Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

After a six-year war of independence from Ottoman Occupation, Greek independence was secured in 1827. A small section of the southern peninsula of the Balkans was allotted to the neo-Hellenic nation and the 18-year-old Bavarian King Otto was installed. The newly established nation was set on a course of reconstruction and identity-building, and women played an important role in this effort. Functioning under the pressure of Bavarian historian G. Fallmerayer's nineteenth-century theories that present-day Greeks had no connection whatsoever with the ancient inhabitants of the country, as well as Bulgaria's forceful annexation of Eastern Romulia in September 1885, which threatened the ethnic identity of Greek populations in the area, the country launched a process of redefining modern Hellenism by a two-directional course: to westernize its culture and, at the same time, to find its fundamental Greekness in local customs and mores. As a result, there was manifested a “tilt toward Europe,” even as Greeks began re-examining and emphasizing their own local everyday customs, which proved to be similar to those of the ancient Greeks. Purging the country of all vestiges of its oriental/Ottoman influences and emulating a West nurtured on ancient Greek values would move the country away from its recent past and thus closer to its classical roots. Consequently, in less than 50 years, the western ... log in or subscribe to read full text