BETWEEN GREEK NATIONALISM AND OTTOMANISM:

CONTESTED LOYALTIES OF OTTOMAN GREEKS IN THE

PERIODICALS OF TANZIMAT PERIOD (1869-1877)

by

Kyriakos Gioftsios

Submitted to

Central European University

Nationalism Studies Program

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Art

Supervisor Professor: Michael L. Miller

Budapest, Hungary

2018
 Abstract

The modern Greek identity is mostly known for the attachment to the Greek state.

However, the identification of the significant number of Greek Orthodox people that

used to live in the Ottoman Empire remain unobserved.

This study sets the question of the Ottoman Greek identity formation by considering

its’ role in the wide prism of the Ottoman imperial space. The thesis argues that during

the Tanzimat period in Ottoman Empire started a process of Ottoman Greek identity

formation which would intersect both the imperial and the communal levels. The

perception of Ottoman Greek identity was mainly developed along with the attitudes of

community toward the imperial power centers, Patriarchate and Sultan, and the Greek

Kingdom.

In order to investigate this identity perception and the common loyalty of Ottoman

Greeks, discourse and content analysis of two leading periodicals of that time,

Konstantinoupolis and Thraki, were employed. Hence, the main outcome of the

research indicates that after the Bulgarian schism, the trans-ethnic Christian solidarity

gradually transformed to an Ottoman Greek one. Important finding of the research also

shows that in the process of forging an imperial identity for the Ottoman Greeks
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Anatolia played crucial role as fatherland.

Initially, I would like to thank all my colleagues and my professors for the wonderful
time we spent in CEU for the past two years I had the opportunity to be there.
Particularly, I am grateful to Professor Michael Miller and Professor Brett Wilson for
the valuable guidance and understanding.

I am grateful to my friends, Jack Atmore, Arin Agich, Anja Dautaj, Ozgun Ersin,
Yorgos Grammatikopoulos, Ibrahim Karahasan, Aliye Tatlipinar, Semra Tatlipinar,
Yasemin Tatlipinar and Dragana Urumovska for their support in the different stages of
my academic journey especially in the most unexpected moments that they were next
to me.

I thank from the depths of my heart my mother Argiro Tsakalou, my father Vasileios
Gioftsios and my brother Nikos Gioftsios for their patience all of this time and their
insistence to support me in every occasion and with all the sacrifices.

Finally, I thank the person that most of the difficult times was next to me and without
being in my life maybe this amazing journey would not even start, Pinar Dilan Sonmez
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 Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………. 1
Chapter 1. The Formation of Modern Greek Identity and its
Impact………………………………………………………………………………... 7
1.1. Making the Greek National Identity and the Foundation of the Greek Nation-
state………………………………………………………………………………. 8
1.2.The Megali Idea and the National Inclusion of the ‘Unredeemed Brothers’…… 13
Chapter 2. Launching the Imperial Identity in the Ottoman Empire………….. 19
2.1. From Subjects of Sultan to Ottoman Nationhood……………………………… 20
2.2. Multifaceted Ottomanism: Evolution of the Imperial Identity…………………. 28
2.3. The Patriarchate and the role of Ethnarchy…………………………………….. 34
Chapter 3. The Reflections of Ottoman Greek identity perception in Periodicals
in 1869-1877 …………………………………………………….............................. 38
3.1. Konstantinoupolis – I efimeris ton Laon tis Anatolis (1869-1872)…………….. 41
3.2. Thraki - efimeris ekdidomeni kath’ekasti (1876-1877)……………………….... 50
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….. 62
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….. 65
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 Introduction

The liberal and national waves that overflowed empires in the early and mid-19th century were for

many historians the catalyst to the modern arrangement of power inside empires. In other words,

the different national ideologies came to challenge the existence of empires. The formation of

nation-states around the Balkan Peninsula from the devolution of empires is a phenomenon that

should be mentioned under its own complexity. Therefore, in order to understand the most

indispensable category of the 19th century, one way is to view it through the two main approaches

that groups of scholars had followed in the field of Nation and Nationalism theories. On the one

hand, it can be considered the approach of primordialists that assumed the reviving of a nation

from a long condition of hibernation. On the other hand, the modernists, adopting a second

approach, define nation through the socioeconomic transformations and the emergence of political

institutions. While in this approach the emphasis is given to the dynamic role of the modern state

in the former approach nation is rather perceived as a historical unit and a source of cultural

memory.1 Nevertheless, besides these two theoretical categories that dominate the field there are

also other comprehensive approaches for the concept of nation that avoid seeing it as a single

theory such as the discursive construction of nation. As an example of this method, Craig Calhoun

underlines that to offer a coherent meaning of who in a collective action is an arduous interpretive
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issue as there are “ambiguities inherent in the relationship between the singularity of a personal

identity and the multiplicity of social identities that may be borne by a person.”2 From another

1
Umut Ozkirimli, Theories of Nationalism, A Critical Introduction, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
2
Craig Calhoun, “The Problem of Identity in Collective Action,” in Macro-Micro Linkages in Sociology
ed. Joan Huber (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1991), 60.

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 perspective, Hroch in an interesting analysis follows the different phases of nationalism to notice

the integration of previously heterogeneous communities into nationalist movements through

political mobilization.3

Despite the above theories, for further understanding of the history of empires, it should be clear

that the assumption of chaos assigned to Southeastern Europe in the 19th century played for a long

time a debatable role since it was seen as a teleological end that caused the formation of nation-

states. Allegedly, from the ancient imperium sine fine all at once empires had to die. The

understudied political settings in the indeed labyrinthine structures of empires together with the

lack of a broader perspective that could assist to overpass this obscurity, prevented until 1990s,

the scholars from approaching empires as something different than intolerant devices and

mechanisms of suppression. Thus, breaking of empires became the most controversial point in

relation to the existence of nations. The recent scholarship highlights the place of empires in the

discussion of the imperial ideology and the emergence of national identities by applying the

division of core-periphery and researches the evolution of nation-building in the center of

empires.4

In relation to the tug of war among nation-states and empires, many scholars view the notions of

empire and nationhood as basically incompatible concepts, or even as types of statehood

3
Miroslav Hroch, Social preconditions of national revival in Europe: a comparative analysis of the social
composition of patriotic groups among the smaller European nations, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1985)
4
Alexei Miller and Stefan Berger, Nationalizing Empires, (Budapest: Central European University Press,
2015), 3-4.

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 diametrically opposed.5 According to Gellner the modernization or otherwise the transition from

the agrarian to industrial societies had as a result the homogenization of many aspects of life.6

Therefore, the homogenization of culture and the building of nations were perceived as a process

that would be decidedly completed only with the formation of nation-states since empires are

considered as pre-modern entities. Contrary to the above determinist approach and without

underestimating the concept of modernity, the aim of this study is to describe how diverse models

of nation-formation appeared synchronously in the newly established Greek state and within the

Ottoman Empire.

It is necessary to mention here that the main feature of empires in distinction from nation-states

was in the administration of their multinational – or, multireligious – character and the

multinational character of empires was instantly connected with the question of belonging. For

examining the belonging of imperial subjects, firstly, it is important to define the historical

framework. In this process, empires can be found on the other side of the dichotomy and can

strikingly resemble the nation-states in which the homogenization act in favor of one ethnic group.

Given these points, this thesis also seeks to explain the identification of Greek Orthodox

community in the 19th century in-between the modern Greek identity and the imperial identity

within the Ottoman Empire.

On one side, the emergence of modern Greek identity and the War of Independence which occurred

with the support of Great powers had as a result for the Greek Orthodox population of Morea

peninsula the successful foundation of a nation-state. The formation of Greece created an

5
For example, Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the origin and spread of
nationalism, (London: Verso, 2006), 93: He refers to the “Inner incompatibility of nation and empire”
6
Ernest Gellner, Nation and Nationalism, (New York: Cornwell University Press, 1983), 9-12.

3
 unprecedented explosion of national questions and showed the way to the development of their

respective irredentist plans. On the other side, the Ottoman Empire, in comparison with other

empires, was a complicated paradigm of how political legitimacy functioned since the Ottoman

ruling tradition was based on the concept of confessional communities -millets- which also had

organically political role. This distinctive structure of entanglement, which hierarchically was

dominated by Muslims, included all the Christian and Jewish subjects of the Sultan.

Taking this into account, the development of imperial ideology prompted by the Tanzimat reforms

between 1839 and 1876 was the result of a substantial transformation in the fundamental terms of

existence of the Empire itself. A notion of uniform citizenship among the members of millets

emerged as an imperial mission of survival. A common Ottoman belonging and through this, a

modality to transform the - Muslim and non-Muslims- subjects to citizens and ipso facto to

Ottomans. This formation of imperial ‘people’ consisted of a two-level process. While the common

imperial loyalty was forged in the name of Sultan for all citizens, the millets in full contradiction

had to be internally secularized and ‘nationalized’. In the case of the Greek Orthodox - Rum -

community, which consisted of all the Christian Orthodox population of the Empire, the desirable

objective was the construction of imagined communality for the millet. In this way the Ottoman

Empire did not downplay the discourse of ‘nation’ but rather combined it with its political

sovereignty. The ‘nationalizing’ homogenization alluded to an imperial nationality in the name of

millet, even though, the millet’s members had often different linguistic characteristics which

played a role to the evolution of their identity construction.

With this phenomenon in mind, there is a unique paradox that was posed by the parallel existence

of Greek nation-state and the Greek Orthodox millet in the Empire. The existence constituted an

interesting duality, a nation-state oriented national project in tandem with the imperial oriented

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 one from the Ottoman center that both were claiming the representation of the Greek Orthodox

communities. The traditional Greek historiography which based mainly on Greek written sources

and served the expansionist purposes of state mechanism, emphasized on the emergence of nascent

Greek state and neglected the identity making process or the ‘nationalizing’ role of the

Patriarchate, which was located in the imperial capital and was the political authority of Greek

Orthodox world.

Therefore, I argue that there is an intimate relationship between the idea of nationhood that sprang

out of millets and the idea of empire, since each of them required the other to validate its

legitimacy. The imperial institutions and administrative practices shaped the principles that

formulate the bounds of millets and the millets ensured the imperial loyalty of their members.

Certainly, the very same fundamental problem came across in other diverse empires: how to create

unity without undermine multiplicity and how to continue effective cohabitation of linguistic,

ethnic, religious, and other identities while constructing a common political allegiance. In this

study, I adopt the approach of empires’ literature by considering the empire as a nation-builder,

however, not only for the dominant ethno-religious group but also for the others.

Subsequently, this thesis is an attempt to reply to the question of how after the Tanzimat reforms,

the Greek Orthodox millet perceived its communal identity in the same time with the imperial
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loyalty. Another supplementary question that seeks to find an answer in the lines of this thesis is

the question of how the Greek Orthodox community identified themselves towards Greek state. In

order to answer these questions, I use historical discourse approach to have an analysis of the

periodicals published in the center of the Empire that during that period (1869-1877) had a

significant Ottoman Greek-speaking community. Moreover, I try to distinguish the position of the

Greek Orthodox millet towards the Ottoman Empire and follow their strategy of identification.

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 The focal point of the analysis is the implementation of the reforms of 1856 and the upcoming

events, which coincide with the transformation of Empire and the re-legitimation of the millet as

an institution. Accordingly, the frame of the analysis covers the promulgation of the Ottoman

Constitution and the period posterior to that in which the imperial loyalty of the Greek Ottomans

was tested. This thesis aims to bring a new perspective of understanding nation-building within

empires and beyond nation-states.

Throughout the study, I use the term Greek Orthodox millet or ‘Greek’ to refer the Ottoman Greek

community in contrast with the Greeks of Greek Kingdom. However, it must be remembered that

the Greek Orthodox millet was initially considered a blended group of people that consisted of

many ethnic and linguistic backgrounds within the territories of the Empire. Thus, the living

multilinguality conventionally overlapped with the imperial identity of millet. Ultimately, I refer

to the community as Ottoman Greeks especially after the recognition of Bulgarian Exarchate

(1870) which crystallized the division within the Orthodox community.

The overall structure of the study takes the form of three chapters. In the first part, I show the

appearance of the Greek nation with the main elements of the national identity as paradigm of

“reviving” nation. Additionally, I indicate that the irredentist project of the Megali Idea was based

on a perception of transborder Hellenism. In the second chapter, I describe the Ottoman reform
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period and the institutionalization of heterogeneity on its boundaries. I show the emergence of

Ottomanism as an imperial ideology of common belonging originated in the spirit of Ottoman

reforms. Moreover, this part intends to show the re-invention of legitimacy in the Empire and the

transition to the so called ‘nationalizing empire’. I also point out the structural transformation

inside the community of the Greek Orthodox millet. In the final chapter, I analyze the findings of

the research in the periodicals by considering the Greek language a form of political instrument of

6
 promoting legitimization and mobilization. Consequently, I try to shed light to the position of the

Ottoman Greeks towards the policies of both imperial center and the Greek state which were

shaped under the influence of Megali Idea.

Chapter 1. The Formation of Modern Greek Identity and its Impact

Nationalism is considered as a driving force by having both destructive and constitutive impacts.

In the territories of the Ottoman Empire particularly the spread of national ideas and movements

which had abrupt consequences has always viewed as an exemplary case for the study of nation

formations. In the case of the Ottoman Empire political claims of different groups which consisted

of the Rum millet living under the Empire caused the formation of nation-states. The inspiration

for unexceptionally all the movements which provoked the creation of the nation-states within the

Empire, was found in the principles of the French Revolution that carried out the political base of

liberal values.

Essentially, Hroch considers the role of past, cultural and linguistic ties and the future of being

organized in a civic society as significant factors for this formation. 7 In this regard, the Greek

nationalism set its origin on cultural continuity of nation through the influence of Enlightenment

and Romanticism. The survival of language was the reference point of the Greek national
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movement together with the persistence of religion. The Orthodox religion was the common

ground for the allegiance of the new citizens to Greek nation.

