Prologue

For millennia, the Greeks maintained a fragile yet powerful connection with each other. They knew they shared the same national identity. Homer and other poets and philosophers and historians elaborated the things that kept the Greeks together: speaking the same language, piety for the gods and born in the same land. The Athenians, according to Thucydides, were autochthonous people (The Peloponnesian War 1.2). They never came from another place but Attica. The Olympics, other Panhellenic games, and religious festivals strengthened their connections with each other. They knew who they were. This understanding kept them Greek, sometimes under extremely difficult conditions, including those of slavery.

The Greek Revolution of 1821

From the moment of the outbreak of the Greek Revolution, February 21, 1821 (in Romania) and March 25, 1821 (in Greece), Hellas / Greece became the apple of discord among European powers: England, France, Austria, and Russia. Remembering the French Revolution and Napoleon, caused nightmares to English and Russian and Austrian diplomats like Klemens von Metternich who was the Chancellor of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In 1815, at the Congress of Vienna, he noticed Ioannes Kapodistrias, a Greek diplomat working for the Tsar of Russia. He immediately disliked him. He ordered his agents to keep tabs on Kapodistrias, who, in 1816, the Tsar made his chief diplomat. Kapodistrias became the Secretary of State, 1816-1822. He served Russia with distinction until 1822, when he took a leave of absence and retired in Switzerland to better serve the interests of the Greek Revolution. His Philomuse Society raised funds and Philhellenism in Europe. Meanwhile, the Austrian spies reported to Metternich that the agenda of Kapodistrias was extremely ambitious. Kapodistrias dreamt of resurrecting ancient Greece in an independent Greece of 1828. The great European powers appointed him to head the liberated Greece of 1828 but wouldn’t tolerate the ancient ambitions of Kapodistrias. England was unhappy that Greece was free, though extremely small, hungry, divided and very poor. Indeed, England, France and Russia refused to lend money to Kapodistrias who governed a thoroughly impoverished and wrecked country without any institutions of a nation state. The European powers wanted a monarchy in Greece, the better to control the Greeks. Kapodistrias nullified those plans with his diplomacy. He used his own money and donations from Swish Philhellenes to start a national army, schools, and post and statistical office. But Kapodistrias’ rule of law and justice infuriated two groups of powerful people: the few Greeks who had privileges under the Turkish regime, as well as foreign powers that could not stand the thought that newly independent Greece was governed by the best diplomat and politician of Europe – Kapodistrias. He was an educated patriot who was convinced that the Greeks had always a nation (έθνος) and, therefore, they had a national identity that opened the doors to the benefits of the accumulating knowledge of European civilization, which had Greek roots. In their communities, Greeks maintained the rule of law and local democracy and civilization. National identity also made them difficult to force them back to the institutions of slavery of Islamic states. They would rather die to becoming slaves. Freedom or Death. But for the Turks, Kapodistrias predicted they are the antithesis of civilization. Should they even bring into their government institutions of civilization, Kapodistrias said, Mongol Turks would cease being Turks.

Kapodistrias advanced these theories in a book published in 1828 in French, in Geneva, Switzerland. But that book, History of Modern Greece Since the Fall of the Eastern Empire, translated into Greek for the first time in 2024, did not include his name on the title page of the Swiss edition of 1828. The book had Iakovake Rizos Neroulos as the sole author. Neroulos was an enlightened Greek and friend of Kapodistrias. Considering his role in Russian and European diplomacy, Kapodistrias kept his name out of this extraordinary political and philosophical history of modern Greece.

The enemies of Kapodistrias, however, with the funding of England and, possibly France, assassinated him on September 27, 1831.

The fate of Kapodistrias predicted the fate of Greece. Both were, and continue to be, apples of discord to both the thoroughly alienated Greek government of 2025 and to the rulers of Western Europe and America. Like the Romans, modern Europeans and Americans carefully selected virtues from ancient Greek civilization that promised them power. Greek science, technology and architecture strengthened the rulers of Europe / America. As for the rule of law and democracy, they served cosmetic purposes, not substance, much less political equality and democracy. So, the Greek Revolution was another Greek storm of lighting that filled the sky over Greece. It had arrived from ancient times. It raised emotions and feelings of gratefulness among the literate sections of European societies, but fear among the privileged few who ruled Europe.

