The Greek Revolution, A Critical Dictionary, Paschalis M. Kitromilides, Constantinos Tsoukalas, March 25, 2021

Introduction 8
complete new history of the Greek Revolution but a critical revisiting and rethinking
of its main features and constituents as a broad historical phenomenon.
Before turning to the essays, readers seeking a more substantive knowledge
and critical understanding of the Greek Revolution should consider a few historiographical
issues surrounding the subject.
The first issue concerns the longstanding debate over the beginning of the
revolution. Although its significance is primarily symbolic, this issue still carries
considerable emotional weight. In planning the revolution, the Philiki
Etaireia and its leader, Alexandros Ypsilantis, discussed the possibility of beginning
the revolt on the day of the Annunciation, March 25, a major religious
feast day for the Orthodox Church, when masses of people would be gathered
at church and thus readily available to be incited to rise against tyranny. Events
overtook these plans, however, and the revolution broke out at differ ent geograph
i cal points over the course of February and March 1821. In February,
Ypsilantis himself initiated the rising in Moldavia and in Wallachia. The
revolt broke out in March at vari ous places in the Morea, at Kalamata, at Vostitsa,
at Kalavryta, and at Patras, as related by Dionysis Tzakis in this volume. On
April 24 the Levant Com pany consul at Patras, Philip Green, reported that “a
Revolt on the part of the Greeks against the Turkish government within Morea”
was underway (TNA, SP 105, 139, f. 351).
Revolutionary events reached a symbolic climax on March 25 at Patras,
where the local archbishop, Germanos, raised the standard of revolution and the
Greek captains took an oath to either liberate their homeland or die. Already
on March 23, the “Messenian Senate,” the revolutionary body that had been set
up at Kalamata by the chiefs of Mani, had issued a proclamation signed by
Petrobey Mavromichalis to “the Eu ro pean courts,” announcing that the Greeks
had risen against tyranny and were requesting the support and advice of the
Eu ro pean nations in their “sacred and just strug gle to renew the suffering Greek
nation” (Panagiotopoulos 1967). This amounted to the first diplomatic act whereby
the revolution was seeking international recognition. Its date, therefore, could
rightfully be considered the day Greece emerged as a free nation, claiming its
place in the world of sovereign states. The Messenian proclamation of Greek inde
pen dence eventually found its way into the Eu ro pean press (e.g. The Morning
Chronicle [London], June 15, 1821).
Years later, the French historian François Pouqueville, brother of the
French consul at Patras, alleged in his history of the Greek Revolution that
the revolution had been proclaimed on March 25 by Archbishop of Old Patras
Germanos at the Monastery of Agia Lavra, near Kalavryta. This story has remained
apocryphal; Archbishop Germanos says nothing about it in his memoirs.
However, in the postrevolutionary period, its strong symbolism inspired