7
Miroslav Hroch, "From National Movement to the Fully-formed Nation: The Nation-building Process in
Europe," in Mapping the Nation ed. Gopal Balakrishnan, (London: Verso, 1996), 61.

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 The first part of this chapter describes how the transition from one part of the Greek Orthodox

millet to the modern Greek nation happened. Particularly, I examine the genesis of modern Greek

identity and its strong relation with the religion as the main source of its legitimacy. Furthermore,

in the second part, I show how the Greek state after its foundation, set the frame of Hellenism and

included the members of the Rum millet in its imagined community.

1.1 Making the Greek National Identity and the Foundation of the
Greek Nation-state

In the beginning of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had under its dominion significant parts

of the Southeastern Europe and in particular the Rumeli, the historical name for the western

provinces of the Empire. In these lands broke out in 1821 the Greek War of Independence and had

as a result the foundation of the Greek nation-state that was the first fully independent state

appeared in the Ottoman territories right after the uprisings of 1804-1829.

In its very early phase, the Greek national movement faced the opposition not only of the Ottoman

authorities but also of the Ottoman Greek elites and of Patriarch Gregory V himself who was

hanged as the result of the revolution.8 Greek elites of imperial center also known as the

Phanariotes were in the administration of Ottoman controlled principalities of Wallachia and

Moldavia under the service of the Sultan. Therefore, the Independence war was extremely

disastrous since it made them lose the favor of Sultan and subsequently they were dismissed from

accessing to imperial bureaucracy. Thus, the Phanariotes and the ‘Great Church’ as the heads of

8
Victor Roudometof, “From Rum millet to Greek Nation: Enlightenment, Secularization, and National
Identity in Ottoman Balkan Society, 1453-182,” Journal of Modern Greek Studies, V. 16, N. 1, (1998):
32.

8
 the community were against the liberal principles of the Independence because it put their

privileges at risk. With this in mind, it should be mentioned that the dominant ruling system of the

confessional communities in the Empire was the reflection of a long-lasting tradition on the basis

of the Islamic law in which the term of community’s existence was ius religionis.

This religious reality was seen by the admirers of liberal values as an obstacle for the plan of

reviving the “Hellas” which denoted the territory and the common cultural values of Classical

Greece. Romanticism assisted the movement by showing the claims as legitimate right of the

descendants of ancient Greeks. Hence, the necessity for a modern Greek identity was satisfied with

a ‘reconnection’ of Ancient Greece to a ‘Modern’ one. As Roudometof shows that intellectual

Korais had aim to surface and inject the idea of Ancient Greece as it was presented to him during

his studies in France to the ‘modern’ Greek identity.9 According to Korais, Orthodoxy was

symbolizing Ottoman despotism and as long as it was against the ‘modernization’ of nation, it had

to be kept out of the identity making.10 Under the threat of the secular cultural rebirth, the millet

authority resisted strongly by claiming that the national emancipation undermined the loyalty of

Orthodox community and of Sultan since the only tolerated identity was the religious one and any

other identification could not be accepted.11

9
Victor Roudometof, 26.
10
Adamantios Korais, “Fraternal Instruction” in Discourse of Collective Identity in Central and
Southeastern Europe ed. Balazs Trencsenyi and Michael Kopelek (Budapest: Central European
University Press, 2006), 141. See also: Paschalis Kitromilides, Enlightenment and Revolution: The
Making of Greece, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 193-194.
11
Patriarch Anthimos, “Paternal Instruction” in Discourse of Collective Identity in Central and
Southeastern Europe ed. Balazs Trencsenyi and Michael Kopelek (Budapest: Central European
University Press, 2006), 306.

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 However, the revival of Greek nation was a result of the ideas of Enlightenment and as such it

focuses on the construction of a self-image strongly attached with Ancient Greece. According to

Liakos, the concept of historical time and the sense of cultural changes are the main components

of this revival process that can be perceived as a “myth of historical renovation”.12 The narrative

of Ancient Greece as a fundamental myth remodified the collectively experienced history and

established a discourse of the past that makes the nation the starting point and the Greek Orthodox

population, the national subjects. It is certainly undeniable that the creation of the modern Greek

identity in great extent shaped due to the contact with the Western Europe and the intellectual

contribution of the Philhellenism movement. In the same way, Anderson notes that the centers of

Philhellenism in the Western Europe undertook the ‘debarbarizing’ of the modern Greeks and

turned them to being worthy of Pericles and Socrates.13 Likewise, Lowenthal asserts “the past

remains integral to us all, individually and collectively. We must concede the ancients their place

[...] but their past is not simply back there, in a separate and foreign country, it is assimilated in

ourselves and resurrected in an ever-changing present.”14

Another alternative approach which indicates the hinted dichotomy progress-backwardness,

claims that the Greek plan, which outlined a single nation with its own historical embeddedness,

was rather a conflicting project between two rival narratives on one side of the dominant Hellenist
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12
Antonis Liakos, “The making of the Greek History The construction of national time” in Political Uses
of the Past - The recent Mediterranean Experience ed. Jacques Revel and Giovanni Levi, (London: Frank
Cass, 2001), 31.
13
Benedict Anderson, 72.
14
David Lowenthal. The Past as a Foreign Country, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985),
129-130

10
 and on the other of ‘Romeic’(Rum).15 The Romeic narrative in contrast to the above explained

mythomoteur considered of the starting line with the Byzantium and the Medieval Christianity.

Taking this into account, Hertzfeld illustrates that the influence of Europe and the consideration

of Ancient Greece as its mythical ancestor shaped the boundaries of what was acceptable for the
16
Greek identity and what was not. Furthermore, for the Greek plan, there appeared a binary

complexity of being both sacred and ‘polluted’. Thus, the revival of Hellas was not only an attempt

to restore a ‘glorious’ past but also a European present.

Regardless of the discussion around it, after the radical breaking away with the establishment of

the Greek state in 1830, the notion of being Greek obtained a more pragmatic dimension with

which the re-invention of ancient past compromised with the Orthodox faith. Focusing on the

transformation process of -one part of- Rum millet to ‘modern’ Greek is important to realize that

the identity of the majority of population throughout Southeastern Europe until at least the end of

the 19th century was largely local on the one hand and religious on the other. In the light of this,

the concept of being Greek crystallized exclusively through the understanding of being Christian

Orthodox. Furthermore, the Greek state in its first steps endowed the Church with a privileged

status as the official religion, in other words a recognition of church guaranteed its new role as

“guard of ethnoreligious unity.”

Under these circumstances, it is obvious that the emergence of autocephalous Orthodox Church

(1833) which formed a homogenizing tool under the legitimacy of nation-state unavoidably

15
Anthony Smith. Ethno-symbolism and Nationalism: A Cultural Approach, (London: Routledge, 2009),
33.
16
Michael Herzfeld, Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern
Greece, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982), 18-20.

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 provoked schism in the political hegemony of the Patriarchate since its authorization field was

limited.17 The role of religious identity and the special pattern of its association with national

identity can be found in the statement of the first Greek Constitution of Epidaurus in January 1822:

“The autochthonous residents of the Greek territory who believe in Jesus Christ are Hellenes and

enjoy all the civil rights without any limitation and difference.”18 Thus, it can be also perceived

that all Orthodox who fought for the Independence after the emergence of the Greek state could

join the nation.19 According to Anagnostou, the space of the Greek nationhood was shaped by the

bond of Greek language along with Orthodox faith and this can be also observed in the first

nationality law which classified the criteria of origin, Greek language and Orthodox religion as a

ius sanguinis and in parallel ius soli notion of nationhood.20

In order to understand the transition of Rum to Greek apart from the split of the ‘national’ church

from the Patriarchate, attention should also be shed to the absence of non-Christians in the

boundaries of the nascent Greek state. All the Ottoman Muslim and Jewish communities that used

to live in the Morea peninsula after the war were killed as an act of reprisal or converted to

17
George Mavrogordatos, “Orthodoxy and nationalism in the Greek case” in West European Politics,
V.26, N.1, (2003):124.
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18
Hellenic Parliament, accessed May 20, 2018, http://www.hellenicparliament.gr/UserFiles/f3c70a23-
7696-49db-9148 f24dce6a27c8/syn06.pdf.
19
Ioannis Grigoriadis. Instilling Religion in the Greek and Turkish Nationalism, (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2013), 20.
20
Dia Anagnostou, “Citizenship Policy Making in Mediterranean EU States: Greece” in Comparative
Report, RSCAS/EUDO-CIT-Comp. (San Domenico di Fiesole, 2011), 3.
http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/19599/EUDOCIT_2011_02_Comp_Greece.pdf?sequence=1
&isAllowed=y.

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 Christianity and some others escaped to areas under the Ottoman control.21 In this way the

development of modern Greek identity was occurred in an environment with absolute majority of

Christians. Meanwhile, the alienation and stigmatization of Muslims perpetuated with the image

of Muslim as tyrant against the national right of ‘Greek race’. 22 Interestingly, the capitation of the

Patriarch which was the head of millet, in the aftermath of the Greek War of Independence,

performed as myth justifying the anti-Muslim feelings and all the actions during the years of war.

Nevertheless, the foundation of nation-state molded the Hellenic identity and set the boundaries

irrevocably between the Greek Orthodox of Greek Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire by forging

a form of national discipline during the process of nation building.

1.2 The Megali Idea and the National Inclusion of the ‘Unredeemed
Brothers’

In the post-independence era, the Greek state had to formulate a national identity for its nation or

otherwise a common understanding of the Greek modern identity. What is important to realize is

that the religious division of Orthodox Christians from Muslims could not sufficiently act as it was

in the Ottoman Empire but at the same time within the borders of the Greek Kingdom, a Greek-

speaking peasant could still designate himself primarily as Christian. Considering this, the Greek

state had to produce a unique notion of Greekness for its citizens. The declaration of the autoceph-
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aly of Greek church and the association of faith with the nation turned the religion into sui generis

21
During the Greek War of Independence there were several events of massacres mainly by Ottoman
army and followed by reprisal of Greek revolutionaries, for further information see also: David Brewer,
The Greek War of Independence: The Struggle for Freedom and from Ottoman Oppression, (New York:
Overlook Press.2001), 235-237.
22
Paschalis Kitromilides, Enlightenment, Nationalism, Orthodoxy: Studies in the Culture and Political
Thought of South-Eastern Europe, (Vermont: Variorum. 1994), 265-275.

13
 national identity. Furthermore, the adjusted ‘Hellenic-Christian thesis’ which reconciled Hellen-

ism and Orthodox Christianity embodied into the official narratives and gradually mission of state

became the spread of Greek national ideology even though it undermined the ideas of the intellec-

tuals like Korais. In other words, the Greek Orthodox transformed to national Greek in a similar

way as the Weberian paradigm of peasants to Frenchmen.23

The newly founded state was located in the southern part of Balkans and did not include any major

Ottoman city with considerable Greek Orthodox population. The first citizens were, as it men-

tioned before, the autochthonous residents of the Morea peninsula that believe in Jesus Christ.

However, the fruition of the Greek question was far from being solved. Continuing on this line,

significant fact is that only a small proportion of the provinces which tend to be considered as

‘historical Greek space inhabited by a majority of Greek Orthodox was incorporated to the Greek

Kingdom.24 The presence of Ottoman Greek Orthodox communities -heterochthons- was a conun-

drum for the foreign policy of the newly established state since it was difficult to pass without

noticing the common religious heritage. For this reason, the externalization of this scheme of in-

strumentalizing the religion by overlooking to a certain extent language and ethnicity generated

the claim upon all the Ottoman Christians. This political vision that envisaged the expansion of

borders of Greek state became known as the Megali Idea.

23
Thanos Veremis, ‘From the National State to the Stateless Nation 1821–1910’, in Modern Greece: Na-
tionalism and Nationality ed. Martin Blinkhorn and Thanos Veremis, (Athens: Eliamep, 1990), 10. John
Koliopoulos and Thanos Veremis, Modern Greece: A history since 1821, (West Sussex: Blackwell Pub-
lishing. 2010), 30-31; Ioannis Grigoriadis. Instilling Religion, 27-29. See also Eugen Weber, Peasants
Into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914, (CA: Stanford University Press, 1976).
24
Constantinos Paparrigopoulos, History of Greek Nation (Athens: Eleutheroudakis Publications, n,d,)

14
 More specifically, proclamation of the Megali Idea was the result of a discussion on articles of the

constitution draft in the Greek National Assembly of 1844. The discussion was an attempt to cor-

respond to the question of who should be defined as a Greek citizen and abstractly who can be

essentially defined as Greek. Prime Minister Ioannis Kolletis argued that the Megali Idea was both

a Western and Eastern project, in his vision Constantinople occupies a central place in the imagi-

nary of the Greek nation. Kolettis offered to the new state a national dream to believe by stating

“The Kingdom of Greece is not Greece. It constitutes only one part, the smallest and feeblest. The

name Hellenes describes not only those who live in this kingdom, but also those who live in Jan-

nina, in Thessaloniki, in Serres, in Adrianople, in Constantinople, in Trebizond, in Crete, in Samos

and in any territory associated with Hellenic history and the Hellenic race. […]

There are two prime cores of Hellenism: Athens, the capital of the Hellenic Kingdom, and the City

(Constantinople), the vision and hope of all Hellenes. […] And, of course, you have the same

belief, and the same wish, because each of you has in himself the idea of his glorious Hellenic

origin; every one of you feels that this Assembly was held in Athens, the glory, grandeur and

inimitable monuments of which have been admired for centuries and will continue to be admired.

