[1453 - 1832] Ottoman Rule and Revolution

The year is 1453. The great walls of Constantinople, which had stood for a thousand years as the bastion of Christendom, have been breached. The last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, lies dead in the streets, and Sultan Mehmed II, the Conqueror, rides his horse into the Hagia Sophia, the grandest church in the world. For the Greek-speaking people of the fallen empire, this was not just a military defeat; it was the end of a world. A shadow fell across the lands of Homer and Pericles, one that would last for nearly four hundred years. The Ottoman Empire, a vast and sophisticated military power, absorbed Greece not as a province to be assimilated, but as a territory to be managed. The Greeks, along with other Orthodox Christians, were organized into the *Rum Millet*, a self-governing community under the leadership of the Patriarch of Constantinople. On the surface, this system offered a lifeline. The Patriarch, now an Ottoman official, was responsible for the spiritual and civil affairs of his flock, from marriage to inheritance. The Greek language continued to be spoken, the Orthodox faith practiced. The church became the vessel of Greek identity, a sanctuary of memory and tradition in a world turned upside down. But this preservation came at a steep price. Christians were second-class citizens, or *rayah*—literally, 'flock'. They paid the *jizya*, a heavy head tax for non-Muslims, and were subject to numerous legal and social restrictions. They could not bear arms, their houses could not tower over those of Muslims, and their testimony in court held less weight. Perhaps the most terrifying institution was the *devşirme*, the 'child levy'. Periodically, Ottoman officials would tour Christian villages and forcibly conscript the most promising young boys, typically between the ages of 8 and 18. They were taken to Constantinople, converted to Islam, and trained for service in the elite Janissary corps or the palace administration. For a Greek family, it was a recurring nightmare, a tribute paid in flesh and blood. A son was lost forever, raised to serve the very power that subjugated his people. Yet, in the cruel irony of history, some of these boys rose to the highest echelons of the Ottoman state, becoming Grand Viziers and powerful administrators, far removed from the humble villages of their birth. Daily life settled into a rhythm of survival and adaptation. In the fertile plains, Greek farmers worked the land, often for Turkish landlords. In cities like Thessaloniki and Smyrna, Greek merchants and artisans formed bustling communities, their commercial acumen making them indispensable cogs in the Ottoman economy. The sea remained a Greek domain. From the rocky islands of the Aegean, sailors and shipowners built vast merchant fleets, their vessels flying the Ottoman crescent but their hearts and minds sailing on currents of Hellenic heritage. They traded grain from the Black Sea, textiles from Europe, and spices from the East, accumulating great wealth and connecting the isolated Greek communities with the wider world. Resistance was a constant, simmering ember. In the rugged, inaccessible mountains of the mainland, bands of men known as *klephts*—a word that means 'thieves'—refused to bow to Ottoman authority. They lived outside the law, raiding Turkish officials and wealthy travelers, becoming folk heroes celebrated in song and legend. They were the embodiment of an untamed spirit. To counter them, the Ottomans often employed Christian militias called *armatoloi* to police the mountain passes. But the line was blurry; an *armatolos* one day could be a *klepht* the next, their loyalties shifting with opportunity and conviction. These mountain warriors, with their distinctive fustanella kilts and fierce pride, kept alive a martial tradition that would prove crucial when the time for a full-scale revolution finally arrived. By the 18th century, the winds of change began blowing from the West. The ideas of the European Enlightenment—of liberty, reason, and the rights of man—found fertile ground among the educated, wealthy Greek diaspora in cities like Vienna, Odessa, and Paris. A fiery intellectual named Rigas Feraios translated the French 'Marseillaise' into Greek and drafted a constitution for a new, multi-ethnic Balkan republic free from Ottoman rule. He dreamed of a rebellion that would unite all oppressed peoples. His words were electric: 'It is better to have one hour of free life,' he wrote, 'than forty years of slavery and prison.' Rigas was captured by the Austrians and handed over to the Ottomans, who strangled him in 1798. But his martyrdom only fanned the flames he had ignited. The movement for independence was organized in secret. In 1814, in the bustling port city of Odessa, three merchants founded a clandestine society called the *Filiki Eteria*, the 'Society of Friends'. Using Masonic-style rituals, secret codes, and a vow of absolute secrecy, they built a vast network of conspirators, recruiting merchants, priests, intellectuals, and klephtic chieftains. By 1821, they felt the time was right. The Ottoman Empire was distracted by a war with Persia and the rebellion of Ali Pasha in the west. On March 25th, a date now celebrated as Greek Independence Day, Bishop Germanos of Patras is said to have raised a banner of revolution at the Monastery of Agia Lavra, signaling the start of the war. The uprising was explosive and brutal. In the Peloponnese, a grizzled klephtic leader named Theodoros Kolokotronis, who had served in the British army, rallied the Greek peasants. 'The French Revolution and the doings of Napoleon opened the eyes of the world,' he later recalled. 'The nations knew nothing before, and the people thought that kings were gods upon the earth.' Under his command, a ragtag army of irregulars inflicted a stunning defeat on a massive Ottoman force at the Battle of Dervenakia in 1822, a victory that secured the Peloponnese and made Kolokotronis a legend. The war was fought on land and at sea with ferocious courage and unspeakable cruelty. The Ottomans responded to the revolt with massacres, most infamously on the prosperous island of Chios in 1822, where tens of thousands were slaughtered or enslaved. The event, captured in a haunting painting by Eugène Delacroix, shocked Europe and fueled a wave of 'Philhellenism'. Romantics, liberals, and adventurers across the continent rallied to the Greek cause. The most famous was the English poet Lord Byron, who traveled to Greece to fight, bringing his fame and fortune. He died of a fever in the besieged city of Missolonghi in 1824, becoming a martyr for Greek freedom. The siege of Missolonghi became a symbol of the struggle. For almost a year, its defenders held out against a massive Ottoman-Egyptian army. Starving and out of ammunition, the surviving thousands attempted a desperate nighttime breakout, the 'Sortie of the Guards'. Most were cut down, but their sacrifice became an epic of national heroism. At sea, the brave sailors of islands like Hydra and Spetses, led by figures like the female captain Laskarina Bouboulina, used small, agile fire ships packed with explosives to terrifying effect, sailing them into the heart of the imposing Ottoman fleet and setting its warships ablaze. For years, the Great Powers of Europe—Britain, France, and Russia—had watched with a mixture of sympathy and cynical calculation. But the ongoing bloodshed and the threat of a powerful Egyptian-Ottoman state dominating the Eastern Mediterranean finally forced their hand. In October 1827, a combined allied fleet sailed into the Bay of Navarino to enforce a ceasefire. A tense standoff with the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet erupted into a full-blown battle. In just a few hours, the modern warships of the allies annihilated their opponents. The Battle of Navarino was the decisive moment. It shattered Ottoman naval power and made Greek independence an inevitability. After nearly four hundred years in the shadows, a Greek state was born. The London Protocol of 1832 officially recognized the Kingdom of Greece. It was a small, impoverished nation, encompassing only a fraction of the Greek-speaking world, and its early years would be marked by political instability and the meddling of its foreign protectors. But the chain of subjugation had been broken. The revolution, paid for with immense suffering and sacrifice, had succeeded. The blue and white flag now flew over a free, sovereign land, and a new chapter in the long, tumultuous, and extraordinary story of Greece had begun.