o_19heefouak9i9v4do11ac41pi7a.pdf

SAKIS GEKAS
same lines as the ones designed for the empire as a whole. As a result these categories
are not ‘objective’ markers of an economic and demographic (Ionian) reality
waiting to be discovered, not least because for several islands and for many years
the numbers were simply not accurate 17 . Still, they are useful because despite the
status of the islands as a protectorate, the British perceived the islands as a colony,
even if only for measurement purposes; the ‘Blue Books of Statistics‘ reveal that
rulers applied a homogenising model that was designed for all colonies in order to
improve the quality of administration. Especially for the period until 1848 and the
Seaton reforms (export duties, free press and the extension of franchise), this attitude
made perfect sense from an administrative point of view.
In the Ionian Islands other forms of colonial governmentality and experimentation
were evident in the planning and administration of Ionian towns. Commercial,
legal and urban governance institutions transformed the islands’ societies. The islands’
long association and relations with Italian cities had already exposed Ionian
societies to ideas of science and social organisation. The liberals of the islands, colonial
officials, merchants and intellectuals, in Corfu, Kefalonia and Zante were prominent
in the planning of the colonial liberal governmentality project but with varying
success in each of the islands.
Governmentality means rationality in government through measurement, calculation
and the application of results for the promotion of the wealth and security of
the population. The emergence of associations for the promotion of knowledge by
Ionian intellectuals in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries paved the way for
other Ionians in the nineteenth century, when it combined with British perceptions
of the art and –gradually in the nineteenth century– the science of government.
These circles of knowledge developed into groups that designed and aimed to contribute
to public policy and created a collective identity among Ionian intellectuals.
During the period of Venetian rule a tradition of voluntary societies laid the foundations
for the emergence of the Ionian public sphere during the nineteenth century.
The experience Ionian intellectuals brought from their studies in Italy and
elsewhere in Europe led to the transfer of knowledge through collective action. In
1656 the ‘Academy’ “degli Assicurati” was founded by 30 doctors, lawyers, literary
figures and poets, and probably stopped meeting in 1716 18 . Most members were
graduates of the University of Padova, doctors of medicine and law, Orthodox as
well as Roman Catholic 19 . The ‘Academics’ were meeting in the Palazzio Prefetitio
and the association was praised by the travellers Spoon and Wheeler, which gave it
an international recognition due to the erudition of some distinguished members
such as Nikolaos Voulgaris, a member of the elite Corfu family 20 .
17 Viscount Kirkwall, Four Years in the Ionian Islands, Vol. 2, 1864, p. 288.
18 E. Γιωτοπούλου-Σισιλιάνου, «Η Επτανησιακή παιδεία στα χρόνια της ξενοκρατίας»,
Κερκυραϊκά Χρονικά, ΧV, 1970, 101-21.
19 Λούντζης, 249.
20 Παναγιώτα Τζαβάρα, Σχολεία και δάσκαλοι στη βενετοκρατούμενη Κέρκυρα (16ος-
18ος αι.), Athens 2003, p. 296-7.
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