspects of the Movement for Greek Independence,' in Richard Clogg, ed., The Struggle for Greek Independence. Essays to mark the 150th anniversary of the Greek War of Independence (London: Macmillan 1973) 1-40

63 109 121

135

171

181

201

237

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'Quakers and the Movement for Greek Independence,' in Evangelos Konstantinou and Ursula Wiedenmann, eds., Europäischer Philhellenismus: Ursachen und Wirkungen (Neuried: Hieronymus 1989) 103-21 'A Karamanlidika Inscription from Mount Athos (1818),' Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, I (1975) 207-210 'Notes on some Karamanli Books printed before 1850 now in British Libraries, with particular reference to the Bible Translations of the British and Foreign Bible Society,' Mikrasiatika Khronika, XIII (1967) 521 -563 'The Publication and Distribution of Karamanli Texts by the British and Foreign Bible Society before 1850,' Parts I and II, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, XIX (Nos. 1 and 2) 1968, 57-81;

271 289

293

171-93 333-361 'A millet within a millet: the karamanlides,' in Dimitri Gondicas and Charles Issawi, eds., Ottoman Greeks in the Age of Nationalism: Politics, Economy and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton 1999) 115-142 387

PREFACE

The evocative, albeit archaising, Greek expression / kath'imas Anatoli is used to describe the large Greek presence that existed in the Near and Middle East until the third decade of the 20 th century. 1 It literally means 'Our East' but is best rendered in English as the Greek East. Not long before the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821, Neophytos Doukas, a priest and prominent figure in the 'Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment', the intellectual revival that preceded the outbreak of the struggle for independence, outlined his vision of the Greek East. This was contained in a pamphlet published in 1811 in which he urged the 'the Greeks in Vienna engaged in commerce' to establish a Greek school in the Habsburg capital. When he mentioned the 'sweet name' of the Hellenes, Doukas wrote, he did not have in mind 'the few inhabiting the lands of ancient Hellas' but rather those living in 'the whole area in which the modern tongue of the Greeks is spoken'. With characteristic nationalist hyperbole, he claimed as speakers of Greek almost all those inhabiting a vast region stretching from the Pruth river, on the border between Moldavia and Bessarabia, and the Nile. 2 This was demonstrably a very considerable exaggeration but nonetheless there were substantial Greek No better insight can be found into the resonances of the expression I kath'imas Anatoli than in the voluminous writings of Manouil Gedeon, Megas Khartophylax and Khronographos (Chief Archivist and Chronicler) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In the course of a very long life (he was born in Istanbul in 1851 and died in Athens in 1943) he wrote some seven hundred and fifty books and articles containing a wealth of information about the Greek East. Among his principal publications were Khronika tou Patriarkhikou Oikou kai tou Naou (Istanbul 1884); Patriarkhikai Pinakes: Eidiseis Istorikai Viographikai peri ton Patriarkhon Konstantinoupoleos apo Andreou tou Protoklitou mekhri Ioakheim III tou apo Thessalonikis, 36-1884 (Istanbul 1885-1890); Aposimeiomata Khronographou, 1800-1913 ( Athens 1932); Mneia ton pro Emou 1800-1863-1913 (Athens 1934); Patriarkhikai Ephimerides: Eidiseis ek tis imeteras Ekklisiastikis Istorias 1500-1912 (Athens 1936-1938) and Istoria ton tou Khristou Peniton, 14531913 (Athens 1939). For a complete listing of Gedeon's works, see the invaluable bibliography of Kh.G. Patrinelis, Dimosievmata Manouil Gedeon: analytiki anagraphi (Athens 1974). A useful index to four of Gedeon's most important works, the Aposimeiomata Khronographou, the Mneia ton pro Emou; the Patriarkhikai Ephimerides and the Istoria ton tou Khristou Peniton, has been compiled by Dimitra Pikramenou-Varphi and Khrysothemis Stamatopoulou-Vasilakou (Athens 1979). A number of his articles have been reprinted by Alkis Angelou and Philippos Iliiou in Manouil Gedeon: I pnevmatiki Kinisis tou Genous kata ton 18 kai 19 aiona (Athens 1976). Another insight into the world of I kath'imas Anatoli is afforded by the recently published memoir of Georgios L. Zariphis, the grandson of the Ottoman Greek banker Georgios I. Zariphis, Oi Anamniseis mou: enas Kosmos pou ephyge. Konstantinoupoli 1800-1920 (Athens 2002). Although first published in 2002, the memoir was written in the late 1930s. 2 Neophytos Doukas, Parainesis B'. Pros tous en Vienni Ellinas eis systasin Skholeiou Ellinikou (Vienna 1811), quoted in K.Th. Dimaras, 'I Ideologiki Ypodomi tou Neou Ellinikou Kratous: I Klironomia ton Perasmenon, oi Nees Pragmatikotites, oi Nees Anagkes', in Istoria tou Ellinikou Ethnous, XIII, Neoteros Ellinismos apo 1833 os 1881 (Athens 1977) 458.

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populations widely settled throughout the region; in the territories that were to form the core of the independent Greek state, in the Balkans, in Asia Minor and in southern Russia, not to mention in the Ottoman capital itself. The Exchange of Populations between Greece and Turkey negotiated in 1923 as part of the Lausanne settlement led to the uprooting of the largest element in the Greek East, namely the substantial Greek populations of Asia Minor, and their settlement in Greece. Thereafter only scattered remnants of / kath 'imas Anatoli remained outwith the borders of the Greek state, principally the Greek populations of Cyprus, of Istanbul and Imvros (Gcikceada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada), of southern Albania (or Northern Epirus as the region is known in Greece) and of the northern littoral of the Black Sea. Most of the papers gathered together in this volume treat of aspects of the history of I kath'imas Anatoli. All relate to the experience of the Greek people under Ottoman rule whether before the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1821 which led to the establishment of an independent Greek state in 1832, or after. For the new state contained as few as a third of the Greek inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire as they had been at the outset of hostilities and large Greek populations remained under Ottoman rule until the end of the First World War. 'The Greeks and their Past' looks at the emergence in the last decades of the 18th century and the first of the nineteenth of a 'sense of the past', of a growing, and at times almost obsessional, conviction on the part of the nascent Greek intelligentsia that the Greeks were heirs to an heritage, that of ancient Greece, that was the subject of reverent admiration and study in Europe, and, indeed, in the newly established United States. It looks at the way in which this reverence for antiquity played a critical role not only in shaping the mentality of the small Greek intelligentsia but also in determining the cultural milieu of the new state. It was no coincidence that the leading figure in the 'Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment', Adamantios Korais, who did more than anyone to inculcate in his fellow countrymen, or at least into fellow members of the nationalist intelligentsia, a sense that the Greeks were, in the words of Alexander Pushkin, 'the legal heirs of Homer and Themistocles' 1 , was among the foremost classical scholars in the Europe of his day. Indeed, his French patron, D'Ansse de Villoison, considered him to be 'the first critic in Europe'. 1 Dimitris Farsolas, 'Alexander Pushkin: his Attitude towards the Greek Revolution 1821-1829', Balkan Studies, XXXII (1971) 74-5.

P R E F A C E

9

Korais was born in Izmir in 1748 into a prominent Greek family of Chiot origin. At an early stage he came under the influence of Bernhard Keun, the chaplain to the Dutch mercantile community in Izmir. It was Keun who, by teaching the young Korais Latin in return for lessons in Greek, introduced the budding scholar to the riches of European classical scholarship. After a few, not altogether happy, years as a merchant in Amsterdam, a period during which he cast off the neo-Byzantine mores of his Izmir upbringing and acquired the mentality of a European bourgeois, Korais abandoned commerce for scholarship. Although he studied medicine at the University of Montpellier, Korais never practiced as a doctor. Instead he devoted his life to classical scholarship and to endeavouring to make his fellow countrymen aware at a more popular level of the heritage of ancient Greece. One of his most remarkable publications was the Mémoire sur l'État present de la Civilisation dans la Grèce published in 1803 in Paris by the Société des Observateurs de l'Homme. This affords a penetrating analysis of the nature of Greek society during the critical years at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Not surprisingly, Korais' text has been commented on with much interest by students of nationalism such as Elie Kedourie and Benedict Anderson.1 Korais's very considerable stature in that true Republic of Letters, the world of European classical scholarship in the eighteenth century, is demonstrated in 'The Correspondence of Adhamantios Korais with Thomas Burgess 1789-1792'. This article centres on an attempt to find an academic position for Korais in Oxford just before the outbreak of the French Revolution. It was never likely that the introverted, torpid and port-sodden institution that was Oxford in the eighteenth century, so well described by Edward Gibbon in his autobiography, would welcome a Greek scholar, however brilliant, into its closed ranks. Rather than moving to Oxford, Korais from 1788 until his death in 1733 lived in Paris. Although he was no Jacobin he could not but be influenced by the turbulent years of the French Revolution and the ensuing Revolutionary Wars. The way in which the study of the ancient world, often mediated through foreign sources, came to have such a dominant influence on Greek literati and came to assume overtly political dimensions is further discussed in 'The Classics and the Movement for Independence'.

The Mémoire has been translated by Elie Kedourie in Nationalism in Asia and Africa (London 1970) 153-87. Benedict Anderson has described the Mémoire as 'a stunningly modern analysis of the sociological bases for Greek nationalism', Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London 1990) 70.

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Much of the intellectual ferment that characterised the Greek world in the decades before 1821 was centred on academies situated relatively close to each other on the West coast of Asia Minor. These were in Izmir the Evangeliki Skholi, founded in 1733 and under British protection, and the more progressive Philologikon Gymnasion established in 1808; on the island of Chios the Akadimia; and in Ayvalik the Ellinomouseion.1 'Two Accounts of the Academy of Ayvalik (Kydonies) in 1818-1819' and 'Two American Philhellenes at the Academy of Chios in 1820' provide detailed descriptions of two of the most advanced educational institutions in the Greek world during the pre-independence period when both were at the peak of their influence. Adamantios Korais had been greatly encouraged when he heard of the arrival of two Americans in 1820 at the Academy on the island with which he so closely identified, Chios. Had he been aware that the two were Protestant missionaries then he might have been considerably less enthusiastic. For Korais, like many of his compatriots, was fearful of the effects of proselytism among the Orthodox, whether by Protestant or by Catholic missionaries. Indeed, he once castigated the mania for proselytism of the Catholics as 'a mania so violent that the enemies of Jesus the Jesuits considered in the past, and consider even today, the return of a Greek to their Church to be a much more praiseworthy undertaking than to catechise ten Turks or ten idolaters'. 2 The Protestant missionaries, mainly British and American, who began to be active in the Levant in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars were of course precluded from proselytising among the Muslim populations of the Empire. For this reason the main focus of their activities was on the Orthodox and Armenian communities. Their reports and other writings constitute a valuable, and still underutilised, source for the history of the non-Muslim populations of the Empire as 'The Foundation of the Smyrna Bible Society (1818)' and 'Quakers and the Movement for Greek Independence' indicate. In the decades before the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821 a frequent complaint of the Greek intelligentsia and even more of the mercantile bourgeoisie whose emergence in the course of the 18th century was such a significant factor in the development of the Greek national movement was that disorder, rapacity and the arbitrary application of the law in the Ottoman Empire militated against the accumulation of capital and the promotion of commerce. As in the well-known instance of Ioannis Pringos (71725-1789), a Greek from Thessaly who had made a fortune as a merchant in * Alkis Angelou, 'Pros tin Akmi tou Neoellinikou Diaphotismou: oi Dienexeis tou Lesviou sti Skholi Kydonion', Mikrasiatika Khronika, VII (1957) 49. Richard Clogg, 'O Parsons kai o Fisk sti Khio to 1820', O Eranistis, V (1967) 192.

2

PREFACE

11

the Netherlands, they contrasted the framework of order and the rule of law that prevailed in the Low Countries and which facilitated the orderly conduct of commerce with the arbitrariness and corruption that characterised the administration of the Ottoman state. 1 Daniil Philippidis and Grigorios Konstandas in their Geographia Neoteriki published in Vienna in 1791 gave as the reason for the presence of a large number of Greeks within the territories of the Habsburg Monarchy ('where the rights of life and property are sovereign') the capriciousness and disorder that characterised Ottoman rule. 'What degree of trade', they asked, 'can you expect from a place where the sea teems with pirates, and the dry land is full of thieves and vagabonds ... the roads are almost all uncertain and dangerous...'. Greeks and other subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire skilled in trade, they wrote, 'suffer a myriad vexations ... and it is by no means rare to witness a wretched Turk ill treat a useful merchant ... So therefore many well to do merchants, who have experience of other states and are resolved to live by commerce, uproot themselves and go and settle in these states, and a great damage ensues for the country...' 2 Another hazard to the orderly conduct of commerce were fires. A Corfiote Greek, Markos Katsaitis, who had visited Izmir in 1742, in commenting on the destructive fires that from time to time swept the city emphasised the way in which they added to the uncertainties of life in the Ottoman realms. He observed that an inhabitant of the city might, as a consequence of fire, be in 'the evening rich and powerful, and in the morning poor and a beggar {la sera ricco, et potente, e la mattina ...povero, e mendico) 3 Besides fires, a further hazard was the urban riot of the kind that erupted with sudden ferocity in Izmir in March of 1797. This was what is known in the Greek sources as the Smyrna 'rebellion'. In a near contemporary report of 17 April 1797 in the journal Ephimeris published in Vienna in Greek by the brothers Markides-Poulios this was described as so devastating that an entire century would not suffice to restore the city to its former condition. This may have been an exaggeration but the damage was certainly See my 'The Greek Mercantile Bourgoisie: "progressive" or "reactionary"?' in Richard Clogg, ed., Balkan Society in the Age of Greek Independence (London 1981) 85-110. This has been reprinted in my Anatolica: Studies in the Greek East in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Aldershot 1996). Geographia Neoteriki, eranistheisa apo diaphorous Syngrapheis, para Daniil Ieromonakhou kai Grigoriou Ierodiakonou ton Dimitrieon. Nyn proton typois ekdotheisa epistasia ton idion, kai philotimo khrimatiki Syndromi tou Entimotatou Kyriou Ivou Drosinou Khatzi Ivou tou ex AmMakion. Tomos protos periekhon tin Evropaiki Tourkia, Italia, Spania, Portougallia kai Phrantza, reprinted ed.Aikaterini Koumarianou (Athens 1970) 48. ^Markos Antoniou Katsaitis, 'Secondo viaggio de Corfu a Smirne l'anno 1742' in Ph. Phalbos, ed., Dyo taxidia sti Smyrni 1740 kai 1742 (Athens 1972) 79.

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on a massive scale. As many as 1500 Christians, mostly Greeks, lost their lives in the riot and immense damage was occasioned to the property of the Frankish merchant community in the city. An initially trivial inter-communal incident arising out of the visit of Italian rope-dancers under the protection of the Habsburg consul rapidly escalated into a violent and destructive riot. No doubt because of the losses suffered by British, and British protected, merchants, the British consul in Izmir, Francis Werry, who held the office in the city between 1794 and 1825, besides giving a highly detailed account of the 'horrors of that dreadful day', kept a detailed record of the losses suffered by British subjects and those with British protection. While Consul Werry's superior, J. Spencer Smith, the British Minister in Constantinople (like Werry an employee of the Levant Company) accepted that the 'rebellion' had been accelerated by 'the provocation of the Venetian vagabonds' (in fact the murder of the janissary, the catalyst for the riot, had been committed by a Cephaloniot under Venetian protection) he believed that there had been a sinister political dimension to the riot. He contended that the disorders should be seen as 'a contagious consequence of the destructive doctrines so progressive in the present day; and so industriously calculated both by precept and example during the long stay of the French squadrons in the Levant this year, particularly at Smyrna'. He believed it to be 'a singularity offering awful abundance of reflection that the French tricolour cockade served as an inviolable safeguard during the whole tragedy...' In fact there is no evidence that would justify his fears. The documents contained in 'The Smyrna "Rebellion" of 1797: Some Documents from the British Archives' probably afford the most detailed extant record of 'the dreadful catastrophe of the 15 March 1797'. In his 'dismal sketch' of the events in Izmir, Consul Werry lamented the loss of the 'British factory; with the exception of only one house of trade and two private dwellings'. The 'Consularian House' was among the buildings destroyed. The Library of the Consulate had apparently been well stocked with the 'ancient Greek and Latin authors' and some of the texts of the Fathers of the Church. All had been destroyed in the 'rebellion' save a Polyglott Bible, probably that compiled between 1655-7, by Brian Walton, Bishop of Chester. In 1805, the Revd. John F. Usko, the chaplain to the Levant Company's Factory in Smyrna and previously chaplain to the German Lutheran community in the city, wrote to the 'Right Honourable the Governor and the Right Worshipful the Company of Merchants trading to the Levant Seas' requesting that 'books on Divinity, Morality, Sermons, History,

P R E F A C E

13

Travels, Geography, Natural History and Poetry etc.' be sent out to a countiy 'where the resources for society and instruction are so much limited' although it was 'once the seat of sciences'. He appended a lengthy list of desiderata for the newly established consulate library. This is given in 'The Library of the Levant Company's Factory in Smyrna (1805)'. There was clearly something of a tradition in maintaining well-stocked scholarly libraries in the consular milieu in Izmir. For, in the autobiography which he wrote towards the end of his life, Adamantios Korais recalled with gratitude that his Dutch mentor in Izmir, Bernhard Keun, the chaplain to the Dutch Consulate, had allowed him as a young man the run of his library, which was apparently extensive.1 A perceptive British traveller, Henry Holland, who visited the Greek lands at the beginning of the second decade of the 19 th century, noted that 'deprived in great measure of political and national objectives', the 'active spirit' of the Greeks had taken 'a general direction towards commerce'. 'By far the greater part of the exterior trade of Turkey, in the exchange of commodities', he added with a degree of exaggeration, 'is carried on by Greek houses...' 2 The emergence of a Greek, or Hellenised Vlach, mercantile bourgeoisie during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is one of the themes discussed in 'Aspects of the Movement for Greek Independence'. Also considered are the political consequences of the emergence of this economically powerful group of merchants with experience of trade in European markets and the way in which they provided the crucial economic underpinning of the 'Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment', the intellectual revival that was a key feature of the developing movement for independence. The benefactions of wealthy merchants enabled the foundation of schools and colleges in the Greek world, the establishment of which met with no obstacle on the part of the Ottoman authorities. They subsidised the studies of Greek students in the universities of Europe where they became aware of the fascination which the civilization of ancient Greece held for the literati of the European Enlightenment and in many cases were inspired with a consuming zeal to share this knowledge with their compatriots in the Greek world. Merchants frequently paid for the publication of the growing number of books written in Greek for a Greek audience in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, books whose secular content became ever more marked in the years before 1821. They thus contributed significantly to what Francis Werry, the consul of the Levant Company in Izmir, dismissively termed 'the infatuation of Grecian liberty.'

1 'The Autobiography of Adamantios Korais' in Richard Clogg, ed. and trans., The Movement for Greek Independence 1770-1821 (London 1976) 123. J Henry Holland, Travels in the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly, Macedonia, &c. during the Years 1812 and 1813 (London 1815) 148-9.

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While the impact of the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821, with atrocities being committed by both parties to the conflict, in the lands that were subsequently incorporated in the independent Greek state have been the subject of considerable study, the reaction to the revolt in areas that were not directly affected by hostilities has received less attention. Some indication of the impact of the news of the outbreak of the war on the Greek population of Izmir is given in 'Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives'. Inter alia, these provide striking and rare evidence of Greeks ' relying on the accomplishment of the prophecies of their priests' and acting on the millenarian beliefs foretelling their liberation from Ottoman rule through divine liberation that constituted such a significant dimension of Greek popular culture. 1 Consul Werry, still in office almost twenty five years after the 'rebellion' of March 1797, 2 reported in a despatch of 2 June 1821, not long after the outbreak of hostilities, that 'this day, the festival of the Greek St. Constantine, the founder of Constantinople, has cost the lives of 16 Greeks shot in the Bazar, so very fanatic are these deluded people. They yesterday openly congratulated each other (the lower orders) on the approach of the morrow, as the day appointed by heaven to liberate them from the Ottoman yoke and to restore their Race of Princes to the throne and possession of Constantinople.' One of the most interesting reflections of the growing interest in classical antiquity that was such a characteristic feature of the 'Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment' was the publication in Istanbul (Islambolda) in 1819 of a trilingual edition of the Physiognomonika (wrongly) attributed to Aristotle. This was printed in ancient Greek, in modern Greek and in Turkish (in Greek characters) by Anastasios Karakioulaphis of Kayseri as a small gift to the 'heteroglot sons' of his 'most beloved Motherland, Greece.' The Turkish title reads Aristotelesin insan saraflamasi Yunaniden haliyaki Yunaniye ve dahi lisani Türkiye terciime olup. One of the outcomes of this emerging 'sense of the past' was the practice that emerged during the first decade of the 19 th century of adopting or giving to children on baptism the names of the worthies of ancient Greece, a practice that was vehemently denounced by the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church which equated antiquity with paganism. One of the two copies of the Pseudo-Aristotle Physiognomonika which are preserved in the Taylorian Library in Oxford and which were formerly in the possession of Professor R.M. Dawkins has an inscription that it had once belonged to Demosthenes Haci P. Kemaloglu Ala§ehirli.

These millenarian beliefs are discussed in my 'The Byzantine Legacy in the Modern Greek World: the Megali Idea' in Lowell Clucas, ed., The Byzantine Legacy in Eastern Europe (Boulder, Colo., 1992) 253ff. This article is reprinted in my Anatolica, op. cit. In 1825, after 224 years of existence, the Levant Company surrendered its charters and privileges.

PREFACE

15

In the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries an entire literature was published in Turkish printed with Greek characters, known in Turkish as karamanlica and in Greek as karamanlidika for the karamanlilar (Greek karamanlides), the Turkish-speaking Greeks of Asia Minor. 1 Many of these books are now extremely rare and survive in a few copies only. Some have disappeared entirely. Some of those that survive in British Libraries are listed in 'Notes on some Karamanli Books printed before 1850 now in British Libraries, with particular reference to the Bible Translations of the British and Foreign Bible Society'. A considerable number of these are to be found in the British Library, having originally formed part of the extraordinarily rich library put together by Frederic North, the Fifth Earl of Guilford, for the Ionian Academy which he founded on the island of Corfu and which has been described as Greece's first university. 2 Others found their way to the library of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Over the years the Bible Society, which had been founded in 1804, was probably the most prolific single publisher of karamanlica/ karamanlidika texts. The Bible Society's role in publishing and distributing such texts is considered in 'The Publication and Distribution of Karamanli Texts by the British and Foreign Bible Society'. A more general account of the karamanlilar/karamanlides is contained in 'A Millet within a Millet: the Karamanlides.' Grave inscriptions were frequently in karamanlica/ karamanlidika. The largest surviving group of these is to be found in the courtyard of the Church of the Zoodokhos Pigi at Balikli near the Silivrikapi on the land walls of Istanbul. 3 A solitary inscription in karamanlica/ karamanlidika is recorded in the monastic republic of Mount Athos. This is published in 'A Karamanlidika Inscription from Mount Athos (1818).' ^The known corpus of publications in karamanhca/karamanlidika is recorded in Sévérien Salaville and Eugène Dalleggio, Karamanlidika: Bibliographie Analytique d'Ouvrages en Langue Turque imprimés en Caractères Grecs 1 1584-1850 (Athens 1958); II 1851-1865 (Athens 1966); III (1866-1900) (Athens 1974); and Evangelia Balta, Karamanlidika XXe Siècle: Bibliographie Analytique (Athens 1987); Karamanlidika Additions (1584-1900): Bibliographie Analytique (Athens 1987); Karamanlidika: Nouvelles Additions et Compléments I (Athens 1997). See also Evangelia Balta, 'To karamanlidiko entypo', Ta Istorika, IX (1988) 213-28 and Robert Anhegger, 'Hurufumuz Yunanca: ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis der karamanisch-tiirkischen Literatur', Anatolica, VII (1979/80) 157-202 and 'Nachträge zu Hurufumuz Yunanca: ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis der karamanisch-tiirkischen Literatur', Anatolica, X (1983) 149-64. •'Chris Michaelides of the British Library has completed a comprehensive catalogue of the superb collection of pre-independence Greek printed books formerly in the Library of the Ionian Academy. Most of these contain the bookplate of Frederic North. On the Ionian Academy, see Eleni Angelomati-Tsougaraki, I Ionios Akadimia: to Khroniko tis Idrysis tou protou Ellinikou Panepistimiou (1811-1824) (Athens 1997) and G.P. Henderson, The Ionian Academy (Edinburgh 1988). 3 On the Balikli inscriptions, see Richard Clogg, 'Some karamanlidika inscriptions from the Monastery of the Zoodokhos Pigi, Balikli, Istanbul', Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, IV (1978) 55-67; Anastasios Iordanoglou, 'Karamanlidikes epigraphes tis Ieras Monis Zoodokhou Pigis, Valoukli Konstantinoupoleos' in K. Papoulidis, ed., Valkanika Symmeikta, I (1981) 63-92; and Erich Prokosch, 'Karamanisch-türkische Grabinschriften', Jahrbuch des Österreichischen Sankt Georgs-Kolleg in Istanbul, (1988) 280-312.

