Sunday, 25 March 2018

The Greek War of Independence, March 25 National Day; Ελληνική Επανάσταση, Ελευθερία ή θάνατος


The most comprehensive book on the subject that I have in my library is not very up-to-date. It was published in 1897:






I will also have to consult another book in my library (1976):




"According to tradition, the Revolution was declared on 25 March 1821 (N.S. 6 April) by Metropolitan Germanos, who raised the banner with the cross in the Monastery of Agia Lavra, although some historians question the historicity of the event.[59] There are no contemporary accounts of a declaration of independence by Metropolitan Germanos, who was not at Ayia Lavra on 25 March 1821, and the story first appears in 1824 in a book written by a French diplomat François Pouqueville, whose book is full of inventions.[60] The British historian David Brewer noted that Pouqueville was an Anglophobe, and in his account of the speech by Germanos in his book, Pouqueville has the Metropolitan denounce Britain in language that smacks more of French Anglophobia than anything that a Greek would say, and has him praise France as Greece's one true friend in the world, which led Brewer to conclude that Pouqueville had invented the entire story as a way to bash Britain.[60]"

See also History of the War of Independence in Greece, Volume 2, by Thomas Keightley


Pouqueville, read online


I don't have the books by Douglas Dakin (1973) or C.M. Woodhouse (1952) to hand, and I haven't read the book by David Brewer:


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