The Catholic Communities of the Aegean Archipelago during the Greek Revolution, 1821–1830

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Published: Jan 7, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/historein.25559
Keywords:
Greek Revolution Catholics Ottoman Empire Maritime history Island communities
Dimitris Kousouris
University of Vienna
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8618-2375
Abstract

The Catholics of the Aegean islands represent a rather neglected subject in the story of the Greek War of Independence. As these communities enjoyed a large degree of autonomy from the Sublime Porte, were under French protection and participated in the global network of the Catholic Church, their integration into the Greek state was difficult. The frictions between insurgents and island Latins, the attempts of the Greek government to impose its authority, the efforts of those communities to mobilise their regional and international networks in order to maintain autonomy and their ultimate acceptance of the description “Greeks of the Western Church” attributed to them by the insurgents demonstrates that the making of the Greek nation was an open-ended process, providing valuable insights into the transition from a prenational/extraterritorial conception of sovereignty to a national/territorial one.

Article Details
  • Section
  • I. THE CONSOLIDATION OF REVOLUTIONARY GREECE
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Author Biography
Dimitris Kousouris, University of Vienna

Dimitris Kousouris studied history and archaeology at the University of Athens (2000) and pursued his postgraduate studies in the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, where he received a master’s degree (2003) and a PhD in history (2009). His doctoral dissertation examines the postwar (1944-1949) legal purge of the Greek collaborators as an individual case within the framework of the European postwar nation (re-)building process. Since 2015, he is a university assistant in the Institute of Byzantine Studies and Modern Greek Studies of the University of Vienna.

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