Athens and the whole of Greece divided in ancient times in separate states, fell, and having fallen

enlightened the world. What hope is offered today by Greece, reborn and united in one State, in
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15
 one cause, and one force, in one religion, and, lastly, in one constitution, which we are now bring-

ing about?”25 Moreover, the main debate was related with the social-cultural competition in Greek

capital between the auchthonon and heterochthon -Ottoman Greek origin- people. 26

The ideological support for the irredentist policy of the Greek state was motivated by the work of

historians who determined the historical boundaries of the modern Greek identity. This process

granted the material to build the ‘geography of nation’ and additionally the nation backed with the

ancient history and religion respectively the “Greek classical past” and “Orthodox unity”. 27 The

historians selected also specific aspects from Greek culture that would promote the unity of the

“autochthons” and “heterochthons” Greek Orthodox along with reinterpreting all the myths, sym-

bols, memories and traditions by attaching a new value and meaning to them.28

The imagined political community was from its debut quite inclusive since according to the ideas

of the time, the Greek Orthodox people who ‘remain’ in the Ottoman Empire were turned into kin

population in the eyes of the Greek state. As Clogg shows after the evolution of the state

institutions, there was a strategy also of propagating the shared notion of the Greek identity among

25
Balazs Trencsenyi and Michal Kopechek, Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast
Europe (1770-1945) – V.II, Texts and Commentaries, (Budapest: Central European University, 2007),
246-248.
Anastasia Stouraiti and Alexander Kazamias, “The Imaginary Topographies of the Megali Idea:
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26

National Territory as Utopia” in Spatial Conceptions of the Nation ed. Diamantouros et al. (London: I.B.
Tauris Publishers, 2010), 18.
27
Noteworthy is the works of Paparrigopoulos and Zambelios who established a historical school that
elaborated different phases of history in a unified corpus of national genealogy.
28
Dimitris Kamouzis, “Elites and the Formation of National Identity: The Case of the Greek Orthodox
Millet” in State-Nationalisms in the Ottoman Empire, Greece and Turkey Orthodox and Muslims, 1830–
1945 ed. Benjamin C. Fortna, Stefanos Katsikas, Dimitris Kamouzis and Paraskevas Konortas (New
York: Routledge, 2013), 21.

16
 Ottoman Greeks.29 Consequently, the members of Rum millet that were claimed by the small

Greek nation-state as “co-national brothers” urged to embrace the Hellenic culture. Nevertheless,

the porous identity of being Greek and the assumption that all Rums were, by definition politically

Greeks was clearly problematic. By examining the contents of the plan, Kitromilides argues that

such a project with the potential turn to the Anatolia can be perceived as a perspective union of

nation and of imperial church.30 In the same fashion, the Megali Idea has also been analyzed for

its versatile purposes besides of its irredentist nationalist ideology as also western civilization

mission and utopian imperial project of a Greater Greece.

In essence, the Megali Idea, which was an official articulated irredentist plan, anticipate that all

the ‘Greek’ subject of the Ottoman Empire would be included to the Greek Kingdom shortly in

the next warfare with the Empire when the circumstances would be in favor of a new drawing of

map. Similarly, in 1871 the same discussion came from another prime minister who wrote in his

instructions to Greek consuls in the Ottoman Empire that: “it is time that the people in Anatolia

also realized that they have a homeland and common interests.”31

Keeping this in mind, a new situation emerged for the former Ottoman subjects resided in the

territories of Thessaly and Arta that were annexed by Greek state in 1881. In the end of the 19th

century, the Greek state under the influence of Megali Idea offered the option of Greek nationality
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only to those Ottomans who resided in these territories with the condition that they were Orthodox

29
Richard Clogg. A Coincise History of Greece. (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press 1992), 47.
30
Paschalis Kitromilides, “Greek irredentism in Asia minor and Cyprus”. Middle Eastern Studies, V.26
N.1,3(1990):14.
31
Evangelia Balta, “‘Gerçi Rum isek de, Rumca Bilmez Türkçe Söyleriz’: The Adventure of an Identity
in the Triptych: Vatan, Religion and Language,” Türk Kültürü İncelemeleri Dergisi, V. 8 (2003): 33.

17
 Christians. Thus, in the heyday of Greek irredenta, the inclusiveness started to meet its limitations.

Hence the annexations of new places to Greek state have had two main impacts: On one hand,

large number of “homogenis” (non-indigenous kin population) who automatically acquired Greek

nationality and on the other hand the remained Ottoman subjects or “allogenis” (non-kin

population) who were granted a time limit to stay in the Greek state before their departure to the

Ottoman Empire. In the course of this century, the code of Greek nationality could be understood

in the following formulation: ‘Greek is whoever has been born to a Greek father accepting in this

way gradually the absolute dominance of ius sanguinis. Since then, being Christian Orthodox has

been a fundamental feature of Greek nationhood. As it was seen, the discrepancy between

autochthonous and non-autochthonous populations abandoned and the new division line slipped

between homogenis and allogenis.32

This part illustrated the evolution of Greek identity outside of the Ottoman Empire in the

boundaries of the Greek nation-state. However, except this form of ethno-religious nationhood

through the transition from the Greek War of Independence to the consolidation of the Greek state,

in the next chapter I intend to show the nationalization process within the imperial borders after

the introduction of Tanzimat liberal reforms. It is important to realize that the identity making in

the Greek experience was not a fait accompli process but a constantly negotiation of national

character which did not crystallize until the 20th century.

32
Dimitris Christopoulos, Ποιος είναι Έλληνας Πολίτης; [Who is Greek Citizens?]. (Athens: Vivliorama,
2012), 62.

18
 Chapter 2. Launching the Imperial Identity in the Ottoman Empire

The dawn of the 19th century had come in sight with a tremendous loss of balance through wars and uprisings

for the Ottoman Empire. Concurrently, the emergence of the ‘Eastern Question’ discussions in the European

royal courts introduced a circle of political crises. The contingent partition of territories and even the further

loss of control on them brought, as instant needs, the transformation of state relations with its subjects and the

emergence of an imperial identity. The prelude to the Tanzimat reforms that were designed to be a shift in the

dissolution process was the declaration of the Edict of Gulhane (1839) which together with the Imperial

Reform Edict (1856) had strong reference to the civil liberties for the subjects of the Empire.

In this chapter, there is no intention to examine the stimuli which generated the reforms; instead, there is an

aim to focus on the content of political reforms and to trace the development of imperial identity of

Ottomanism. Within this framework, initially, I examine the arrangement of political reforms during the

peculiar process of transition from the confessional based belonging to a civic citizenship by also explaining

how the Empire adapted the liberal request for Enlightenment with the emergence of Ottomanism. In the

second part of this chapter, I describe the development of imperial ideology together with the re-invention of

state legitimacy till the eve of the 20th century to demonstrate the interdependency of different types of

Ottomanism. Finally, in the last part, I approach the institutional change inside the Greek Orthodox millet in

order to indicate the impact of transition on the community.

19
 2.1 From Subjecthood to Ottoman Nationhood

“Wishing today to renew yet more the new regulation instituted for the purpose of
obtaining a state of affairs in conformity with the dignity of my empire and the position
which it occupies among civilized nations, I desire to increase well-being and prosperity,
to obtain the happiness of all my subjects who, in my eyes, are all equal and are equally
dear to me, and who are united among themselves by cordial bonds of patriotism, and to
assure the means of making the prosperity of my empire grow from day to day.”33
Sultan Abdulmecid, February 18, 1856

The period known in history as Tanzimat had started with these words which were stated in front

of all the bureaucrats and community leaders in the opening speech of the Imperial Reform Edict

by the Sultan Abdulmecid. Besides the fact that Ottomans were seated next to the Great Powers in

the Congress of Paris (1856), the much coveted ‘stability’ was to be realized through a vast

program of reforms in all fields of state and society. The aim of this formative process was to

create an imperial framework that would encompass the components of the fragmented society of

that time to a unified political body under the central authority. It was simply the reorganization

of the institutions and the introduction of new imperial politics. It is said that till the arrival of the

19th century for Ottoman elites, the meaning of modernization was mostly perceived as a part of

military reforms.34 However, the Ottoman statesmen, in the mid of the 19th century, realized that

the governmental system previously guided by customs had to follow rational planning and

systematization complying with modernity. The passage from a traditional to a rational authority
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33
Quoted in Roderic Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856-1876. (N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1963), 3.
34
Vedit İnal, “The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Ottoman Attempts to Catch Up with Europe”,
Middle Eastern Studies, 47:5, (2011): 727. See also: Fatma Muge Gocek, The Transformation of Turkey:
Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era. (New York: I. B. Tauris,
2011), 17.

20
 meant that the power of the Sultan had to meet with the limitation of force of law and indeed

Tanzimat was the soul of this idea.

A brief examination of the texts of Tanzimat period explicitly displays the arrangements under the

modern settings. For instance, the Edict of Gulhane (1839) starts by underlining the need of a

structural change in its preamble as: “The empire in consequence increased in strength and

greatness […] In the last one hundred and fifty years a succession of accidents and diverse causes

have arisen which have brought about a disregard for the sacred code of laws and the regulations

flowing there from, and the former strength and prosperity have changed into weakness and

poverty; an empire in fact loses all its stability so soon as it ceases to observe its laws.”35

While this preamble indicates the reflection of the mentality on the status quo of the Ottoman

world of that moment, in the following part, the Gulhane Edict defines the core civic liberties to

life, honor and property as the main objectives of Tanzimat. According to the Edict, the institutions

had to insure the guarantees of security for life, honor and fortune to the subjects of the Empire as

well as fair economic distribution and equal treatment for military service.36 Nevertheless, a

narrative that interestingly does not demonstrate the principles as a typical map of political

modernity, as it is indicated in the following statement, yet exists as an exact explanation of how

the egalitarianism between Muslims and non-Muslims aim to work: “And, in fact, are not life and
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Tanzimat Fermani: Gulhane Hatti Humayunu (1839), accessed April 27, 2018,
35

http://www.anayasa.gen.tr/gulhane.htm.
36
Tanzimat Fermani: Gulhane Hatti Humayunu (1839).

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 honor the most precious gifts to mankind? […] These imperial concessions shall extend to all our

subjects, of whatever religion or sect they may be; they shall enjoy them without exception.”37

The Reform Edict of 1856 would enhance in a more apparent way the political and social equality

together with the removal of Muslims’ legal privileges and encourages further representation of

non-Muslims in the local administration and central bureaucracy. Within this scope, the Edict

defines the operational framework of the ethnoreligious communities and the Patriarch which was

the main institution based on the previous ‘patrimonial right’ is identified as the representative

authority of the Greek Orthodox community. Moreover, the Edict also mentions the legitimacy of

the Sultan over the Orthodox Church by markedly accepting them in the officialdom of state ipso

facto as an organic part of it. 38 Likewise, in the field of social changes, the Edict recognizes the

rights of a non-Muslim community to preserve property as a collective legal entity and defined as

well the terms of its living condition by stating that: “The property, real or personal, of the different

Christian ecclesiastics shall remain intact” […] “In the towns, small boroughs and villages, where

the whole population is of the same religion, no obstacle shall be offered to the repair, according

to their original plan, of buildings set apart for religious worship, for schools, for hospitals, and for

cemeteries [...] where different sects are mingled together, each community, inhabiting a distinct

quarter, shall, by conforming to the above-mentioned ordinances, have equal power to repair and
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improve its churches, its hospitals, its schools, and its cemeteries.”39

37
Tanzimat Fermani: Gulhane Hatti Humayunu (1839).
38
Quoted in Musa Gumus, “Anayasal Mesruti Yonetime Medhal 1856 Islahat Fermani'nin Tam Metin
Incelemesi,” Bilig, N. 47, (2008):219-221.
39
Gumus, 222.

22
 In addition to all those changes, in 1869, Ottoman citizenship law (Tabiiyet Kanunu) was passed

and defined who the Ottoman subjects are as: “Individuals born of an Ottoman father and an

Ottoman mother, or only an Ottoman father, are Ottoman subjects”.40 Irrespective of the religion

or ethnicity the reformer bureaucrats wanted to fabricate not just a common loyalty to the dynasty

but also a common loyalty to state. Ultimately, the fundamental moment that demonstrates the

genesis of a new model of legitimacy as novelty is the declaration of the Constitution of 1876. The

Ottomanism came to characterize the common citizenship and belonging of all Ottoman subjects

-Muslims and non-Muslims - under the dominion of the Sultan. It can be said chiefly that

Ottomanism was also a form of an imperial identity renovated the state. 41 Based on the article 4:

“The Sultan as a Caliph is the protector of Islam and in tandem he is the Sovereign and Monarch

of all the Ottoman subjects”. In the article 11, Midhat Pasha, one of the most liberal bureaucrats,

who was in charge of the Constitution tried to comprise and accommodate the modern sense of

citizenship along with the religious tradition of the Empire and it is stated in the Constitution as:

“Religion of Ottoman state is Islam. Based on this principle the state protects the free practice of

all recognized religions of empire and the privileges of different communities as long they do not

violate the public order and the ethical values.”42

Consequently, the Ottoman state recognized the previously fragmented religious communities as
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ethnoreligious one and institutionalized them. All the components of the new Ottoman political

context were formed on the basis of the millet system and the administration, the justice and the

40
Will Hanley, “What Ottoman Nationality Was and Was Not” in Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish
Studies Association, V.3, N.2, (November 2016): 290.
41
Ottoman Constitution (Kanun-I Esasi), (Istanbul: Voutiras Publications, 1876).
42
Ottoman Constitution.