The Europeans could see that the Greeks had had it with the Turks. They revolted to regain their freedom. The Greek Revolution shook up Europe like an earthquake. The continent was living in fear from the wars of Napoleon and possible social revolts. The monarchical ruling class and its clerical servants cooked the Holy Alliance against revolutionaries.

The British rulers, for example, did not want to hear of the Greek Revolution. They governed a global empire. They had much more in common with the so-called Ottoman empire of the Mongol Turks than they had with the Greeks of their time, who, after all, were subject people. Besides, the British occupied the Greek Ionian islands and had in their Museum in London looted treasures from the Parthenon. The British also did not want to promote the growth of the Greek merchant marine that, under the protection of Russian flags, was an important power in the Mediterranean. The British rulers hoped the Mongol Turks would crush the Greek Revolution, but if they could not, the British wanted no more than a tiny Greek state run by the Sultan. But the Greeks clouded the British vision. Like their ancient ancestors, the Greek revolutionaries took an oath to fight for freedom to the last man and woman. Of course, not everything went well among the revolutionaries. They all dreamt of freedom, but they differed in tactics. Some of them had guns, others didn’t. Some of them came from the group of privileged Greeks working for the Turks, the Phanariots. Their vision of Greece was not exactly democratic. The Greek revolutionaries fought two civil wars while fighting the Turks.

Alexander Pushkin

Despite the fact Europeans trained and armed the Turkish armies and resupplied them whenever they lost wars against the Greeks, the Greeks repeatedly defeated them. And thanks to Philhellenes like the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and the British poet Lord Byron, the people of Europe sided with the Greeks. Turkish massacres of Greeks boosted Philhellenism.

Pushkin observed the outbreak of the Greek Revolution in Moldavia, Rumania on February 21, 1821. The leader of the Revolution was Alexander Ypsilantes, who was a general in the Russian army. Pushkin was delirious seeing Greeks in revolt. He said: “it is said that the Phoenix of Greece will arise from its own ashes, that the hour of Turkey’s downfall has come, and that a great power (Russia) approves of the great-souled feat… The rapture of men’s mind has reached the highest pitch ; all thoughts are directed to one theme : the independence of the ancient fatherland. In Odessa, crowds of Greeks had been gathering together. All had been selling their property for nothing; they had been buying sabers, rifles, pistols. Everybody was talking about Leonidas, about Themistocles. All were going into the forces of the lucky Ypsilantis. The lives, the property of the Greeks are at his disposal… Ten thousand Greeks have signed up in his troops…. Here, filling the air of the northern desert with the sound of my lyre I wondered during the days when, on the banks of the Danube the magnanimous Greek [Ypsilantes] called for freedom.”

Independent Greece?

In 1827, Russia, France and Britain drafted the Treaty of London in which they told the Turks to cease hostilities in Greece. The Sultan rejected the European proposal. The result was war. The warships of the European powers crushed the Turko-Egyptian fleet at Navarino Bay in southern Peloponnesos. That victory brought the Greek Revolution to its final stages of turning a small part of revolutionary Greece into a nation state. In 1828, the Russians defeated the Ottoman empire. In the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople, the Russians earned more legitimate ground for an independent Greece.

Three treaties confirmed the political independence of Greece: The 1827 Treaty of London, the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople, and the 1832 Treaty of Constantinople. After centuries of bitter foreign occupation, 1453-1821, Greece became an independent nation state. The Greek Revolution inspired other oppressed people to revolt and seek freedom.

However, the murder of Kapodistrias in 1831 all but wiped out the freedom Greeks won at heroic battles and determination to be free. The Europeans planted a Bavarian monarchy in Greece. This meant forcing the Greeks to relive to some degree their past Turkish Mongol political experience. Taking orders from foreigners. The monarchy became the foreigners’ outpost of spying and undermining Greek identity, history, prosperity, power and freedom. And even after the Greek military abolished the monarchy in Greece in 1973, foreign ideas and the doings of a foreign military organization, NATO, have been having dire and dramatic effects on the country.

The governing class in Greece in 2025, like the Phanariot class under Turkish rule, remains focused on serving European, Turkish and American interests. In fact, the Greek government in 2025 is outright hostile to Greece being a sovereign country. Government officials keep bending to the hostile wishes and plans of the Turkish enemy next door in order to please the one-sided “strategic” anti-Russian and pro-Turkish plans of NATO. And this subservient role to the Turks and NATO all but defeats the legacy of the heroic struggle of the Greek Revolution, which was to establish freedom and the rule of law in Greece.