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It is not easy to establish the numbers of the Greeks of Asia Minor who spoke Turkish as their first language. In a memorandum, entitled 'Report on the Turkish Orthodox Church' and submitted to the Foreign Office in May 1922, Arnold Toynbee, the scholar and sometime correspondent in Asia Minor of the Manchester Guardian, Arthur Boutwood and H. Pirie Gordon, a correspondent of the (London) Times, estimated the number of Turcophones as half a million. 1 This figure is surely far too high. On the other hand the figure of 50,000 put forward by Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, in the negotiations with Eleftherios Venizelos and Ismet (Inonii) which preceded the signing of the convention on an exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece which formed part of the Lausanne peace settlement of 1923 is certainly too low. The 1928 census, for instance, the first to be held in Greece following the exchange of populations, recorded the number of Turkish-speaking Greeks of Anatolian origin as 103,642.2 One of the last, if not actually the last, publications in karamanlica/ karamanlidika was the Aziz Alexiosun ve cttmle Azizlerin ve Mah§er Divaninin Nakliyatlari ve Cana faydali Nasihatlar Iakov on iki Evlatlari ile (St Alexios and all the Saints and the Last Judgement. Traditions and advices useful to the Soul. Jacob and his Twelve Sons). It was printed in Thessaloniki in 1929, for books in Turkish in Greek characters were printed in Greece for some years after the 1923 Exchange of Populations for the benefit of the large numbers of monoglot Turkish-speakers who had been included in the transfer. Thus came to an end a chapter in the centuries long symbiosis of Greek and Turk in the Ottoman Empire.

1 Cited in Alexis Alexandris, 'I apopeira dimiourgias Tourkorthodoxis Ekklisias stin Kappadokia, 1921-1923', Deltio Kentrou Mikrasiatikon Spoudon, IV (1983) 167. ^See Manolis Triandaphyllidis, Neoelliniki Grammatiki, I Istoriki Eisagogi (Athens 1938) 557.

THE GREEKS AND THEIR PAST*

History is not only a science. It is at once the Gospel of the present and the future of the Motherland (Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos) There is, I am sure, no need to remind an audience of historians of central and south-eastern Europe attending a conference held in honour of one of our foremost students of nationalism, Hugh Seton-Watson, of the extent to which a sense of the past, an awareness of past glories, real or imagined, is, with language, the fundamental element in the national consciousness of all the peoples of south-eastern Europe. In all these countries the historical past is not, as has been remarked, 'a subject for harmless small talk'. 1 Rather its reconstruction and projection is vital to the establishment of title to territories presently occupied and perhaps covetously eyed by neighbours. In all the countries of the Balkans the remembrance of past wrongs, real or imagined, at the hands of alien overlords casts a heavy shadow over the present — as do the old grievances, which again may or may not correspond to reality, against the machinations of foreign powers. In few areas of the world is the burden of the past so intensely felt or the collective historical consciousness of such acute contemporary political significance. And in no country in the Balkans does the incubus of the past weigh so heavily as in Greece. So far as is possible within the compass of this short paper I wish to trace the development of an awareness by the Greeks in modern times that they were the heirs to a cultural heritage that was universally admired throughout the civilised world, and to look at the way in which, during the course of the nineteenth century, they began to rediscover their Byzantine heritage as well. It was this awareness that enabled the Greeks to link their ancient and medieval past in a theory of unbroken continuity from ancient times until the present, thereby establishing the parameters within which modern Greek historical writing has since functioned. The process by which the Greeks rediscovered their past has, I believe, a particular claim to the *TMs paper has also been published in M. Hurst (ed.), States, Countries, Provinces (Routne End, Bucks., 1986) pp. 35-51. R. King, Minorities under Communism: Nationalities as Source of Tension among Balkan Communist States (Cambridge, Mass., 1973) p. 171.

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attention of students of Balkan nationalism. For the Greeks were, of course, the first of the Balkan peoples to articulate a recognisably modern nationalist movement, in the process establishing a model followed to a greater or lesser degree by the other Balkan peoples. Moreover the Greeks enjoyed the dubious advantage that their ancient language and culture formed the basis of the education of the ruling classes throughout the civilised world, whereas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries virtually nothing was known outside the Balkans of the historical antecedents of the other Balkan peoples. Indeed, the Greeks' rediscovery of their past glories during the critical decades before the outbreak of the war of independence in 1821 was profoundly influenced by, and in large part mediated through, western interest in Greece's ancient heritage. The first decades of the nineteenth century saw the genesis of the progonoplexia, or ancestor obsession, and of the arkhaiolatreia, the worship of antiquity, that have exercised so baleful an influence over the cultural, educational and, to a degree, the political life of Greece up to the present day. The recent descent on London of the Greek minister of culture, Melina Mercouri, to demand the return of the Elgin marbles is but the most recent manifestation of the tendency to hearken back to ancient glories rather than face up to modern realities that has characterised so much of the rhetoric of public life in Greece during the 150 years or so since the emergence of an independent Greek state. To many it must have appeared that Mme. Mercouri, in seeking the return of 'her' marbles, was going over the top. But, in a sense, who can blame her, if Sir Ian Gilmour — then minister of state at the Foreign Office — in moving in the House of Commons in 1980 the ratification of Greece's treaty of accession as the tenth member of the European Community, could declare that Greece's entry would be seen as a 'fitting repayment by the Europe of today of the cultural and political debt that we all owe to a Greek heritage almost 3000 years old'? If Sir Ian's rhetoric is overblown it none the less has a certain elegance. The same cannot be said of that of Neil Kinnock, the leader of the Labour Party. In promising the return of the Elgin marbles to Greece he has declared that they are as Greek as Wembley Stadium is English and that the Parthenon without the marbles is like a smile with a tooth missing.

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While on the subject of the political uses of historical rhetoric I cannot resist quoting from a recent speech by the Greek prime minister, Andreas Papandreou: 'it was not the imperial purple and the sharp swords of its Emperors that preserved the Byzantine Empire during the thousand years of its existence but rather the simple working man with his love and concern for the Byzantine state, and thus they brought into being the first elements of a political system that today is called socialism'. 1

I might add here that, perhaps for the first time ever, the teaching of history figured in an election manifesto when Andreas Papandreou's Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) undertook in 1980 to ensure that henceforth 'historical knowledge will be imparted without taboos and without the imposition of a dominant ideology'. 2 How then did this obsession with the past take root among the modern Greeks? There had been, of course, regular revivals of interest in Greece's classical past during the long history of the Byzantine Empire, none more poignant than that associated with George Gemistos Plethon at Mistra during the very last years of the Empire. But in the early centuries after the Ottoman conquest there appears to have been little consciousness that the Greeks were the heirs to the cultural tradition of antiquity, even if a degree of knowledge of the classical past seems to have survived among the handful of scholars, mainly churchmen, who sought to sustain a sense of Greek identity. In the mid-seventeenth century, Kyrillos Loukaris, the so-called 'Protestant' patriarch, bemoaned the fact that 'in olden times, when wisdom ruled in Greece, the Hellenes took the Latins for barbarians. And now is it not strange that we have become barbarian and that they have become wise?' 3 Moreover, even at the popular level, some degree of consciousness of a glorious past seems to have existed, fuelled by the great popularity of tales of the exploits of Alexander the Great, and this was reflected in the superstitious reverence in which some of the physical remains of Greek antiquity were held. The

1

Epikentra, July-August 1982. Diakiryxi Kyvernitikis Politikis. Symvolaio me to Lao (Athens, 1981) p. 52. At the same time PASOK undertook to ensure that the emphasis on patriotism and national independence in education would be accompanied by the cultivation of faith in peace and in friendship between peoples. The 1975 Constitution (16.2) explicitly states that one of the objectives of the. educational system is the development of national consciousness. 3 A. Papadopoulos-Keramefs, Ierosolymitiki Vivliothiki (St Petersburg, 1894) vol. II, p. 514, quoted in K. Th. Dimaras, O Ellinikos Diaphotismos (Athens, 1964) p. 14.

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peasants of Eleusis, for instance, looked on the famous statue of Demeter as ensuring the fertility of their crops. 1 But it was only towards the end of the eighteenth century that there emerged that fixation with Greece's ancient glories that was to prove such a key element in the development of the Greek national movement, and which, in part, explains its precocity in relation to the national movements of the other Balkan peoples. By the eve of the war of independence in the 1820s members of the small but vociferous intelligentsia came to make highly extravagant claims as to the imminent regeneration of Greece. Nikolaos Skouphas, for instance, looked forward to the imminent 'rebirth of new Platos and new Demosthenes', 2 while in 1820 Benjamin of Lesvos was to declare that 'nature has set limits to the desires of other men, but not to those of the Greeks. The Greeks have not been subject in the past nor are they now subject to the laws of nature.' 3 This renewed 'sense of the past' manifested itself in a number of ways in the last decades of the eighteenth and the first decades of the nineteenth centuries. There was, for instance, an impressive increase in the publication of books on the history, language and civilisation of the ancient world for a specifically Greek audience. A key role in the attempt to revive an interest in the classical past through publications of this kind was played by that 'new Hippocrates', Adamantios Korais, after whom the Koraes Chair at King's College, London, is named and the 150th anniversary of whose birth we are commemorating this year (1983). Born in Smyrna in 1748 Korais, after a not altogether happy period as a merchant in Amsterdam, studied medicine at Montpellier and, in 1788, settled in Paris (after an unsuccessful attempt had been made to find some post for him in Oxford). From 1788 until 1833 he eked out a living in Paris by collating texts and translating. In the process he acquired a reputation as one of the foremost Hellenists of his day, admired even by the great Richard Porson, who had nothing but contempt for most of his contemporaries.

1

R . Chandler, Travels in Greece (London, 1776) p. 191. ^[Nikolaos] Skouphas, Synoptiki istoria tis Ellinikis Philologias ap'arkhis taftis mekhri aloseos tis Konstantinoupoleos para ton Othomanon (Vienna, 1816), vol. I, pp. 13-14. For a more extended discussion of this rediscovery of the past see my 'Sense of the Past in Pre-independence Greece' in R. Sussex and J. E. Eade (eds), Culture and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe (Columbus, Oh., 1985) pp. 7-30. 3 B . Lesvios, Stoikheia tis Metaphysikis (Vienna, 1820) p. 4, quoted in K. Th. Dimaras, Psykhologikai paragontes tou Eikosiena (Athens, 1957) p. 5.

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Throughout this period the consuming passion of Korais, a somewhat desiccated, priggish and hypochondriacal bachelor, was to raise the cultural level of his compatriots more closely to that of the French — whom he considered among contemporary Europeans most nearly to resemble the ancient Greeks — and to reawaken in them a consciousness that they were the heirs to a past of unparalleled brilliance. The principal instrument of this ambitious programme was to be his Hellenic Library (Elliniki Vivliothiki), a scheme to publish, with the financial support of a wealthy merchant family from Jannina, a series of editions of the classics, specifically designed for a Greek readership, ranging from Homer to those 'writing at the time of the Ptolemies'. Over the first three decades of the nineteenth century a whole series of editions of classical texts was published with a particular emphasis on those with a political, historical or moralistic content. These editions were distributed free of charge to students and were prefaced by 'impromptu reflections' in which Korais expatiated on various issues of the day and sought to analyse the reasons for the continued enslavement of the Greek nation. He was particularly critical of what he regarded as the monkish ignorance and obscurantism of the Orthodox clergy, whom he bitterly attacked for their indifference to the heritage of classical antiquity. The sale of the Patmos codex of Plato's Dialogues to E. D. Clarke by the monks of the monastery of St John the Divine was particularly upsetting to him. His essential message was that once his compatriots had developed an awareness of their own ancestral virtues and had sufficiently raised their educational level, then somehow, in a fashion about which he was never very specific, the Greeks would be vouchsafed that freedom and independence that was rightfully theirs. In fact, when the war of independence broke out in 1821 he considered it to be premature by a generation. But this only increased his zeal to publish texts, among them Aristotle's Politics and Plutarch's Parallel Lives, which might prevent the Greeks from merely substituting native for Ottoman tyrants. Korais was by no means alone in publishing editions of classical texts, histories of the ancient world and grammars of ancient Greek, in most cases adaptations from the original German. In the schools and colleges that were revived or came into being during these critical decades, there was a very heavy emphasis on the classics, introducing a strong classical bias into the Greek educational system that has continued up to the present. In schools such as the Academy of Chios, the Ellinomouseion of Ayvahk, the Philologiko Gymnasio in Smyrna, the Megali tou Genous Skholi at Kurugegme on the Bosphorus, the Ionios Akadimia in Corfu and the Lykeion in Bucharest, the study of the classics of ancient Greek literature dominated the curriculum.

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An American missionary, the Revd Levi Parsons, during a visit to the Academy of Chios in 1820, noted that: The lessons of the second class are in ethics and history, selected from the works of Chrysostom, Isocrates, Plutarch, Dionysius and Lucian. The third class, in distinction from the first and second, are instructed in poetry — lessons taken from the Iliad — also in the different dialects and measures. The fourth class study Demosthenes, Plato, Herodotus, Homer, Sophocles, Euripides and Pindar, and are required to translate frequently from the ancient Greek.1 The years immediately before 1821 also saw theatrical performances of the classics of the ancient world. There was, for instance, a performance of Sophocles' Philoctetes in the Greek theatre in Odessa in 1818. A direct outcome of this growing progonoplexia, or ancestor obsession, was the practice that developed during the first decades of the nineteenth century among some Greeks of substituting the names of the worthies of ancient Greece for the traditional Christian names that they had received on being baptised. A classic instance of this kind occurred at the Ellinomouseion of Ayvalik in 1817, at the instigation, significantly, of a foreign traveller, the French philhellene Ambroise Firmin Didot. In order to revive within the precinct of the college the language of Demosthenes and of Plato, Firmin Didot prevailed on the students to covenant to abandon their coarse and vulgar vernacular for their 'mother tongue', the only one which befitted the descendants of the Hellenes. The penalty for failure to adhere to this undertaking was the public recitation of a page of Homer. In putting their names to the covenant the various signatories adopted classical names in place of their Christian baptismal names, so that Charalambos became Pausanias and Dimitrios Themistocles. 2 At a prize-giving ceremony in an Athenian school in 1813, the headmaster presented each of the prize-winners with a branch of laurel and of olive, declaring that 'now your name is no longer Yannis or Pavlos or what have you but Pericles, Themistocles or Xenophon. Fear God, help your Motherland and love Philosophy.' 3

1 D. O. Morton, Memoir of Rev Levi Parsons ... (Burlington, Vt„ 1830) pp. 283-4. ^Ambroise Firmin Didot, Notes d'un voyage fait dans le Levant en 1816 et 1817 (Paris, 1826) pp. 385-6. Pyrros, Periigisis istoriki kai viographia (Athens, 1848) pp. 70-1.

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A significant consequence of this revived 'sense of the past' was the development of a serious interest in, rather than a mere superstitious reverence for, the physical remains of Greek antiquity, and an increasing resentment at the plundering by foreigners of this heritage. Korais, in the preface to his edition of Isocrates, expressed his bitterness against those Europeans who had stripped Greece of 'all the memorials and remains of her ancient glory'. But, although shaming to the Greeks, this had at least ensured their physical survival and had saved them from total destruction at the hands of his ignorant fellow-countrymen. Enraged by the sale of the Patmos Plato, he raged that 'the savage peoples of Africa ... could have done no worse'. To prevent similar disasters in the future, which he attributed particularly to the indifference and ignorance of the clergy, he proposed that the Ecumenical Patriarch and Holy Synod in Constantinople forbid forthwith the sale by the clergy, to Greeks or foreigners, of any manuscripts written in Greek. Instead a library, to be known as the Ellinikon Mouseion, should be created where such manuscripts could be properly cared for and catalogued. 1 When the Philomousos Etairia, or Society of Friends of the Muses, was established in Athens in 1813, with a membership consisting of Greeks and foreign philhellenes, it declared as one of its objectives 'the uncovery of antiquities, the collection of marble inscriptions, of statues, of vessels and of any other worthwhile object'. 2 The objects so excavated were to be gathered together in a museum. Little was done in practical terms to preserve the physical heritage of Greek antiquity before the emergence of the Greek state, but the rhetoric of the nationalist intelligentsia continued to resound with impassioned pleas to their fellow countrymen to show a proper respect for the tangible memorials of their ancestral heritage. From the point of view of Greece's longer-term cultural development, the most important manifestation of the Greeks' rediscovery of their classical past was to be found in the increasingly bitter polemics that raged in the decades before 1821 as to the form of the language most appropriate to a regenerated Greece. Greek intellectuals were divided into roughly three camps over this question. At one extreme there were those who argued that the Greeks could only hope to recover their ancestral greatness by reviving the ] A. Korais, Isokratous logoi kai epistolai meta skholionpalaion, oisprosetethisan simeioseis, kai ton aftoskhedion stokhasmon peri tis ellinikis paideias kai glossis akolouthia ... (Paris 1807) dp 34ff. o Ermis o Logios (Vienna, 1814) pp. 98-9. I am grateful to Evita Arapoglou for this reference. In connection with this revived interest in the physical remains of Greek antiquity it is interesting to note that Niko/aos Gaiatis, one of the early members of the Philiki Etairia, the secret revolutionary society that prepared the groundwork for the Greek revolt in 1821, and who was suspected of talking too much, was liquidated by two other members of the Society while the three were visiting the ruined theatre of Epidaurus.

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supposed purity of Attic Greek. At the other were those who sought to systematise the spoken language and to give it intellectual respectability by employing the popular language for the composition of serious books. Adopting an intermediate position were those such as Adamantios Korais, who advocated taking the spoken language as the norm but 'purifying' it of foreign words and constructions. Korais succinctly states his linguistic philosophy in his introduction to his edition of Heliodorus' Ethiopica: So to distance oneself from customary usage as to be unclear in meaning and completely unnatural to the ear is tyrannical. So to vulgarize, on the other hand, as to appear disgusting to those who have received an education appears to me demagogic. When I say that the whole nation shares in the language with democratic equality, I do not mean that we should leave its shaping and creation to the vulgar imagination of the mob. 1

The debate over the language was waged with astonishing verbal ferocity and, at times, actual physical violence. One leading archaizer, Neophytos Doukas, was set upon one Sunday morning, as he was leaving church in Bucharest, by a gang of pupils of the demoticist Benjamin of Lesvos, at that time director of the Princely Academy in Bucharest. In consequence the Hospodar Brancoveanu ordered that the 'malicious and boorish' Benjamin be banished from the territory of Wallachia. 2 Once Greece had attained independent statehood it was the archaizers who triumphed. The katharevousa, or purified form, became the official language of the state, a predominance that was officially terminated as recently as 1976, while one of the first acts of the present PASOK government in Greece in the wake of its election victory in 1981 was drastically to simplify the system of accents employed in the written language. Greek diglossia in modern times has been the source of untold cultural and educational confusion, and the language question will continue to simmer for a long time to come. Over the years it has created furious controversy. In 1902, for instance, there was actual bloodshed in the streets during the so-called 'Gospel' riots which were occasioned by the publication of Alexandras Pallis' translation of the New Testament into Modern Greek. One of the most extraordinary manifestations of the passions aroused by the language question was the socalled 'Trial of the Accents' (/ Diki ton Tonon). This centred on the charge levelled by the Arts Faculty of the University of Athens against Professor loannis Kakridis, a distinguished classical scholar, that by advocating the 1 Iliodorou Aithiopikon vivlia deka ... (Paris, 1804) pp. 68-9. ^N. Banescu, 'Momente din vieaja "Academiei Grece§ti"\ Omagiu lui I Bianu (Bucharest, 1927) pp. 39-40.

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abandonment of accents and breathings in the writing of Greek he was being divisive and schismatic. By seeking to challenge the indissoluble link between ancient and modern Greek he was, so many of his colleagues in the Philosophiki Skholi held, inflicting criminal damage to the character of the nation. As a result of these charges he was temporarily suspended by the Senate of the University. One might be tempted to dismiss this episode as merely farcical. But when one remembers that the charges against Kakridis were laid in November 1941, just a few months after the establishment of the tripartite German, Italian and Bulgarian occupation of the country and just as the disastrous effects of the appalling famine of the winter of 1941-2 were beginning to take effect, the 'Trial of the Accents' assumes a note of tragedy. The resurgence of interest in the classical past on the part of the intelligentsia during the pre-independence period was to provoke a hostile reaction on the part of the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church. In 1784 the Orthodox clergy of Bucharest were only with difficulty persuaded to grant a Christian burial to the learned Athonite monk, Neophytos Kafskokalyvitis, after he had cried out in a delirious fever on his death-bed that he was about to join the souls of Plato and Demosthenes. 1 Moreover the Patriarch Kyrillos VI once complained to Konstantinos Koumas, the director of the Megali tou Genous Skholi at Kurugcsmc, that he was quite at a loss to understand the current preference for Thucydides and Demosthenes over 'the most elegant' Synesius and Gregory Nazianzen and averred that the verses of the twelfthcentury Phtokoprodromos were much more harmonious than those of Euripides. 2 His successor as Patriarch, Grigorios V, and the Holy Synod in 1819 issued a famous encyclical in which the hierarchy's opposition to the innovation of giving ancient Greek names to the baptised infants of the faithful was made abundantly clear.3 If the nascent Greek intelligentsia became besotted with the glories of Greece's classical past in the decades before 1821, for the most part they had nothing but contempt for Greece's medieval Christian past. The attitudes of Adamantios Korais in his respect were characteristic. A true child of the Enlightenment, he shared the contempt of Voltaire and Gibbon for the Byzantine Empire and all it stood for. Indeed it was to the prevailing spirit of scholasticism in the Byzantine Empire that he attributed most of the misfortunes of the Greek nation. He once wrote that to read so much as a page !

C. Th. Dimaras, La Grèce au temps des Lumières (Geneva, 1969) p. 13. ^K. Koumas, Istoriai anthropinonpraxeon... (Vienna, 1832) vol. XII, p. 512. 3 This encyclical was reprinted in Melissa, i Ephimeris Elliniki (Paris, 1820) pp. 218-19.

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of one particular Byzantine chronicler was enough to induce an attack of gout. Moreover his adulation of Greece's ancient culture also led him to despise much of Greece's post-Byzantine culture. He dismissed, for instance, the Erotokritos, that masterpiece of seventeenth-century Cretan demotic literature, as a monstrosity. If a good part of the activities of the intelligentsia was devoted to reawakening a consciousness of the past, this is not to say that their enthusiasms were widely shared among a population that was in large part illiterate. Gibbon may have been overstating it when he wrote that the modern Athenians 'walk with a supine indifference among the glorious ruins of antiquity; and such is the debasement of their character that they are incapable of admiring the genius of their predecessors'. 1 None the less all this ferment was largely confined to the small nationalist intelligentsia, which was to be found more without than within the Greek lands of the Ottoman Empire, and appears to have largely passed by the great mass of the Greeks. Indeed the reaction of the klephtic leader Nikotsaras on being compared in prowess to Achilles — 'What Achilles ... are you talking about? Did the musket of Achilles kill many?' 2 — was probably more indicative of Greek attitudes in the early nineteenth century than the somewhat self-conscious antics of the students at the Ellinomouseion of Ayvalik. Yet as is so often the way with nationalist movements it was this small and unrepresentative intelligentsia that was able to impress its own values on the national movement. Once independence had been achieved the whole cultural orientation of the new state revolved around ancient Greece, a fact that was aptly symbolised by the decision to transfer the capital of the newly independent state from the established town of Nafplion to Athens, at the time little more than a village. In the early years of the independent state the focus of historical writing in Greece was similarly on the glories of her ancient past. As Professor Zakythinos has written, 'authors writing in the first half of the nineteenth century viewed the battle of Chaeroneia as marking the end of the ancient world and thought of the whole of the subsequent history of Hellenism up to 1821 as a dark period of decadence over which lay the "black mantle of slavery'". 3 In 1841, for instance, the president of the Archaeological Society, Iakovos Rizos Neroulos, was to declare, on the Acropolis no less, that 1

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J. B. Bury (London, 1907) vol. VI, pp. 485-6. 2 Koumas, Istoriai, vol. XII, p. 544. 3 D. A. Zakythinos, 'Two historical parallels: the Greek nation under Roman and Turkish rule', in A. Laiou-Thomadakis (ed.), Charanis Studies (New Brunswick, NJ, 1980) p. 320.

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'Byzantine history is a very long and almost uniform series of foolish and shameful violations of the Roman Empire transplanted to Byzantium. It is the ignominious exemplar of the extreme wretchedness and debasement of the Greeks.' 1 But just as the Greeks' rediscovery of their classical past had in large measure been due to external stimuli, so their rediscovery of their Byzantine past, and the integration of the two heritages into a common tradition, also came about in response to external factors. In this case the stimulus was provided by a single foreign historian, the Austrian J. Ph. Fallmerayer. In a series of publications, and most notably in his Geschichte der Halbinsel Morea während des Mittelalters (Stuttgart, 1830), he argued that during the early Middle Ages Greece had been overrun by Slav and, to a lesser extent, Albanian invaders. These Slav and Albanian invaders had subsequently been Hellenised, but the element of racial continuity had been destroyed. In so arguing he called into question the most fundamental of the founding myths of modern Greek nationalism, namely that the modern Greeks were the lineal descendants of the ancient Greeks. Fallmerayer's numerous writings on this theme naturally provoked outrage and uproar among the intelligentsia of the fledgling state, as he was to discover personally when he visited Athens in 1833. A number of historians were moved to take up the cudgels against Fallmerayer, but none was more effective or more authoritative than Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos. Born in Constantinople in 1815 and brought up in Odessa, Paparrigopoulos migrated to Greece in 1830. After serving as a low-ranking functionary in the Ministry of Justice, this largely self-taught historian was appointed to a chair at the University of Athens in 1851. His main published work was his History of the Greek Nation from the most Ancient Times until the Present (Istoria tou ellinikou ethnous apo ton arkhaiotaton khronon mekhri tis simeron) published in five volumes between 1860 and 1874, a preliminary version of which, for school children, appeared in 1853. Having earlier argued that only primitive peoples allowed foreigners to monopolise the study of their history, 2 in this great work Paparrigopoulos adumbrated the theory of an unbroken continuity between ancient and modern Greece. There were, he argued, three main epochs in the long and glorious history of the Greek nation, interspersed with two long periods of subjugation to an alien 1 Quoted by K. Th. Dimaras in the preface to Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos, Istoria tou Ellinikou Ethnous [Iproti morphi: 1853] (Athens, 1970) p. 11. Veloudis, O Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer kai i genesis tou Ellinikou istorismou (Athens, 1982) p. 67. Veloudis's study was originally published as 'Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer und die Entstehung des neugriechischen Historismus', Südostforschungen, vol. XXIX (1970) pp. 43-90.