23
 education of their community stayed on their hands. Modernization for the Ottoman Empire was

also a parallel process of secularization and this was the reason why Tanzimat reforms regulated

this sui generis duality. While Ottoman bureaucrats managed to establish institutions in the

paradigm of western world which they were in competition with, they also kept the character of

religious tradition. The tackling of nationalism inside the Empire by accepting these reforms was

nothing more than an attempt to internalize the principles of Enlightenment and French

Revolution. Ottomanism like other imperial ideologies, was sustained by a language of

“reciprocity” ready to correspond to demographic realities. Simply, it was an effort of a nation-

building with imperial face. Pressures of the Great powers of whom anecdotal statement had been

recorded prior to the Congress of Paris, along with the durable threat of the dissolution of the

Empire acted as driving force for the structural transformation of it.43

In the Tanzimat period frequently the main argument for opposing Ottomanism as a common

belonging is that it was underestimated by its own propaganda of “living like brothers” - which

was clearly far from being sincere. Even the main architects of the project like Midhat Pasha had

essentially two different understanding of nation and Empire: On one hand as identification with

dynasty and state and on the other hand as an unfolding of an inner mentality of being Turk and

Muslim confusing the millet with race.44 This approach is rather complicated one because it treats
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Ottomanism simply with a single teleological ethnocentric vision. Thus, this opinion fails to see

the formation of “national” centers inside the Empire which has competed or incorporated at a

43
Davison, 52-3.
44
Alexander Vezenkov, “Reconciliation of the Spirits and Fusion of the Interests. ‘Ottomanism’ as an
Identity Politics,” in We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe, ed. Diana
Mishkova, (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2009), 48, 62 and 64.

24
 later time with the nation-states formed in Balkans. Within this perspective, the concept of

Ottoman fatherland can be analytical frame only by including the “people of the Empire”

particularly, in this case of non-Muslims. According to the Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire,

the term Ottomanism was designed to counterbalance the national movements that triggered

disastrous effects in Balkan Peninsula and advocated the subjects of Sultan to develop a sense of

loyalty to the Empire.45 The main religious difference seemingly would exist only when subjects

of the Sultan enter their worship places, thus a loyalty above ethnic and religious distinctions would

bring a secular ideal of fatherland devotion. Admittedly, the political transformation should be

seen as a codification of the already existed system of confessionalism since Ottomanism regulated

the millets. The millet system during Tanzimat period was institutionalized and became the bond

of Ottoman identity, a personal autonomy without territorial aspect. It must be also pointed out

that Ottomanism was effective, as long as the imperial center of power bestowed to Ottomanism

the same meaning with the heads of millets which composed also part of the Empire’s

officialdom.46 Therefore, the ‘national’ feeling of the millets in this process was accommodated

mainly by its leadership against intra-group social and political centrifugal powers.

Differently from the nation-state, the Empire had no direct aim to assimilate its subjects and create

a symmetric national space. In this level the discussion of federalization inside empires could not
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be started since the political applicants who speak in the name of ethnic or ethnoreligious groups

are in the stage of formation. For instance, even though the scheme of federalization as foreign

45
Gabor Agoston and Bruce Masters, Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, (New York: Infobase
Publishing, 2009), 448.
46
Sia Anagnostopoulou, Mikra Asia 19os aionas- 1919: Oi Ellinorthodoxes koinotites [Asia Minor 19th
century to 1919: The Greek Orthodox Communities], (Athens: Ellinika Grammata, 1998), 283-286.

25
 policy was suggested from the Ottoman side, Romanian principalities together with Serbia could

be connected to the Ottoman in the pattern of Bavaria attached to the German Empire. However,

the plan was rejected immediately by the Russian delegation. 47 This plan undoubtedly recalls the

preceding dualism of Augleich in Austria-Hungary which reverted politically -not, socially- the

different constitutional experiments and accepted the national principle -only- for the Hungarians

but in a broader imperial ground. A redefined common belonging found its legitimacy in the

outmoded pre-modern ‘material’ and as Judson describes, this did not mean the full acceptance of

minorities as political collectivities, but rather that at the same time they benefited from an

inclusion to a liberal empire.48 In the case of the Ottoman Empire, inclusion denoted the acceptance

of millets à la carte in the multilayer imperial structure as a binary of pre-modern and modern

categories.

After the announcement of the Constitution of 1876 which signified the first constitutional era of

the Empire, it can be said that the political situation was not certainly the one which would show

the way to a well-protected atmosphere to boost and promote the spirit of Tanzimat.49 Moreover,

the reforms as a response to global modernity had to cope with the integration of Ottoman economy

in the global markets except the separatist national movements in the European territories of

Empire. The outcome of this effort to reorganize the state was also the fabrication of new classes:
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The modern educational institutions produced new educated bureaucratic elites and in parallel the

newly founded banks and commercial firms having relations with the international trade presented

47
Davison, 290, According to Davison, Ignatyev sabotaged the plan of Midhat Pasha.
48
Pieter Judson, The Habsburg Empire: A New history, (Harvard University Press, 2016), 268.
49
Carter Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism and Modernity: A history of 1789-2007, (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2010), 139.

26
 a new upper merchant class.50 In relation with this, Gocek shows the economic transformation of

the period and asserts that the non-Muslims were the majority of the latter category and as a result

they turned to a new urban oriented social group.51 However, in regards to imperial ideology, she

considers in a determinist socioeconomic analysis that their location in the Ottoman society, the

utilization of their capital and the fact of religious prohibition of mix marriages between Muslims

and non-Muslims played a role in the setback of Ottomanism.52 In opposition to this approach,

there are new studies about the port-cities of the Empire which shows that these Tanzimat-led

emerged upper or middle classes were the bearer of Ottomanism.53

Another well-known scholar of Ottoman and Turkish studies, Feroz Ahmad also defines

Ottomanism as the new patriotic identity anchored in the dynastic loyalty that would replace the

religious one for all Ottomans in a secular approach. He also emphasizes the fact that even the

nation-states of the Balkan region built their national identities in full compliance to the religion.
54
From the other side, the main unpleasant factor for Ottomanism is that there was not any

common point to be based on such as language.

50
For further information, Carter Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime
Porte, 1789-1922. (N.J: Princeton University Press, 1980), 119 and 167-170. See also: Ilber Ortayli,
Imparatorlugun En Uzun Yuz Yili [The Longest Century of Empire], (Istanbul: Hil Publications), 133-
136.
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51
Fatma Muge Gocek, Rise of The Bourgeoisie, Demise of the Empire: Ottoman Westernization and
Social Change. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 34-35 and 88-89.
52
Gocek, 34-35.
53
As an example, Malte Fuhrmann and Vangelis Kechriotis, “The Late Ottoman port-cities and Their
Inhabitants: Subjectivity, Urbanity, and Conflicting orders”, Mediterranean Historical Review, N. 2,
(December 2009):71–78.
54
Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks and the Ottoman Nationalities, (Logan: Utah University Press, 2014),
5.

27
 Imperial ideology should be seen as an ‘antidote’ to the secession of the people especially of

Greek-Orthodox and Armenian communities.55 Furthermore, Findley describes the recognition of

millet in 1860 and 1863 (and 1864 for Sephardi Jews) as the principal foundation, more precisely

“the communal reforms progressed, Tanzimat statesmen attempted to foster the new “patriotic

bond” to hold all Ottoman subjects together.”56 Besides, Julia Cohen discusses Ottomanism as a

concept which was not so much strictly imposed from up to down. As a matter of fact of the

understanding that she proposes Ottomanism as an imperial citizenship based on negotiations.

Through the example of the Ottoman Jews, she shows a different model of instilling the ‘love for

the homeland’ and focuses on the state and local institutions.57 In the end, by dividing the initial

Ottomanism as civic and according to the later bifurcation as Islamic, Cohen opens the debate over

the different meanings of Ottomanism in the post-Tanzimat period.

2.2 Multifaceted Ottomanism: Evolution of Imperial the Identity

The liberalization tendency of Tanzimat was driven in the end among other factors by the state

bankruptcy (1875) which was triggered from the Vienna Stock Exchange crash of 1873 and the

equally disastrous Russian-Ottoman war of 1877-1878. The ‘War of 93’ as it is alternatively

known caused the first serious territory loss for the empire and opened the door for long-term crises
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in the Balkans with the explosion of various “Questions”. Ironically, the Constitution and the first

55
Carol Vaughn Findley, “Tanzimat” in The Cambridge History of Turkey ed. Resat Kasaba, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008), 13.
56
Findley, “Tanzimat”, 29.
57
Julia Philips Cohen, Becoming Ottomans, the Sephardi Jews and the Imperial Citizenship in Modern
Era, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 22.

28
 effort to make the imperial ideology ceased politically function by the new Sultan Abdulhamid

who used his constitutional right to declare martial law. According to the Article 113 of the

Constitution, “in the case of the perpetration of acts, or the appearance of indications of a nature

to presage disturbance at any point on the territory of the Empire, the Imperial Government has

the right to proclaim a state of siege there. The state of siege consists in the temporary suspension

of the civil laws.”58

During the reign of Abdulhamid II not only the constitution but other newly established political

novelties including Parliament ceased to function.59 The main aim of the Red Sultan as he is well-

known because of the Armenian massacres was to build strong bonds in priority with his Muslim

subjects also due to the new demographic realities. This was in opposition to the wish of the

Tanzimat bureaucratic elites - the Young Ottomans- who still advocated for a patriotic civic

“Ottomanism”. As Serif Mardin indicates in his work, the Young Ottoman movement was formed

with the intention of saving the Ottoman Empire from Western assault and internal

disintegration.60 Agreeing with the plan of saving the Empire, Abdulhamid II brought up to date

the nature of this intention by replacing the secular emphasis with the religious one. Hence, the

main element of Hamidian policy was the religion of Islam and the downplay of any other

difference. Meanwhile, this emphasis on Islam shifted the focus from Balkans to the Ottoman lands

in Middle East. As it also stressed in Kemal Karpat’s The Politicization of Islam: “This is the
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reason for which the Sublime Sultanate should place on a higher level the national fate [kadr-i

58
Ottoman Constitution.
59
Carter Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism and Modernity: A history of 1789-2007, 146.
60
Serif Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish
Political Ideas, (N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1962), passim.

29
 millet] but also respect the Arabs, with whom we share the language of faith … instead of

addressing them as “fellahs” as our ignorant officials insult them in Arabia … naturally makes the

Arabs hate the Turk”.61 In contrast to that, in the “imagined” world of the Empire, the Sultan

recognized the ‘Turks’ only as a part of the millet-i hakime (the governing millet).

In a resourceful comparison of Turkism with Arabism, Hasan Kayali depicts Ottomanism as an

evolutionary political ideology that primarily Young Ottomans, who were the first generation of

Tanzimat, presented for the strengthening of subjects-state relationship.62 Ottomanism was

carrying two messages, for Muslims, the binding was in supported of the Islamic character of state

and for the non-Muslims was in support of common interests to a fatherland. Subsequently,

Abdulhamid established a different relationship with his Muslim subjects by elevating the

institution of the Caliphate and by constructing a centralized state on it. The emphasis on Islam

together with the loss of territories put in risk the civic equality of Ottomanism and the position of

non-Muslims. According to Hasan Kayali, Islamism did not depose Ottomanism moreover

Islamism generated Turkism and Arabism as competing allegiances. The alternation of these

imperial types of nationalism also shows the legitimization crisis in the Ottoman Empire.

In the time of a gradually developing public sphere, Abdulhamid II was in need of powerful

symbols in which he could base his legitimacy. In order to achieve this, the Sultan managed to
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expand the political sphere from the symbolic presents to holy cities to the highlight of the

“glorious” dynastic genealogy and for a long time succeeded to keep this sphere strictly under his

61
Quoted in Kemal Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State and Community in
the Late Ottoman State, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 336.
62
Hasan Kayali, Arabs and Young Turks- Ottomanism, Arabism and Islamism in Ottoman Empire 1908-
1918, (Berkeley: California University Press, 1997), 17.

30
 own directives.63 Moreover, his own understanding of Rechstaat concluded with a modern type of

autocracy filled with the spirit of Islamic justice. The control of state transferred once again to the

absolute control of Sultan and as hierarchical in top, step by step, he transformed to the source of

legitimacy. Keeping this in mind, it is necessary to underline that the novelty of his regime was

the redefinition of Ottoman modernity, since he used Islam as the medium of modernization

without subverting its process.64 Thus, the Sultan tried to guide the Muslims to modernity by

transforming the Ottoman framework into a political expression of Islam. To a great extent

resembling with Pan-Slavism, Pan-Islamism with the use of Caliphate developed cohesive

symbolic characteristics. However, Pan-Islamism’s universal religious community in the borders

of Empire could not be seen individually from Ottomanism which functioned supplementary.

The period of Abdulhamid II, in the broader context of empires, implicitly recalls features of

Czars’ use of religion and autocratic rule. Especially in relation with Pan-Islamism, there are

significant similarities with the Russian ‘Official Nationality’. However, as Brisku points out, the

Official Nationality doctrine and the discussion of ‘Modernity without modern institution of

Monarchy’ which coincided with the early Ottomanism were products in a degree of identical

causes with distinct transformation routes.65 Considering that fact, it can be observed that the

Russification did not have largely equivalent to the Ottoman Empire mostly because of the

‘permeability’ of Islam and the absence of an official definition of nation. Lastly, it can be also
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noticed an analogy of the bureaucratic cadre in power. In both Empires, there was an existence of

63
Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domain: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman
Empire, 1876–1909, (London: Tauris Publications, 1999), 31.
64
Karpat, 8.
65
Adrian Bisku, Political Reform in the Ottoman and Russian Empires: A Comparative Approach, (New
York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 110.

31
 a ruling class disciple of modernization either as dichotomy Westerners-Slavophiles in Czarist

Russia or in the form of Moderated Muslims and fiercely Westerners or Liberal Muslims in the

Ottoman Empire.

