This article uses tools developed by conceptual history to examine what it might have meant for Ottoman officials in Istanbul to use the term Rum milleti during the Greek War of Independence. The revolution that started in 1821 has been seen as the first successful national uprising in Europe. It has long been ascertained that the Ottomans did not understand the national undertones that was seen in the declarations of the leaders of the Greek Revolution. Moreover, the Ottoman response to the eruption of this revolution has generally been examined in the context of Istanbul, Morea and the Danubian Principalities.
The goal of this paper is to broaden our understanding of the intellectual and spatial limits of the Ottoman response to the Greek War of Independence. It starts with an examination of the Ottoman response to the French Revolution and to the Serbian revolt of 1804 to follow the trajectories of the term millet. It points out to the limitations of the Islamic understanding of the revolts of subject populations by testing some intellectual tools that were used to surpass such limitations.
This article examines the events leading to the execution of Gregory V, Patriarch of Constantinople, utilizing accounts and documents in Ottoman Turkish and Greek. Gregory was the occupant of a post which involved striking a balance between different Phanariot factions, pro- and anti-Enlightenment tendencies, and localist and imperial expectations. This article argues that it was the outbreak of the Revolution in the Morea, rather than Ypsilantis’ movement, that upset the status quo, convincing the Ottoman elite that Gregory was no longer useful for the smooth functioning of Ottoman governance.
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