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

middle and upper classes, who demanded both novelty and authenticity in travel
accounts. Travellers’ writings could also influence how their readers might view an
area or peoples, but these representations were fluid and representations could be
influenced by political circumstances. At the start of the nineteenth century, Greece,
apart from her antiquities, the remains of her glorious past, was viewed by many as
an impoverished ugly land, full of thieves and superstitious clergy, administered by
corrupt Ottomans. But through the poetry of Lord Byron, a supporter of Greek
independence, the beauty of the country’s landscape was rediscovered and native
Greeks were admired as he lent them a romantic glory in their struggle for
independence. They were “the heirs of an antique Grecian world, classical figures in
a classical landscape.” 87 Yet Jenkyns notes that by the 1830s the Greeks had lost
much of their glamour and in the 1850s Greek discontent at the British alliance with
Turkey in the Crimean War made them “unpopular” with many Britons. 88
During the first few decades of the nineteenth century, many Britons became
fascinated by ancient Greek culture, promoted by the Dilettante society, as evidenced
in literature, architecture, furniture and even dress. 89 The fascination with classical
Greek cultural artefacts was rooted in the British need “to recognise itself and to find
the right location for new and different intellectual dimensions... organising itself
around words such as civilisation”. 90 As a result, many writers visiting the Septinsula
initially had a romanticised idealisation of the Islands based upon classical Greek
87 Tsigakou F. M., The Rediscovery of Greece: Travellers and Painters of the Romantic Era, (London,
1981), p. 8.
88 Jenkyns R., The Victorians and Ancient Greece (Oxford, 1980), pp. 15-17; Miliori M., “The Greek
Nation in British Eyes”.
89 Jenkyns R., The Victorians and Ancient Greece, p. 15.
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