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power. The first of these great epochs ran from earliest times until 145 BC. This was followed by the Roman occupation, the first period of subjugation. The second great age was that of the Byzantine Empire, which came to an end with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. This was followed in turn by the dark age of Ottoman rule, the second period of subjugation. This was terminated with the achievement in 1821 of a partial emancipation, which would find its culmination in the Great Idea, the union of all areas of Greek settlement in the Near East within the confines of a single kingdom. Addressing himself to the Greek nation, in which he numbered all those who 'speak the Greek language as their own tongue', he argued that the ancient Greeks had discovered the parliamentary form of government and that the modern Greeks had been able to avoid the disunity that had characterised the ancient world by adopting the monarchical forms of the Byzantine governmental system. Paparrigopoulos was by no means alone in seeking to rehabilitate Greece's Byzantine past and to integrate it into the country's living tradition. One of the more influential of Paparrigopoulos' contemporaries, Spyridon Zambelios, in his Byzantine Studies (Vyzantinai Meletai) argued that, during the Byzantine period, 'in a manner of speaking, Hellenism was the head of the household but still a minor, the Church was the guardian of the household, while Rome was simply the renter or caretaker of the house'. Elsewhere he advanced the view that the scourge of the Ottoman Turks was a sacred necessity. For the Ottomans, in expelling the scholars of Byzantium and the writings of Greece in the direction of the homeland of Gutenberg and of Columbus, had acted as unwitting protectors of the creed of Hellenism. 1 But it was undoubtedly Paparrigopoulos who was, in effect, to determine the parameters that have underpinned much of Greek historical writing until the present day. It is, for instance, no accident that the, in many respects excellent, fifteen-volume history of Greece from ancient times until 1941 — one of the great publishing successes of Greece during the 1970s — assumed the title of Paparrigopoulos's great history. Given that the Greeks are a people of the Diaspora and that the independent state has never contained more than a proportion, initially a very small proportion, of the Greek nation, the articulation of a common historical past has assumed an unusual degree of importance in acting as a factor unifying communities scattered throughout the Near East. The university ^S. Zambelios, Vyzantinai meletai. Peri pigon neoellinikis ekatontaetiridos m. Kh. (Athens, 1857) pp. 34-5, 692.

ethnotitos

apo 8 akhri

10

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professor of history has traditionally been expected to provide the intellectual rationale for Greece's ethnika zitimata or national claims. When, some years ago, two scholars (successive holders, incidentally, of the Koraes Chair at King's College) appeared to question the physical and cultural continuity of the modern Greeks with their ancient forebears, the reaction within the Greek intellectual establishment was generally one of outrage. For the arguments of Romilly Jenkins and Cyril Mango summoned up the dreaded spectre of Fallmerayer, the mere mention of whose name, according to that percipient observer of nineteenth-century Greece, Charles Tuckerman, was enough to reduce an Athenian professor to apoplexy. When it was pointed out that one of the protagonists in the controversy was actually of Greek descent, one of Greece's leading intellectuals claimed that he had been led astray by his studies abroad and specifically asked why it was that Greece's university professors had not stepped in to protect the national honour. 1 The early history of the Koraes Chair at King's College, of which Romilly Jenkins and Cyril Mango were highly distinguished incumbents, provides in itself a graphic illustration of the way in which academics have been expected to act as purveyors of 'ethnic truth', to employ Romilly Jenkins' apposite phrase. 2 It was founded — together with other chairs (including one held by R. W. Seton-Watson) which were to form the nucleus of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies — under the aegis of Ronald Burrows, who was principal of the college between 1913 and 1920. Burrows was a close friend and committed supporter of Eleftherios Venizelos, the Greek liberal statesman. Indeed he once penned an ode to Venizelos which begins with the unforgettable couplet: Veniselos! Veniselos! Do not fail us! Do not fail us!

By all accounts Burrows was a most attractive personality and a man of the greatest personal integrity. But a study of the considerable body of material that still survives about the early history of the Koraes Chair suggests that his philhellenic sentiments were liable to get the better of his academic On this controversy see, for example, R. Jenkins, Byzantium and Byzantinism. Lectures in Memory of Louise Taft Semple (Cincinnati, 1963), C. Mango, 'Byzantinism and Romantic Hellenism', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. XXXVIII (1965) pp. 29-43 and the review article by S. Vryonis, 'Recent scholarship on continuity and discontinuity of culture: Classical Greeks, Byzantines, Modern Greeks', in S. Vryonis (ed.), The 'Past' in Medieval and Modern Greek culture (Malibu, Calif., 1978) pp. 236-56. 2 See chapter 6 'Truth and "Ethnic" Truth' in R. Jenkins, The Dilessi Murders (London, 1961) pp. 99-117.

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judgement. It is clear that he envisaged that an important part of the role of the incumbent of the newly established chair would be to engage in sophisticated academic propaganda on behalf of Greece and her national aspirations at one of the most crucial junctures in her modern history, the immediate aftermath of the First World War. For it briefly appeared that the age-old vision of the Megali Idea, the Great Idea of bringing all the historical territories of Hellenism within the bounds of a single state, was on the verge of fulfilment. But the first holder of the Koraes Chair, Arnold Toynbee, who delivered his inaugural lecture in October 1919 in the presence of Venizelos, a few months after the ill-fated Greek landings in Izmir, had other ideas. During the First World War he had compiled, under the direction of Lord Bryce, the Government Blue Book on The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, an undertaking during which, as he himself put it, he had learned 'nearly all that there is to be learnt to the discredit of the Turkish nation of their rule over other peoples'. 1 In 1921, however, at a critical point in the rapidly escalating Greek-Turkish confrontation in Anatolia, Toynbee spent nine months travelling extensively in areas under Greek, but not those under Turkish, control. During this time he reported for the Manchester Guardian and, on his return, wrote The Western Question in Greece and Turkey, a work of penetrating insight that remains essential reading for those who would understand the historical roots of Greek-Turkish antagonism. Given that one of Toynbee's conclusions was that the Greeks in the administration of the occupied territories of Western Anatolia had shown themselves to be no more fitted to rule over populations of mixed race and religion than had the Turks, it is not surprising that the book should have aroused bitter controversy in Greek and philhellenic circles, particularly as the publication of the book preceded by a few months the catastrophic expulsion of the Greek armies from Anatolia. The endowment for the chair had, at the behest of Principal Burrows, been subscribed for by the Greek community in Britain. The subscribers were overwhelmingly Chiot in origin (hence the decision to name the chair after Chios's most famous son, Adamantios Korais) and, astonishingly, they had been permitted by the university authorities to retain an element of control over the capital sum raised for the endowment. They were not at all pleased by Toynbee's interpretation of his duties as Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature and lost no time in remonstrating with the university authorities and calling for Toynbee's 1

The Western Question in Greece and Turkey (London, 1922) p. IX.

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resignation. At the same time the Greek government which had, at the instigation of Venizelos, voted a subsidy for the payment of the salary of a lecturer in Modern Greek, withdrew its subvention and thus it was that modern Greek was not taught at the University of London for a period of fifty years. Ernest Barker, who had succeeded to the principalship of King's College on the death of Burrows in 1920, loyally defended Toynbee's right to espouse views unacceptable to the subscribers to the chair and the dispute continued to rumble on for a considerable time. The Greek Subscribers' Committee, headed by the former Greek minister in London, that exemplary bibliophile Ioannis Gennadius, appears to have had a mole in the Senate of the University. This informant reported that, in one of the Senate's discussions of the Toynbee affair, a lay member of the Senate, a knight of the shires, had expostulated in a state of high indignation that the academic freedom to which a professor of the university was entitled did not extend to the freedom to behave like a cad. Eventually, in 1924, Toynbee did resign, whereupon he was promptly approached by the London minister of the newly founded Turkish Republic with the offer of a chair at the University of Istanbul. If I have dwelt some length on the Toynbee saga it is because it strikingly illustrates the extent to which the study and teaching of history has been, and remains, in Greece, as in the other countries of the Balkans, a highly charged political issue. The extent to which the notion of 'ethnic truth' still has its champions was strikingly illustrated by a recent case in which a Greek secondary school teacher had the temerity to question the whole notion of the krypha skholeia, the underground schools which, as every Greek school child is taught, purportedly kept alive a knowledge of the Greek language and culture during the dark days of Turkish oppression and which were secretly conducted by the Orthodox clergy because of an alleged proscription of Greek education by the Ottoman Turks. No matter that the Greeks enjoyed a high degree of freedom and autonomy in educational matters or that it was not until 1894, for instance, that the Ottoman authorities made the teaching of Turkish compulsory in all minority schools in the Empire: the hapless teacher was pilloried in the Athenian press. One prominent Greek personality declared that even if the krypho skholeio was a myth, none the less it should still continue to be propagated for such myths were an essential element in the national identity. Even more recently a Greek Cypriot teacher at a private school in Athens, catering mainly for the children of foreign residents, was ordered to be dismissed by the ministry of education, following complaints that he had been engaging in pro-Turkish propaganda in the classroom. What he had in fact done was to ask his class to write an essay looking at the Turkish invasion of

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northern Cyprus in 1974 from the Turkish viewpoint. This had sufficiently enraged a group of Greek parents to cause them to complain. When ministry of education officials discovered that he had included a few official Turkish government publications with the recommended reading for the class they invoked a 1931 law which prohibited foreign schools in Greece from holding any kind of educational materials deemed to be 'unfavourable to the Greek nation' to justify an order for his immediate dismissal. Ironically the dismissed teacher's wife was of Armenian descent. It would be wrong, however, to end up on a note of pessimism. For over the past twenty years or so the study of modern Greek history has undergone a radical transformation, both within and without the country. Outside the country modern Greek studies have mercifully ceased to be the preserve of belles-lettrists intent on projecting their own Utopian fantasies onto Greece, while within Greece a new generation of scholars are introducing an altogether new element of professionalism into the study of their country's recent history. Doubtless the study and teaching of the past will long remain a politically sensitive area. But there are hopeful indications that modern Greek historiography may yet break free from the shackles of the past.

THE CORRESPONDENCE OF ADHAMANTIOS KORAIS WITH THOMAS BURGESS 1789-1792

Almost ninety years ago Professor Ingram Bywater sketched the outline of the relations between Adhamantios Korais (1748 to 1833), the leading figure in the intellectual revival that characterised the Greek world in the years before 1821, and the Oxford classical scholar Thomas Burgess. 1 More recently Korais' relations with Burgess and with another Oxford scholar Robert Holmes have been briefly discussed by Ph. I. Iliou, who utilised material gathered in Oxford by Joannes Gennadius, for many years Greek Minister in London. 2 Since the time, however, when Bywater and Gennadius carried out their researches in Oxford, the greater part of the Burgess archive has been acquired by the Bodleian Library. Among these papers are six letters from Korais to Burgess, four of which do not appear to have been published, while two have been published only in part. 3 The Burgess archive also contains a number of letters from the French classical scholar, Jean-Baptiste Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison (1750-1805) to Burgess which throw a considerable amount of light on the scholarly activities of his protege, Korais. The details of Korais' association with Burgess, at an early stage in his scholarly career, in so far as they can now be reconstructed on the basis of the surviving correspondence, are offered here as a contribution to the wider study of Korais' role in the development of classical studies in Europe which in now called

1 I. Bywater, A bio-bibliographical note on Coray, The Journal of Hellenic Studies 1 (1880) 305307. Cf. also D. Thereianos,'yl&/zrf^rios- Koparjs~, I, Trieste 1889, 275-276. I wish to thank Mr. George Forrest of Wadham College, Oxford University for reading an earlier draft of this article. Ph. I. Iliou, 'AueKSora Kal fexaa/jeva ypdpfiara and TT]U aXXrjAoypafiia TOV Kopaf\, "Epavos els 'A8a[idi>Tiov Kopafjv, ed. K. Th. Dhimaras, Athens 1965, 56, 68, 69, 105, 106. This informative article was originally published in 1953. ^Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Eng. letters c. 134, fols. 71-81. The Burgess archive, acquired by the Library in 1949, is briefly described by D. M. Barratt in the Bodleian Library Record, 3 (1950-1951) 274-278. I gratefully acknowledge the permission of the Bodleian Library to publish these letters, which are not included in the relevant volume of the most recent edition of Korais's collected letters undertaken by thc'OfllXos MEXITQF TOV 'EXXr)VtKov AiafiiuTiopov under the direction of K. Th. Dhimaras,'ASap.dvTtos' Kopatjs, ' A\Arj\oypa[a, i (1774-1798), Athens 1964. A comprehensive list of earlier published collections of Korais's letters is given by Iliou, op. cit., 56-66.

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for. 1 For Korais' indefatigable political and propagandistic efforts on behalf of emergent Greece have tended to obscure the high reputation which he enjoyed among his European contemporaries as a classical scholar. The noted historian and bibliographer Thomas Frognall Dibdin, for example, considered that 'Europe has produced few critics more learned than is Dr. Coray' 2 . The six surviving letters from Korais to Burgess, which were unknown to earlier editors, are also published here in full to help complete the published corpus of Korais's correspondence. Thomas Burgess, born in 1756, was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. After graduating in 1778, he was elected a fellow of Corpus Christi College in 1783, a post which he held until 1791. His election was followed by his ordination as a priest in the Church of England in 1784. Burgess's contemporaries seem to have had no great estimation of his abilities as a scholar. Indeed it is recorded that the great Richard Porson (1789-1808) regarded his scholarship with much contempt, which he took little care to

1 Cf. the remarks of P. K. Enepekides, 'Emarpoipij eiç TI)V 'EXXdôa ôID TOV Koparj, ArjßiovpyCa, 3 (1950), 105-109, reprinted in Korais-Kumas-Kalvos... Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Griechentums seit 1453, II, Athens 1967, 15 and the same author's Documents et nouvelles lettres inédites d'Adamantios Coray, tirées des bibliothèques et archives européennes (Paris-Besançon-Amsterdam-Leyde-Vienne-Munich-Berlin), Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft 5 (1956) 86-87. Additions to the corpus of Korais's letters are now more likely to come to light in the archives of Western Europe than in Greece. 2 An Introduction to the Knowledge of Rare and Valuable Editions of the Greek and Latin_ Classics ..., London 1808, II, 291, cited by K. Th. Dhimaras,'AvéKÔOTa ypdßfzara TOV Koparj, 'Epavoç elç 'A8ap.dvnov Koparju, Athens 1965, 18. A number of dedicatory inscriptions in copies of their own works presented to Korais by eminent European doctors and scholars and now preserved in the Korais Library, Chios, are listed in S. Kavvadas, 'Aiep(ôaeiç npoç Koparjy, "Epavoç elç 'AôaptdvTiov Koparjv, Athens 1965 , 209-227, originally published in 1958. A number of these indicate the esteem in which Korais was held by his colleagues, e.g. that of Friedrich Thiersch in a copy of his Specimen editionis Symposii Piatonis..., Göttingen 1808: Tit) Xap.TrpoTdTm dvôpi Koparj, ndvruv 'EWijviov öcrot vvu elai KVÔlaTb) Kai peylaru, 'O Svyypaevç. Cf. also Thiersch's remarks in the Allgemeine Zeitschrift von Deutschen für Deutsche, vol. I, pt. 4, Nürnberg 1813, 561-564, and G. L. Mahne, D. Wyttenbachii epistolarum selectarum Fasciculi très..., Ghent 1830,1, 52, 60, 63.

' EWT)VIIC?I

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concealwhile a recent authority has written that Oxford produced no scholar of the first rank between Tyrwhitt and Elmsley. In spite of considerable industry and an early start Thomas Burgess... achieved nothing of any real importance2. He is perhaps better known as a high functionary of the Church of England, as a campaigner against slavery and as a vigorous religious polemicist. Appointed a prebend of Durham in 1794, he was consecrated Bishop of St. David's in 1803. There he took an active part in educational work, one of his main concerns being the raising of the intellectual standards of the Welsh clergy. He had a leading role in the foundation of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804 and was instrumental in the foundation of St. David's College, Lampeter, in 1822. His intellectual energies were largely taken up by religious controversy, notably a prolonged pamphlet dispute with the Unitarians between the years 1814 and 1820. A friend of Hannah More and other members of the Evangelical Party, he was vigorously opposed to the Catholic Emancipation Bill of 1829. In 1825 he was translated to the richer see of Salisbury where he remained until

1 J. S. Watson, The Life of Richard Porson, M. A., London 1861, 304 cited by J. E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, Cambridge 1908, II, 431. Porson, on the other hand, thought highly of Korais. William Maltby recalled that Porson had a high opinion ofCoray as a scholar, and advised me by all means to purchase his Hippocrates, Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers to which is added Porsoniana, London 1856, 322. Porson again referred to Korais's edition of the Treaties on Airs, Waters and Places in a letter of 1 February 1802 to Martin Davy, H. R. Luard, The Correspondence of Richard Porson ..., Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Octavo Publications no. 8 (1867) 71. Luard also published a curious letter linking Porson with Korais. Heinrich Eichstädt had dedicated his edition of Diodorus Siculus (Halle 1800-1802) to Korais, Porson, F. A. Wolf and Daniel Wyttenbach: 'Quatuor viris in re critica summis Diam. Coray Smyrnensi medicinae doctori Richardo Porsoni ... Frideric. August. Wolfio ... Danieli Wyttenbachio... hanc Diodori Siculi novam editionem ... sacravit Henr. Car. Abr. Eichstädt.' In June 1802 Eichstädt wrote to Porson that, while the other three had acknowledged his compliment, he had had no word from Porson: 'Praescripsi simul Coraii, Wolfii et Wyttenbachii nomina, qui Tecum sic ornant et tutantur artes humanitatis, ut illustriorem Criticorum quatuorviratum nullum, mea sententia, aevum umquam viderit ... a Te, Vir celeberrime, nil ego responsi tuli...', ibid., 74. Korais seems to have had some contact with Richard Porson for when, in 1802, he was visited in Paris by two Oxford scholars they brought with them a copy of Porson's edition of Medea. Korais, in recounting this in a letter of 26 December 1802 to Alexandhros Vasileiou, added that he also expected a copy of Hecuba from Porson. When the two visitors expressed surprise that Korais should have translated Beccaria's Dei delitti e delle pene into modern Greek, Tlepl dpaprrifj.dTcov Kai ttoiuÙv, ttoXitlkÛs decopov/ievcov (Paris 1802), Korais gave them two of the few remaining copies, one for Porson and one for J. C. Banks, a London bookseller who had sold many copies of Korais's editions of Theophrastus and Hippocrates,' AXX-qXoypatpia, II (1799-1809), Athens 1966, 59-60. In 1804, Korais shipped fifty-two copies of his edition of Heliodorus/WAio&i/xw AIBiottlkuu ßißUa ôéKa, ä xàpiv 'EXk^uiav éféôcoKe fiera crqpeiéaeojv, npoadels- Kai rds" vtrà tov 'ApiÔTov avXÀeyeiaaç, réeos" Sè AvîkSotovs, 8ia6povs ypa[\raTe_ ... ¿Xde rolvw trpos- ¿pe d>$ rdxLora ... Xlav Xiav pe fieyaXiOTa.Tr/f dyxivoiav, (Hare vd ¿vopdCerai, Tp6iroi> Tim, o Kopvtfiaios TMV KpiTiKtov, 'AXXr)Xoypaia, 1,131. 3 Ibid., I, 131-132. Cornelius de Pauw made accusations of cannibalism against the inhabitants of the Mani, whom he described as 'the most perfidious men on earth... a nation of robbers', Philisophical Dissertations on the Greeks, London 1793, II, 303-306, translated from the French edition, Berlin 1787-1788. It is not surprising to find Korais referring to the CJVKOQAVTIA TOV

dvaioxwTov TlavLov, 'AXXr}Xoypa(a, I, 146.

^Kontogiannis, op. cit., 131-132.

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been reprinted in the recent collected edition of Korais's correspondence, tentatively dated before June 17911. A week later, Korais wrote a further short letter to Burgess dated 1 October 1789 (letter 2). Although the next surviving letter dates from February 1791, it is clear that their correspondence continued during the intervening year. In a letter of 19 March 1790 Korais asked Holmes to tell Burgess that he had received his letter, to which he intended to reply as soon as possible. En attendant, he added, /«' lui rends grâces de la peine qu'il s'est donnée, et des toutes les choses honnêtes qu'il me dit au sujet de mes remarques sur Hippocrate2. During this period Burgess showed Korais's emendations to William Heberden 3 (the Elder 1710-1801), one of the most eminent of English eighteenth century physicians. Two letters from Heberden to Burgess mentioning Korais survive among Burgess's papers. In the first, dated 1790, Heberden wrote that : Y o u r f r i e n d Dr. Coray has indeed a great knowledge of the Greek language and is well versed in the writers of it, and is, besides, happy in having good j u d g e m e n t and great critical sagacity. There are n o n e of his corrections but that must appear at least extremely ingenious, and plausible, and m u c h the greatest part are at first sight unquestionably true. For m y part I h a v e n o doubt about any of them, except the last ... I have shown them to one of the best Grecians 4 , that I k n o w a m o n g my Brethren, and he has examined them all in Hippocrates, and has the same high opinion of t h e m and of Dr. Coray, that I have .. . 5

In a letter of 13 December later in the same year, 1790, Heberden again wrote to Burgess in praise of Korais : W h e n you write to M . Coray be so good as to tell him that I a m very well satisfied with the d e f e n s e of his correction, and think he h a s taken m o r e notice of the objection than it deserved; m y best wishes and compliments

1

'AXkqkoypcHpia, I, 163-164. Ibid., 1,123. 3 As a young man at Cambridge, Heberden acquired a reputation as a classical scholar and contributed a letter from Cleander to Alexias chief physician to Artaxerxes King of Persia on The State of Physic in Greece, to the Athenian Letters, III, London 1743, 194-201. Heberden was described by Dr. Samuel Johnson, whom he treated during his last illness, as ultimus Romanorum, the last of our learned physicians. Evidence of an interesting link between Heberden, Dr. Johnson and John Paradise is afforded by a memoir of Dr. Johnson written by the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, according to whom Johnson 'established a Club at a little ale house in Essex Street, composed of a strange mixture of very learned and very ingenious odd people. Of the former were Dr. Heberden, Mr. Windham, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Paradise. Those of the letter I do not think it proper to enumerate', C. R. Leslie, Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds: with notices of some of his contemporaries, London 1865, II, 455-456. ^Probably Sir George Baker, see footnote below. 5 MS. Eng. letters c. 136, f. 25.

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attend him. I thank you for communicating his last remarks, which I here return: in these, as in the former I see his great critical sagacity in discovering errors, and a great learning and judgement in restoring the genuine (?) readings: this too is the opinion of Sir G. Baker 1 , to whom I shewed them. It is a most mortifying consideration, that in the present declining state of Greek literature, reputation is all that he is likely to get, and this only in the small circle of those who understand enough of the learned languages to be at all judges of his uncommon merit: an edition of all Hippocrates' works would be an immense undertaking: but the collecting of all his observations in 2 Vol. 8vo might probably be effected in no long time. I hope the University would readily engage to print such a work, that at least he might have the fame of it without any risque of his fortune... 2

This proposal to publish at Oxford a more extended work consisting of Korais's critical emendations to all the works of Hippocrates was presumably among the topics which Burgess and Korais discussed during the period October 1789 to February 1791, for which their correspondence has not survived. For Ingram Bywater noted an interesting entry in the register of the delegates' proceedings of the Oxford University Press for 4 February 1791: Mr. Coray having applied to the Board to know whether they will treat with him for his Observations on Hippocrates, Mr. Burgess is requested to write to him for further explanation of his proposals3. Arrangements to print the work at the press seemed to have been rapidly completed for in a letter of 24 February (letter 3) Korais expressed his gratitude to the delegates of the press for having agreed to undertake the printing of his work, and also thanked Burgess, through whose good offices this agreement had been brought about. Korais adds the usual author's warning that he cannot guarantee when the work will be ready for the printer for a thousand and one circumstances which one can neither foresee nor prevent can delay the publication of a work.

This was Sir George Baker (1722-1809) who, like Heberden, was a graduate of Cambridge University. A distinguished physician, he was nine times elected President of the College of Physicians between 1785 and 1795. He was, in the words of the Dictionary of National Biography, 'a constant admirer of literature as well as of science, and wrote graceful Latin prose and amusing epigrams'. Baker also supported the young Porson during the early stages of his career. Heberden and Baker were presumably the two famous London doctors, experts in the Greek language, to whom Korais sent, at Villoison's instigation, a specimen of his work on Hippocrates. 'Eyrpeiropai, he wrote to Lotos on 15 August 1790, VA AT ypatfiui TL aireicpidriaav, OXL npd? ipe Kar ' eiOelav, aX\. ' els' rpLrou Trpdtjoiirou (presumably Burgess), 'AXki)\oypaLa, I, 132. 2 MS. Eng. letters c. 136, f. 23. %ywater, op. cit., 306. Daniel Wyttenbach's edition of Plutarch's Moralia TlXovrapxov rov

Xaipioisetos rat 'HQiKa. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, id est opera, exceptis vitis, reliqu was published in Oxford in 1795 apparently through the intervention of Burgess, Sandvs op v cit., II, 431.

