Exactly two centuries have passed since the Revolution that led us to national and political independence. And if anniversaries have any value, it is mainly because they give us the opportunity to reflect on events. To explore the depth of our collective consciousness on these issues. And above all, to discover our collective identity today. As a people and as a nation.
We must realize what we stand for over time, what we represent in the international community. What gave rise to the Great Revolution and what the new Greek state symbolized in its time, in terms of the ideas of Freedom and Justice. And in terms of the cause of Progress on a global level.
If this is the value of the anniversary, I think it is more important to highlight it than to simply commemorate the heroes, praise their achievements, and deliver speeches. And that is what I will attempt to do, by commenting on some of the aspects of that great Struggle that deserve our attention today and that are of interest, or should be of interest, to modern democracy and the political forces that faithfully serve it.
The political significance of ideas and intellectual thought
We know that the Greek Revolution did not break out suddenly, in an ideological vacuum. Like the French Revolution that preceded it, was the result of long-standing ferment and conflict in the sphere of culture and intellectual thought, in the realm of ideas. Between 1770 and 1821, the ideas of the Enlightenment that were triumphant in Paris reached our shores and challenged the hitherto absolute dominance of theocratic thinking, superstition, and obscurantism.
Orthodox Reason took center stage among new ideas, expressing the belief that man is responsible for his own destiny, that he can and must escape from the immaturity for which he himself was responsible, to recall the famous phrase of Kant, a great German philosopher. With Right Reason, the gates were opened through which truly groundbreaking and revolutionary values such as freedom and equality passed.
Greek ships, which had dominated the Mediterranean, also carried new, radical ideas. Schools of science and letters, which sprang up one after another, financed by these enlightened merchants, along with scientific knowledge, They also conveyed ideas and concepts such as those of citizenship and democracy.
Thus, for example, the fiery revolutionary imagined the new Greek state Rigas Feraios. A state where everyone, regardless of their social status, origin, or religion, would live freely and participate equally in its governance. Despite the reactions of those who praised the Sultan's powerful reign and preached political obedience as God's will, these ideas spread and inspired many of those who organized the Revolution and fought in the Struggle.
So here is the first thing worth remembering today from 1821: In order for people to be freed from political bonds, they must first be freed from their spiritual bonds. And although freedom, equality, and democracy were first articulated as supreme values at that time, they still had a long way to go. Because, as we now know, Freedom is more than the overthrow of any tyrant, equality is more than equal rights, and democracy is certainly more than the periodic election of leaders. This is the first thing worth keeping in mind.
From «ragia» to Fighter
The second thing worth remembering has to do with the social impact of the spread of revolutionary ideas: through the mobilization and action of many. The Greek Revolution opened the door wide for the masses, the people themselves, to enter history. It may have begun with the Philiki Etaireia, a closed, secret organization of small merchants who had become radicalized by the economic crisis of the preceding years, but its message quickly spread both upward (to certain Phanariots, a few notables, even clergy) as, and mainly, downward.
He mobilized the weaker social classes politically, the «ragia» farmers who until then had been accustomed to bowing their heads, the mountain shepherds who lived on the margins of the agricultural world, the armatoi who hired out their military skills to foreign rulers, all those who for centuries had been socially dependent and politically powerless., excluded from decisions that affected their lives.
Kolokotronis was indeed a great general. But he could not have defeated Dramali's formidable army without the thousands of peasants who followed him, who melted down their scythes to make bullets, who burned their crops so that the enemy would find no supplies, who dared to raise their heads knowing that death awaited them. A leader, any leader, has a role to play, and it is important that he plays it well, but he exists as a leader only if the many support him, only if they all unite behind a collective goal that transcends their immediate, narrow, individual interests. It is no coincidence that the other epic of the Greek people, the National Resistance during the Occupation, sought inspiration in the Twenty-One.
The EAM, the National Liberation Front, became a huge river, not because it had great leaders, but because convinced many that it was worth fighting for freedom and equality, to cease being slaves and become rebels, just as their distant ancestors had become from «ragia» fighters. This is worth remembering: the emancipation of the many, of those who suffer all forms of exploitation, does not come from above. It is the struggle of the people themselves that humanizes. Perhaps the greatest achievement of Eikosi is that it instantly transformed the «ragia» into fighters.
The importance of international public opinion
There is a third factor that we know was decisive for the outcome of the Struggle. From the outset, Eikosi-ena sought and achieved internationalization. The rebels quickly realized that if they remained alone, they would have no chance of success. It is true that the international context at the time ultimately proved favorable to the Greek cause in a paradoxically contradictory way.
