Constructing Ionian identities: the Ionian Islands in British official ...

Travellers who visited the Ionian Islands assumed the pre-eminence of English
culture, often comparing aspects of the Islands’ peoples and culture negatively to
their own. While the Ionian Islands were idealised and romanticised by some
because of their links to classical Greek culture, at the same time it was a land that
had been colonised for centuries by different peoples (Venetians, French, Turkish,
and Russians). The Islands, whose resources were exploited by their colonisers, were
seen as poor, with little social infrastructure, few modern luxuries, and no distinct
modern culture of their own. In travel writer Thomas Ansted’s view for instance, the
ideals of the classical Greek civilisation had been appropriated by the British who,
he felt, would leave behind on the Islands commercial prosperity and a civilised
culture of ball games, dinners, and picnics. 83
The travel texts of Tertius Kendrick, William Goodison, Frances Maclellan,
Edward Lear, Thomas Ansted and Viscount Kirkwall were published between 1822
and 1864 and provided a cultural and historical background to the Islands. They also
contributed to a broader understanding of the place of the Islands in British public
opinion, complementing the focus on official discourse. The travellers were unable
to reconstruct Ionian culture in its totality and, like travellers elsewhere, they
selected details in Ionian culture and used them to represent the culture as a whole. 84
Their stories were shaped by ethnic differences: they visited many places and entered
people’s homes to see, define, categorise and evaluate their stage of ‘civilisation’.
83 Ansted D. T., The Ionian Islands in the year 1863, (London, 1863), pp. 30, 31
84 Melman B., Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718-1918, (London, 1992), p.
102.
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