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As soon as he heard that the delegates were prepared to publish Korais's work, Villoison lost no time in writing, on 13 March 1791, to Burgess to thank him for exerting his influence on Korais's behalf: Je profite avec bien de l'empressement du premier moment que j'ai de libre pour vous témoigner ma vive et éternelle reconnoissance du service important que vous avez rendu à la Littérature grecque, à l'Antiquité, à la Médecine, à moi, Monsieur, et à Mr. Corai, en determinant l'Université d'Oxford à se charger de l'impression de son ouvrage immortel. Vous en serez étonné quand vous le verrez, et vous conviendrez qu'il n'y a point de livre de critique qui renferme tant de découvertes. Il a restitué Hippocrate d'un bout à l'autre, et chemin faisant, il corrige une foule de passages d'Herodote, d'Athenée, Platon, Sophocle, Aristophane, Hesychius, etc. Il me montre son travail à mesure qu'il avance, et mon admiration va toujours en croissant. Son premier volume sera prêt et livré à l'impression dans dix mois. Dieu veuille seulement conserver des jours si précieux aux lettres. Sa santé est très foible et très chancelante ; et la position précaire ou il se trouve, la pauvreté où il est réduit, ses inquiétudes sur l'avenir aggravent ses infirmités. Je lui ai communiqué, Monsiur et cher ami, votre dernière lettre. Il est plein de noblesse et de délicatesse, croit avec beaucoup de raison, que ses intérêts ne peuvent pas être en des meilleures mains que les vôtres, s'en rapporte entièrement à ce que vous ferez et réglerez avec l'Université d'Oxford. Les secours qu'il en tirera, lui serviront pour vivre pendant qu'il rédigera son second volume. Heureusement il est logé gratis chez un ami commun qui a une très belle Bibliothèque dont il tire un grand parti. Des revers ont fait perdre à cette homme vertueux une fortune considérable dont jouissoient ses parens qui étoient les plus forts négocians de Smyrne. Je vous prie en grace d'insérer au plutôt dans vos deux premiers cahiers de vos Observationes Miscellaneae Criticae, aussitôt qu'elles paroitront, toutes les quarante remarques qu'il vous a envoyées, afin de la faire connoître, de donner une idée de son talent et d'annoncer son ouvrage à l'Europe savante ... 1 T h e Observationes in Hippocratem which Korais originally sent to Burgess, at Villoison's instigation in 1789, should not be confused with the Observations on Hippocrates, which the delegates of the university press undertook to publish. The Observationes were included in the two fasciscules of B u r g e s s ' s Musei Oxoniensis litterarii conspectus: accédant pro speciminibus Corayii emendationes in Hippocratem... published in Oxford and London, in 1792 and 1797 respectively. These were some of the 'quarante remarques' that Villoison had asked Burgess to insert in his Observationes Miscellaneae Criticae2. A s Burgess makes clear in the first fascicule, he published these emendations as a prelude to Korais' projected large scale work

' M S . Eng. letters c. 134, f. 136. This letter was published in part, and not entirely accurately, by Harford, who regarded it as an amusing ... specimen of the levity with which this sprightly French scholar treats the formidable difficulties ofemendatory criticism, op. cit., 160-161. ^Burgess had published a Conspectus Criticarum Observationum in Scriptores Graecos et Latinos...,n. p. 1788.

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on Hippocrates: Emendationes in Hippocratem nunc editas accept cum duobis aliis fasciculis ab Auctore eruditissimo sagacissimoque, hodie medico Parisiensi, V. CI. Corayio, qui ad prelum Oxoniense parat Observationes in omnia Hippocratis opera1. The first fascicule was dedicated to Frederick North, second Earl of Guilford 2 , chancellor of Oxford University and father of Frederick North, fifth Earl of Guilford. It contained twelve emendations, the manuscript of which, in Korais' hand, is preserved among Burgess's papers3. The text of an addendum to this first set of emendations is also preserved. The greater part of this addendum was published by Burgess4, but the complete text, as it survives, is given here (letter 4). In the second fascicule a further eleven emendations were published5. The next surviving letter from Korais is dated 19 February 1792 and contains a lengthy discussion of certain emendations to the text of Aristotle's Poetics (letter 5). This was followed by the last surviving letter in the correspondence, dated 1 June 1792 (letter 6), in which Korais reminded Burgess that he had not received a copy of the Musei Oxoniensis litterarii conspectus. He had still not received a copy of this, his first scholarly publication in the field of Greek literature6, by January, of the next year. In a

* Musei Oxoniensis

litterarii

conspectus.

..,1,2.

2Viro

N o b i l i s s i m o Friderico Comiti de Guildford, Universitatis Oxoniensis Cancellario, hunc Musei Oxoniensis conspectum, et specimina, ea, qua par est, observantia dedicat T h o m a s Burgess. Ms. Eng. letters c. 134, f o l s . 82-88. T h e fourteen pages of M S . are headed in another hand Coraii

Emendationes

in Hippocratem.

T h e emendations are printed on pp. 11-23. 1, 22-23.

4Musei

Oxoniensis

litterarii

conspectus,

5Musei

Oxoniensis

litterarii

speciminum fasciculus

secundus, London 1797, 1-12.

H e had earlier published a translation o f the ' O r t h o d o x T e a c h i n g ' o f Platon L e v s h i n , Metropolitan of M o s c o w , in L e i p z i g M_YL%2,'OpdàôoÇoç AiSaaKakia C'LTOVV (JVVOI/JIÇ TFJÇ XpLOTiavuâis BeoXoylaç avyypatpeïaa napd TOV So^urdrov Kai nauoauoTdrov iv ' ¡epopovdxoiç Kvplov TIMTUVOS, trp(Âr)v ' ApXtpavSpÎTov Trjs- év TpoirCxi Moyfjç, ravw ôè tlaviepmrdTov Mr)TpotroXÎTov Môaxaç Kai peTat^paadèïaa TrpcoTOP pèf ¿K Trjs' 'PcoaaiKrjs' elç _RI)I> reppaviKiiv, vvv ôè ¿K RI)S- REPPAVIKÎ)S ciç TT\V 'EXXr)V0PUIIAIKI)V AidXeKTov ij wpocreTéOriaav crqpeuoaeis' Sidfopot, Kai TTPOÔLOLKTÎQIÇ rrepi Karrixweiosnapà TOV Mera^paarov. 'Ev Atipict rrjsSaÇovLaç napd 'Iadwi] r&rXXotr 'EppavoirijA BpeÎTKOU(j). "Eret 1782. This was f o l l o w e d a year later by a Sivoipis t % 'lcpaç 'IajopiasKai r f j ç Karrixrjcreasprinted « V XPWif TBJF KOIVUV axoXeluu TOV èXXt)ULKov yévovç ( V e n i c e 1783). In 1786 his Master's thesis, presented in the Medical Faculty at Montpellier, Pyretologiae Synopsis ... auctor, Diamantes Coray, Patria Smyrnensis, Natione Graecus..., w a s published, f o l l o w e d in 1787 by his doctoral thesis, Medicus Hippocraticus sive de praecipuis officiis medici ex primo Hippocratis aphorismo deductis, oratio ab auctore D. Coray Smyrnensi..., which was also published in Montpellier. In the same year, 1787, and again in Montpellier, he published a French translation o f C. G . Selle, Medicina clinica oder Handbuch der medicinischen Praxis... Korais's contribution to the first volume of the Musei Oxoniensis litterarii conspectus was thus his first published contribution in the field o f G r e e k p h i l o l o g y , although this was quickly f o l l o w e d by an appendix to an edition o f Xenocrates's ITepi TQÇ àuo èuvSpav rpoftqç, ed. J. B. Rasarius, Conrad Gesner and J. G . F. Franz (Naples 1794), a rare copy of which survives in the R a d c l i f f e Science Library, O x f o r d . This appendix was headed Diamantis Coray Smyrnaei Doctoris Medici Montspeliensis animadversiones ad libellum Xenocratis ITepl TT]s" diro ivvSpm Tpo^T)?. The emendationes in Hippocratem thus antedated by a number of years Korais's Les Caractères de Théophraste which has been claimed as his first publication on antiquity by S. G . Chaconas, Adamantios Korais: a study in Greek nationalism, N e w Y o r k 1942,46. 6

I KATH'IMAS

50

ANATOLI

letter of about 15 January 1793 to Villoison, Korais recalled that Burgess had written on the previous 6 June (Korais' letter of 1 June 1792 is headed in Burgess's hand: Answered June 6), promising copies of the Musei Oxoniensis litterarii conspectus and his Opuscules de Graving for himself, Villoison and Pierre-Henri Larcher (1726-1812), a distinguished hellenist who was also noted for his translations of English literature. Seven months later these copies had not arrived and Korais, believing that this was possibly due to oversight on the part of Burgess's bookseller, was uncertain whether to remind Burgess of his promise, n'ayant pas jugé à propos de réclamer un cadeau. He did in fact overcome his scruples and wrote to Burgess, but he later wrote to Villoison, in a letter of 7 March 1793, that he had received no reply 2 . Again in letter of 1 April 1797, Korais wrote to Bernard Keun (17331801) 3 , the pastor to the Dutch community in Smyrna to whom Korais owed much of his early education, that : ... j'ai oublié de vous dire que j'ai déjà donné au commencement de la Révolution un specimen de mes corrections sur Hippocrate, que mon ami Burgess, un des plus célèbres hellénistes et critiques actuels d'Angleterre, grand vicaire de l'évêque de Durham, a inséré dans le Museum Oxoniense ouvrage périodique qu'il rédige lui-même. Il m'envoya un exemplaire que je n'ai pas reçu, parce que ç'avoit été précisément à l'epoque où toute communication avec l'Angleterre venoit d'être défendue4. It seems likely that Korais never in fact received a copy, for as late as 12 July 1805 he wrote to Alexandhros Vasileiou in Vienna that he had never received the copy which Burgess had sent: "Ene ira npocrdérei ÔTL evpíoKovTai Kal Kpioeiç âÀÀai Kal Siopdùjcreiç TOV ' I unoKpâTovç LÔIKCLÎ ¡IOV KaTaxupiap-évai etç TÔ 'O^ÚJVLÜKÓV (Oxford) Movaeïov Karà TÔ 1792, npcoTov Kal ôevTepov TÓpov, ânô TOV Bvpyéamov (Burgess) ¿U7?T ' âir ' aÙTÔ xa^ápi Sèv êxûj. ' EvOvpovpcu ÔTL irapaKaXeaOeiç áno TÓV Burgess TOV iuTeiXa etç TOV

TÔ 1790 rj 91 STOÇ Siatpôpovç é£rïyfjaeiç ' I TTíTOKpárr¡u AOTIVIUTÍ ypappévaç Kal

ÁVTLTWA

TOV

NFXÛTOV Kal

Villoison, ërepov Kdvelç

8ià

TOV

éf f¡¡dújv ôèv ëXajîe

Sevrépov

TÓ/J.OV

Larcher, Kal 5

TÍnoTe .

Kal ÔTL

TOV

TÔ

arjpeLaxreLÇ

enefii/íe

fié

Movaeiov,

TPÎTOV

SL

ËV '

SLÚ

èpé

eiç

Tpia

TOV

dXXà

et studiorum rationem 1 j.e. Jani Vincentii Gravinae Opuscula ad historiam litterariam, pertinentia ... Oxford 1792. 2 'AÀÀTjÀoypatpia, I, 292, 312. 3On Korais's relations with Keun, see N. K. Kh. Kostis, Bepvâpôoç Keun Kal Kopaqç. TTapmaaôç, 16 (1894) 601-612. See also D. C. Hesseling, Korais et ses amis hollandais, Elç PVTÎHTJV STrvplôuvoç Adpvpov, Athens 1935, 1-3. Korais's Master's thesis, Pyretologiae Synopsis ..., Montpellier 1786, was dedicated to the 'reverendissimo ac carissimo viro Bernardo Keun apud Batavos Smyrnae commorantes praeconi verbi divini omnibus naturae ac studii praesidiis parato'. 4 'AMrjAoypafia, 1,510. 5 Ibid., II, 280-281.

THE C O R R E S P O N D E N C E

OF K O R A I S WITH B U R G E S S

51

The War of the First Coalition against France (1792-1797) seems effectively to have prevented Korais from corresponding with his English colleagues and his letters from this period indicate the difficulties he had in communication 1 . It was presumably these difficulties in communication that were in part responsible for the fact that his projected Observations on Hippocrates were not after all published by the Oxford University Press. In his letter of 24 February 1791, Korais had informed Burgess that he could tell the delegates of the university press to expect a volume of his work on Hippocrates in eight or ten months. Yet four and a half years later, in a letter of 16 October 1795, he told Bernard Keun in Smyrna that he had been obliged to put his work on Hippocrates aside for some considerable time on account of les calamités publiques, mes malheurs privés et la nécessité d'y remédier par des moyens précipités2. In addition to the complications caused by the breakdown in communications with England, Korais seems latterly to have favoured the printing of his major work on Hippocrates in France. He wrote in a letter of June 1796 to his friend, the hellenist Chardon de la Rochette, that he was considering publishing his Observations sur Hippocrate in a proposed edition of Lavaux, the prospectus of which he had recently read, ce que je ferois avec plus de plaisir que de les faire imprimer séparément en Angleterre^. The second series of his Emendationes in Hippocratem was, of course, published by Burgess the next year, 1797, in London, but it is not clear whether these were a new series or merely the continuation of the emendationes he had earlier sent to Burgess in 1789/90 on Villoison's recommendation. This latter supposition is perhaps the more likely, for in his letter of 24 February 1791 Korais had registered his disappointment at Burgess's decision to publish only the first cahier of his observations in the first volume of the Musei Oxoniensis litterarii conspectus. It is certain, however, that the eleven pages of corrections published in this second fascicule comprised only a very small fraction of the emendations and observations on Hippocrates which he had gathered and which a year later he estimated to fill seven or eight hundred pages 4 . Whatever reasons lay behind the decision to abandon the proposed Oxford edition, his next work on Hippocrates, an edition of the Treatise on Airs, Waters and Places, Traité d'Hippocrate des Airs, des Eaux et des

ïlbid., I, 311, 317, 342, 351,361, 367-368,451, 505. Ibid„ Í, 414. Cf. 292, 301. 3 Ibid., 1,460. 4 Ibid„ 1,510. 2

I KATH'IMAS

52

ANATOLI

Lieux ... was in fact published in a two volume edition in Paris in 1800 1 , when it was widely acclaimed and translated into German and Spanish 2 . The merit of this edition was recognised in 1810 by the Académie Française whose assessors wrote that : M. Coray a rendu a véritable service à la science et à la critique en traduisant ce traité, lequel ses remarques ont répandu une clarté nouvelle. Le nombre des passages qu'il a mieux entendus et de ceux qu'il a restitués, corrigés et expliqués d'une manière satisfaisante, est très considérable. La sagacité de sa critique et le bonheur de ses conjectures semblent le conduire souvent jusqu'à l'évidence ... la philologie et la science médicale, répandues avec choix et sans profusion dans ses notes, rendent la lecture de ce traité aussi intéressante qu'instructive ... 3 Once the difficulties in communication with England were eased Korais resumed his correspondence with Burgess, for in a letter of 15 April 1798 to La Porte du Theil, keeper of manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale, he asked for a manuscript of the Poetics of Aristotle, which Burgess had requested him to collate 4 . None of Korais's correspondence with Burgess survives from this period, but it seems that the two scholars remained in contact until about 1803, for in a letter of 17 November 1808 to Alexandhros Vasileiou in Vienna, Korais referred to the long correspondence he had had with Burgess and which had ended some four of five years previously 5 . It has been suggested that Burgess was the recipient of Korais's well known letter of 19 November 1808 to the British and Foreign Bible Society in which he answered the Society's request for advice on its proposed translation of the New Testament into modern Greek 6 . This was a plausible suggestion in view of Korais' long

second edition was published in Paris in 1816,'/TmoKpárovs TÓ nepi 'Aépav, 'YSÚTIÚV, Tónav, Seúrepou étcdoQév fierá rr¡s- rahAucrj? fieraifipdijecos- Kai_ TÖ TOV ra\t)i>ov, Ö ¡¡piaros- iarpós- Kai iXóao^os'. 4>i\oTÍp(I) Sanáis?) TÜ)I> öpoyeväv Xluii> ... 2 Hippocrates' Abhandlung von der Luft, dem Wasser und den Gegenden, nach dem

Französischen bearbeitet, trans, von Högelmuller, Vienna 1804, in W. Heinsius, Allgemeines

Bücher Lexikon ..., Leipzig 1812, ii, 382, Tratado ... de los aires, aquas y lugares por el Dr. Coray y traducido al castellano por D. Francisco Bonafón, Madrid 1808, in A. Palau Y Dulcet, Manuel del Librero Hispanoamericano ..., Oxford-Barcelona 1953, vi, 601. The reference to a 'Slovakian' translation made by S. G. Chaconas, op. cit., 33 appears to arise from a misreading of BpeaÄaßia for Bratislava instead of Breslau, where a further German edition was

apparently printed in 1815. See G. Ladas, Biß\ioypaiKai epevvai ávafcpópevai els- ra ¡Épya TOV 'ÁSapavTÍov Kopafj, Athens 1934, 40. ^B. Knös, L'Histoire de la littérature ne'o-grecque, lapériode jusqu'en 1821, Uppsala 1962, 592. Cf.'ASapavrLovv Kopafj, TÚ pera QávaTov evpedévTa ovyypdppara ... ed. A. Z. Mamoukas, I, Athens 1881, K

4

'AXk!)\oypaij>ía, I, 520. Cf. 208.

5

Ibid., II, 486. 6 e.g. by lliou, op. cit., 119, and'AÁÁr)\oypaQak\j. ovx àpoiajç XapLrrpôv ècrTi, et plus bas p. 464, en parlant du sang : âvâyKT) vrrà ipvxpôrriToç TOV (f>kéypaToç TO ai pa éaTami paXkov vvv rj èv TÙJ TJPI 'N XPO 'NO Kai èipvx&ai : mais la ATAMÇ et if>v(is' ne sont point l'état naturel du sang. Quoique je crois ces exemples suffisants, j'ajouterai quelques uns d'Herodote. Dans le IV livr. chap. 127, le Roi des Scythes dit : ouSéri ueérepôu elpi VOL ijaaç vw, f j Kai èv etpjjw] E 'Q 'QEA rroiéeiv : ce qui ne suppose point qu'en temps de paix il avoit une conduite neuve (véav) et extraordinaire. Dans le livr. VI. chap. 107 : Kai oi ravra ÔLémwTi èrrrjXde rrrapelv Te Kai /3fj(ai peCcwaç rj ùç E'Q'QEE. 81 v

Cela ne suppose non/plus que cet homme avoit l'habitude d'éternuer et de tousser fortement (fieyâXtos•) et d'une manière différente de celle des autres hommes. Et puisque nous sommes sur l'article d'Herodote, permettez que je soumette à votre jugement une correction que je viens de tenter Livr. IX. Chap. 27 : où cet Historien fait dire aux Athéniens : ëari 8è ripïv ëpyov eu êxov Kai ês 'ApaCoviÔas ràç A 'TIOOH'KAZ ràç dm) QeppéSovroç Trorapov èafiaXovaaç KOTè eç yrjv -rr\v 'ATTLKfju. Vous savez toutes les conjectures des critiques sur le mot dTroOijKas' (que les éditeurs ont supprimé, le trouvant, comme il est en effet, insignifiant et incommode), et entre autres celle qui plaisoit tant à l'ingénieux Toup, qui vouloit qu'on lut Taç drro&tjTas" epist. crit. p. 66. edit. Lips. Quant à moi, je pense qu'il faut lire 'Apa(ovi8aç ràç 'A TIO' &PHIKHX raç (on pourroit même supprimer ce second rdç) drro &eppo)8ovToç etc. Je me crois autorisé à proposer cette conjecture par Virgile Aeneïd XI v. 659 :

Qualis THREÏCIAE, cumflumine THERMODONTIS Puisant, et pistis bellantur Amazones armis. Je vous prie de presenter mes humbles compliments à Monsieur Heberden, et de lui communiquer mes reflexions sur le uoauSearepov rj eïûjdev ; en la priant cependant de ne point cesser de m'éclairer de sa critique. Ses objections, comme vous voyez Monsieur, m'instruirent, en m'obligeant de faire des recherches. J'ai l'honneur d'être avec la plus profonde estime V(otre) T(rès) H(umble) et T(rès) O(béissant) S(ervi)teur Coray D.M.

THE C O R R E S P O N D E N C E OF K O R A I S W I T H B U R G E S S

59

(5) To The Reverend Doctor Thomas Burgess, felow of College Corpus Christi, Oxford, England. Paris 19 Fevrier 1792 7 r Monsieur, J'expediai jeudi passé à Mr. 1:1 m si y' Libraire de Londres par le canal du Libraire Barrois le jeune, un paquet contenant la collation de six MSS. de la Bibliothèque du Roi. Comme je ne pouvois les demander moi même à la Bibliothèque, attendu que j'avais déjà d'autres manuscrits chez moi, relatifs au travail de Mr. Holmes, il a fallu qu'un ami eût la complaisance de les demander sous son nom et de me les prêter. Il est par conséquent de la dernière importance, que vous vous absteniez absolument de me nommer dans vos notes, comme auteur de la collation. Ce seroit compromettre mon ami et moi, et nous priver dans la suite de l'avantage d'emprunter des MSS. au Bibliothécaire. L'ami, qui m'a fait ce plaisir, m'a conseillée de vous proposer d'envoyer un exemplaire de la poétique au Bibliothécaire, qui se nomme Mr. Caussin de Perceval^, Garde des MSS. de la Bibliothèque du Roi, et même de louer dans vos notes son honnêteté et son humanité pour les Gens de Lettres et pour le progrès des sciences. Je vous prie, Monsieur, instamment de vouloir bien agir de la sorte, sur tout pour ce qui concerne la reticence de mon nom, pour ne pas nous exposer mon ami et moi à quelque désagrement. Vous pouvez, Monsr., envoyer le susdit exemplaire à moi ; et mon ami le remettra à Mr. Caussin en votre nom.

77

v

Permettez Monsieur, que je vous communique quelques conjectures / que je viens de faire sur la poétique d'Aristote. Au chap. 4 p. 793 de l'édition in 8vo vol. 2, on lit: rai to jrpùÎTos- AiaxvXoç

re

rjyaye,

tùju

vnoKpi tùju

Kai

rà

tov

nÀrjdoç

x°P0V

è(

èvoç

rjXaTTuae,

eiç

Svo

Kai

tow

AOTON TrpojTaybwiaTi)i> TrapeoKevaae. Ceci me paroît obscure. Ne seroit-on pas fondé à croire qu'Aristote ait écrit :... Kai tov AErOMENON TTpcôTayû)Vi napeaKevaae ? La Tragedie avant Eschyle n'avoit point un îrpojraymuL o~rqi>, parceque n'ayant qu'un seul acteur, celui-ci representoit ^Presumably Peter Elmsly (1735-1802) a London bookseller specializing in the import of foreign books. It is recorded that he had acquired 'the tolerable education which it is in the power of almost every Scotchman without much difficulty to obtain... nor was he less critically nice in the French language than his own', C. H. Timperley, A Dictionary of Printers and Printing..., London 1839, 811. The earliest extant directory of the British book trade contains the entry 'Elmsley, French Bookseller, 87, Strand', G. Pollard, The Earliest Directory of the Book Trade by John Pendred (1785), London 1955, 12. Elmsly was one of the publishers of the Musei Oxoniensis litterarii conspectus. 2 Jean-Baptiste Jacques Antoine Caussin de Perceval (1759-1835) was, until August 1792, keeper of Oriental MSS. at the Bibliothèque du Roi.

60

78 r

I

KATH'IMAS

ANATOLI

toutes les parties de la piece ; mais dès qu'il y eût un second acteur, il étoit naturel que celui des deux, qui jouoit le principal rôle, s'appelat Trp(i>Tayù)viOTr\ç. Au chap. 20 p. 808 ecm Sè opa MeAr) TMV AiKaar^piuv Kai rüu 'EopeLav : wapevpltjKovTo npoain airov Kai *Apxovres Kai "Eßwopoi ¿K TUV 'EyKpiTiav, d ' avTOKpdropa öia ras dvdpayaQlas TOV, Kai ÖTL Toy

nleiu,

ÖLÖAAKEL DKÖßTJ ön_

'laTopla

r) dXjjdLvi}

(TWOTTTLKT) TÙJU èpyaauov

Kai SévuK (1815), 29.

irlan?

8èv

QWLQTDTAI

rrjs" Epafaicns

els-

'Eraipelas-

TÒ 4>dyeLV

Kai

BpeTTaviKTts~

Te

124

I KATH'IMAS

ANATOLI

example: his delay has been occasioned by a most unhappy ci(r)cumstance. A french Abbot 1 , calling himself a Missionary, pretending to Nobility and the King's licence, has, in his tour through Turkey, been here for six weeks, preaching twice a day most violently against the Protestants and burning all their books, on which his party could lay their hands. We were apprehensive of disturbances between them and the Greeks, as none escaped his vengeance who were not Romans : for a time he has made a most unhappy division in Smyrna. Matters went so far that the English Consul was obliged to interfere for the security of his subjects and the peace of the Town. We have not yet formed a Corresponding Committee wishing the Romans to join us. In another month I hope to send you the names of subscribers, Committee etc. etc. The Malta Committee some time since voted me sixty pounds with a permission of drawing further upon them, to defray my travelling expenses in taking a view of the state of the country in the interior, to see what prospects there might be of establishing B[ible] Societies and Missionary stations etc. at a future period. This money I shall devote to go to Constantinople; for many reasons and objects of the greatest importance and by far the best route 2 . Our B[ible] Society will consist only of Europeans until we obtain the sanction of the Patriarch for the Greeks to join us. Should I be successful with the Patriarch, Bfible] Societies will increase as rapidly as can be expected from a poor, oppressed, and darkened nation... Twice have I written to Odessa 3 proposing a correspondence and mutual assistance, but have received no answer! In your correspondence with the Petersburg Committee 4 could not you mention us of Smyrna, and beg of them to favour us with Greek Reports, Extracts and other papers and thirty bibles for which we would gladly pay. — It would likewise be of very great use to promote the views of the B & F. B. Society if your Committee would favour me, or rather now the Bible Society of Smyrna with 6 or 12 Septuagint Bibles, as many of your double Testaments, 6 French Bibles, 6 Italian Testaments], 4 Arabic bibles, 4 Persian testaments 5 very handsomely bound that is, with abundance of gilding, for presents to some of the principal Bishops, great men, and Colleges, some of the Greek Church books are covered with carved solid gold. You will I trust continue to favour us with the Reports etc. of your Society. Two fifth volumes to match the two sets you sent with me w[oul]d be very desirable; one for the set which I have given to the Consul, the other for the set to be used by the Committee. Indeed had we not

' Sec below. 2Later in the same summer Williamson did in fact undertake this journey, see below, p. 117. 3'rhe potential usefulness of the Odessa Bible Society to the British and Foreign Bible Society's activities in the Levant was stressed by Pinkerton at the time of its foundation: 'The facilities which this Society possesses, by means of the numerous trading vessels daily entering this port from every part of the Mediterranean, the Archipelago, and the coasts of the Black Sea, for sending the Holy Scriptures into those countries, renders it a most important station for establishing a Depository of the Holy Scriptures in all languages', B.F.B.S. 13th Report, 1817, 79. 4 St. Petersburg Committee of the Russian Bible Society. 5 In the 14th Report, 1818, of the Society it is recorded that '20 Hebrew Old Testaments, 100 Hebrew New Testaments, 300 Italian Testaments, and other Scriptures in various languages' to the value of £ 268 : 13 : 4 had been despatched to the 'Chaplain to the British Factory at Smyrna', 295.

