Mount Lebanon and Greece: Mediterranean Crosscurrents, 1821–1841

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Published: Jan 7, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/historein.24937
Keywords:
revolution Greece Lebanon nationalism
Peter Hill
Northumbria University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3352-1246
Abstract

This article uncovers the interactions between the Greek War of Independence and the Ottoman district of Mount Lebanon. Greek forces made corsairing raids on the Syria-Lebanon coast, sometimes leading Ottoman governors to retaliate against local Christians. A more substantial attempt was made to draw the district’s quasi-autonomous ruler, Emir Bashir al-Shihabi, into an alliance with the revolutionary Greeks, leading to a major Greek assault on Beirut in 1826, but this was unsuccessful. Underlying its failure, the article argues, was the persistence of an older pattern of elite negotiation across religious boundaries, which was resistant to the stark Christian-Muslim polarisation developed in parts of the Greek war. In the decades following this war, it then suggests, some sectarian polarisation and Christian nationalist aspirations reminiscent of Greece did emerge in Mount Lebanon, largely through Maronite Christians’ interactions with France. The goal of a monoreligious nation-state, however, never took root.

Article Details
  • Section
  • II. THE GREEK REVOLUTION AND THE EMPIRES
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Author Biography
Peter Hill, Northumbria University

Peter Hill is Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow, Department of Humanities, Northumbria University. He is a historian of the modern Middle East, specialising in the Arab world in the long nineteenth century. His research focusses on political thought and practice, the politics of religion, and translation and intercultural exchanges. He also has a strong interest in comparative and global history. Before joining Northumbria University in 2019, Peter was Junior Research Fellow at Christ Church, University of Oxford. His first book, Utopia and Civilisation in the Arab Nahda, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. He has published a number of articles on translation and political thought in the Middle East, in journals such as Past & Present, the Journal of Arabic Literature, and Intellectual History Review.

 

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