The formation of national identity

The most revolutionary change that occurred during the Greek War of Independence is the transformation of people into active subjects of history. The man of 1830 bears no resemblance to the man of 1820, since he has now experienced change, and indeed a change that occurred with his own contribution.

This transformation continues during the first decades of the Greek kingdom, since nothing resembles the past. Words, concepts and ideas are reinvented to reflect the new context. All possibilities are fluid and the debate that takes place has as its axis the identity of the Greek nation. All discussions end up with the same questions: who were the Greeks in the past, who are they in the present and who should they become in the future?

This book, using the work of the Soutsos brothers as a vehicle, follows the fascinating journey into the world of ideas and words of the 19th century. The Phanariot poets, the Soutsos brothers, remain in the collective consciousness, but also in the histories of modern Greek literature, as the most important representatives of the Athenian Romantic School. However, apart from this capacity, the Soutsos brothers constitute two of the most important and influential scholars of the Ottonian period (1833-1862). This study focuses on the presentation of the Soutsos as ideal martyrs of their time, since they played a leading role with intensity and passion in the public sphere of the Greek kingdom. In other words, the Soutsoi are not simply the romantic poets that literary history has handed down to us, but also scholars who participate in public discourse sometimes as liberal radicals and sometimes as extreme conservatives. In short, these two Phanariote poets are active, political subjects whose work functions as a document of their turbulent times.