THE FOUNDATION

OF THE S M Y R N A B I B L E S O C I E T Y

125

been in a foreign country and composed of different rival nations, we should consider ourselves a branch of your society...' 1 . T h e ' f r e n c h Abbot, calling himself a M i s s i o n a r y ' , w h o m Williamson mentions as a source of religious friction in Smyrna, is also the subject of a lengthy passage in J o w e t t ' s journal. On 10 M a y he recorded that ' E c o n o m u s the Presbyter', had complained to him of the behaviour of this 'french A b b o t ' . ' E c o n o m u s the Presbyter' can almost certainly be identified with Konstantinos Oikonomos

o

ex

Oikonomon

{K^voravnvog

OiKovo\iog

6

ei;

O'lKovoiLuv, 1780-1857) w h o had b e e n invited in 1808 by K o n s t a n t i n o s K o u m a s to teach in the newly f o u n d e d Filologikon Gymnasion ( rvyLvdmou), w h e r e he was responsible f o r religious instruction and Greek literature. Jowett recorded in his journal that Oikonomos had spoken to him 'of the Roman Catholic Missionary come here, M. Janson. He has been preaching for two or three weeks in the most violent style, condemning Greeks, Protestants, and all alike, who do not submit to the Pope. He challenged Economus to come to a public disputation in the Church, but he answered that such matters were not for public disputation and strife : but if he would put his arguments in writing, he would answer him in writing. He complained bitterly of the strife & feuds which he has endeavoured to foment among families here, in which husband and wife are very often of different communions : and asked, «could violence and passion be genuine Marks of the Missionary character ? He is an Emissary of the Pope's — go back to France : though even there I am sure they would not let such a Firebrand preach. Would he establish an Inquisition here ?»' Jowett also learned of the activities of the 'french A b b o t ' f r o m Consul Werry who told him that 'A Swiss, who had disputed against the Catholic Missionary so well as to expose his ignorance, had been threatened with such a beating as should perhaps cost him his life, or at least an illness of six months : and there was an evident probability that the threat would be put in execution. As the Swiss have no Consul here, he betook himself to the English Consul for protection. Mr Werry immediately went to the French Consul, and demanded that the utterer of this threat, should either disavow it or be answerable for all consequences. The French Consul hesitated & shuffled : but Mr. Werry who is a man of resolute spirit carried his point, and further insisted that the Consul should be answerable for all his own people. But for this he thinks the beating, if not the murder, would have taken place.

4 am grateful to the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society for permission to quote from the Society's archives.

126

I KATH'IMAS

ANATOLI

Under such circumstances as these, it may be wondered what security there is in this country? To us, English, the main security under God is the absolute spirit & power of our Consul. He is a man of tried, unshaken courage'.

A few days after Williamson's letter to Steinkopff, Jowett was able to write in his journal for 2 June that 'the Smyrna Bible Society flourishes. The Bishop after a great deal of hesitation & fumbling shewed Mr Williamson a letter which he had received from the Committee at Petersburg. All the Bishops of Greece, we think, have received the same. The Bishop will not subscribe himself, but his brother does so & he promises if the subject is approved at Constantinople to preach in behalf of the Society in the Metropolitan Church'.

In his letter to Steinkopff of 28 May, Williamson had also mentioned that in a month he hoped to be able to send a list of subscribers to the newly formed Society. Such a list is appended to the 'Avertissement' for the Smyrna Bible Society which Williamson had printed at about this time 1 , and of which a possibly unique copy survives in the library of the British and Foreign Bible Society. This 'avertissement', of 8 octavo pages, contains beside the list of subscribers a preface outlining the objects of the Smyrna Bible Society together with the Society's rules. The 'Avertissement' begins with a passage which explains the reasons for the Society's establishment : 'L'heureuse influence que le Christianisme a exercée dans tous les temps sur la civilisation, la moralité et le bonheur des hommes, et le désir que nous avons de nous rendre utiles à nos semblables, nous ont portés à établir pour leur intérêt religieux, une société Biblique à Smyrne'. It is further stressed that 'cette entreprise ne repose et ne reposera jamais sur aucune espèce de speculation mercantile ; elle n'a pour but que de mettre ce Saint Livre à la portée de toutes les classes de la société, et de le répandre dans toutes les familles, soit en le cédant au prix le plus modique possible, soit en le distribuant gratuitement à des Chrétiens peu fortunés'.

^The 'avertissement' may not, in fact, have been printed until early in 1819, for on 1 May 1819 Williamson wrote to Steinkopff 'accompanying this I send you three copies of the first printed document of our infant Society. You will find many errors in typography etc. as we have only the shadow of a Printer and Press. We call ourselves the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, embracing the objects of all the Societies in London, as well as the Bible Society at Smyrna'. This may have been the same press as the ¡jiKpöv Kai wevixpöv TvnoypaQeiov founded in 1818 in KOVK\OVT(Ü to which Stefanos Oikonomos referred in a letter to P. Lambros, A. D. Khatzidhimos, Sfivpvaiici) BißMoypafita, «MiKpamariKä Xpoviicd» A (1948), 350. In the passages from the 'avertissement' printed here only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

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N o fixed subscription is laid down, but each member is to contribute in accordance with his means. The 'Avertissement' concludes by pointing to the advantages that could be expected to f l o w f r o m the foundation of such a society in Smyrna: 'A l'exemple de toutes les nations civilisées, et libres, & célebrées par la sagesse, la philanthropie et la piété, l'on propose, pour l'avantage des Chrétiens à Smyrne, dans les pays adjacens, et les Iles de l'archipel, d'établir à Smyrne une Société de la Sainte Ecriture, ou une société pour l'avancement de la connaissance du Christianisme sur le modèle des institutions qui existent à Londres, à Paris, à Petersbourg, &c. &c. &c. Comme les autres, cette société répandra les livres sacrés, sans notes ni commentaires 1 . Les rapports & extraits de la société-mère à Londres, qui se trouvent dans les mains de beaucoup de personnes à Smyrne, en faisant voir les vastes opérations & l'heureuse influence de la Société-mère, nous dispensent de nous étendre ici sur ses avantages'. These introductory comments are followed by the Society's rules which are headed 'Réglemens de la Société pour l'avancement de la connaissance du Christianisme, ou d e la Société Biblique, à S m y r n e ' . T h e s e rules read as follows: '1. Que la Société pour laquelle les souscriptions sont faites aie pour but l'avancement des connaissances chrétiennes. 2.

Qu'elle doive tâcher d'atteindre le but de l'institution par la distribution des Bibles, des Nouveaux Testaments, et des Traités Religieux; et par l'encouragement des Écoles de Charité et des Travaux Missionaires.

3.

Que la Société soit apellé «Société pour l'avancement de la Connaissance Chrétienne en Turquie et dans le Levant établie à Smyrne». Qu'elle soit composée, outre les souscripteurs, de Présidents, d'un Comité, un Secrétaire, et un Trésorier.

4.

Chaque souscripteur pour 25. piastres ou plus sera membre de la Société. Toute personne, qui fera un don de 400. piastres ou plus à la fois, sera membre pour la vie. Un legs de 1000. piastres ou plus, payé au Trésorier pour la Société, l'exécuteur sera membre pour la vie.

The original constitution of the Bible Society, drawn up in 1804, envisaged as its principal aim the encouragement of a 'wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment', W. Canton, op. cit., i, 18.

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5.

Le Comité se composera suffisante pour délibérer. Les Consuls, les Evêques Le Comité aura le pouvoir propos.

de douze membres; la présence de cinq d'eux sera Tout souscripteur pourra assister aux deliberations. qui auront souscrit, seront Présidents de la Société. de faire des réglemens nouveaux quand il le jugera à

6.

Que les Comptes des souscriptions et de la dépense soit présenté annuellement au Comité par le Secrétaire et le Trésorier.

7.

Que toutes les Rites Chrétiens soient invités de coopérer à cette œuvre Evangélique. Et que pareillement des relations affectueuses soient entretenues avec les autres sociétés occupés des mêmes travaux, qui ont pour but la propagation de l'Évangile de notre Seigneur & Sauveur JÉSUS CHRIST.

8.

Nous, les soussignés Consuls et Evêque, ayant mûrement considéré les grands avantages qui peuvent résulter d'une pareille institution, nous y donnons notre pleine approbation & souscription, exhortant toutes les bons Chrétiens à suivre notre exemple'.

The list of subscribers to the Society, together with the amount of their subscription, is perhaps worth printing here in full, as it contains the names of many well-known members of the Frankish merchant community and also the names of a few members of the Greek community of Smyrna: Souscription par an Francis Werry Marc' Ant. Bertrand S. Destunis Mechain Roubaud de Ponteves De Hochepied Creus y Soler Mad. Werry C. Williamson Charles Marraccini John Lee Madame Lee James Brant L'Evêque J. Vanlennep R. Vanlennep P. Vanlennep

Piastres 25 25 25 25 25 20 20 25 25 25 50 25 25 50 25 25 25

J. la Fontaine William Barker Richard Barker Ch. Whittal Mad. Whittal John Charnoud Mad. B. Maltass Jean Jacques Dutilh Mad. Dutilh H. V. Elliot (don) E. B. Elliot (don) Joseph Cramer Ignazio Alberti J. P. Arnaud E. Ede (don) M. Woodmass Iacob d'Abrm. Missir

Piastres 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 20 20 25 50 30 15

THE F O U N D A T I O N OF THE S M Y R N A B I B L E S O C I E T Y Mad. Cristal (don) Samuel Hayes John Maltass D. Sandisson R. Wilkinson Val Boddington J. Jolit Ch. de Cramer J. Heywood Jas. Purdie J. & J. Gout P. Marraccini Rch. Geaves P.R. Wilkinson A. Balladur

25 25 50 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 50 25 25 15 15

J. K. Fisher Ch. Winckelman W. Jowett S. S. (don) Frango Datodi Angelo Canaliotti G. Perkins F. Rodocanacchi G. Sevastopulo Etien Economo George Hadfield Const. Maurogordato John Jackson Mad. Jackson

129

25 25 25 25 25 10 25 30 25 25 25 15 25 25

Many of the initial subscribers to the Society belonged to families established in Smyrna for many generations, and such names as Hochepied, Lee, Vanlennep, Maltass, La Fontaine and Missir will be familiar to students of the modern history of Smyrna. Of perhaps greater interest are the names of the small number of Greek subscribers to the Society, and particularly that of 'Etien Economo'. It seems probable that this 'Etien Economo' is Stefanos O i k o n o m o s 1 ( S r e ( P A T I O S ' O I K O V O I I O S ) , the brother of Konstantinos Oikonomos o ex Oikonomon. Stefanos Oikonomos, who studied at the University of Vienna and was a doctor of the university of Jena, was at this time a teacher of chemistry, Latin and natural history at the Filologiko Gymnasio (i\o\oyLKd I vfimaLo) whose brief and controversial existence was to be brought to an abrupt end with its closure in the following year, 1819. Williamson is known to have had contact with Konstantinos Oikonomos and he must also have known Stefanos, although it seems rather curious that Williamson had not also secured Konstantinos as a subscriber. The subscriber described simply as 'l'Eveque' seems to have been the Orthodox bishop of Smyrna, who must have overcome his original objections to membership of the Society.

VPALLIARLKT] TTJS" 'EWRJVIKRJSyAüiaor]s- ¿K yepßaviuri yeypaßßevr)? ^LXCTTTTOV BovTjidvvov neraippaadeiaa Kai 0 ßerappudfiicrdeTaa i/jro Sre^dvov O'iKovöpov larpov eis" XPV '^ TOV KARÄ TT)V Zßv£vr)i>

rpiai

SiaXoyois'

sought to refute the Copernican system of cosmology. 2 The situation was altogether different, however in Ayvalik, which was described in 1820, at the very height of its fame and influence, by a Viennese Greek periodical, as this 'New Miletus, metropolis of learning for the whole of Asia Minor'. 3 And, indeed, the influence of Ayvalik, whose general cultural and intellectual level at this time was as high as any in the Greek world, radiated far beyond Asia Minor. V. Beshevliev has stressed that 'von besonderer Bedeutung für die geistige Widergeburt der Bulgaren waren die griechischen Schulen in Kydoniä ... auf der Inseln Chios ... auf dem Athos usw' . 4 Scholars have long realised the significance of this small community in the history of the Greek national revival. Ayvalik, wrote that acute observer of the Ottoman Empire, 'Odysseus' (Charles Eliot), 'for half a century was a sort of Oriental Boston, famed for its fine streets, public gardens, University, libraries, and municipal buildings, for the wealth, culture, and refinement of its inhabitants, 5 while Arnold Toynbee has described Ayvalik as 'the first piece of free Greek soil in modern times'. 6 Indeed such was the renown of the The censorship exercised by the Patriarchate was described by von Schladen as being 'unerbittlich streng'. T h e functions of censor in the years immediately before 1821 were carrried out by the Archimandrite Hilarión of Sinai, and there were suggestions that he was seeking to set up a kind of index of prohibited books, A. Dimitrakopoulos,' Enavopdojoeis' u4¡a\piáT(úv TTapaTidevrüv év rrj NeoeXÁrjviicfj $iÄoÄoyiä TOV K. Zada ..., Trieste, 1872, p. 51. Be this as it may, Hilarión was a favourite target of progressive Greeks. The Greek periodical " MéXiaaa", for instance, held him to be the 'lewd traitor' responsible for the burning at the patriarchate in 1819, of the anonymous and mildly anti-clerical tract EROXAAPOC TOV KplTuvos, iii (1821), 306, quoted in D. Ghinis, KpÍTavos STOxaaßoC, "Epataosels' ' A8ap.avTÍov Koparjv, Athens, 1965, 145. Hilärion's scruples, however, did not prevent him f r o m sponsoring the publication of at least five, and possibly more, tracts of a markedly Protestant nature at the patriarchal press, on the instigation of an agent of the Religious Tract Society of London. 2

Cyril Mango, Byzantinism and Romantic Institutes", xxviii (1965), 35.

Hellenism,

"Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld

Aoyios" o'EpiiTjS 481. Beshevliev, Die Widerhall des neugriechischen Sprachkampfes und der Literatur im Bulgarien des vorigen Jahrhunderts, in Probleme der neugriechischen J. Irmscher ii (1960), p. 49.

neugriechischen Literatur, ed.

^'Odysseus' (C. N. E. Eliot), Turkey in Europe, London, 1900, 311. J. Toynbee, The Western Question in Greece and Turkey, London, 1922, p. 332. The Rev. R. Walsh in his A Residence at Constantinople, described Ayvalik during this period as ' a f r e e republic of active and intelligent Greeks, equal to any that formerly existed among their Ionian ancestors, in opulence, spirit and a feeling of independence'. According to Walsh, A y v a l i k contained 36 oil extraction mills, 24 soap manufactories, 3 large hans for the accommodation of merchants, two good hospitals, 10 large churches pius a cathedral and a bishop's palace (ii, p. 395-6). The commercial e n c y c l o p a e d i a ^ / y ^ s - ó Kepdütos, published in Vienna in 1817, put the population of Ayvalik at 20,000, all Greek, povTl(ovTas oxi ß6voi> Siá TÖV atúfianKov TTXOVTOV, áXXá Kai Sid TÓV i¡>vxu where he taught theology and Greek. His brother, Stephanos, taught natural history and chemistry. Among many other works he was the author of the AvroaxeSios8iarpi/3ri irepi Zpvpvqs- in Aoyios' o 'Epfirj?, 1817, 520-530,459-567. 2 Foca. ^Qandarli. 4 Gregorios Saraphis (1780-1822) taught Greek and theology at the academy. His rpap^ariKrjs-

BipXiov iTpuTov fjroL TO ncpi rexvoXoyLas- Kal 6pdoypaias- TUV 6KT(H TOV X6yov pepow was printed in A y v a l l k in 1820 'Ev TTJ Tvmypaia rfj? ¿^oArjs", irapd K(oi>crrai>Tii>ov Tdfinpa KvScoviioiS' and is one of the rare products of the short lived press in the town.

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Smyrna, 1 which was a very long one. In the reading of it, Gregorius had time enough to see that I was to be well received. When he had finished it, he very mildly laid his hand to his breast & said xaipo/j.ai, KaXcos" ¿Komaaes". 'I am glad to see you; welcome'. Pipes & sweetmeats & coffee were then served up; during which I had full leisure to explain my wishes. We then went all together to the Apartment of the second Master Theophilus; where the same ceremony of sweet meats & coffee was performed. He is a more plain, blunt, natural character. They then showed me the library consisting of about 7 or 800 volumes, among which is a complete set of the Greek classics. They have also many astronomical & other scientific instruments. The third master joined us, his name is Eustratius, he is iiovo6a\iios — one-eyed. I walked round the college, which is a large quadrangular building fifty four of my steps in length & thirty four in width: you may say 140 feet long & 90 wide. It is surrounded on three sides with small {¿prases' — a Turkish word) chambers, for the reception of such scholars as come from foreign parts. There may be about a hundred such foreign scholars: and, at present, about another hundred belonging to the town. The chambers are in number 72. The foreign scholars pay nothing for the use of them & nothing for tuition. They have only food, raiment & books to pay for. There are two stories. On the upper story is a large oblong room for the third master, & the inferior masters. In the centre of this quadrangle is a garden of herbs & two or three flourishing almond trees. One side of the College is washed by the sea. I then went with the Consul, to call on two or three other persons to whom I had letters of introduction. Among these was one Emmanuel Amminiti, who had a good house, where I was not sorry to be invited to take up my quarters. His father, mother, brothers & sisters live in it. But as he is the smartest, most active young man in the family, he has the management of everything. In the afternoon I walked out with him & two or three others to see the town. Dirt is inseparable from the idea of a Turkish or Greek town. The streets are ' Jowctt was also armed with a powerful letter of introduction to Theophilos Kairis from Konstantinos Oikonomos, in which the bearer of the letter, OVIXXIAYI T^CO'IT was introduced as an "AyyXov lepda &v8pa aoov Kal potioris" ''EXMiftKrjsr epurXeov, Kal LXov TOV rav 'EXXQUAIP. Attracted by the fame of the academy he desired the education of the nation and accepted the educated cjass of Greeks as 6JS~ DAR/DI)^ rreTratSevp.iuos'. TIpos TOIOVTOVS iXiXXpvas aoovs rijs Eiip^trqs added Konstantinos, xpecocrrovfiei' warnTLHI)V Sia NQY diroiav SeiKvyovcn LXavdphmlai> Trapriyopowres- 4>iXoa6iXiTmovnoXÍTOv, Kai tfSri IRPUTOF é/cSodévre? Sià Savdvrjs" TOV eùyeve apjouTOS "Aya KvpCov N. Pcoaaérov Poovofiávov TOV òr MoXSaftias- Par pr¡m 'ArrpiXLov. 'Eu TT¡ Tviroypatpla TOV 'EfiepxdpTov. See I. Bianu. N. Hodo§ and Dan Simonescu, Bibliografia romàneasca veche 1508-1830, Bacharest, 1912-1936, p. 319-320. For further information on Kleovoulos see Fifteenth and Sixteenth Reports of the British and Foreign School Society, 1820-201. 21, 116. T

considerable interest in England at this time in the possibility of exporting the Lancasterian system to Greece. Lady Hester Stanhope, for instance, on 7 May 1815, wrote to Joseph Fox that she was sending to him a young Greek 'Georgio' whom she wished to be shown Lancasterian schools, Warren R. Dawson, The Banks Letters. A calendar of the manuscript of Sir Joseph Banks..., London, 1958, p. 782.

corresp

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I asked how many Masters they had furnished for Greece? They enumerated about twelve schools in various towns & islands which had sprung from them. They are small, but it is a hopeful sign ! One is on the southern Coast of the Black Sea. Their holidays are from June 15 to August 31. If I had come a month later, I should have seen little or nothing. In the evening they preserve discipline by locking the gate of the College. At dinner it was a fast & I was obliged to eat my meat by myself. After dinner I called upon the Consul, who had just received from his brother, Vice Consul of Tino, a small Vessell laden with ashes. This was for the soap manufactory. Haivali & the surrounding country is very fertile in oil, as also is Mitylene. My host Manuel Amminiti has just sent a Brig to Marseilles laden with oil — (for which no doubt he must have bribed the Turks; for it is contraband) — he has also a large Soap Manufactory. I went over it. Their soap is neither coloured nor scented. Their manufactures are in the simplest state. In the middle of the streets I observed three Turks, who had just come out of the Interior. They were lying down on their dirty baggage in the middle of the road. In the evening the Masters called to pay their respects to me. After this I went with Manuel Amminiti to call on Elias the Bishop. This city is in the Diocese of Ephesus which is very large & the second in rank after Constantinople; Cesarea in Cappadocia being first after Const[antino]ple. The Bishop of Ephesus almost always resides at Constantinople, assisting the Synod, and he has under him three or four assistant Bishops, who with respect to consecration are Bishops but have no Eparchy. They travel over the Diocese, performing the necessary functions & collecting the necessary dues. Of course they are not very independent in their circumstances or their way of thinking. This that I visited was one of them. He lives in a very poor house indeed. Very few cottages in England, I am sure, are so dirty, weatherbeaten & out of repair. His Lordship (o Aeaironis') seems to me quite without learning; not without knowing it. To several questions which I asked, he was so long in producing an answer, his voice was so low, & he looked so circumspectly for support from those who were about him, that it was vain to trouble him much. Pipes & sweetmeats are sometimes very convenient stop-gaps, & these he gave me with great good humour.

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Taking me also for a Frank Traveller of the usual stamp, he asked what curiosities, antiquities, inscriptions, columns, I had seen. He seemed pleased by my alluding to the Seven Churches of Asia, and observed "We have three of them in our Diocese; Ephesus, Thyatira, & Pergamos". As I was not without some idea of visiting Pergamos, I took the opportunity of asking, how many Christians there might be in the place? A long pause ensued: at length he said, he did not know, that they were under great subjection to the Turks, that consequently when he makes his visitation there, he cannot appear much, because a Bishop cannot walk out, like a common man, unattended. Indeed! thought I within myself; then here too the church may die of dignity! At Smyrna, through their ignorance, they told me there was no good road in this direction. There is a very good road over plain country from Haivali to Pergamos, & from Pergamos to Smyrna, without going so far East as Magnesia. They have an overland post about three times a month. Saturday May 23 I attended the lecture of Gregorius this morning on ecclesiastical history. I heard it with real pleasure, & could not help feeling strongly impressed with the utility & interest of such kind of lectures. He was concluding the first Century. When he came to the book of Revelations, he mentioned particularly the Cavern at Patmos, which he had seen, in which tradition says, St. John saw the Apocalyptic vision. He seemed disposed to make as much of this circumstance as it would bear; still qualifying it with, "They say", as if conscious that there was one present who might think, that too much is made of what "They say". After this he made a transition to Churchservices, more particularly to their midnight recitation of psalms, which he commended as an ancient practice of the Church grounded partly on the words of the Psalmist, "Ye that by night stand in the courts of the Lord's house, keep not silence!" partly on the example of Paul & Silas who sang praises at midnight &c. These are services in the performance of which I understand Gregorius himself is strict. After this I attended another lecture of Theophilus on Mathematics. He had thirty hearers. About fifteen seemed attentive & intelligent. One of whom was an old man. After this I had my usual long conversation with the Masters, respecting the Bible Society. Gregorius says that an idea had got abroad that the Patriarch had forbidden the reading of the

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Romaic version: but the fact was that he had only forbidden its being read in Churches. I am sorry to report with real fellow feeling, that they cannot bear the style of the Romaic Testament. They plainly told me that they would not buy it. They bought the double edition for the sake of the Ancient Greek. I have suffered much from the badness of this translation. For being resolved in this voyage to become a Greek as much as possible, I carried with me no other Scriptures, for my own devotions. Religious books we naturally read with most unction in our Mother tongue but I thought it necessary to make a sacrifice even of this to the Greeks; for which I suffered the pain I have described. I am sure if I had had a pure modern version, I could have sold hundreds. My heart sinks within me & is desolate, when I reflect on the torpor of the Religious English on this point. We conversed about the"AyLOU "Opog, Mt. Athos and its colony of Priests. They told me that they have no school there. Two grown up young men had arrived only yesterday after a long voyage of thirteen days, to study here. I was curious to see them, & they were brought in. Ecclesiastical discipline was fully exhibited in their physiognomy and deportment. They sat down in the humblest manner at the humblest distance. They gave, as they were asked, a full account of the various modes of living at this Colony. There are five modes. (1) The most rigid are the Hermits (ep^piraL) who live solitarily, more like beasts than like men. (2) The second in severity are called (aiajrai) Ascetics: they are not quite so savage in their mortifications as the Hermits. (3) The third are called ( K O I V 6 [ 3 L O L ) from their having all things in common. (4) the fourth are called (ISiopvdpoi) from their living after their own rhyme & reason. (5) A fifth called (KeAAeiQJTaL) are still more sumptuous as they may have (KeXXeiou) a room to themselves. There are twenty four monasteries: three of which are in ruin & four in good style. These four are Aaxipa, 'ipijpov, BaTowaCSi & TOV UavTOKparopos. An exiled Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregorius by name, who has lived at Mount Athos ever since Sultan Selim's death, & is ISLopvOjjLos-, has his summer residence at Laura, & his winter at Iberon. They have a very little trade at that place: unfortunately the Turkish aga there reported them to Constantinople, & immediately an agent was sent to lay on a tax. The two men departed as humbly as they entered.

