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

known as the Senate, consisted of fourteen elected representatives from all the
Islands and resided in Corfu. Social unrest, particularly from the middle class, led to
the re-drafting of the Constitution in 1803. This constitution still favoured a
restrictive electorate, but created “a constitutional aristocracy based on individual
rights and wealth as opposed to hereditary privilege and incorporated enough of the
discontented middle classes to stabilize the Islands”. 158 A second appeal from the
Ionian nobility to Russia for reinstating full power to the Ionian nobility led to the
introduction of the 1806 constitution. It did not, however, materialize because Russia
broke the strategic neutrality of 1803 and declared war on France. The Treaty of
Tilsit in 1807 returned the Ionian Islands to France, and the Islands were
administered as part of her Empire.
By the start of the nineteenth century, the social-economic and cultural system
of the Islands was a combination of an archaic feudal system of land tenure with
strict social categorization and an authoritarian political system that was developed,
and sporadically altered, by various European and Greek influences. The Islands also
had an ancient historical tradition, a Christian family system, an independent
government, European laws and institutions, literature and language. The Ionian
Islands were, as Calligas notes, “harbouring explosive contradictions within the
confines of their boundaries”. 159 It was into an area of such multitude and diversity of
influences that Britain would arrive in 1809, as their new protector.
158 Calligas E., “The Rizospastai (Radicals-Unionists)”, p. 26.
159 Ibid., p. 22.
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