The sides of opposition against the regime of Abdulhamid II started to make their appearance more

obvious since the cult of the Sultan and the apotheosis of Muslim millet brought as a result a less

flexible imperial identity. The opponents of the Sultan were a blend of ulema, bureaucrats, and

nationalists who shared a common target to act against him. 66 In fact, in the top of this pyramid

there was the organization of Young Turks which acted as constitutionalist group which included

both Muslims and non-Muslims. The main worry of the Young Turk movement was how to deal

with Abduhamid’s autocracy.67 Nevertheless, the debate ended in a division of two major factions

which, were mostly Muslim and non-Muslim in support of external intervention with the assistance

of the Great Britain, and, on the other hand the Muslim-dominated group in support of independent

action from within. Hanioglu argues that the existence of these two groups is the reason the civic

Ottomanism together with a Muslim variant Ottomanism gained once more popularity.68 By and

large, the watershed moment for the political future of the Empire undoubtedly came with the

Young Turks’ Revolution which happened in July 1908.

At first, the Young Turks were successful in creating a convergence between the communities and
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the state elites, thus turning their original ideological coherence into political commitment. One

advantage they had over the Sultan, was that they could imagine a community which included non-

66
Sukru Hanioglu, The Young Turks in Opposition. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 47-50.
67
Sukru Hanioglu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire, (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2008), 145.
68
Hanioglu, 145-146.

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 Muslim ‘compatriots’ who were kept out by Abdulhamid’s Islamic Ottomanism. However, in

1904, Yusuf Akcura, an intellectual migrated from Czarist Russia with strong affiliation with

Young Turks, described based on the public discussions the three potential ideological paths open

to the Ottoman political ideology: Pan-Ottomanism, Pan-Islamism, and Pan-Turkism. Rejecting

all three, he supported the idea that the best was “to pursue a Turkish nationalism based on race.”69

Notably, the Young Turks in their second phase after the disaster of Balkans wars in between 1912

and 1913, were strongly inspired from that and accommodated the Hamidian Muslim belonging

discourse to a racial unity one. The slipping way of Ottoman rule opened the path to entirely

divergent national projects.

The case of Ottomanism as imperial identity formed also a versatile concept for the historians of

Eastern Mediterranean. In the eve of the Young Turk revolution, a new awakening of Ottomanist

discourse reappeared as the last chance for the survival of the Empire. The Young Turks promised

without distinction that they would accept the honor, property and lives of their Christian brothers.

The Ottoman Christians restored their place in parliament and took part in the protection of “shared

national right”.70 However, after Balkan wars the short indulgent period finished with a dismantled

Empire and in the place of liberal Ottomanism came a hard-line Pan-Turkism with Islamic

elements focused mainly on Anatolia.

69
“Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset,” accessed April 28, 2018, https://www.otuken.com.tr/u/otuken/docs/u/c/uc-tarzi-
1442401918.pdf; http://vlib.iue.it/carrie/texts/carrie_books/paksoy-2/cam9.html
70
Ryan Gingeras, Fall of Sultanate:The Great War and the End of the Ottoman Empire 1908-1922,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 34.

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 2.3 The Patriarchate and the role of Ethnarchy

The replacement of dhimmis protection status that was in force from the beginning of the Ottoman

Empire was a radical restructuring of the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. In contrast

to the spirit of the liberal reformations, as Davison shows, the attitude of the majority of Muslim

millet - or, millet-i hakime was quite different from what was expected after reforms.71 Moreover,

it can be observed that, apart from the perception of Muslims towards Christians as inferior

citizens, that the character of power system in the pre-Tanzimat era also created troubles for the

Christians internally.72 Subsequently, applications of reforms for the Greek-Orthodox millet was

a contentious issue towards Western modernity since the previous regime provided different type

of rights and obligations which in accordance to the Tanzimat directives, meant the gradually

abolition of all of the privileges that religious communities per se enjoyed.73 In a more intrinsic

understanding, this intended to be the emancipation verdict of the non-Muslim population.

However, it concluded a fundamental antinomy. There is an emphasis on a patrimonial right in

Tanzimat decree as: “All the privileges and spiritual immunities granted by my ancestors ab

antiquo, and at subsequent dates, to all Christian communities or other non-Muslim persuasions

established in my empire under my protection, shall be confirmed and maintained.”74 Therefore,

as in the case of Muslims subjects, the bearer of modernity and in the same time of the
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secularization of millet automatically became the Church. This novelty led to the formation of a

modern political role for the institution. The reforms for the Rum millet were outlined in the

71
Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire,114-115.
72
Davison. See also: Dimitris Kamouzis, 29-30.
73
Suraiya Faroqui, The Ottoman Empire and the World around it, (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004), 249.
74
Quoted in Faroqhi, 220.

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 “General Regulations of Arrangement with Reference to Church and Nation” immediately after

the negotiations of Imperial Council in 1862.

The regulation described the requirements of a priest to be Patriarch or member of Holy Synod

and defined the scope of the relations between the community and Patriarch himself. 75 It also

engendered the “National” Mixed Council which was in charge of revenues of the Patriarchate,

the administration of the monasteries and the charitable institutions.76 In comparison with the

previous organs of the Patriarchate, the current novelty was the representation of the people outside

clerical body. Thus, the religious community turned into an ethnoreligious one with the

introduction of those non-clerical members and in tandem it also consolidated the social

mechanism since the members happened to be the pre-Tanzimat Christian elites.

Furthermore, the contradictory factors of legitimizing a power from scratch were more than

expected. Firstly, the Rum millet was embracing all the Orthodox Christians of the Empire, a

heterogeneity that included not only Greeks but also Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Vlachs,

Albanians and Arabs. Up to that time, the new categories that appeared, were indifferent for the

trans-ethnic Christian Orthodox elites that dominated in the hierarchy of the Ottoman Christian

‘society’. This old cast of power was motivated from the pre-Tanzimat sense of loyalty and did

not hesitate to offer their services to the Sultan in any opportunity by also not having devotion to
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any specific nation.77 Second important parameter that raised after the establishment of the

75
Genikoi Kanonismoi gia peri Dieuthetiseon ton ekklisiastikon kai ethnikon pragmaton [General
Regulation of Arrangement with Reference to Church and Nation]. (Istanbul 1862), National Mixed
Council had 12 members from which 8 non-priests and 4 priests.
76
General Regulation of Arrangement with Reference to Church and Nation, 5.
77
Christie Philliou, Biography of an Empire. Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2011), passim.

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 “National Mixed Council” was the distance between the social trans-ethnic strata in Istanbul and

the provinces since the membership in this council was strictly unrequited and the members had

to be elected only from the different parishes of the capital.78 Thus, the economic elites granted

ipso facto the character of the political delegation. In a two thirds system of power which was

designed with the aim to secularize the community, the devolution of power from the

papocaesarism of Patriarchate and Holy Synod did not immediately expect to pass in reactionary

alliances.

The Patriarchate had the dominion in the life of every Christian that inherently was considered as

member of the Rum millet within the Ottoman power structure. According to Clogg, the national

movements of the other Christian people in Southeastern Europe were a reaction not only to

“Ottoman hegemony but also to Greek ecclesiastical and cultural oppression.”79 Despite the aim

to create unitary centralized form of self-government and an idea of autonomy in the reformed

millets, an “unprecedent” antithesis came in sight. Having in mind the conditions described above,

the Bulgarian and other ethnic groups had to be represented by the same National Mixed Council

of the Rum millet. The emerged Bulgarian intelligentsia, however, opposed this together with the

general aversion to the Greek-Orthodox institutions. In this direction, the Greek language from

lingua franca converted to a language of imposition.80 This attitude was the main reason of the
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78
General Regulation of Arrangement with Reference to Church and Nation, 43.
79
Richard Clogg, “The Greek millet in Ottoman Empire” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire:
The Functioning of a Plural Society, V.1, ed. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, Volume 1, (New
York: Holmer and Meier Publishers, 1982), 188.
80
Clogg, 191.

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 “radical break” in the homogenization objective of the Tanzimat and in synchronous understanding

the double practice of the emancipation principle.81

Following the Greek schism which triggered with the territorial partition of the Morea Peninsula

and the foundation of the Greek nation-state, the Bulgarian faction in the core of the Rum millet

became autonomous from the “Great Church of Jesus” in 1870 with an Imperial Edict. The

Patriarchate as in the case of Greek autocephalous church, condemned the emergence of the

Bulgarian Exarchate with anathema and emphatically defined it as devilry of Ethnofyletistai

(Chauvinists).

Comparatively, the Greek-Orthodox people of the Empire who ‘emancipated’ under the

regulations of the Tanzimat by confirming the Ottoman legacy, were in contrast with the Greek

state in which the Orthodox population was ‘ethnicized’ as a ruptured continuity of the Rum millet.

Given these points, it is important here to underline the existence of two different centers as

Istanbul and Athens for the Greek-Orthodox population since it shows the dualism of the Modern

Greek identity. Kofos also shows the antagonism between the Bulgarian Exarchate and the

Patriarchate of the Rum millet with the latter developing the policy of ecumenism which aimed to

tackle the ‘ethno-racial’ way of thinking and emphasized the ethnarchic role over the Christians of

Empire.82 Equally important, it can be observed similar parallelism with Abdulhamid’s Pan-
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Islamism. While the Sultan was implementing his policy over the Muslims, the Patriarch Joachim

81
Theodora Dragostinova, “Continuity vs. radical break: National homogenization campaigns in the
Greek-Bulgarian borderlands before and after the Balkan Wars, Journal of Genocide Research, V.18,
N.4, (2016):409.
82
Evangelos Kofos, “Patriarch Joachim III (1878-1884) and the Irredentist Policy of the Greek State”,
Journal of Modern Greek Studies, V.4, N. 2, (October 1986):108-9.

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 III as a sort of “small sultan” was practicing the same in his “homogenized” flock. In the Ottoman

state the Patriarchate acted as the ‘apostle’ of Ottomanism since this was the only context for

defining and surviving its power.

Finally, Davison brings another point in the analysis of the millet that by deduction referring also

to Ottoman individuals who were members of one or the other millet, since the religious belief

was overlapping with the “millet” civil status even though the point where eventually the millet

influence stopped was not visible.83 Ottomanism as a concept of common citizenship created a set

of new relations between the individuals, the government and the millets. These relations intended

to infuse the loyalty of belonging to the Ottoman Empire in return with protection of the rights and

freedoms by accommodating the individual’s cultural preferences.84 Thus, a loyalty to the Ottoman

state could be seen as form of fulfillment of the millet identity.

Chapter 3. The Reflections of Ottoman Greek identity perception in

One of the ways to track and identify the discourses of nation beyond the research of state or

personal archives is the critical analysis of the newspapers. Disappointingly, in the literature of

Ottoman studies there are no many academic researches that explore the Ottoman Greek identity
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through the examination of periodicals in the Tanzimat era. Most of the researchers that approach

the identity of the Ottoman Greek community turn exclusively to periodicals of the later period as

83
Roderic Davison, “The Millets as Agents of Change in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire” in
Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, ed. Benjamin Braude
and Bernard Lewis, V. 1, (New York: Holmer and Meier Publishers, 1982), 321.
84
Kemal Karpat, 166.

38
 1900s-1910s. Thus, the vacuum that coincides with the implementation of liberal reforms in the

Empire stays understudied. The 19th century denotes except of the state modernization of the

Empire also the starting point of the press for all the communities, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

According to Marina Marks, the amount of Ottoman Greek newspaper circulated, exceeded the

total numbers of newspapers published by all the other communities - 36 newspapers for the Greek

Orthodox community and 27 for Muslim, Jewish and Armenian communities-.85

The center of the Ottoman Greek press was based on Istanbul and Smyrna, both port-cities, with

ideal environment for the development of high standards publications. In this thesis, I will focus

on the analysis of two newspapers, the Konstantinoupolis and the Thraki. The Konstantinoupolis

was a triweekly newspaper published between 1869 and 1873 by Dimitrios Nikolaidis in the

capital of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul. Nikolaidis was a well-known journalist and editor that

participated in other publications not only in Greek but also in Ottoman language. As it can be

seen from the subheading of the newspaper: Efimeris ton Laon tis Anatolis (Newspaper of the

People of Anatolia), the viewpoint was in favor of the unity of all Ottoman citizens. However, the

newspaper tragically was closed due to the crisis of 1872 which triggered by the establishment of

the Bulgarian exarchate that Konstantinoupolis was firmly against. The closure of

Konstantinoupolis followed the launching of Thraki on daily basis again by Nikolaidis who
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supported the ecumenic vision of Patriarch and kept a distance from the radical nationalists. The

Thraki maintained a moderate and pragmatist position during the predicament of the Russo-

85
Marina Marks, “Ellinikes efimerides tis Othomanikis Autokratorias” [Greek newspapers of Ottoman
Empire] 1830-1862 in The Greek Press from 1784 till today – Historical and Theoretical Approaches, edited
by Loukia Droulia (Athens: Institute for Neohellenic Research, 2005), 442.

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 Ottoman war of 1877-1878. Even though it managed to survive the political and economic

atmosphere reflected during war, Thraki could not escape from a short censorship period of one

month from August to September of 1876. The Ottoman Greek press was dependent on the

subscriptions and one part of circulation was ‘consumed’ inside the cafes, clubs and associations.

The size of newspapers was broadsheet and the contents shared in four pages that included 4-5

columns. In detail, in the first page of the newspapers an editorial article on community concerns

or a translation of a significant correspondence was taking place and the following pages were

divided to external and internal news that were coming along with various advertisements of the

last page. Important to mention here is that the news related with the Greek Kingdom was generally

found in the external coverage or there was often an independent column called “News from

Greece”. Lastly, the language of publications was closer to the ‘katharevousa’ official form used

by the Church and far from the vernacular Greek.

In this part, I approach the ideas and the political attitude of the Greek Orthodox community of

Istanbul as a collective body integrated in the broader Ottoman public sphere. Notably, for the

convenience of analysis, there is a division of two periods for each newspaper that are connected

with the major events of the publishing time: The formation of Bulgarian exarchate and the

consequent ethnocultural schism of the Greek Orthodox millet, the promulgation of the
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Constitution and the first sessions of the Ottoman parliament. On a final note, the Russo-Ottoman

adversary also played a role in the formation of Ottoman Greek identity.