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In the afternoon I went to the principal church. They have no bells; the Congregation is called together by knocking a bar of Wood — (but in the College; they have a bell). There was something imposing in the sight of the Bishop carrying a splendid crosier in this hand, preceded & followed by a train of Priests. I was passing him at a short distance, & took off my hat; he returned the compliment by an episcopal benediction, making the cross towards me. In the churchporch, which is very long & wide, fifteen or sixteen women were collected who stood at the end of different slabs, on which they had placed lights and incense. They do not enter the church but here they stand all service time, thinking of their deceased relations. I then went to another church, much smaller & somewhat more splendid. They considered the chanting as better! The portion of scripture was read by a little boy about twelve years of age. It was very long, but read with such rapidity that none could understand it. After this I called on the Bishop. Soon after the two Masters came in & helped the conversation much. Still Alas! there was that frigid, unmeaning manner in the Bishop, that we could not get beyond inscriptions, Greek pronunciation, & accents. On my leaving the Masters took a walk with me to the top of the hill which commands a view of the whole town. The surrounding vallies are very fertile. At a distance the mountains sweep round to the North, forming the Adramyttian Gulph. At this moment the wind was bleak, & the sky very stormy to the North, from a sudden change of weather. As we came down they took me to a Monastery, which is the property of one of the Monasteries of Mount Athos. First they shewed us into the chapel, small, but very gorgeous. As I could see no poor's box, I left a Dollar on the Communion -table. We then went into the room of the Monks, & four such jolly emblems of mortification I never saw. The moment I saw them, I regretted the Dollar I had left. One, in particular, of most impressive bulk & tone of voice, entertained us in this manner, while we were taking sweetmeats & coffee. Gregorius told him I wished to hear about Mount Athos. At Iberon, he said they have a Persian Testament, printed. They have the creed written on a piece of parchment, not bigger than your finger. At UavTOKpaTopog they have a very small autograph of St. Chrysostom. At one of the Monasteries — he did not know which — they have a library of two rooms; (but it is needless to repeat all his babbling, since Professor Carlyle's Letters are published.) But Salonica was his favourite theme. Here miracles are plentiful. They have, he believes, the original Eucharistical Cup, in which Our Saviour blessed

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the wine; but a little broken! In one of the Churches there is a fountain which bubbles up water of its own accord, & has healing virtues. A certain Visir at Salonica doubted the truth of this, & ordered the Church doors to be shut & his own seal set upon them. The next morning (cu rl Oaufia) (For this hackneyed exclamation see any volume of Lives of the Saints, or hear any pulpit, at the commemoration of any Saint) he found the Church floor covered with Water ! Another Visir, whose daughter was crooked, having heard of its healing virtues, sent for the Arch-Bishop who was very shy at first, saying "he must have faith, & his daughter must go forty days to this fountain before she could be cured". All this the Visir consented to; when (ioTT\s", v (1967), p. 177-193. Korais also told Pouqueville that 'des Américains avaient directement envoyé leurs enfants au collège de Chio, qui s'augmente rapidement de j o u r en jour, et qui deviendra bientôt un des plus célèbres de l ' E u r o p e ' , Pouqueville, op. cit., p. 139. Had he realised that they were protestant missionaries Korais might have been less enthusiastic. For the lives of Parsons and Fisk, see D. O. Morton, Memoir of Rev. Levi Parsons, first missionary to Palestine from the United States, Burlington. Vermont, 1830 and A. Bond, Memoir of the Rev. Pliny Fisk, Boston, 1828.

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termed the 'Western Asia Mission'. Their account also has some interest. There were at Ayvalik, they wrote, 'now four Professors; and about 20 of the older scholars assist in teaching the younger classes. The whole number of students is 300; of whom not above 100 belong to Haivali. About 70 are ecclesiastics. This circumstance is peculiarly auspicious, the Greek priests, as a body, being extremely ignorant ; yet almost all the schools in the country are under their instruction. The course of study seems, from the account given us, to be about the same as in Scio. 1 The library contains between one and two thousand volumes. The college building forms a large square (inclosing a garden, which the students cultivate) and contains a library room, a philosophical laboratory, lecture rooms, apartments for the instructors, and a great number of smaller rooms for the students. The establishment is supported by the Greek community. No pupil pays anything for his room, or his tuition. Lords Day. Nov. 5. At 9 two students from the college called on us. To one of them, the only person we can hear of in town, who reads English, we gave an English Bible. He expressed a great desire to obtain the whole Bible in Greek. At 10, the Rev. Mr. Young, an English traveller, called on us; and soon after a Greek archimandrite from Jerusalem. An Archimandrite is an officer in the church, above the common priests, but below the Bishops. Mr Young has been for 15 years past in Russia. We had a long conversation about the religious state of Russia, Georgia, Greece and Jerusalem; and about the distribution of the Scriptures and tracts and the establishment of schools, Mr Young is going to visit Mytilene, and we gave him 50 tracts to distribute in that island. In the afternoon went out to distribute tracts among the priests. Every church has some small apartment adjoining it, in which clergy live. Went to eight churches and distributed tracts among all the priests. There are 40 belonging to these 8 churches; they have also, at each church, a small school in their care, in which the children are taught to read the church service. Heard of only one other church in town, and that a very small one. Found one of the principal priests engaged with a layman, in the settlement of an account respecting oil and olives, which had been sold for him. Had to wait half an hour before we could get the opportunity to speak with him about tracts. This shows how the Sabbath is observed in this country. Distributed, in all, 100 tracts. It is pleasant to scatter seed in this way and then look to God for a blessing. In the evening Gregory and Theophilus came to see us. Had a long and agreeable conversation about Bible Societies, schools, and religion. Afterward, conversed sometimes with the family, and two or three others who were present. They seem to have no thoughts of inward piety, or of the strictness which belongs to Christian character; and these were points to which we found it difficult to fix their attention. Monday, Nov. 6. Went with the consul to see Paesios, the bishop of this district. His diocese includes Pergamos, Haivali and the surrounding country. He is under the Archbishop of Ephesus. His title is Bishop of ^See my 'O Parsons Kai o Fisk, op. cit., p. 186-188.

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Elaia, an ancient town, which does not now exist. We gave him a Testament and some tracts, and received from him a letter of introduction to his agent in Pergamos. Went to the college; conversed a little while with the teachers; gave them a French and Italian Testament and 350 tracts for the students. Haivali is situated on the sea shore, opposite the island Musconisi, which lies between the town and the north part of Mytilene. The Turkish name is Haivali; the Greek name Kidonia; both signifying quinces. Why these names were given we do not know, as the place produces very few quinces. Olives and oil are its principal production. The streets are narrow and very dirty, and the houses mean. You see no elegance and very little neatness. The Bishop, the consul, and the Professors, united in stating the population at 20,000 souls, all Greeks. This estimate seemed to us very high'. 1 These accounts of Jowett and Williamson, and the secondary account of Parsons and Fisk, are further evidence of the very considerable value of the records of British and American missionary societies for the history of the Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire, records which have by no means yet been fully exploited. 2 Whatever view is taken of the motives of these men, it is undeniable that their reports of their travels and activities constitute one of the most valuable sources for the history of South-East Europe and the Levant during the early nineteenth century.

"The Missionary Herald", Boston, XVII, no. 7 July, 1821, p. 204-205. Large sections of this acount are published in A. Bond, op. cit., 124-26 and in the Missionary Register London 1821 p. 424-5. But see, for instance, the important studies of James F. Clarke, The Russian Bible Society and the Bulgarians, "Harvard Slavic Studies", 111 (1957), p. 67-103 and E. D. Tappe, A Bible Society Agent in the Rumanian Principalities, "The Slavonic and East European Review" XLII (1963-4), p. 388-402.

TWO AMERICAN PHILHELLENES AT THE ACADEMY OF CHIOS IN 18201

The admiration felt by Adamantios Korais, the intellectual mentor of the movement for Greek independence, for what he termed the 'AngloAmericans' is well known. We have the example, for instance, of Korais' correspondence with Thomas Jefferson, which arose out of an introduction between the two men effected by John Paradise in Paris in 1779. Indeed, in 1788, at the conclusion of his studies at the University of Montpellier, one of Korais' academic patrons d'Ansse de Villoison, wrote to Thomas Burgess, a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford to see whether a suitable job could be found for a classical scholar whom he considered to be of the highest distinction. Nothing came of this particular approach although we can surmise that Korais' whole future career might have been very different had he spent the years of the French Revolution cloistered among the dreaming spires of Oxford rather than amid the hurly burly of revolutionary France. 2 One can well imagine Korais' excitement, therefore, when, in 1820, he learned that two Americans had arrived on his beloved island of Chios to study at the Academy there. As he wrote to his friends Kontostavlos and Frangiadis on 27 September 1820, 'the other day I received letters from [Neophytos] Vamvas and the epitropoi... the gymnasion goes from good to better, it has 476 pupils, of whom 76 are strangers from different parts of Greece, except for two (a strange and honourable thing for Greece) who are Americans'. Vamvas had given him only the names of the two Americans, Parsons and Fisk. To another friend, Kokkinakis in Vienna, Korais also wrote, on 6 October of the same year, to say how much the arrival of the two Americans had delighted him, going so far as to describe the arrival of the Americans as a 'saving miracle' ( d a u / j . a aajTijpiov). It is clear that Korais considered the presence of the two Americans at the gymnasion to be an indication that education in a regenerated Greece had finally come of age. For not only had students from throughout the Greek world gathered to study with Vamvas but now two 'This paper is closely based on my article 'O Parsons kai a Fisk sto gymnasio tis Khiou to 1820", O Eranistis, v (1967) 177-93. Full references are to be found there. 2 See Richard Clogg, The correspondence of Adhamantios Korais with Thomas Burgess, 17891792', Anzeiger der phil.-hist. Klasse der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 106 Jahrgang (1969) 40-72.

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Americans had come to study with the same teacher. But it is difficult to imagine that Korais would have been quite so enthusiastic had been aware that the two Americans were in fact missionaries and of the reason why the two had decided to spend some time at Vamvas' academy. It would seem that, apart from the letters that I have mentioned, nothing more is known of Korais' reactions to the exciting news which he had received from Vamvas. It appears that he remained in ignorance of the real identity and objectives of the two American students at the Academy of Chios. But fortunately we are in the position to throw more light on the two Americans. Both were congregational ministers who had been despatched by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to work on behalf of the Western Asia Mission, as it was termed, and which included within its area the whole of the Levant. Both have published quite full descriptions of their activities which enable us to reconstruct in some detail their visit to Chios. These are included in two accounts of their lives and missionary endeavours. The first is Alvan Bond's Memoir of the Rev. Pliny Fisk, A.M. Late Missionary to Palestine (Boston 1828) and Daniel O. Morton's Memoir of Levi Parsons, first missionary to Palestine from the United States: containing sketches of his early life and education, his missionary labors in this country, in Asia Minor and Judea, with an account of his last sickness and death... (Burlington, Vermont 1830). Both contain numerous extracts from their letters and diaries relating to the their time in the Near East. The two missionary philhellenes also sent detailed reports of their activities and impressions to such Protestant missionary publications as The Missionary Herald, which was published in Boston by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and The Missionary Register, published in London by the Church Missionary Society. These various accounts enable us to reconstruct their visit in some detail and afford at the same time a useful insight into the way in which the eye-witness accounts of foreign missionaries can throw interesting light on the cultural and social history of early nineteenth century Greece. Both Levi Parsons and Pliny Fisk had been born in 1792 and both had studied at Middlebury College in Vermont, following which they had attended the theological seminary at Andover in Massachusetts. They were appointed to the Western Asia Mission in 1818 and left Boston on the 3 November 1819. En route, they passed through Malta, which was at that time the

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principal centre of Protestant missionary activity in the Mediterranean area, on their way to Smyrna, where they arrived on the 15. January 1820. During their voyage they had learned some Italian and had received advice from the Reverend William Jowett, the representative of the [British] Church Missionary Society in Malta and himself the author of a most valuable account of the Academy of Ayvalik in 1820;1 the academies of Ayvalik and Chios, together with the Philologiko Gymnasio in Smyrna constituting at this particular juncture the centre of gravity of higher education in the Greek lands. On their arrival in Smyrna they soon appreciated that their lack of a knowledge of modern Greek would prove to be a serious handicap in their missionary endeavours. These, of necessity, were to be directed at the Christian populations of the Empire, that is to say the Orthodox, Armenians and Catholics in view of the very strict prohibition that existed on the part of the Ottoman authorities against any kind of proselytising among the Muslim populations of the Empire. As they embarked on the study of Modern Greek they rapidly realised that they would need a good teacher, for which reason they decided to enrol in the gymnasion of Chios which they described as 'one of the First Literary Institutions in the Turkish dominions', a further motive for deciding to study in Chios being that it afforded 'an eligible summer residence.' They therefore left Smyrna on the 10 May and arrived at Chios on the 12th. On arrival they visited the Greek metropolitan of the island who asked them whether they were indeed 'Washington's countrymen'. On the 15 May they called on Neophytos Vamvas to whom they presented letters of introduction from the Rev. William Jowett, the Church Missionary Society's representative in Malta, and from the Rev. Charles Williamson, the chaplain to the Levant Company's factory in Smyrna. Williamson had himself carried off a considerable coup during the course of the previous two years by arranging for the printing at the press of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople of at least six tracts of a markedly Protestant character at the behest of the Religious Tract Society in London. 2

1 See William Jowett, Christian researches in the Mediterranean from 1815 to 1820... (London 1822) and Richard Clogg, 'Two accounts of the Academy of Ayvalik (Kydonies) in 1818-1819', Revue des Etudes sud-est européennes, X (1972) 633-667. 2 See Richard Clogg, 'Some Protestant tracts printed at the press of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople: 1818-1820', Eastern Churches Review, II (1968) 152-164.

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Vamvas was in the course of teaching a class on Sophocles when the two Americans called on him and he courteously invited them to come to his study daily for lessons in modern Greek. Vamvas took the opportunity of presenting the pair with a copy of his Grammatiki tis Ellinikis glossis, syntakhtheisa eis tin koinin opheleian dia tous mathitas tis en Khio dimosiou Skholis which was printed on the press newly established in Chios by the German I. D. G. Bayrhoffer. Afterwards they looked in on another class where one of the teachers was giving a course of lectures on chemistry. The professor was delivering a lecture, 'upon atmosphere'' with great energy, while the students gave 'their most profound attention'. Having arranged their classes with Vamvas they now fell into a routine of Greek lessons, having rented a small house for eight dollars a month for themselves and their interpreter, a Greek named Martinos, whom they had taken on in Smyrna. Martinos spoke Greek, Turkish, French and Italian without being able to write so much as one word of any of these languages. Their daily expenditure amounted to some 60 or 70 cents and, while they could not find good milk and butter, Fisk noted that the bread was 'very good, and also rice; fruit, such as oranges, lemons, almonds, etc. are very cheap. Wine costs five or six cents only per quart; and except water, is the common drink of the country'. In a letter to his father, Fisk wrote that he was 'acquainted with but two persons on the Island who speak English, and we do not very often see them. Many speak Italian, in which we are now able to converse with considerable ease; and we begin to stammer a little in Greek'. Of Vamvas he wrote that 'he is undoubtedly the most learned man on the island. We have access to his public lectures in the forenoon, and spend from one to two hours in his study in the afternoon.' Soon after their arrival on the island, they came across an unfortunate British sailor called Thomas Pewett, who had apostatised to Islam while drunk, as a consequence he had been given Turkish clothes to wear and was considered as a Turk. Now, however, he had changed his mind about his apostasy, and asked the two missionaries what he should do. Their reply was not very helpful for all that they could say to him was that his 'situation was awful. We feel for you, but we cannot help you. Your sin is great; your danger is great'.

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In an entry in his diary for 15 June, Parsons noted that Vamvas had expressed a wish to learn English, a development which greatly pleased the missionaries who regarded Varnvas' interest as a 'remarkable providence' for 'by this means, missionaries who come after us may derive valuable instruction; and also religious books may be put into the hand of professor B. which may kindle a fire in his breast which cannot easily be extinguished.' Soon after Vamvas had manifested a desire to learn English, Parsons and Fisk received his permission to print some religious tracts at the press which had recently been established on the island, much to Korais' delight, for he had been fearful that the Ayvaliots, who had sent a young Greek Georgios Kostakis Typaldos, to study the art of printing in Paris, might establish a press before his beloved Chios. It appears that they arranged for the printing of two such Protestant tracts during their stay on the island. In effect these were reprints of two of the tracts which the Rev. Charles Williamson had arranged to be printed on the press of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The first, 'consisting of extracts from Chrysostom on the duty and importance of searching the Scriptures', was entitled in Greek Apanthismata ek ton tou Agiou loannou tou Khrysostomou peri tis Anagnoseos tis Palaias kai Neas Diathikis. The second, a translation of Isaac Watts' The End of Time was translated as To telos tou khronou: epitomi ton logon tou Dr Isaac Watts. The wish of the two Americans to publish a third pamphlet, the Rev. Legh Richmond's The Dairyman's Daughter, which they had translated into Greek as an exercise with Vamvas' help, seems not to have been fulfilled. The metropolitan of Chios, who had presumably given his permission for the printing of the first two tracts, gave no encouragement to the publication of the third. 'His objection was, that the people would be afraid of Protestant influence; and also that the author of the tracts states that Elizabeth [the heroine of the tract] is gone to heaven. By this it may be understood that he believes that there is no salvation out of the Greek church'. Parsons added that 'to the honour of professor Bambas it ought to be mentioned that he was desirous that 'The Dairyman's Daughter' might be published, and wept while reading it.' It appears that the two tracts that they did succeed in printing circulated in substantial numbers. The Chrysostom tract, which had thirty sides, was printed in 3000 copies, a very large tirage for the time, and cost about 600 grosia, that is to say about 80 dollars. On the 4 August they distributed some 200 copies to the pupils at the gymnasion 'whose brightened eyes and joyful countenances expressed their gratitude'. One of the pupils, indeed, undertook

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to send a quantity of tracts to his parents in Thessaloniki for distribution there, while another promised to distribute 50 in Psara. A teacher from Crete took 200 copies for his own pupils and to distribute to other schools. The printer took 50 for himself to send to Constantinople, while Parsons and Fisk energetically distributed them through the island of Chios. Parsons, in a letter to Rev. Elisha Yale, mentioned that We have visited six monasteries in different parts of the island, in all of which are about seven hundred souls devoted to a monastic life. In each monastery we have left two copies of the New Testament in the common dialect, and a considerable quantity of religious tracts. This day we visited a monastery, about six miles distant, and left one hundred and twelve tracts and two Testaments. The president of the monastery informed us that there were three hundred and eighty monks, including forty priests, now residing there, but only one hundred were able to read their own language. We did hope to find much more information prevailing among that class of people which retire from the world to enjoy their religion.

Vamvas enthusiastically supported their efforts to distribute the tracts. On one occasion when the two Americans were distributing copies to some five or six hundred youths, Vamvas delivered 'a serious exhortation to each class, and urged the importance of an attentive perusal'. 'This little book', he added, 'relates to the blessed gospel, and is worthy of most serious attention. You must read it frequently, and understand as you read'. Parsons and Fisk appear to have been bombarded with requests for tracts. One day, they wrote, 'we were crowded with children who applied for tracts. It is our practise to make every child read some before the tract is given. Companies of boys, from five to twenty in number, came to our door and requested little books. We found it an interesting day, and the children will not soon forget us'. Altogether they reckoned to have given tracts to some eight hundred school pupils, to have distributed some two thousand tracts throughout the island and to have sent 100 to Smyrna, 200 to Crete, 100 to Thessaloniki and 100 to Kerkyra. In all, Fisk reckoned that during their five month stay on the island they had distributed 3700 tracts and 41 copies of the scriptures, presumably one of the editions printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society. All this activity, however, was secondary to their primary purpose, which was the learning of Modern Greek. Every afternoon, at four o'clock, t h e y spent one or two hours with Vamvas for whom they developed a very

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great respect. 'It is very pleasant' Fisk wrote to his father, 'to enjoy the society of such a man; for most of the people here are ignorant to a degree, of which you can form no adequate conception. Think of the most ignorant family you ever knew, and then think that almost all the people here are still more ignorant. Multitudes of them cannot read a word. They who can read, have but few books and read but little.' On 22 August, somewhat belatedly one might think considering that they had been on the island for some three months, they asked Vamvas what fee he expected for teaching them modern Greek. Vamvas' reply was that 'such a thing as a reward never entered my heart'. Besides the lessons which they received from Vamvas, they frequently attended other classes at the gymnasion and were particularly delighted when one of the English books that they had brought with them, The Young Minister's Companion, was used in English language classes, being dictated to classes of as many as forty men 'collected from different parts of the empire and some of them, without doubt, from distinguished families.' It would appear that during their stay on the island Parsons and Fisk learned sufficient Greek to understand the course of instruction at the gymnasion, which William Jowett, another missionary visitor, was to describe as 'a very principal seat of literature for the Greek nation of the present day.' Parsons, indeed, was able to give one of his former professors at Middlebury College, where he had studied as an undergraduate, a detailed picture of the curriculum and pedagogical methods of Vamvas and his colleagues. For a long time, there has been a public school in this city; but five years since, it has assumed a new form and government under the care of Mr. Bambas, the principal professor. The progress has been rapid, and it now claims a rank among the first literary institutions of Turkey. Professor Bambas, previous to his acceptance of the seminary, spent seven years in Paris qualifying himself for the duties of this station, and he is now held in high estimation both as a scholar and an instructor. Young gentlemen from Constantinople, Smyrna, Thessalonica, Athens, and indeed from every direction are sent here to receive an education, and remain from one year to five years, according to the studies pursued. The number of students is about seven hundred; all of whom receive their instruction gratuitously. It is necessary to observe, however, that a considerable proportion of the students are very young, and are instructed in the first principles of grammar. In the different departments of college are fourteen instructors, who may be arranged in the following order.

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The scholars in grammar are divided into four classes, according to their improvement, and are required to be in their respective recitation rooms two hours and a half in the morning, and one hour and a half in the evening of each day. The method of teaching is quite peculiar. The instructor first reads the lesson from some ancient Greek author; compares each sentence with the modern Greek, and gives a paraphrase of the whole in the common dialect. After this, three students (selected by lot) are required to give in rotation a public exposition of the lesson, submitting to the correction made by the professor. In this manner every member of the class must be in preparation, or be in danger of public admonition. The lessons of the second class are in ethics and history, selected from the works of Chrysostom, Isocrates, Plutarch, Dionysius and Lucian. The third class, in distinction from the first and second, are instructed in poetry — lessons taken from the Iliad — also in the different dialects and measures. The. fourth class study Demosthenes, Plato, Herodotus, Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, and Pindar, and are required to translate freely from the ancient Greek. The examinations are frequent and critical. Every Saturday the principal professor visits each class, examines the students in the lessons of the past week, and makes inquiry with respect to their moral deportment. At the close of each month, the students are required to present to the officers of college a fair copy of each lesson during the past month, and to submit to a public examination. On the seventh day of January in each year commences an annual examination which continues twenty days, in the presence of the bishop, corporation, faculty of college, and respectable gentlemen from the city... The library is yet small, consisting of only three thousand volumes, among which are excellent editions of the works of Homer, Herodotus, Plutarch, Xenophon, Virgil, and the Holy Fathers. The number of buildings occupied by the college is nine; a chapel, laboratory, library hall, and lecture rooms. In a despatch to the Missionary Herald the two gave another detailed description of the school, adding that for the 700 to 800 students there were 14 instructors; one professor of chemistry and rhetoric, one of mathematics, one of theology, geometry etc., one of the Turkish language and nine teachers of ancient and modern Greek. 'The funds of the College' he wrote, 'are obtained in part f r o m the Greek community, and in part by private donations. A Gentleman f r o m Russia has recently given 20,000 or 30,000 dollars to this seminary. Tuition is given gratis to all students'. The two Americans also visited a number of what they termed 'common schools' during their sojourn on the island, where they also handed out tracts. They were somewhat scandalised by some of the festivities which they witnessed on the island. On the 6 July, the feast of St John, for instance, Parsons observed with horror that 'instead of religious worship, there was music and dancing, and jumping and frolicking, and this too at the church door. I saw one young girl, after dancing at least twenty minutes without

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cessation, pass directly to the church, cross herself thrice, and then retire home ... Seldom have I been more affected in view of the ignorance and danger of souls.' Their sojourn on the island ended on the 23 of October, after a stay of some five months, when they took leave of Vamvas, the bishop and the Russian consul amid warm considerations of friendship. We do not know how much Greek the two American missionaries learnt during their stay on Chios. They must have made significant progress for, as we have seen, they were able to translate, admittedly with the help of Vamvas, The Dairyman's Daughter into Greek and their proposal to the metropolitan that a Bible Society, similar to those that had already been established, under British Protestant auspices, in Kerkyra and in Smyrna 1 , was likewise written in Greek. To this proposal the bishop had given a somewhat equivocal reply; saying simply that 'this is veiy good' and remarking 'upon the utility of Bible societies in different parts of the world'. They had, however, little opportunity to make use of their knowledge of Greek in Smyrna. For in December of 1820, scarcely two months after he had left Chios, Parsons left for Jerusalem, passing en route through Chios where Vamvas, in welcoming him, 'hung on my neck for not much less than half an hour'. In 1821, he travelled widely throughout Palestine and the Middle East. Towards the end of 1821 he returned for a short while to Smyrna, but his health had been destroyed and, in February 1822, he fell sick in Alexandria and died. Fisk, after leaving Chios, spent a year in Smyrna and then was active as a missionary in Egypt, Palestine and Beirut until he, too, succumbed to illness and died prematurely in October 1825. It has thus proved possible to throw some light on the visit of the two Americans to Chios which so caught Korais' imagination. We many safely assume, I think, that Korais would have been less enthusiastic if he had realised that the principal objective of Parsons and Fisk was to learn Greek so as to facilitate their effort to proselytise among the Orthodox populations of the East and that they had spent much of their time on the island printing and distributing religious tracts of a markedly Protestant character. For Korais had well-known and understandable suspicions of missionary activity on the part of both Catholic and Protestant missionaries. Indeed, he fiercely attacked 'the mania for proselytisation, a mania so strong, that those enemies of Jesus, the ^See Richard Clogg, 'The foundation of the Smyrna Bible Society (1818)', Khronika, XIV (1970) 31-49.