The Greek leaders in 2025 are so blind to patriotism and the magnificent virtues, originality and scientific and technological assets of their ancient ancestors that they treat Greece as a personal fiefdom for personal enrichment. In the last 20 years or so, and like colonial rulers, government officials tolerated the foreign “lenders” insulting and unjust treatment of Greece. The European Union and the International Monetary Fund of the United States sold off the assets of the state to foreigners. But the “elected” leaders of Greece keep paying the national debt to EU-IMF, but they dare not demand the 1 trillion euros Germany owns Greece from the Nazi barbarities of WWII. This attitude has suffocated nationalism and patriotism. The ethnomedenistes / ethnonihilists running Greece look at the country like Trump looks at America, a place to make a deal for personal gain, and nothing else. The result is giving away Greek sovereignty in the Aegean to Turkey — and massive corruption.

EU subsidies

Greek whistleblowers spilled the beans of government corruption to EU officials. According to an Associated Press report, “The prosecutor’s office [in the European Union] sent a hefty case file to Greece’s parliament earlier this week including allegations of the possible involvement of government ministers in an organized fraud scheme. Members of parliament enjoy immunity from prosecution in Greece that can only be lifted by parliamentary vote.” As a result, we now know that Greece suffered a destructive corruption involving the dispersal of EU farm subsidies to small farmers. Most subsidies, however, ended up going to criminals living in Crete who had nothing to do with farming or sheep and goat shepherding. This crime also sheds light on the abandonment of rural villages and the fidelity of Greece to straight importing of almost everything, including sheep and goat meat. Nick Stamatakis, a Greek American newspaper editor, says that “Scandal after scandal, these mafiosi who governed Greece for decades are now under scrutiny by the EU Attorney General – and the rats are jumping ship… The EU entrance may have caused significant financial problems for Greece; however, in terms of transparency and accountability of public officials, it has the authority and can be highly beneficial.”

Greece in danger

I do, too, hope that this unexpected, forced transparency and public accountability might be beneficial. Yet I am concerned about the viability of Greece. Savvas Kalenterides, a former military man turned journalist, broadcaster and publisher, has been denouncing the thieves, thousands of them, among farmers, government officials and politicians. Their corruption deprived the EU subsidies from needy farmers and shepherds. Kalenterides asked: can this corrupt Greek state have a future?

Like the embrace of Mitsotakis and Erdogan, there’s darkness behind the smiles. Mitsotakis speaks of “peaceful waters” in the Aegean and Erdogan sends dozens of trawlers in the heart of the Aegean, the Dodecanese, scooping up fish and everything else. This is ecocide on a large scale. Yet Mitsotakis does nothing to prevent this crime and the gross violation of Greek sovereignty. Why is he not ordering the Greek navy to stop the Turkish violence? Is NATO behind his silence? Instead, he keeps advertising the billion dollars he is spending for sophisticated warships and submarines. One wonders why he needs these advanced weapons while the Turks prevent him from putting an underwater cable between Crete and Cyprus. The Turks violate Greek sovereignty and impoverish the Greek sea. To whom is Mitsotakis not telling the truth? Is NATO responsible for this utterly insane policy to allow Turkey to devastate the Aegean and offend Greek pride and independence?

EU countries and other states watching this suicidal corruption and cowardliness are certain to increase their disdain and racism against the Greek people. Academics will further intensify their racism, arguing against Homer and Greek national identity and continuity. The Greeks of the diaspora – Greeks living outside of Greece – are embarrassed. They will continue their distance from their Hellenic traditions, including speaking Greek. Already, some Orthodox churches hire priests who don’t know Greek. My Greek friends in Greece are nearly unanimous about the pervasive corruption engulfing the Mitsotakis administration and all Greek political parties.

Any hopes?

Ideally, the political power born of the 2023 railroad accident / crime at Tempe, Thessaly, ought to form the next government. If the protagonists of the Tempe movement run for political office, they are certain to win. And once in office, they can punish the guilty and start the process of defending Greek sovereignty. Build a country for the Greeks and civilization. Foreigners are welcomed to visit as well as invest in the country. And Diaspora Greeks should be encouraged to return home. The good news is that Greeks from all over the planet know who they are. Working together, they can build a country that would be self sufficient and strong enough to be a model and perhaps a school for the world. The fact is that Greece is superpower of civilization.

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