"1821-2021, Requiem or Renaissance?" The new book by G. Karabelias

 What is worth rising up for today 

The foreword to the book.

This historical essay obviously does not attempt an exhaustive historical record of the very dense events of a 200-year journey, but it is an attempt to draw a diagram of the main conclusions of this journey - but always through the citation of historical events. In other words, this is not an essay of reflection on the Revolution and its continuation in the modern Greek state, but the conclusions and findings are attempted to be inferred from the historical events themselves; in some cases, the study of historical data has completely overturned some of the views of the author. In addition, due to the conciseness of the presentation, in each chapter I insist on those facts that I consider the most characteristic. In the period 1830-1909,

The essay includes two unequal parts: The first and most extensive, "The Great Idea", concerns the description of the long Greek revolution against Ottoman rule that begins in 1821 and ends in 1919-1920 when it became apparent that this long revolution - the Great Idea - would have had a happy ending, but, almost simultaneously, in 1922, it would have experienced the great rebuttal.

The second part, The civil ideology, concerns the period 1922-2021, the nation as a state, as the more or less geographically stabilized Hellenism tries to find its place in the world of nations and globalization. However, the unification of the Greek palimpsest remained incomplete, as the civil conflict prevailed; eventually Hellenism would again face the same opponent that now threatens it with the annulment of the revolutionary conquests of the period 1821-1920.

The  first chapter  of the first part  deals with the conditions of the Revolution - economic, intellectual, military and political - from 1700 , when the Greek Renaissance begins. With the economic and spiritual / educational upheaval of modern Hellenism, by Eugenios Voulgaris, to Kosmas the Aetolian ﮲ with the decisive contribution of the Orthodox Church and the communities, the Phanariotes and the Ionian State ﮲ with the formation of the military systems, the Souli, Mani ﮲ with the first organizational attempts, such as that of Rigas Velestinlis, and the great general test of the Revolution, the Orlofika, until the Friendly Society, the great revolutionary expedition of '21 is prepared.

The second is a diagrammatic description of the events of the Revolution  through the focus on its three major figures - which also express its main tendencies -, Theodoros Kolokotronis, Alexandros Mavrokordatos and Ioannis Kapodistrias; a unified leadership, which will not allow the completion of its goals ﮲ goals that were none other than the reconstitution of the Greek state of late Byzantium ("again with times…"). However, with "countless struggles and sacrifices", a small first Greek state will be created, even under foreign tutelage.

The third chapter, the  "Great Idea, 1830-1909", focuses on the struggles and anxieties of unredeemed Hellenism, from Crete to Macedonia, and the efforts to make the dwarf Greek state emerge at the core of national integration, against the sirens of an unbridled Greek-Ottoman ecumenism. The ongoing, after 1830, Cretan Revolution and then the revolutions in Epirus, Thessaly and the Macedonian Struggle will continuously feed back the Great Idea, from Valaoritis to Achilles Paraschos, from Paparrigopoulos to Palamas, from Ioannis Kos Alexandros Koumoundouros. The Greek state - which had already included the Ionian Islands, Arta and Thessaly - would become, from the 1880s, the epicenter of the Hellenism of the Diaspora, in parallel with Constantinople. End,

The fourth chapter,  "1909-1922-Light and darkness", presents the last phase of the long Greek Revolution , starting from the dynamics of the Greek state: From the great internal reconstruction, 1909-1912, which will open the revolution of 1909 and the arrival of Venizelos as a representative of the unredeemed Hellenism, until the liberation of Thessaloniki and the unfortunate divisive collapse towards the vision of integration in Ionia and Constantinople. The Greek nation, which has now been transformed into a nation-state, tripled compared to that of 1830, but lost its historic capital, Constantinople, and the Greek Ionia.

The first chapter, of the second part  1922-1940, will describe the literally superhuman effort to integrate the wider Hellenism , which had been uprooted from its homelands, and not only as refugee populations, but also culturally: in an expansion of Hellenism on its borders Hellenism, but also of European culture as a whole, as the generation of the '30s will express it par excellence.

In the following period,  1940-1949, the great national uprising of "No" and the untold heroism of the Resistance, despite the destruction and the millions of dead, could be the prelude to a great popular democratic revolution; but the country will be led to a tragic and bloody civil impasse, due to the British intervention, the smallness and anti-democracy of the leadership of the resistance movement and, finally, the dynamic of the planetary Cold War, which will be inaugurated in Greece. Thus, the old division that destroyed the vision of Ionia will be revived as a civil conflict and the attempt to merge the refugee and domestic populations will remain incomplete.

In the period  1949-1974, Hellenism - although it had lost much of the achievements of the period 1922-1940, the generation of the Resistance was largely destroyed, and the external dependence became suffocating - a new painful modernization effort will begin, however, and at the same time it will try to integrate the Cypriot Hellenism in the Greek state. And despite the rapid economic growth and political, cultural and intellectual prosperity of the 1960s, these conquests will remain undermined by the permanent presence of the civil war state and foreign dependence; in this respect the great setback of the 1967-1974 dictatorship will not follow. which will not only destroy the Cypriot Hellenism, but will also bring about a great spiritual setback.

In the  long post-government period (1974-2019) we distinguish three distinct moments. In the first (1974-1989), many political, institutional, social and cultural reforms will take place that will radically change the face of the country, despite any negative parameters. In the second phase (1989-2009), when all kinds of ties with the European Union are strengthened, the rise in living standards will be combined with increased borrowing, widening deficits and dependence on imported resources. At the same time, the civil conflict will be expressed as a contrast between the ethnocentrism of the elites, who favor the final abandonment of the national "shell", and the popular body that remains connected, albeit atavistically, with national identity and identity. In the third phase (2009-2019), the post-government model collapses with literally revealing dimensions, resembling the consequences of a real war. During this sweeping crisis, the complete impasse to which the coup was led will be demonstrated, as no social force was able to offer a coherent response to the crisis.

After ten years of deadlocked crisis, in 2019 Turkey will reappear threatening , to claim the "return" of Greece to a neo-Ottoman sphere of domination, annulling the revolutionary acquis of '21. Will Greek society finally be able to "escape" from a change of government that had turned into hoarseness and decline? Because, now, he will either complete what he had left unfinished in 1821, that is, the coincidence of the nation and the state, or he will scatter definitively in the winds of history.