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 3.1. Konstantinoupolis – I efimeris ton Laon tis Anatolis (1869-1872)

Two significant issues for the Greek Orthodox community that took several times place in the

pages of newspaper’s volumes were the investigation of the Eastern question and the situation of

the Christians in Anatolia. As mission of newspaper was defined the reconciliation of people of

‘our country’ against the assumptions of Europeans for the future of Anatolia. The editors of

Konstantinoupolis asserted that the wrong understanding and conclusions that the travelers’

memoirs created could only be tackled with the proper ethnographic methodology and learning

each of Anatolian nations. In relation with the belonging of Anatolia they considered: “Anatolia is

neither under the exclusive belonging of Greeks nor of Ottomans [Muslims] as the European

monographs declare, among the inhabitants are Ottomans, Greeks, Bulgarians, Slavs, Albanians,

Armenians, Jews, Drouzes, Tatars and others.” Furthermore, it compared Anatolia with Europe:

“Let’s remember that Europe is the blend of barbarians destroyed the Roman state and managed

to rebirth in the 19th century. These liberal ideas that helped Europe to rebirth emerged out of the

Ancient Greek spirit, so we should also concentrate to ‘Hellenism’ however not as a nationality

but as a principle for our enlightenment.”86 The Eastern Question obviously became an internal

topic of discussion that brought ipso facto in surface the other discussion of the ‘origin’ of

Anatolian nations.
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As previously mentioned the main event that provoked a significant conflict to the core of the

Greek Orthodox community was the formation of the Bulgarian exarchate in 1870 that

86
“Oi Laoi tis Anatolis upo Istorikin, Ethnografikin kai politikin apopsi” [The Anatolian People –
Historical, Ethnographic and Political View], Konstantinoupolis, June 18, 1869.

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 subsequently ended up with the creation, in ethnoreligious terms, of the Bulgarian millet. The

request for a separate church prior to the existence of the Bulgarian nation-state initiated the path

for the extraordinary recognition of a nationality which relied not only on religious but also on

linguistic distinction. As it was expected, this situation caused to result in a reaction from the

Patriarch and the Mixed Council as the ‘national’ authorities of the Orthodox millet.

Initially, the first impact of this reaction can be found in the arguments of an article titled “Some

words for the Bulgarian Question” in which the situation was explained from the view of loyal to

Patriarch editors. From this perspective, Konstantinoupolis refers to Bulgarians as the ‘poor

educated brothers’ that were exploited by foreign powers and turned against the ‘Great Church’.

Accordingly, emphasis is given to the causes of the reactions together with the historical relations

between Patriarchate and Bulgarians which originated in the time that Bulgarians arrived in

Anatolia. The newspaper also adds that the Bulgarian tribes in the region did not stop the progress

of ‘Hellenism’. In this point, the narrative of otherness towards Bulgarians forced to a new

perception of national and religious membership that confused all the existing Weltanschauung.87

After the official declaration of Bulgarian church by the Sultan, there were articles which regularly

proposed alternative solutions for the Question. In one editorial article, the author acknowledged,

in a diplomatic manner, its appreciation for the “paternal provision” of Imperial government and
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the efforts of solving the Bulgarian Question at the same time he warned that: “‘the ancient right

of Orthodox people’ that is under protection of Sultan since Mehmed II cannot be violated […]

and the Eastern church has history of nineteen centuries, for this reason it should not fragment into

87
“Lexeis tines peri Voulgarikou Zitimatos” [Some words for the Bulgarian Question] , Konstantinoupolis,
June 23, 1869.

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 pieces”. Similarly, the author showed the Patriarchate as a father institution consented to recognize

autonomous (autocephalous) churches by country or area as Greece, Russia and Alexandria but

not by nation. He also discussed the frustration about the name ‘Greek Church’ which sometimes

was given to the Patriarchate and explained that had only attributed to the fathers of Church since

its foundation. Remarkably, Konstantinoupolis advised to stop the national division and to work

harder to stay together by questioning the problem: “What if all the ethnic groups demand a

different church or if the Greeks demand a church”. The rhetoric question here with all its irony

acts as a sort of re-legitimation mechanism by trying to persuade that the Church would stick to

the status quo.88

Evidently, the multiplicity of terms can only guide to a serious controversy of the former ‘people

of Anatolia’ and the latter conflict of ‘Bulgarian’ versus ‘Greek’. In fact, authors insistently tried

to keep mentioning the ecumenic character and also underline the importance of Greek language

as a lingua sacra not as a tool of assimilation. It can be said that this duality serves two different

myth inventions produced by the Greek Orthodox elites at that time. The first one saw the

institution of Church per se as continuity from Byzantine emperors to Ottoman rulers with the

‘nomimos arxin’ legitimate power and the ‘pronomia’ the privileges that were guaranteed by

Sultans. In this narrative the word ‘Hellenic’ replaced essentially with the word ‘Graikikos’ that
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connotates exclusively the Greek population under the Ottoman rule, to demonstrate the

exceptional character of the Orthodox Christians as the successor people of the Eastern Roman

Empire and as fundamental consisting part of Anatolia. The second myth came to complete the

88
“I Lusi tou Voulgarikou Zitimatos - A” [The Solution of Bulgarian Question], Konstantinoupolis, March
14, 1870; “ I Lusi tou Voulgarikou Zitimatos – B”, Konstantinoupolis, March 17, 1870.

43
 modern requirement for an identity especially one that would correspond to the ‘nationalizing’

process that started with the Tanzimat reforms.

The ‘omogeneis’ kinship understanding began with the protection and demarcation of the ‘loyal’

to Patriarchate Greek-Orthodox population in the time that the main concern in the Bulgarian

Question was the categorization of the provinces as ethnoreligious ‘Bulgarian’. In the editorial

article with the title ‘Bulgarian Provinces’ the debate of national principle in the provinces of

Bulgaria, Macedonia and Thrace introduced another aspect of the critical question: Who is the

Ottoman Greek? The author argued that there was no alternative to the respect and preservation of

ethnic groups without the authority of Patriarchate. He literally asked who guaranteed that the

Bulgarian church would respect the ethnic groups and would not assimilate the Greeks. In the same

fashion, the author disputed the national dimension of the Bulgarian Church since there was not

any definition of who was member of that ‘national’ communion: “What would happen with the

Bulgarians in the above provinces that spoke the Greek language? Someone would say that they

were not Greek-Orthodox and it happened for them accidentally to speak Greek”. According to

the author, Turkey should have accepted that the high decree – Decree for Bulgarian Church- was

not the method to respect the national principle since it functioned as a masque of religious

warfare.89 Furthermore, Konstantinoupolis compared Islam with Orthodoxy and illustrated as

similarities the existence of many ethnic groups under one religious order. This could not go

without attention since Greek Orthodox elites were aware that the Ottoman Empire was till that

time only with slight majority inhabited by Muslims. With this in mind, the references to ‘people

of Anatolia’ may come to negotiate this specific balance of power. Konstantinoupolis continued

with exemplifying the argument of one and only ethnoreligious order and the other empires and

89
“Ai Voulgarikai Eparxiai” [Bulgarian Provinces], Konstantinoupolis, March 21, 1870.

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 nation-states in 19th century Europe were used as an example to explain why spiritually second

religious order in the Ottoman Empire could not be ‘rational’ measure. Lastly, the author

discredited once more Bulgarians this time by calling them as the ‘Wahhabi of Rumeli’

(Balkans).90

Besides to the intra-imperial understanding of the Ottoman Greek, in the columns of newspaper

there was news for the Greek Kingdom periodically with high criticization for its bad

administration. The author frequently stated that Greek nation-state was not the whole nation and

the only solution to the Eastern Question and particularly he thought that the solution for the

Christians of the Empire would come with the declaration of political equality together with liberty

and, as final plan, the federalization of the country.91 Therefore, Konstantinoupolis obeyed to the

ideology of Patriarchate and turned down the irredentist plan of Megali Idea. The ‘national’

awareness in this step began only in distance to the Greek nation-state and with main reference

point to the constant criticism of Bulgarians who broke the ecumenic project for all Ottoman

Christians. This proto-national conflict drove the Patriarchate to re-consider its position for the

‘people of Anatolia’ and re-conceptualize the Rum millet.

Afterwards, in 1872, the realization of the Ottoman Greek identity occurred from the pages of the

newspaper in more concrete way. On May 15, Konstantinoupolis published an article of Patriarch
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Anthimus in which the words “ecclesiastic and national interests” appeared three times.92 Another

90
“Voulgariko Zitima”, Konstantinoupolis, December 14, 1870.
91
“Ellas”, Konstantinoupolis, May 2, 1870; “Pou Egkeitai I Alithini Dunami tis Tourkias” [Where the true
power in Turkey stands], Konstantinoupolis, September 27, 1871.
92
“Anthimos elew Theou, Arxiepiskopos Konstantinoupolis Romis kai Oikoumenikos Patriarxis”,
Konstantinoupolis, May 15, 1872.

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 article mentioned that “whoever baptizes in the name of Jesus is part of the nation and whoever

does not accept the Holy spirit or shows Voltairean indifference should be excommunicated from

it”. Additionally, the author pointed out that secular interests were mutual with the religious one

and the Church had been exhausted with the latest ‘ethnophyletic’ activities. He added that “we

should take lessons from what happened, and we should focus on the glory of civilization”.93 The

Ottoman tradition of ethnoreligious communities was, as it can be seen, much deep in the core of

the Ottoman Greek identity.

Significantly, in another article, Konstantinoupolis took attitude against the Ottoman government

by saying that: “The imperial government interfered to an ecclesiastical issue and turned it to

political and now threats the Patriarch with removal, our privileges inherited from Glorious

Mehmed II who knew Greek and helped ‘our nation’ […] our church considers him ‘Graikos’

(Greek) emperor as well […] Grand vizier should reassure us that there is no plan to deprive us

from our rights and there is not any intention to provoke the disintegration of the Eastern Church

[…] for the felicity of Anatolia we should show to the West that State and Church cooperate.”94 It

can be said that Bulgarian Schism created an atmosphere of fear for the Greek Orthodox elites

since they were frightened that the privileges of Rum millet could disappear. Consequently, the

‘national perception’ developed in parallel with the re-negotiation of the political position of

Church in the power system of Empire.95

In the meantime, more editorial articles against the actions of the Russian Empire showed up in

the aftermath of schism. Authors alerted the Mixed Council of community and the imperial

93
“Neoi Thrasulloi”, Konstantinoupolis, June 16, 1872.
94
“Voulgariko Sxisma kai Autokratoriki Kuvernisi”, Konstantinoupolis, May 19, 1872.
95
“Eswterika”, Konstantinoupolis, August 4, 1872.

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 government for the efforts of Russians due to their increased activities in some monasteries of

Mount Athos and also their attempt to interfere in Bulgarian Question under the ideology of

Panslavism.96 Seemingly, Konstantinoupolis practiced opposition and pressure to the community

leaders and the Patriarch himself by reminding his words which he said that he would be the

Patriarch to solve the Bulgarian issue. Likewise strongly inspired from the spirit of Tanzimat, they

pointed that the destiny of Ottoman Greek nation was in the hand of the Mixed Council and the

Holy Synod obliged to understand the General Regulations.97 In this frame, the fact that Patriarch

Anthimus was forced to resign after his ‘unsuccessful’ attempt for dealing with the schism shows

the power that newspapers started to have in this period and the further involvement in the shaping

of the public sphere. This also indicates that the ‘national’ activism developed a dimension also

out of the high echelons of church and the members of community actively try to participate in the

‘vasana’ torments of nation.

Another important topic that proves this attitude in 1872 was the educational affairs and according

to authors “education was the national nectar”. The article “Public Education in Anatolia” included

an insight that the schools would cultivate the national feeling, for this reason by acting more

progressive than its time Konstantinoupolis supported that the attendance to school should have

been obligatory. Additionally, it instructed for a better secondary education that would build the

basis for the future and a ‘national education’ that should have been worthy of our ancient culture.98
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96
“Monastiriaka”, Konstantinoupolis, July 7, 1872; “To Sxisma”, Konstantinoupolis, August 14, 1872.
97
“Patriarxika”, Konstantinoupolis, July 12, 1872.
98
“Peri tin en Anatoli Dimosia Ekpaideusi”, Konstantinoupolis, July 26, 1872; “Kai Palin Peri Ethnikis
Ekpaideusews”, Konstantinoupolis, July 28, 1872.

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 During this period, a change can be observed to the display of news from Greek state, the

journalists started to devote more space in the second or third page of newspaper for news related

to the political developments in the Greek Kingdom. Regardless this shift, the position of writers

stays similar: “Greece suffers from the same problem with our country ‘Anatolia’, we need more

-constitutional- reforms and better administration.” In tandem with the news for Greece, the

editorial articles were focus more and more on the governmental changes in the capital of the

Empire. For instance, on August 7, an article with the title “New Grand vizier” provided the

summary of the life of Midhat Pasha who was from the few people, according to author, that could

implement the radical reforms for the coveted ‘Europeanization of the Ottoman state.’99 In another

article that placed in the column of internal news , with the title “Report to Grand vizier” the author

informed that the Mixed Council asked for a meeting with the new vizier for whom the Council

expressed to the Sultan its admiration for this appointment.100 It should be mentioned here that

Konstantinoupolis was giving place to letters of thanks or announcements that were coming from

the Greek Orthodox communities of provinces. On August 23, one article manifested the purpose

of Istanbul based ‘Asia Minor’ Educational Association which, except from spreading the Greek

language and education, as it was declared, to all the ‘homogeneis’ communities, was to collect

information for the social economic status of the Ottoman Greek communities.101 On the other

hand, on August 8, there was a response editorial article tried to explain that even though the
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Ottoman Greek of provinces did not have the right of representation in the Mixed Council – which

99
“O Neos Megas Vezyris”, Konstantinoupolis, August 7, 1872.
100
“Anafora Pros to M. Vezuri”, Konstantinoupolis, August 14, 1872.
101
“Asia Minor – Educational Association”, Konstantinoupolis August 23, 1872.