Mikrasiatika

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Jesuits, considered and continue to consider the return of a single Greek to their church as a much more worthy undertaking than the conversion of ten Turks or ten idolaters'. However, the relevant reports of Parsons and Fisk throw interesting light on the initial stages of Protestant missionary activity in the Middle East, which only got underway with the termination of the Napoleonic wars. More importantly, they give an interesting picture of Vamvas and of the gymnasion of Chios at a time when education was 'more cultivated in Scio than perhaps in any other part of Greece'. Moreover, unlike most Western travellers in the Greek lands at this time, they spent not hours, or even days, but months on the island and thus their testimony about one the most important centres of the 'Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment' has a particular value for students of Greek cultural history during the critical decades of intellectual ferment before the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821.

THE CLASSICS AND THE MOVEMENT FOR GREEK INDEPENDENCE

In this paper I shall not be attempting to assess the way in which classical learning in Europe, and indeed in the nascent United States, contributed to the wave of sympathy for the Greek insurgents that manifested itself in the Philhellenic movement that developed in Europe and the United States after the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821 and which resonated in the art and literature of the 1820's. Rather I want to look at the way in which during the last three decades or so of the eighteenth century and the first two of the nineteenth there developed among a small group of literati in the Greek lands an awareness that the Greeks were the heirs to an heritage that was universally revered in the Western world. I also want to look at the way in which this emerging 'sense of the past' contributed to the development of the national movement that culminated in the insurgency of 1821, an insurgency that was to result in the establishment of the independent Greek state.

GREEK

NATIONALISM

AS

THE

PRECURSOR

OF

BALKAN

NATIONALISMS

The Greeks were the first of the subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire to gain sovereign independence, even if the sovereignty of the Greek state that came into existence in 1830 was qualified and constricted by the 'guarantee' of Britain, France and Russia and even if the new state contained within its borders scarcely a third of the Greek inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire. The Greek movement was the first fully fledged national movement to develop within the boundaries of a non-Christian state, the Ottoman Empire, and, as Elie Kedourie has convincingly argued, it should be seen as the precursor of the nationalist movements that were to emerge in Asia and Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Kedourie 1970). The reasons for the relative precocity of the Greek national movement in relation to the national movements of the other peoples of the Balkan peninsula are several and fascinating but lie outside the scope of this paper.

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One key factor in explaining this precocity, however, was the fact that the Greeks, or rather the small number of individuals that made up the embryonic Greek intelligentsia, perceived themselves to be, and were perceived in the wider European world as being, the lineal descendants of the worthies of the ancient world, the 'legal heirs', as Pushkin put it (Farsolas 1971, 64), of Homer and Themistocles, the legatees of a civilisation that was the object of such reverence in Europe and in the New World, where, indeed, ancient Greek was seriously considered for adoption as the official language of the newly independent United States. Whereas, during the centuries of the Tourkokratia or period of Ottoman rule, there had been little awareness of this ancient heritage, during the fifty years or so before the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1821 members of the nascent Greek intelligentsia were to become almost intoxicated with the notion of their Hellenic ancestry. This was a development that was to prepare the way for the archaiolatreia, the worship of antiquity, and theprogonoplexia, ancestor obsession or 'ancestoritis', one might term it, that has been such a striking feature of the cultural and educational life of post-independence Greece.

ADAMANTIOS KORAES AS 'TEACHER OF THE NATION' Pride of place in analysis of the emergence of a 'sense of the past' in pre-independence Greece must necessarily be accorded to Adamantios Koraes, the intellectual mentor of the movement for Greek independence, the foremost among the Didaskaloi tou Genous or Teachers of the Nation, as they are known. For Koraes, as for so many of his educated contemporaries, it was travel to, and study in, Western Europe that was to inspire a passionate interest in the world of Greek antiquity. In a letter of September 1788 to Demetrios Lotos, the protopsaltes (the 'first chanter' in Church) of Smyrna (Izmir), Koraes' patrida or birthplace, he wrote of his initial impressions of the 'illustrious city' of Paris, the teeming 'home of all the arts and sciences, the new Athens'. He excitedly urged Lotos to imagine a city bigger even than Constantinople, replete with 'a large number of different academies and public libraries', with its 'multitude of very learned men', where every art and science had been developed to perfection. There was 'a multitude of very learned men scattered throughout the city, in the squares, in the thoroughfares, in the coffee shops, where you can pick up every kind of literary and political news, with newspapers and journals in German, English and French and, in a word, in every language'.

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Paris, he enthused, was a city to amaze anyone, but for a Greek, aware that 'two thousand years ago in Athens his ancestors had achieved a similar (perhaps a higher) level of wisdom', such amazement must perforce be tinged with melancholy, on reflecting that such virtues were not only absent from the Greece of the late eighteenth century, but that they had been replaced by 'a thousand evils'. 'There', he wrote, 'in a country where once the wisest laws of Solon (whose name I have many times heard the savants of this place [i.e. Paris] pronounce with a kind of idolatry) reigned supreme, today ignorance, evil, violence, brutality, insolence and shamelessness hold sway'. Instead of men of the stature of Miltiades and Themistocles, 'whom Europe continues to look upon with admiration', the Greeks were now governed by riff-raff and camel-drivers, or the 'monkish barbarians' of the Orthodox Church, whom Koraes, a true child of the Enlightenment, regarded as almost a greater affront to the dignity of his enslaved fellow-countrymen than her alien overlords, the Turks (Clogg 1976, 118-9). Born into an educated merchant family in Smyrna (Izmir) in 1748, Koraes was to develop a close connection with Holland. At an early age he was taken under the wing of Bernhard Keun, the chaplain to the sizeable Dutch merchant colony in the city, a highly educated man with many contacts in learned society in the Netherlands. Keun taught the brilliant young Koraes French, Italian, German and, most importantly, instilled in him the profound knowledge of Latin which opened up for the young Greek the treasures of classical scholarship and prepared him for membership in that great Republic of Letters that was constituted by classical scholarship in eighteenth century Europe. In return, Koraes helped Keun with Greek, a language of which the young Smyrniote had an extraordinary mastery. In 1772, Koraes moved to Amsterdam where, for six years, he practised as a merchant, becoming a Dutch citizen in the process. His paragios or apprentice, Stamatis Petrou, rapidly developed a profound loathing for his master Koraes, a loathing which found expression in letters sent to their common employer in Smyrna, Stathis Thomas. Making due allowance for the personal antipathy that existed between the two men, Petrou's letters afford a fascinating insight into the process of acculturation that got under way when Koraes first came into direct contact with a Western European society, and into the way in which he cast off the traditional, Orthodox, neo-Byzantine mores of the Greek community of his native city and adopted the ethos and mores of an educated European bourgeois in the age of the Enlightenment. Petrou delighted in reporting to Thomas the rapidity with which Koraes acquired the manners of the Franks.

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It was not long before Koraes began to frequent the opera and to read 'diabolical' French books. He consorted alone with women all hours of the day and night. Although initially he had hesitated to abandon his Turkish kalpak (fur hat) or to trim his moustache, he soon took to dressing alafranga, in the Frankish or European mode. Foppishly concerned with his appearance, he frequented wig-makers and, like a Dutch jujfrouw, he fussed over his looking glass, hairpins and scissors. Although he had arrived in Amsterdam as a devout Orthodox Christian, his attendance at the Greek Church in Amsterdam became ever more irregular. Indeed, Petrou was at one stage fearful that Koraes would commit the ultimate betrayal of his Orthodox inheritance by converting to Calvinism in order to secure the hand of a Dutch girl. It was Petrou who was responsible for the canard that Koraes was not well suited to the cut and thrust of commerce. Dr. B. J. Slot (1980), however, has demonstrated that Koraes, contrary to Petrou's slurs, was a competent, albeit conservative, merchant and not the hopeless bankrupt of Petrou's fevered imagination. Petrou's jibes, exaggerated though they may be, afford an alternative to the picture of Koraes that emerges from his own voluminous writings, that of a priggish, desiccated bachelor, a workaholic single-mindedly dedicated to the pursuit of classical scholarship and the emancipation of his fellow countrymen from the Turkish yoke. But the dandy never got the better of the budding scholar, and during his time in Amsterdam, Koraes added Dutch, Spanish and Hebrew to his formidable linguistic accomplishments, while mixing with Bernhard Keun's academic friends, among them Adrian Buurt and Petrus Burmannus and probably also the classicist Daniel Wyttenbach. It is clear, however, that Koraes' heart was never truly in commerce and, after briefly returning to Smyrna, he left the Levant, never to return, to study medicine at Montpellier, while immersing himself all the while in the texts of Greek and Latin antiquity. His doctoral thesis was on Hippocrates and was published in Montpellier in 1787 as Medicus Hippocraticus sive de praecipuis ojficiis medici ex primo Hippocratis aphorismo deductis, oratio ab auctore D. Coray Smyrnensi and one enthusiastic Greek contemporary was subsequently to characterise Koraes himself as a 'new Hippocrates' (Valetas 1957, 182). Koraes was never to practice medicine. He devoted the remainder of his long life to classical scholarship on the one hand and to the inculcation in his fellow countrymen of an awareness that they were the lineal descendants of the Greeks of antiquity and heirs to a cultural heritage of unparalleled magnificence. This was an essential precondition, as he saw it, of their ultimate emancipation from the barbarian Ottoman yoke.

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On the completion of his medical studies, his French patron and mentor, d'Ansse de Villoison. wrote to Thomas Burgess, a classical scholar and fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxlofd to recommend 'a young Greek, a native of Smyrna, of the name of Corai' in the hope that 'some appointment, suited to a man of learning, might be procured for him in England'. Needless to say, no position was forthcoming for Koraes in the torpid, port-sodden Oxford of the eighteenth century. Nonetheless Koraes' first published work in the field of classical scholarship, his Observationes in Hippocratem, was published in two fascicules printed in Oxford and London in 1792 and 1797 respectively of Burgess' Musei Oxoniensis litterarii conspectus: accedunt pro speciminibus Corayii emendationes in Hippocratem [...]. Koraes was rapidly to emerge as one of the leading figures in that true Republic of Letters, the world of European classical scholarship in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, in the early 1800s, Heinrich Eichstädt dedicated his Halle edition of Diodorus Siculus to 'quatuor viris in re critica summis'. These were Richard Porson, Friedrich-August Wolff, Daniel Wyttenbach and Diamantis Coray 'Smyrnensi medicinae doctori' (Clogg 1969, 42). The great Cambridge classical scholar, Richard Porson, who held most of his contemporaries in contempt, likewise had a high regard for Koraes as a textual critic (Maltby 1856, 322). There was never a realistic possibility that the somnolent, inward looking University of Oxford of the late eighteenth century would open its doors to a Greek scholar, however, brilliant, and in 1788 Koraes moved from Montpellier to Paris where he was to live until his death in 1833. He thus lived through and, while no Jacobin, was profoundly influenced by the events of the French Revolution. While eking out a living as a collator of classical texts, he published a whole series of editions of the Greek Classics, 17 volumes, in all, that appeared in the Ellenike Vivliotheke, whose publication was subsidised by the Zosimas brothers, wealthy merchants of Ioannina, for free distribution to the schools and colleges that came into existence in various parts of the Greek world. Poor and orphaned students were to receive free copies of the editions but only if, on the basis of bi-annual examinations, they were adjudged worthy by their teachers. Teachers likewise, provided they gave evidence of their commitment, were to receive free copies, while parents who were able to afford to buy copies for their own children could secure them from Greek booksellers in Vienna, Trieste, Venice and Livorno at a twenty per cent discount to the price charged to Europeans. All four of these cities, it should be noted, were important centres of the Greek mercantile Diaspora whose emergence in the course of the eighteenth century was of such

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significance to the development of the Greek national movement. For the 'Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment' was very much based on the communities of the emergent Greek diaspora, just as the Philike Etaireia, the Friendly Society, that laid the organisational framework for the Greek revolt, was founded in the important diaspora community of Odessa in 1814. The editions which comprised the Ellenike Vivliotheke were specifically aimed at a Greek readership rather than classical scholars and were intended to cover the period from Homer to the Ptolemies. They were prefaced by lengthy essays, autoschedioi stochasmoi, or impromptu reflections, in which Koraes expressed his forcefully held view that education was the key to the emancipation of the Greek people. One of Koraes' major concerns was with the form of language that was appropriate to a regenerated Greece and he was a vigorous participant in the debates, which on occasion erupted in physical violence, about the 'Language Question' that got under way at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and which were to continue with unabated vigour up until modern times. He is often held to be responsible for the adoption of the katharevousa, or 'purifying', Greek whose adoption had such a stultifying effect on the cultural life of the independent Greek state. But he was by no means a champion of the more extreme archaising tendency and his views on the language were moderate. He was essentially a proponent of a middle way between the demotic or spoken language of the day and a return to the supposed purity of Attic Greek. In the preface to his edition of Heliodorus' Aethiopica, which formed part of the Ellenike Vivliotheke, he wrote that: 'so to distance oneself from customary usage ... as to be unclear in meaning, and completely unnatural to the ear, is tyrannical. So to vulgarize, on the other hand, as to appear disgusting to those who have received an education, seems to me demagogic. When I say that the whole nation shares in the language with democratic equality, I do not mean that we should leave its shaping and creation to the vulgar imagination of the mob' (Koraes 1804, 68). In addition to his editions of the classical authors Koraes was the author of a number of pamplets of political content, some inspired by Napoleon's conquests in the Levant. These included his Mémoire sur l'état present de la civilisation dans la Grèce published in 1803 in Paris by the Société des Observateurs de l'Homme, of which he was a member. This is an extraordinarily penetrating survey of the state of Greek society at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In particular he made the critical connection between the rise of a Greek mercantile bourgeoisie and the emergence of a small but influential nationalist intelligentsia, which was to have such influence in shaping the Greek national movement and in

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determining Greece's cultural orientation once independence had been won. He noted that, as they came to dominate the commerce of the Ottoman Empire, some Greek merchants had become extremely rich, so much so that for the first time it was possible to talk of millionaires among the Greeks. The need for numeracy and literacy had proved a powerful force in prompting wealthy merchants to endow schools and subsidise the studies of young Greeks at European universities. It was, he said, 'dans la patrie même d'Homère, dans l'île de Chio, que la Grèce moderne a la satisfaction de voir, depuis quelques années, le premier établissement d'une espèce d'université ou d'école polytechnique'. Far from shutting their eyes to the 'lumières' of Europe, the Greeks, proud of their origin, looked upon the Europeans as but debtors, who were repaying them, with a very high rate of interest, the capital that they had received from their ancestors (Coray/Koraes 1803, 35, 12, 58). Not surprisingly, Koraes' illuminating document has been commented on with much interest by students of nationalism such as Elie Kedourie (1970) and Benedict Anderson (1990, 70), the latter remarking that Koraes' essay 'contains a stunningly modern analysis of the sociological bases for Greek nationalism'. Koraes above all was concerned with raising the educational level of his fellow countrymen. This concern manifested itself not only in his voluminous writings but in his sending of books and scientific instruments to the schools and colleges of the Greek lands, above all to the famous Academy on the island of Chios, from which his family originated, and which was one of the leading centres of what has come to be termed as the 'Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment'. He was never very explicit, however, as to how educational regeneration was to result in political emancipation. Moreover, when the war of independence erupted in 1821 he thought it premature by a generation. It was a mark of his political naiveté that when hostilities did break out in that year he should have written to Jean-Pierre Boyer, the President of Haiti, to enlist his support for the insurgent Greeks. It was characteristic that President Boyer in his reply should have made reference to the glories of ancient Greece. Boyer assured Citoyen Koraes that he had the greatest sympathy for 'les descendans de Leonidas' and would willingly have contributed, if not troops and ammunition, then money with which to buy arms, had it not been for the supervention of a local rebellion. Unable to offer much in the way of practical assistance, President Boyer nonetheless assured Koraes of the 'vœux ardens que le peuple haïtien forme pour leur délivrance, déjà les Grecs modernes comptent ... des trophées dignes de Salamine... Puissent-ils, semblables aux Grecs de l'antiquité, leurs ancêtres et sous les ordres de Miltiade qui les dirige, faire triompher, dans les champs d'une nouvelle Marathon, la cause sainte qu'ils ont entreprise pour la défense de leurs droits, de la religion et de la Patrie !' (Clogg 1996, 8).

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SENSE OF THE PAST

Koraes was by no means alone in seeking to develop an awareness of the ancient heritage of the Greeks. A number of histories of the ancient Greek world were published, many of them translated from Western languages. These included a sixteen-volume translation into Greek of Charles Rollin's Histoire ancienne des Egyptiens, des Carthaginois, des Assyriens, des Babyloniens, des Médes, et des Perses, des Macédoniens, des Grecs, which was printed in Venice at the early date of 1749, scarcely ten years after the last volume of the original had been published in Paris. The translator, Alexandras Kangkellarios, justified the inclusion of the history of other civilisations such as those of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians in order that the qualities of the Greeks and Macedonians would become the more apparent. This was not the view of one of his near contemporaries, Grigorios Paliouritis, the author of a Short History of Greece (Epitome Istorias tes Ellados) published in Venice in 1815, who felt that the long-windedness of Rollin's work and its coverage of other civilisations could only confuse young Greeks who, albeit the descendants of Miltiades, Leónidas and of Epaminondas and suchlike worthies, were ignorant of the deeds and even the names of their forefathers. The English, the French and the Italians 'and all the enlightened peoples of Europe' sought to make the history of their motherland as the first lesson of their children. Frequent reading of the achievements of their ancestors, might, so he hoped, lead tender souls to imitate them (Paliouritis 1815, 17-8, 20-1, 23). Oliver Goldsmith's The Grecian history from the earliest state to the death of Alexander the Great was translated by Dimitrios Alexandridis and published in Venice in 1806-7, while Nikolaos Skouphas published a translation of M. S. F. Schóll's Histoire abregée de la littérature grecque as the Synoptike Istoria tis Ellenikis Philologias ap'orchis tautis mechris aloseos tes Konstantinoupoleos para ton Othomanon in Vienna in 1816. Stephanos Oikonomos' Grammatike tes Ellenikes Glosses, a reworking of Philipp Carl Buttman's very widely used Griechische Grammatik (Berlin 1801), an endeavour undertaken at the urging of Adamantios Koraes, was likewise published in Vienna in 1812. Vasileios Efthymiou's Pheravges Grammatike praktike tes palaias Ellenikes glosses, published in Vienna in 1811, was based on the Latin grammar of Christian Gottlob Broder. Many of these books were either straightforward translations or adaptations of European originals, which their translators had encountered during studies at European universities or during their sojourn in the centres of the Greek Diaspora. Indeed, William Leake, an acute observer of Greek society in the decades before 1821, noted that Daniel Philippides and Gregorios

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Konstandas had recorded in their Geographia Neoterike (Vienna 1790) their shame at the extent of their reliance on foreign writers for their 'chorographical' knowledge of the Greek lands: '"Ah, what a disgrace to us, the descendants of Hecateus, Ptolemy, Pausanias, and so many others, to run to the descendants of the Scythians, Celts, and Gauls, to learn something of our Greece"' (Leake 1814, 173). Other books dwelt on various aspects of the civilisation of the ancient Greeks, among them Grigorios Paliouritis' Archaiologia Ellenike, etoi philologike istoria, periechousa tons nomous, ten politeian, ta ethima tis threskeias, ton eorton, ton gamon, kai epikideion, to dimosia kai ta kata meros paignidia ton palaion Ellenon, exairetos de ton Athenaion (Greek archaeology, that is to say literary history, containing the laws, the polity, the religious customs, the festivals, the marriages and funerary customs, the recreations of the ancient Greeks, and particularly of the Athenians), published in Venice in two volumes in 1815. Similar compendia were published by Athanasios Stageirites in Vienna 1815 and Kharisios Megdanis in Budapest in 1812. Biographies of individual worthies of the ancient world, such as the lives of Themistocles and Miltiades by Athanasios Stageirites published in Vienna in 1816 and 1818, also appeared. The columns of Greece's first literary periodical Ermes o Logios e Philologikai Angeliai, published in Vienna under the wary eyes of the Habsburg authorities between 1811 and 1821, were replete with discussions of the language question and of the heritage of Greek antiquity. It is significant that the anonymous author of the most radical political tract of the pre-independence period, the Ellenike Nomarchia, etoi logos peri Eleftherias, published in 'Italy' in 1806, in dedicating the volume to Rigas Velestinles (1757-1798), the proto-martyr of the Greek independence movement, ranked him with his 'free ancestors' Epaminondas, Leonidas, Themistocles and Thrasyboulos. One of the most interesting productions in this prolific output of books reflecting an interest in the heritage of antiquity was an edition of the Physiognomonika, incorrectly attributed to Aristotle, published at the press of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople in 1819. Two factors make this specific edition of particular interest. First of all, it was published at the very fount of Orthodoxy, the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch, whereas the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church was resolutely opposed to this resurgence of interest in classical antiquity which it equated with paganism. Secondly, the Physiognomonika, had been translated from ancient Greek into modern Greek and thence into Turkish, printed with Greek characters, for the karamanlides,

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the Turkish-speaking Greeks of Asia Minor for whom a substantial number of books were printed in karamanlidika, Turkish in Greek characters, in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In his preface, the translator, Anastasios Karakioulaphis of Kayseri or Caesarea of Cappadocia, wrote that he intended it as a small gift to the 'heteroglot sons of his most beloved Motherland, Greece'. The Turkish-speaking Greeks were numerous not only in Asia Minor but in the Ottoman capital itself. Few showed much awareness of, or interest in, their Hellenic ancestry before the end of the nineteenth century, which makes this publication of 1819 of particular interest. The 1819 Physiognomonika in karamanlidika, Turkish in Greek characters, is a very rare volume, fewer than a thousand copies of which were printed, but there are no less than two copies in the Taylorian Library in Oxford which once formed part of the library of Professor R.M. Dawkins. One of these once belonged to one 'Demosthenes Haci P. Kemaloglu Alagehirli', a wonderful combination of a classical with a Turkish name, with Alagehir being the Turkish name for Philadelphia. For a key manifestation of this emerging interest in the classical past was the practice, which can be dated to the first decade of the nineteenth century, of naming children not after the saints of the Orthodox Church but after the worthies of ancient Greece. Some enthusiasts actually substituted the names of Greek antiquity for their Christian baptismal names. Probably the best-known instance of this practice occurred in 1817 at the Ellenomouseion of Ayvalik (Kydonies), a prosperous, almost exclusively Greek-inhabited town not far from Pergamum. The Ellenomouseion was one of the most advanced centres of education actually within the Greek lands. At the instigation, characteristically, of a visiting French philhellene, Ambroise Firmin Didot, students at the College 'so as to revive within the precincts of the College the language of Demosthenes and Plato', covenanted together, as befitted the descendants of the Hellenes, to abandon their coarse and vulgar vernacular in favour of their 'mother tongue'. The penalty for any lapse was to be the public recitation of a page of Homer. In appending their names to the covenant, the various signatories assumed classical in place of their Christian baptismal names. In this way, Ioannis became Pericles, Ilarion Xenophon, and Theophanis Cleanthes. Didot, appropriately enough, signed himself Anacharsis (Clogg 1976, 80-81), after the immensely popular, albeit longwinded, fictionalised account of the journey of Anacharsis the Younger in the Greek world in the fourth century BC written by the Abbe J J . Barthélémy.