At the same time as the notorious Holy Alliance suppressed every revolutionary hotbed in Europe, the rebels everywhere, those inspired by the French Revolution who sparked uprisings in the Iberian and Italian peninsulas, which were crushed in bloodshed around 1820, saw in the Greek Revolution a new hope that the values of freedom and equality would remain relevant.
Hundreds of them came to the Peloponnese and joined the revolutionary forces, fought bravely, and many fell on the battlefields. People like Santore di Santaroza and Lord Byron. Thousands of others formed philhellenic committees throughout Europe, raising money and supplies., put pressure on their governments to change course and support the Greek cause.
A dynamic philhellenic movement developed throughout Europe, initially winning over intellectuals, then public opinion, until around 1825 it overturned the initially negative attitudes of the political elites of the Great Powers. It did so not only because the Greeks were the descendants of the glorious and cultured Ancients, whom Humanism and the Enlightenment had rediscovered and so admired.
It was mainly the fact that The Greek Revolution was one of the first revolutions to combine national and political liberation. Freedom, equality, brotherhood: the romantic revolutionaries saw the Greek cause as a just cause, a cause that concerned all peoples, not just the Greek people.
This also reminds us of something. That we do not live alone in this world. That No important national goal or national cause can be achieved without winning over international public opinion and convincing it of their just nature., without ultimately building any international alliances. I believe this is important at a time when both the economy and geopolitics in the eastern Mediterranean require our constant concern and utmost attention.
The democratic nation
But when we talk about the Twenty-One, the word ’nation« comes to mind first and foremost. And rightly so. Our ancestors fought primarily for the political self-determination of the nation. But in the minds of those who fought and sacrificed themselves for it, the idea of the nation was completely identified with liberal and democratic ideas. For them, it was self-evident that When you cease to accept the subjugation of your people, you cannot then accept injustice and inequality within your national community. For the «ragia» who became fighters, it was clear that they were fighting for a future where everyone would become equal members of a new political community called the Greek nation. In other words, they would become citizens of a democracy in which equality and freedom would prevail.
And indeed, and this is also a characteristic of the Twenty-One that is relevant today, the Revolution itself functioned as a huge workshop for the implementation and establishment of the most radical political institutions of the time, which revolved around the words «citizens» and «democracy.» The three constitutions of the Struggle clearly reflect the most revolutionary ideas of that era. In the Greek state that would emerge, there would be no slaves, but also no nobles.
All were recognized as citizens participating in government through representatives. Power now had as its source and foundation the concept of «popular sovereignty.». In order to avoid the excessive concentration of political power and the abuse of authority, the latter ceased to be unified and was divided into «Legislative,» «Executive,» and «Judicial.» And, of course, everyone was equal before the law, regardless of origin, position, rank, or wealth.
Of course, we now know that all these political achievements, which were highly revolutionary for their time, were sidelined when the Great Powers imposed absolute monarchy as the political system of the new state. However, the political legacy of the Revolution did not fade away. It functioned, and continues to function to this day, as an institutional trust, as a historical precedent that decisively determined the development of political institutions in Greece.
Democratic ideas continued to emerge, sometimes militantly, sometimes more hesitantly, in the years that followed. This is evidenced by political uprisings such as that of 1843 for the establishment of the Constitution or that of 1862 which led to the expulsion of Otto. This is most strikingly evidenced by the extremely pioneering, in relation to the international context, de facto establishment of universal suffrage (for men) in our country as early as 1844, something that would be enshrined in the Constitution two decades later. This is also reflected in certain other institutional developments, such as the establishment of the Principle of Declared Intent in 1875, as well as social reforms such as the distribution of national land to the landless in 1871.
In the 20th century, on the other hand, these democratic achievements were unfortunately not a given, and historical «setbacks» were frequent: coups, ethnic divisions, dictatorships, democratic deviations. Thus, new struggles were needed to defend democracy, which were often, if not always, inspired by the tradition of the Twenty-One. The struggles of the agricultural and working classes for real equality and social justice, the magnificent Resistance of our people during the years of Occupation, the students who defied the tanks in November 1973, the small and large struggles of our people, especially the youth, since the transition to democracy, particularly the struggles for democratic rights but also those against harsh austerity during the economic crisis and the memoranda.
All these struggles, justified and unfulfilled, remind us that The political legacy of the Twenty-One emerges again and again. And just when it often seems that everything is over, the people come to the fore once again, taking history into their own hands. Much has been achieved in the two hundred years that have passed since the Twenty-First.
But there are also projects that have not been completed. This democratic legacy, which has nourished our political institutions, our historical consciousness, and our collective memory, deserves first and foremost to be recognized as a fundamental element of our collective identity throughout the centuries. It deserves to be understood, not in order to interpret history, but to interpret the present and the future. Above all, however, we must complete it.