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 it started to be named emphatically National Council- their complaints about the role of Patriarch

and the Holy Synod were taken seriously.102

To sum up, Konstantinoupolis from 1869 to 1872 found the Greek Orthodox community in a

formative process. Having in mind that the development of press was in its initial phase, the

concept of nationhood is only discernable in its specific context. Markedly, the authors of the

newspaper used quite inclusive terminology to cover all the Ottoman Christians when they were

referring to people of Anatolia. This strong emphasis on Anatolia can also indicate the primary

stage of imperial integration of the subjects or the effort to highlight the native character of Greek-

Orthodox population. The ethnic adjectives are omnipresent for all the linguistic communities

nevertheless the utilization demonstrates a divergent understanding from what someone could

think in the beginning of the 20th century. The word ‘Ottoman’ was something dedicated to

Muslims without any distinct connotation, simultaneously the word ‘Greek’ was not used only for

the Greek people of Kingdom. Moving from this point of view, the Bulgarian Schism certainly

created a unique momentum for the leadership of Rum millet, it obliged to redefine clearly its

relationship with the Greek culture and to determine the population that can -or, not- infuse the

‘new spirit’. In the end, it can be said that we are in front of the transition from the Ottoman Greek

Orthodox -Rum- to Ottoman Greek.

102
Konstantinoupolis August 8, 1872.

49
 3.2. Thraki – ekdidomeni kath’ekasti (1876-1877)

The opening of a newspaper with new name was in some way a process to overpass a long-term

closedown. The main reason of this closure was the alleged aggressive attitude of

Konstantinoupolis towards the Bulgarian issue. Nevertheless, one of the supportive voices of

modernization of the Empire inherited its writing style to Thraki since it also maintained the strong

attachment to the reforms. Throughout 1876, there were several uprisings occurred in the European

part of the Empire and they increased the suspicion between the Ottoman government and the

Ottoman Christians.

On July 26, Thraki hosted a provocative article which was published in Salonica from a newspaper

called Zaman and accused the [Ottoman] Greeks who were preparing to revolt against the

authorities.103 One of the characteristic phrases that the newspaper used to insult the Ottoman

Greeks and to increase the mistrust on them was: “Greeks, the eternal trouble makers of Anatolia”.

The authors of Thraki replied by reminding that the enemy of state was Russia and Panslavism

along with the underline that the Greeks, as one of the cohabitant people of the Ottoman state, had

worked for the progress of the Empire and their main aim was the education of the Ottoman Greek

‘nation’. In next paragraph, Thraki stated that: “This accusation cannot be accepted, if there is

problem with the Greek Kingdom, we should clarify that indeed we are from the same ‘race’ with
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the Greek people and we never tried to hide it. Greeks of that Kingdom are free to work for their

destiny as we the Greeks of ‘Turkey’ who originated in the land of Anatolia and live under the

excellency of Sultan Murad V”. 104

103
Thraki, July 26, 1876.
104
Thraki, July 26, 1876.

50
 regressive ideas that the newspaper represented could not stop the ‘patriotism’ of the Ottoman

Greeks. However, in the following lines, Thraki tried to advise the Ottoman press not to participate

in journalist fight with the Greek Kingdom’s newspapers since the rumors which were being

generated by their articles along with their nationalist rage were only aiming to harm the ‘fraternal’

and ‘harmonic’ cohabitation in the Empire. Additionally, it warned the president of the Greek

Letters Association to stop ‘evangelize’ the Greek irredentism in province of [Ottoman]

Macedonia.105 Subtle responses of Thraki as the above could be found in the front pages of the

newspaper, this shows openly that the newspaper was expressing the voice and the political views

of one share of the Greek community who was loyal to the Ottoman state.

Another controversy that reflected and ended up as a debate in the pages of Thraki was the

‘Circassian settlements’ in the borders between the Greek Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire.

According to the news that Thraki presented through the Athenian newspapers, the Circassian

settlements were planned to stop the potential ‘expansion’ of Greece. The Circassians, who were

described as a wild mountainous tribe, was a hot topic for the Ottoman Greek community as well

since they were also appalled by the idea of demographic change of the so called ‘Greek’ provinces

of the Empire.106 The extensive cover of this subject included, except from the apprehension of

Athenian newspapers, also the Ottoman government’s official responses. When, according to the
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correspondence, Greece started to threat that the rumor -or, plan- of Circassian settlements might

increase the ‘resisting’ tension in other places of the Empire like Crete, Thraki, downplayed

without delay the scenarios and took the responsibility to investigate the validity and the intention

105
Thraki, July 26, 1876.
106
“Eswterika – I Sunoikisis Kirkasiwn para ta Ellinika Methoria”, Thraki, July 20, 1876; Ai Exigiseis tis
Y. Pilis pros tin Ellada”, Thraki, July 26, 1876.

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 of the Ottoman government. Similarly, during the Balkan uprisings in 1876, the foreign policy of

Greece was in the main agenda of Thraki. Transferring news without commenting on them was a

method to spy out the land for the possibility of Greece entering in a conflict with the Empire, an

issue that was quite worrying for the newspaper.107 Explicitly, it can be also seen that the

publication even of a simple article respecting the relations of the two countries could take

immediately great dimension. Therefore, Thraki had a dual role: On one side, firefighting wrong

news that could damage its interests and, on the other side, searching for the argument that fit

closer the position of the community. Based on this in-between stance, it can be assumed, that the

Ottoman Greek identity, as it was conceived by Thraki apparently stayed on the surface in which

the imperial environment permitted and escaped from entrapping in a hardline approach.

On September 11, the editorial article came out with an open letter of the Serbian nationalist

leaders from Herzegovina who were calling the English people to understand the ‘pain’ of

Christians in the Ottoman Empire. The anti-Turkish argumentation of the original article was not

counterbalanced with any positive one; on the contrary, Thraki showed an unexpected compassion

to the ‘drama’ of Christian people in Herzegovina which was in parallel comparison with the

‘drama’ of Cretan Christians.108 The expressed repulsion to the English government that supported

the Ottoman Empire in the suppression of these revolts stressed in every sentence. In comparison
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to that, on September 18, an English foreign policy analysis described that the inadequate

administration and the religious character of the conflict in European parts of the Empire

downgraded the place of Christians. However, it turned to the assumption that dissolution of the

107
“Exwteriki Politiki tis Ellados”, Thraki, August 5, 1876; “Exwteriki Politiki tis Ellados”, Thraki, August
8, 1876.
108
Thraki, September 11, 1876.

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 Empire was not the solution by mentioning that: “The problem in Empire is between the ‘races’

since it is not homogenous […] The solution of the Eastern Question cannot come by pushing the

Turks in Asia […] Let’s understand the intervention of Europeans is exclusively philanthropic.”109

Notably, the main reason of reproducing articles as the above, can be related to a hinted grievance

about the ‘disputed’ promises of Tanzimat that the Ottoman Christians expected. The reference to

religion appeared to be a way to emphasize the solidarity of all Ottoman Christians and aimed

intentionally to create pressure for more reforms.

The attitude of Thraki to publish articles straightforwardly controversial for the interests of the

Ottoman state let the newspaper to be fined with closure of a month. As a result, the new publishing

viewpoint of newspaper changed into more imperial tolerant lines and focused on manifestation

of an unusual patriotism. On September 12, Thraki informed the Ottoman Greeks that the new

Sultan Abdulhamid II had the improvement of ‘their’ country in the center of his policy and

subsequently analyzed some points of the new imperial decree. Thus, according to the newspaper

the fellow Ottomans should have expected prosperity and justice, however, the analysis coupled

with some observations such as: “If only the implementation of rule of law achieved earlier, we

did not have to make a new imperial decree”. Further, Thraki also spotted that the new efforts to

promote individual rights and enhance the educational system of the Empire would be the
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beginning for a period of stability. Lastly, it can be marked an apotheosis of the Sultan as a

modality of loyalty: “Let’s hope that the pacifist voice of the new Sultan will reach the hearts of

all the people of Anatolia”.110 Moving from this point it can be seen that the development of the

new conditions and the demonstration of loyalty to the state were accompanied by the emergence

109
Thraki, September 18, 1876.
110
Thraki, September 12, 1876.

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 of a new phraseology as well. Therefore, together with the national adjectives or the religious

references there was a growing tendency for usage of words like ‘Ottoman nations’.111

After the suppression of the revolts in the Balkan followed the Conference in Istanbul (1876) that

aimed at providing protection to the Ottoman Christians and guarantee that the reforms in the

Ottoman Empire would continue. Nevertheless, the political confrontation of British and Russian

Empires for the future of the Ottoman in combination with their expansion plans shadowed the

discussions. The main arrangement of the Conference concentrated on the predicament of

Bulgarians especially after the atrocities that Ottoman committed, and which shocked the

European public.

Based on the above agreement there was provision for two autonomous Bulgarian provinces. The

occasion of two Bulgarian provinces in the place of the considered ‘Greek’ provinces panicked the

authorities of the Ottoman Greek community. On December 11, Thraki notified that Patriarchate

collected reports and was ready to complain about the violation of the ‘Greek’ rights in the

provinces of Macedonia and Thrace that were under danger of ‘Slav-Bulgarian’ intrigues. 112

Likewise, Thraki added that: “We are not ready to accept this Slavic plan, after the sufferings in

Anatolia a new turmoil is coming for the Greeks […] The Greek populations of these provinces

are aware of their national consciousness, many local communities of the region sent reports to
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Patriarchate and rejected the theories of autonomous Bulgaria […] The Patriarchate and the

National Council will submit to the government its objections as the history and the traditions of

‘our nation’ worth it”. Additional to that Thraki also included the topos of catastrophe as a nation-

building narrative: “The ‘God of Hellenes’ will advocate for the right of the people […] The

111
“O Othwmanikos Typos peri tou Fylladiou tou Gladstonos”, Thraki, September 20, 1876.
112
“To Pneuma ton en Tourkia Ellinikwn Eparxiwn”, Thraki, December 11, 1876.

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 communities of Filipoupolis (Plovdiv) are already facing the ‘fear of Bulgarization’ […] whoever

usurps the right of the Orthodox Greeks should know that we will demand our legitimate right and

we will show what the freedom and humanism that our culture taught them, are.”113

In some other articles, the discourse of nation continues with references to other cases from Europe

by directly targeting the enemies: “We will not let the Greeks of Filipoupolis to have the destiny

of Polish and Circassians […] Panslavism will not transform the ‘ancient Greek provinces’ to a

Russian outpost […] The Slavic policy pressed down the heroes of Eastern rebirth”. 114 In similar

fashion goes the pleas to the government: “We listen the wish of the nation and we want the

imperial government not to destroy its future, our nation always supports the peace and the

reforms”. As it can be noticed, the narrative of nation becomes stronger and starts to resemble the

official one of the Greek state from which it copies the ancient tradition narrative, which was

missing from the post-Byzantine imagination of nation, as a stronger factor for fabricating an

Ottoman Greek consciousness. Less frequent usage or the completely absence of any Christian

eschatological symbolism as national narrative is also equally interesting. It is a fact that the

parallel development of a Greek national ideology of Ottoman face which focuses on people of

Anatolia.

After the declaration of Ottoman Constitution in December 1876 which presumably was an act of
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showing a good will and in the eve of the second phase of the Balkan crisis that caused evidently

the Russo-Ottoman war, the tensions brought out new dilemmas for the Ottoman Greek

113
“To Pneuma ton en Tourkia Ellinikwn Eparxiwn”, Thraki, December 11, 1876; “To Pneuma ton en
Tourkia Ellinikwn Eparxiwn”, Thraki, December 14, 1876.
114
“Eswterika – Oi Ellines kai Thraki”, Thraki, December 12, 1876; “Eswterika – Errei to Dikaio”, Thraki,
December 23, 1876

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 community. The pages of Thraki were filled with news gave attention to the interests of the

community, on March 3 in the article “Upomnima tis Ellinikis Kuvernisews” (Memorandum of

Greek government) the newspaper commented the reaction of the Greek Kingdom to the plan of

Bulgarian autonomy.115 According to the article, the Greek government turned its attention to the

‘Greek’ subjects of the Sultan not because they wanted to take the [Ottoman] Greeks under their

protection but only just they wanted to prevent the consequences which the ‘Greek nations’ of

Empire might face. Greece as kinship and co-religionist nation asked justice to be implemented in

the [Ottoman] ‘Greek’ provinces which they had harsh conditions in the recent past. Together with

this, Thraki acknowledged its gratitude to the King of Greeks that helps the people of Anatolia and

warned that the Greek government should have obeyed the policies of Great Powers. 116

From another perspective, Thraki covered the public display of the Grand vizier’s confidential

letter to the province of Edirne which was inhabited by a great number of the Ottoman Greeks.