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The Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce had been duly translated into Greek appearing, after some tribulations, in a seven-volume edition published in Vienna in 1819. In the preface to this translation, the translator, Khrysovergis Kouropalatis, gives an insight into the way in which Greek intellectuals became almost intoxicated with nationalist sentiment. 'There is nothing in the world', he wrote, 'more honourable, more desirable, more sacred than the Motherland... in short, patriots of all nations think of nothing else, breathe nothing else, have no other wish, than the advantage, the increase and the glory of the Motherland'. The Revd. William Jowett, an English missionary, who, on the eve of the Greek revolt, visited Chios, like Ayvahk a major centre of the 'NeoHellenic Enlightenment', observed what he termed the 'great fashion, at present, of giving their children classical names' such as Calliope and Euterpe. He encountered one Chiote bent on baptising his daughter Anthepe 'having discovered that that was the name, in very ancient times, of a Queen in Scio' (Jowett 1822, 75). Another missionary traveller, the Revd. S. S. Wilson himself encouraged the practice. In 1824, a proud father on Spetses asked Wilson whether his two-month-old son was not a 'noble Greek'. '"Perhaps", said I, "a future minister or legislator". "What shall I call him?" enquired the father turning to me; "for we are not going now to name our children after a pack of saints; we shall, in future, give them great, ancient names, those of our ancestors". "Well", I replied "call the babe Themistocles". — "What?" — "Themistocles?" — "Wilt thou write it me down?" I did so in good Greek; and, I have reason to think, that if the dear little fellow is yet in this world of mortals, he is bearing the honoured name of the Athenian legislator' (Wilson 1839, 265). Sometimes enthusiastic students assumed classicising names of which there is no record in antiquity. Panayiotis Theodoridis and Giorgios Ioannidis, for instance, took the names Panagiotes Phoibapollon and Phoibapollon o ek Smyrnes respectively (Argyropoulou 1968, 52). Greeks not only endowed their children with classical names during the early years of the nineteenth century but, as Koraes noted in his Memoire (1803, 44), they began to name their ships in a similar fashion. Whereas they had hitherto been named after saints, they now chose the names of ancient Greek heroes. When Nicholas Biddle, a Philadelphia grandee and one of the first Americans to visit the Greek lands, took ship in Naples in 1806, he embarked on a 'polacre brig' called Themistocles (McNeal 1993, 51). Virtually the entire fleet of the 'nautical' island of Hydra, which was to play such an important in establishing Greek

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control of the sea during the war of independence, was endowed with such names. Ships of Hatziyannis Mexis, a leading ship owner of Spetses, another of the 'nautical' islands, were named after Pericles, Themistocles, Epaminondas and Leonidas. One Spetsiote ship was named after Pericles' partner Aspasia, while Laskarina Bouboulina, the Spetsiote heroine of the War of Independence, commissioned a ship named Agamemnon. Another indication of this interest in the past was the emergence of a scholarly interest in, rather than as had hitherto been the case, a superstitious reverence for, the physical remains of Greek antiquity and a concern to protect this heritage from the mania for collecting of foreign antiquaries. Koraes fulminated against the monks of the Monastery of St John on Patmos for having sold the famous codex containing Plato's Dialogues to the Cambridge scholar E. D. Clarke. One of the purposes of the Philomousos Etaireia, or Society of Friends of the Muses, which was founded in Athens in 1813 and had foreigners as well as Greeks in its membership, was 'the excavation of antiquities, the collection of marble inscriptions, of statues, of vessels and of any other worthwhile object'. Schoolteachers, many of whom had studied in the universities of Europe, were in the forefront of this re-awakening of interest in classical antiquity. It comes as no surprise therefore that in the schools and colleges of the Greek world in the decades before 1821 there should have been strong emphasis on the study of ancient Greek and of the history and literature of Greek antiquity. In 1760 Georgios Phatzeas, a priest from Kythera, wrote in his Grammatike geographike, e mallon analysis kathara, exikrivomene, kai syntomos tou oloklirou somatos tis Neoteras Geographias ... (1760), an augmented translation (via the French and Italian) of William Guthrie's New Geographical Historical and Commercial Grammar, that 'in Greece, where in ancient times Wisdom flowered, and the Muses dwelt, there are today no Academies and Reading Rooms, worthy of the name Academic. For the barbarous tyranny of the Turks does not allow the descendants of the Hellenes to attend to the study of the Sciences, of Wisdom, as was the custom of their progenitors'. But by the end of the eighteenth century the educational scene had changed markedly. In schools such as the Ellenomouseion of Ayvalik, the Academy of Chios, the Megale tou Genous Scholi (The Great School of the Nation) at Kurugegme in Constantinople, the Lykeion of Bucharest and the lonios Akademia (Ionian Academy), founded in Corfu by the eccentric Frederic

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North, Fifth Earl of Guilford 1 , the foundations were laid of that emphasis, indeed over-emphasis, on the classics that has characterised the Greek educational system up until modern times. Two American missionary visitors to the Academy of Chios in 1820, the Reverends Levi Parsons and Pliny Fisk, noted that 'the lessons of the second class are in ethics and history, selected from the works of Chrysostom, Isocrates, Plutarch, Dionysius and Lucian. The third class, in distinction, from the first and second, are instructed in poetry — lessons taken from the Iliad — also in the different dialects and measures. The fourth class study Demosthenes, Plato, Herodotus, Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, and Pindar, and are required to translate frequently from the ancient Greek' (Clogg 1967, 187). Platon Petrides recorded that the annual examinations in 1817 at the school of Zakynthos, then under British rule, entailed inter alia, the writing of encomia of Aristides, Themistocles, Homer and Solon. One of the students, Count Ioannis Lountzis, penned a poem to Homer cast in the form of a Sapphic ode for the examination in poetics and rhetoric (Petridis 1817a, 27). Petridis noted that in England the study of the Greek classics was a necessary preparation for many professions. 'Should Greece' he asked, 'be the only place in which the Greek Muse is silent?' Nothing, he believed, would bring young Greeks, 'the hope of the Motherland', closer to the English and other nations or hasten the happiness of the Nation than the study of their beautiful language. 'Your language, o Young Ionian Islanders,' Petridis declared, 'albeit very corrupted, has not however been completely extinguished, but in the final analysis you speak the same language which your most brilliant ancestors spoke' (Petridis 1817b, 2, 5). Such was the emphasis on the classics at an Athenian school which William Allen visited in 1819 that the Quaker philanthropist was shocked to find that they taught 'Socrates, Eusebius, Plato and Xenophon, but not Jesus Christ' (Allen 1846, 114).

OPPOSITION TO CLASSICAL LEARNING

This great upsurge of interest in the civilisation of antiquity did not go without challenge. Dr. Mikhail Perdikaris, in a book published in Vienna in 1817, delighted in satirising the pretentions of the new nationalist intelligentsia, who insisted in dressing in Western clothes, alafranga, and in showing off their doctorates from European universities. He lampooned in 1 Guilford built up a superb library for the Ionian Academy or University but his heirs thwarted his intention that the books remain on Corfu on his death and large parts of the library were sold to the British Museum in the 1830's. They form the basis of the British Library's exceptional collection of pre-independence printed books.

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particular their practice of changing their names: 'some take no pleasure in the surnames of their own family, and take the name of some ancient, or philosopher, or hero, thinking that, though without the virtue and learning of those of blessed memory, that with only their bare name they are those [worthies] themselves. So that one calls himself Empedocles, another Thrasyboulos, one calls himself Ass, another Blockhead' (Clogg 1976, 91). The hierarchy of the Orthodox Church, which equated interest in antiquity with paganism and idolatry, was fearful lest this revival of classical learning would undermine the faith of the Orthodox faithful. In an encyclical of 1819, the Ecumenical Patriarch Grigorios V and the members of the Holy Synod, inter alia, condemned what they termed the recent innovation of 'giving ancient Greek names to the baptised infants of the faithful' as 'altogether inappropriate and unsuitable'. The lower clergy were urged to admonish their flock 'to abandon forthwith this abuse... parents and godparents are in future to name at the time of the holy and secret rebirth [baptism] with the traditional Christian names, to which pious parents are accustomed, the [names] known in Church, and of the glorious saints that are celebrated by it' (Clogg 1976, 88). Gregory's predecessor as patriarch, Kurillos VI, was reported by Konstantinos Koumas, at that time director of the Patriarchal Academy in Kuru§e§me in Constantinople, to have claimed that he was unable to understand the fashionable preference for Thucydides and Demosthenes over what he termed 'the most elegant' Synesius and Gregory Nazianzen and to have declared the verses of the twelfth-century Phtochoprodromos to be much more harmonious than those of Euripides (Koumas 1832, 514). Athanasios Parios, a conservative cleric and a staunch critic of the ideas of the Enlightenment and of Koraes in particular, declared that the ancient philosophers paid only lip service to virtue and learning, while he denounced Plato as being 'woman obsessed, a pederast and a parasite' (Nathanael Neokaisareos (Athanasios Parios) 1802, 15). Although Neophytos Kausokalyvites, was, like Athanasios Parios, a staunch conservative in religious matters, he translated and paraphrased texts of Homer, Isocrates, Plutarch and Lucian. In a delirious state shortly before his death in Bucharest in 1784 he rejoiced in the fact that he was about to join the souls of Plato and Demosthenes, a hope that so scandalised the Orthodox clergy of the city that they could scarcely bring themselves to give him a Christian burial (Dimaras 1969, 13).

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POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL

This great upsurge of interest in antiquity gave rise to some hyperbolic rhetoric. Benjamin of Lesvos, for instance, writing in 1820 in his Stoicheia tis Metaphysikis, on the very eve of the outbreak of the War of Independence, declared that 'nature has placed limits on the abilities of other people, but not, however, on those of the Greeks. Neither the Greeks of old were, nor the Greeks of today are, subject to the laws of nature' (Dimaras 1957, 5). For Grigorios Paliouritis there was a time when 'our common mother Greece' was considered the mother of all mankind, was called the dwelling place of wisdom and the nesting place of the Muses, the treasure chest of human knowledge and of everything deemed sacred and wise (Paliouritis 1815, 7). Much of this revival of interest in Greece's ancient past took place among Greeks of the Diaspora. These openly made the link between the glories of Greece's ancient past and the prospect of her imminent regeneration. Naturally Greeks living in the Ottoman dominions had to be more circumspect in their enthusiasms and, in particular, in deriving a contemporary political message from this renewed interest in antiquity. The memoirs of the Comte de Marcellus, a former French minister to the Ottoman Porte, afford a revealing glimpse of the way in which some Greeks in the Ottoman capital just before the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821 made a very explicit connection between bygone greatness and the prospects of emancipation from the Ottoman yoke. De Marcellus records that during the winter of 1820/1821 he was invited to a literary evening in the mansion of a Phanariote Greek grandee in Biiytik Dere on the Bosphorus, 'loin du tumulte de Constantinople', as he put it. The servants were dismissed; he was taken to a secluded room well away from public view and sworn to secrecy. His fellow guests included Dionysios Kalliarkhis, the Archbishop of Ephesus, and Costaki and Nikolaki, the sons of Alexandras Mourouzes, a former hospodar or prince of Moldavia. Coffee was deliberately not served, nor was the tsibouki or çubuk, the long-stemmed pipe, smoked as these were deemed to be Ottoman customs. Instead the supposedly Hellenic sherbet or rose water were served. Konstantinos Oikonomos o ex Oikonomon, one of the leading figures of the Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment, gave an introduction. This was followed by a reading of the Persians of Aeschylus in a 'voix animée, ardente et harmonieuse' by a student of the Ellenomouseion of Ayvalik. The fact that the young Greek was soon afterwards to die on the field of battle in Greece during the war of independence gave an extra note of poignancy to the occasion. When he had reached the victory of Salamis over the Persians, the young student of Ayvalik broke away from Aeschylus' text to recite the Thourios or War Hymn of Rigas

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Pheraios or Velestinles, the proto-martyr of Greek independence, who had been strangled by the Ottomans in Belgrade in 1798. This contained the famous couplet: 'Better one hour of free life Than forty years of slavery and imprisonment.' When the student had finished his reading, Costaki Mourouzes drew parallels between the Persians and the present situation of the Greeks. The commander in Lydia could be compared with the vizier of Bursa. Another character in the play was clearly the envoy of Mehmed Ali. A King of Macedonia had avenged the Greeks of this first invasion by barbarian hordes. Who would deliver them from the second? (Marcellus 1861, 226ff)

CLASSICISM VERSUS TRADITIONALISM A key question, of course, is how widely were the enthusiasms, even obsessions, of the nationalist intelligentsia and, in particular, this incipient progonoplexia, or ancestoritis, disseminated in the Greek world? Much of this ferment seems to have passed the great mass of the Greek people by. They were, above all, conscious of being Christians and had little sense of a specifically Hellenic identity. In an oft-quoted remark Nikotsaras, one of the leading protagonists in the Greek insurgency, showed little awareness of Hellenic ancestry. He was one of the most prominent of the klephts, the bandits, for the most part illiterate, who provided much of the military muscle of the Greek insurgency. When someone once compared his prowess to that of Achilles, Nikotsaras retorted. 'What Achilles and such like fairy tales are you talking about? Did the musket of Achilles kill many?' (Koumas 1832, 544) The thought world of the great mass of unlettered Greeks reflected memories at a popular level of the great Christian Empire of Byzantium rather than of pagan antiquity. The most truly authentic, although by its nature the least tangible, aspect of Greek popular culture during the centuries of the Tourkokratia, or period of Turkish rule, was the almost universal credence in the prophecies and oracles foretelling the eventual liberation of the Greeks from the Hagaren yoke of the Turks. These included the oracles attributed to the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Wise; the legend of the Marmaromenos Vasilias, the Emperor turned into marble, Constantine XI Palaiologos, who

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had died defending Constantinople from the Ottoman Turks on that fateful Tuesday 29 May 1453, and who would one day return to life to lead a revived Christian Empire; the legend of the Kokkine Melia, the Red Apple Tree, from which the Turks had originated in Central Asia and to which they would one day return; the belief in the Xanthon Genos, the fair-haired race of liberators from the north, widely identified with the Russians, who would one day overthrow the Turkish yoke; the widely-disseminated but obscure prophecies of Agathangelos, purportedly compiled in the 13 th century but in fact eighteenth century forgeries, which were held to portend eventual liberation from the Ishmaelites (Clogg 1996, 253-281). Although very widely disseminated, such beliefs seldom manifest themselves in the written sources. An exception to this general rule is the diary of Ioannes Pringos, a native of Zagora in Thessaly, who, like Adamantios Koraes, had worked as a merchant in Amsterdam in the eighteenth century but who, unlike Koraes, had amassed an enormous fortune in the process, Pringos is often held up as the very epitome of the 'progressive' bourgeois merchant, chafing under the arbitrariness and inefficiency of Ottoman rule and holding up the mercantile system of Holland as a model of enlightened efficiency. In fact he remained steeped in the thought world of neoByzantine Orthodoxy. In a passage in his diary for 22 July 1771 he wrote that 'now should the prophecies of Leo the Wise be fulfilled, where he says "Two eagles shall devour the snake". These two eagles he identified as the insignia of the Byzantine and Russian Empires, and the snake as the Turks, who had wrapped themselves around the corpse of the Byzantine Empire. He was quite confident that, given that the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Wise was held to have prophesied that the Turks would remain for 320 years in Constantinople, the City, as Constantinople was simply and universally known in the Greek world, would be liberated within two years. This was a belief given some credence by the fact that the great Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774 was then in progress (Clogg 1996, 260). But if beliefs of this kind more accurately reflected popular sentiment than the archaising enthusiasms of the small, but influential nationalist intelligentsia, the demonstrable, indeed at times obsessive, interest in Greece's classical heritage whose emergence in the fifty years or so before 18211 have outlined in this paper, did contribute significantly to fostering a sense of identity that helped to override the particularism and local patriotism so characteristic of the Greek communities during the long centuries of Ottoman rule. Moreover, the emergence of progonoplexia, ancestoritis, and

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198 archaiolatreia,

ANATOLI

ancestor worship, during this period exercised a profound

influence on the educational system and indeed the entire cultural life of the newly emergent Greek state. It was this educational system which proved to be such an effective instrument in creating a sense of common Greek ancestry and identity among virtually all the inhabitants of the independent Greek state as it gradually expanded in the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

REFERENCES Allen, W., 1846. Life of William Allen, with selections from his London.

correspondence.

Anderson, B., 1990. Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London. Argyropoulou, R., 1968. Panayiotis Phoivapollon kai Phoivappollon o ek Smyrnis. O Eranistes 6, 43-53. Clogg, R., 1967. O Parsons kai a Fisk sto Gymnasio tes Khiou to 1820. O Eranistes 5, 177-193. —

1969. The correspondence of Adhamantios Koraes with Thomas Burgess 1789-1792. Anzeiger der phil.-hist. Klasse der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenchafien. 106, 40 72. — 1976. The Movement for Greek Independence 1770-1821: a Collection of Documents. London. 1996. Sense of the Past in pre-independence Greece. In: R. Clogg (ed.), — Anatolica: studies in the Greek East in the 18th and 19th centuries. Aldershot. XI 7-30. Dimaras, C., 1957. Psykhologikoi paragontes tou Eikosiena. Athens. — 1969. La Grèce au temps des Lumières. Geneva. Farsolas, D.J., 1971. Alexander Pushkin: his attitude towards the Greek Revolution 1821-1829. Balkan Studies, 12, 57-80. Kedourie, E., 1970. Nationalism in Asia and Africa. London. Koraes, A., 1804. Iliodorou Aithiopikon Vivlia Deka. Paris. Coray [Adamantios Koraes] 1803, Mémoire sur l'état actuel de la civilisation dans la Grèce, lu à la Société des Observateurs de l'Homme le 16 Nivôse, an xi (6 Janvier 1803). Paris. Jowett, W., 1822. Christian researches in the Mediterranean from 1815 to 1820. London. Koumas, K., 1832. Istoriai anthropinon praxeon, vol. 12. Vienna. Leake, W. M„ 1814. Researches in Greece. London.

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AND GREEK

Maltby, W., 1856. Recollections

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of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers to which is

added Porsoniana. London. McNeal, R.A. (Ed.), 1993. Nicholas Biddle in Greece. The journals and letters of 1806. University Park, Pennsylvania. Marcellus, Comte de, 1861. Les Grecs anciens et les Grecs modernes. Paris. Neokaisareos, N. (Parios A.), 1802. Antiphonisis apo tes Evropes

erchomenon

pros ton paralogon

philosophon

deiknousa

anoitos einai o talanismos opou kanousi tou genous mas kai poia einai i ontos kai alethene philosophia. Paliouritis, G., 1815. Epitome istorias tis Ellados... Petridis, P., 1817a. Diatrive

ekphonetheisa

zilon ton

oti mataios

kai

didaskousa

Trieste. Venice.

eis tas dimosias

exetaseis

tes en

tous neous tous lonas

dia na

Zakyntho Skholes. Corfu. —

1817b. Eidopoiesis

kai protasis

pros

anorthososi ten glossan tis Palaias Ellados. Corfu. Petrou, S., 1976. Grammata apo to Amsterdam, ed. P. Iliou. Athens. Slot, B.J., 1980. Commercial activities of Koraes in Amsterdam. O Eranistes 16, 55-139. Valetas, G. (Ed.), 1957. Anonymou

tou Ellinos, Elliniki Nomarkhia,

itoi logos

peri Eleftherias ('Italy' 1806). Athens. Wilson, S.S., 1839. A narrative of the Greek mission; or, sixteen years in Malta and Greece. London

SMYRNA IN 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives in the Public Record Office

It is understandable that historians of the Greek War of Independence have focused their attention on the actual areas of fighting and that relatively little research has been carried out into the impact of the war on the extensive Greek populations who lived under Ottoman rule but were far removed from the centres of battle in the Peloponnese and mainland Greece. This is particularly true of the Greek populations of Asia Minor, about whose reaction to 1821 relatively little is known. This is largely, of course, a question of sources, for contemporary Greek chroniclers and foreign travellers inevitably focused their attention on the war zone. One source of fundamental importance on the Greek communities of Asia Minor during the period of the War of Independence are the reports of foreign consular agents, whose frequently valuable reports have been unduly neglected by historians1. The reports published in this article are those of the Levant Company's consul in Smyrna, Francis Werry. His long tenure of this office between 1794 and 1825, when the Levant Company surrendered its charters and privileges after 224 years of existence, gave him an unrivalled knowledge of conditions prevailing in the city and of its heterogeneous population. The reports that are published here cover the period from April 1821, when the news of the insurrection in the Danubian Principalities first reached Smyrna, until the end of December of the same year. It is hoped to publish the reports covering later years of the war in subsequent articles.

Professor M. Lascaris published French and Austrian consular reports in his La Révolution grecque vue de Salonique. Rapports des Consuls de France et d'Autriche (1821-1826), «Balcania», vi (1943), 145-168. Some of the relevant documents in the Public Record Office relating to Thessaloniki during the Greek War of Independence have been published in Hristo Andonov-Poljanski, ed., «Britanski Dokymenti za istorijata na Makedonskiot narod» (British Documents on the History of the Macedonian People), vol. i (1797-1839), Skopje 1968, 221233. Cf. also D. Dakin, British Intelligence of Events in Greece, 1824-1827 : A Documentary Collection, Athens 1959, extracted from the «AekrLov rrjç 'lGTopLKrjç Kai 'EôuoXoyLicfjç 'Eraipelaç rrjç 'EXXdôoç» xiii (1959).

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Inevitably, the news of the incipient Greek revolt had profound repercussions in Smyrna with its very substantial Greek population 1 , and most of Consul Werry's reports during the year were concerned with reporting the situation and in particular the severe dislocation of trade which ensued and whose effects were, of course, of paramount importance to the Levant Company. For the years immediately before 1821 witnessed a considerable resurgence of commercial activity on the part of the Levant Company in Smyrna. The number of members of the Company's factory in Smyrna rose from about 8 or 10 in 1813 to at least 25 by 1821, and the Company's increased business in the city was considered in 1816 sufficient to warrant the appointment of a vice-consul for 'the better dispatch of increased public business' 2 . Some indication of the extent to which the Company's trade with the Ottoman Empire suffered following the outbreak of hostilities is afforded by the following figures for declared value of woollen goods exported to Turkey from Britain. This amounted to £ 29,643 in 1818, £ 15,490 in 1819 and £ 12,871 in 1820. But in 1821 this fell to £ 3,772 and in 1822 to £ 1,744, rising somewhat to £ 4, 698 in 1823. Only in 1824 did the figures begin, at £ 10,778, to approach the pre-war level 3 . Werry's concern with the breakdown of normal trading activity and the ensuing collapse of confidence (and indeed his generally unsympathetic attitude to the Greek cause) is manifested throughout his reports for 1821. At the same time he was an acute observer of the crisis in the city's affairs consequent on the breakdown of order in the city government, a not uncommon occurrence in Smyrna during this period, as the Smyrna 'rebellion' of March 1797 so

' The Rev. William Jowett, a generally well informed missionary traveller, estimated the population of Smyrna in 1818 at 60,000 Turks, 40,000 Greeks, 10,000 Jews, 7,000 Armenians and 3,000 Latins (Protestants very few), «Christian Researches in the Mediterranean fom 18151820 in furtherance of the objects of the Church Missionary Society», London 1822, 57. A few years earlier (c. 1812) the French traveller J. M. Tancoigne put the population of the city at 60,000 Turks, 25,000 Greeks, 10,000 Armenians and 5,000 Jews, Voyage a Smyrne, dans l'Archipel, et l'lle de Candie en 1811-1814, Paris 1817, vol. i, 27. The Rev. Robert Mosley Master, who visited Asia Minor and Athens in 1818-1819, estimated the population of Smyrna at 'from 120,000 to 180,000 principally Turks and Greeks, among them about 12,000 Jews, and a number of Franks, 300 families of them of the better class', «British Museum, Add. Ms. 51313», 267. 2

A.C. Wood, A History of the Levant Company, London 1935 (reprinted 1964), 195-196. Figures from T. Marshall, Digest of all the accounts relating to the population, production, revenues, & c., of Great Britain and Ireland, London 1833 quoted in A. C. Wood, op. cit., 194. Trade within the actual belligerent zone was affected even more drastically. The official value of currants imported by the Levant Company to Britain from Patras in 1820 was £ 42,319. By 1824 this had fallen to £ 814, op. cit., 196. 3

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graphically illustrates 1 . Historians analysing the nature of the breakdown of imperial authority in the 18th century Ottoman Empire have focused their attention on the growth of rival and virtually independent centres of authority in the provinces in the form of the ayans (or derebeys as they are more usually termed in Asia Minor), who during this period attained the height of their powers. The names of Ali Pa§a of Janina, Pasvanoglu of Vidin and Mustafa Pa§a Bayraktar in Rumeli, and of the Karaosmanogullar in Anatolia immediately spring to mind in this context. But it has not been sufficiently stressed that this crisis in imperial authority also manifested itself in many of the most important urban centres within the Empire. The role of the Janissaries, until their destruction by Mahmud II in 1826, in determining the course of events in the capital is well known 2 , but the anarchic behaviour of the janissary ortas or regiments in major provincial cities of the Empire is not so well documented. The crucial role of the Janissaries and of the 'mob' in determining the state of civil order in Smyrna during this period is made clear in Werry's despatches. Werry, it will be recalled, had also been consul during the Smyrna 'rebellion' of 1797, which again resulted essentially from the indiscipline of the janissary ortas. As well as throwing invaluable light on the realities of urban life in the Ottoman Empire during the period, Werry's despatches indicate the extent of the powers of the foreign consuls in the city during this period. Moreover, his reports contain valuable information on the extent and nature of migration by the Greek inhabitants of Smyrna during 1821, in their efforts to avoid harrassment and persecution or worse. Occasionally, too, he affords fascinating insights into the attitudes of what he terms the 'lower orders' of the Greeks in the city to the revolt. Particularly interesting in this context is his report of 2 June (document 7) that the 'lower orders' of the Greeks believed that the feast of St. Constantine was 'the day appointed by heaven to liberate them from the Ottoman yoke and to restore their Race of Princes to the throne and possession of Constantinople'. (See also document 14). This is one of the rare *On the Smyrna 'rebellion' see, among others, N. K. Khatzi Kostis, ZfivpvaCKa 'AvoAeKTa.

T6 iv Zp.vpvT) pep.rreXk.ov TOV 1797 Kara, vias dueKdorovg rr^yds- «AeXrtov rrjs'lGTopiKi)s Kai 'EOvoXoyixfj? 'Eraipeias Tqsr 'EXXdSos-» vi (1902-1906), 358-372, I. Papayiannopoulos, To Pep-ireXio TOV 1797 Kara veav rrt)yt)i>. «MLKpamariKa XpouiKCt» (1938), 261-267, N. Veis, T6 «MeyaXo PepnreXid» -rrjs- I'pvpvri? (Mdprios- TOV 1797) Kara ueojrdTas epevvas,