The article noted in rather friendly manner that: “[Ottoman] Greeks and ‘Turks’ as the constituent

people of the Empire have a common interest to protect the state against Panslavism which acts

against our ‘national’ existence”.117 In the same frame of mind, on March 13, the newspaper also

covered the meeting of the Ottoman ambassador Fotiadi Bey, who was Ottoman Greek, prior to

his appointment in Greek Kingdom, and the Sultan. Furthermore, in the same page, it praised the
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compassionate character of the Sultan Abdulhamid after the visiting of another important figure

of the Ottoman Greek community, Christaki Efendi Zografos, who was among the great donors to

115
“Upomnima tis Ellinikis Kuvernisews”, Thraki, March 3, 1877.
116
“Upomnima tis Ellinikis Kuvernisews”, Thraki, March 3, 1877.
117
“Empisteutiki Egkuklios Vezurou”, Thraki, March 1, 1877

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 the Ottoman army during the war.118 The news and the contents of the news disclose, as it can be

observed, a new rapprochement of the Ottoman Greek community by keeping in the same time the

regular subtle distance. Markedly, the worship of Sultan takes a form of a new ritual to the

expression of loyalty. Some of devotion moments that can be found in typical ‘wishes to Sultan’

columns were starting with “a ‘powerful King’ that shows father provision to his subjects” and

moreover these wishes were even embedded to the Sunday’s congregations in an ‘Orthodox

Christian’ divine right legitimation.119

The friendly atmosphere, that Thraki wanted to embrace, continued with an article titled “The

Solution of the Eastern Question” in which the newspaper proposed the coalition of the ‘three main

components’ of the Empire: Turkish, Greek and Armenian. Based on it, Thraki described what

considered as the ‘pleasant’ solution of the Eastern Question that would undermine the power of

the ‘artificial products’ of Panslavism that: “The expectations that Serbia will be the ‘Piedmont’

of Illyrian continent was disaproved […] Who thinks that Bulgaria, a province, can be an

independent country […] the future of small states that Panslavism wants to establish cannot be

combined with liberalism. This is against ‘our’ -Turkish, Greek and Armenian- interests, this will

vanquish the freedom from the Mediterranean”. And it was also surprisingly, added that: “Only

Midhat Pasha realized the political importance of power sharing […] Turks have great military
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courage and know the art of governing why not the Greeks and Armenians, who have the

diplomatic skills and whatever else the Turks lack of, participate in the administration of the

118
“I eis ton Soultano Parousiasi tou Fotiadi Bey” and “Episkepsi para ti M. to Soultano”, Thraki, March
13, 1877
119
“Euxi Uper tou Soultanou imwn” Thraki, May 24, 1877; “Euxaristiria pros ton Soultano” Thraki, May
30, 1877.

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 Empire […] We should take Hungary as an example: The Magyarized Germans and Jews are in

all the ministries, the Turks are like the Hungarians but the Hungarians know to accept the

assistance when it is needed […] The ‘Greeks’ as the first of the Anatolian Christians should be

ready for their patriotic mission”.120 In this point, Thraki expresses the idea of the Ottoman Greek

elites, who knew the political arrangement of Austro-Hungarian monarchy and were in search of

a similar model that could apply to the weak Ottoman Empire.

Notwithstanding, the optimist expectations of ‘Greeks’ met the disappointment in the first

elections for the Ottoman parliament. The elections that were based on a system of a curia that was

responsible to vote the candidates did not bring the desired results and put in risk the relations of

‘Greeks’ with the other groups of the Empire. In accordance to Thraki, from the curia of 40 electors

-20 Muslims and 20 non-Muslims-121 that was responsible to vote for the ten places available for

Istanbul province, only one ‘Greek’ managed to be elected.122 Significantly, Thraki discussed the

improper behavior of a ‘Greek’ elector in the first phase of the elections to quit from the procedure

due to his ‘national consciousness’ that by words he claimed that “did not allow him to see the

destruction of ‘Greek people’”.

In the following paragraph, the newspaper disputed the procedure not only because of the fact that

inside the ten places there were three Armenians who were proportionally less than Greeks in the
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capital of the Empire but because in respect with the results which Muslims voted preferably only

for the other non-Muslims.123 The results of the elections spread a dissatisfaction to the Greek

120
“I Lusi tou Anatolikou Zitimatos”, Thraki, March 13, 1877.
121
From them, 9 Greeks, 6 Armenians, 4 Jews and one ‘Western’
122
“Eswterika – To Apotelesma twn Eklogwn tis Prwteuousis”, Thraki, March 2, 1877.
123
“Eswterika – To Apotelesma twn Eklogwn tis Prwteuousis”, Thraki, March 2,1877.

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 population of Istanbul who were only going to be represented by Sarakioti, a man that according

to Thraki had great ‘Greek’ consciousness and respect to his ‘nation’.124 This incident was the

reason for publishing many articles in the Ottoman Greek newspapers. The complaints were

including comments such as: “How the most wealth, powerful and populous center of ‘Turkish

Hellenism’ could elect only one member of parliament”125 or “Now Ignatyev can use this in the

Europeans royal courts against the Empire […] The elections had to be based on the ‘nationality’

since the current regulation creates an unquestionable Muslim majority.” Meanwhile, a mutual

article of all the Greek newspapers of Istanbul showed the political decision of the ‘Greeks’ by

touching some of the most crucial points for the community: “This for the -Ottoman- Greek nation

is humiliating from all of the aspects […] The promise of the political arrangement of 18th May

1876 gave ‘us’ hope and we showed respect to the government, especially we supported the

‘Turkish’ position in the Conference of Istanbul and the only benefiter was the Muslim sovereignty

in Anatolia […] We called for a cooperation with Muslims against our great common threat -

Panslavism- which offered us to destroy ‘Turkey’ and doubled the territory of current Greek

Kingdom […] We faced persecutions and we became exhausted but we all the time see the interests

of Anatolia and Europe”. 126

Equally important, the mutual article continued with a striking concluding part: “Unfortunately the

elections happened under these circumstances, our fellow Muslim citizens exhibited ‘national
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arrogancy’ together with this disrespect by giving to the ‘Greeks’ a bad place in the parliament.

124
“Eswterika – To Apotelesma twn Eklogwn tis Prwteuousis”, Thraki, March 2,1877; “I Eklogi twn
Vouleutwn Kwnstantinoupolis”, Thraki, March 5, 1877.
125
“Eswterika – To Apotelesma twn Eklogwn tis Prwteuousis”, Thraki, March 2,1877; “I Eklogi twn
Vouleutwn Kwnstantinoupolis”, Thraki, March 5, 1877.
126
“Dilwsis tou Ellinikou Typou”, Thraki, March 14, 1877.

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 Nevertheless, the ‘Greeks’ will accept their humble position in the parliament since it’s the first

time the nation can express freely. The feeling of fellow Muslims in this serious moment should

have been in cooperation with the ‘Greeks’ for the rebirth of Anatolia. […] We come to this

statement by honestly and consciously believing in our patriotism.” In one of the few declarations

of the Ottoman Greek community as whole through a mutual article someone can see the

understanding of nation and the position that ‘Greeks’ thought they have inside the Ottoman

state.127

In the aftermath, Thraki published an article included correspondence from Athens about the issue

of the ‘national’ representation of ‘Greeks’ in the Ottoman parliament and the attitude of the Greek

Kingdom to the Russo-Ottoman war. According to Thraki, the “Melon” an Athenian newspaper

stated that the ‘Greeks’ of Istanbul committed crimes against ‘Hellenism’ in contrast to the “Ora”,

another newspaper from Athens, that praised the attitude of the Ottoman Greeks towards the

national question of Hellenism and considered this political stance as the beginning of a great

policy of Hellenism.128 “Melon” responded that: “What is this policy, the Turkification, the denial

of language and religion […] this Byzantine policy will make Hellenism disappear.” Last to this

dialogue of the newspapers, “Ora” concluded that the ‘Greek minority’ along with its press protect

the right of language with courage. The Thraki also questioned the above discussion with the

following concluding words: “They have to tell us who protect the Greek language better, ‘our’
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schools and associations or the ‘poor’ Athens. Do not be ungrateful!” 129

127
“Dilwsis tou Ellinikou Typou”, Thraki, March 14, 1877.
128
Thraki, May 9, 1877.
129
Thraki, May 9, 1877.

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 From the imperial public sphere outlook, the Ottoman Armenian newspaper “Masis” inquired the

ethnic origin of ‘Greeks’ and wondered about the similarity between them and the Greeks of

‘Hellenic’ Kingdom by asking the question: “Should the Ottoman ‘Greek’ named as Greek?” 130

Moreover, Masis supported that the Empire had only religious communities without ‘races’ and

suggested that all the elements of society in the name of Ottoman constitutionalism should have

stayed ‘national’ indifferent.131 As a response, Thraki challenged the Armenians by asking: “All

of these centuries Armenian meant only a religious doctrine but not any national connotation?”.

Furthermore, Thraki stated that “The ‘Greeks as devout Orthodox Christians never misunderstand

their ‘natural’, ‘racial’ and ‘historical’ name […] We think Armenian journalists cannot separate

the Greeks of Turkey from those of Greek Kingdom”. Last but not least, the newspaper clearly

underlined the way how the community members identified themselves as it is indicated in the

following statement: “We do not deny that we are Ottoman subjects but in the same time we are

also ‘Greek’ alike the German Austrians who are Germans and Austrian citizens […] The right to

national self-existence is alienable so we believe that we are ‘good citizens’ of the Ottoman state

and ‘good patriots’ of Anatolia.”

Given these points, the Ottoman Greeks from the process of identification transition, as it was

depicted in the Konstantinoupolis, reached to the formation of, in a body, ‘Greek’ identity. The
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first phase of the imperial Greek identity construction was the boundary setting process by

focusing on the interests of community along with primary steps of targeting the other, in this case

once again the Bulgarians and Panslavism. However, the attitude of creating an ‘enemy’

overpassed the simple power conflict in the Ottoman governing system and extended to the level

130
Thraki, March 27, 1877.
131
Thraki, March 27, 1877.

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 of national mobilization. The discourse of othering was, in parallel, a making process which shaped

the subject and the space of community. Thus, the newspaper of Thraki contributed to the

formation of the Ottoman Greek space in and out of the Empire. In the frame of this, with the

contribution of the editorial articles, this space started to acquire specific characteristics and it can

be said that the appearance of the Christian solidarity turned to a national one.

Notably, the territorial location of ‘Greek provinces’ and the connection of the origin of Greeks in

a further chronological range with the ‘Ancient Greek culture’ galvanized the Ottoman Greek

identity. In essence, the imperial level of this identity appeared with the expression of loyalty to

the Sultan and the inception of Anatolia as fatherland. As the journalists of Thraki showed the

belief to a common future and the denoted ‘rebirth’ of Anatolia served as a purpose for the

community. Nevertheless, the quintessential moment of activation of the imperial Greek identity

came evidently with the intersection of state and community’s interests, the political representation

and the promise for a joint alliance with other groups of the Empire against a common external

enemy. During this process in the pages of Thraki, the previous reference to Muslims or Turks as

Ottomans diminished. In the end, for the trans-Greek nation the Ottoman Greek community

defined itself as a national center which could claim the leadership of Hellenism.
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Conclusion

The Greek national identity emerged in the Ottoman Empire was a distinctive and unique

phenomenon. The formation and the development of the Greek identity focused exclusively on the

foundation of Greek nation-state by neglecting the importance of rest of Greek-Orthodox in the

Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire together with other empires in Europe was under the

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 pressure and the threat of the national movements and for this reason the attempt to internalize the

national request of ethnic groups brought as a result, empires which, in a certain extent, functioned

as nation-states.

From another aspect, the realization of the ‘liberation of nations’ came with the establishment of

the first nation-states in European parts of the Ottoman Empire. The beginning of the dissolution

of the Empire motivated, to the same purposes, the entirely leadership of the -hibernated- ethnic

groups or some parts of the ethnoreligious groups – millet - such as in the case of the Greek

Orthodox population in Morea Peninsula. From this perspective, the emergence of the Greek

nation-state which performed a new distinguishing narrative for the Greek Orthodox people tried

out to determinate the substance of Greek identity especially its development outside of the

imperial settings. However, the Orthodox belief that remained one of the main nationalization tools

combined uniformly together with a widespread new idea of Ancient Greece as the starting point

of the Greek nation.

The discussion of Greek identity, as it was developed from the viewpoint of Greece, inside and

outside the borders of the Empire commenced with Megali Idea. The plan was aiming to consider

all the Greek Orthodox used to live in the Ottoman Empire as kinship population that potentially

had to be united with the Greek state. The Megali idea which was an irredentist project of Greek
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nationalism, proclaimed as priority policy.

Nevertheless, from the other side, after the 1848 uprisings which were the indicator of self-

determination based on national principle and the idea of freedom, empires became more flexible

to accommodate different groups in their state officialdom. A transition period found the Ottoman

Empire amidst reformation and threat of collapse. The change in the structure of the Empire

followed a radical shift in the relations with the subjects. The imperial identity of Ottomanism that

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 generated with the reforms was an effort to re-integrate Empire’s groups under a civil loyalty and

a common belonging. In these circumstances, I showed that the construction of the Ottoman Greek

identity was a different process of ‘nationalization’ under the Ottoman Imperial system.

To examine the perception of the Ottoman Greek community and its attitude towards Ottoman

Empire and Greece, I analyzed the discourses that appeared through the articles of the two

newspapers, Konstantinoupolis and Thraki, which were published in Istanbul. The analysis of the

Ottoman Greek newspapers which should not be seen just under the simple label of Greek

newspapers, aimed to set the space and the historical time of the Greek-Orthodox community and

explained how the community in the center of Empire perceived its identity between 1869 and

1877. In other words, the objective was to restore the historical context and shed light to the

Ottoman Greek public sphere of Istanbul in the 19th century.

Based on the analysis of the discourses in newspapers, the Ottoman Greeks conceived and showed

themselves as a constituent part of the Empire by emphasizing their nativity as people of Anatolia.

Their future orientation was mostly correlated with the future of empire and they had great concern

about the role they could play inside the Empire. The analysis indicated that the higher the level

of imperial integration the more the Ottoman Greek community acquires discern character from

the Greeks of Greece, so it can be said ultimately that there is a different mode of national
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understanding.

This thesis was an attempt to approach the imperial identity perception of Greek Orthodox

community. The future research on this topic should expand the time frame to include

comparatively also the second constitutional period of Empire. Additionally, in order to have a

greater picture for the non-Muslim communities and their identification strategy inside the

64
 Ottoman state, a study should also investigate, for the same period, the development of Armenian

and Jewish identity formations.

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