Why is the 200th anniversary of Greek independence so important for Greek Australians?

Hundreds of commemorations are taking place across Australia marking the 200th anniversary of Greece’s foremost national holiday. But why is the bicentennial of independence celebrated so widely outside Greece and what does it mean for Greek Australians?

Greek Community of Melbourne dance group members in photoshooting honouring the Greek War of Independence bicentenary. Source: Georgios Jordi Xourafas Artverse Photography

Highlights

• Greek revolution bicentennial celebrations are running all-year-round, with 25th March a key focal day
• Art depictions of the war had a practical impact on its trajectory, with commemorations also deploying art to inspire Philhellenism - or the love of Greek culture
• Greek Australians of second and third generations are reflecting on questions of Hellenic identity Down Under

It’s no news Australia has a well-established Greek diaspora, with Melbourne reportedly being home to the largest Greek population outside Greece.

And the abundance of celebrations across the country for the 200th anniversary of Greek independence from Ottoman rule is evident. 

In Victoria alone, there are over 80 schools, parishes and organisations contributing to the year-long line-up of events.  Some of those are being supported with state government grants from a dedicated $200,000 ‘Greek Bicentennial Celebration fund’.

Festivities have not been immune to coronavirus restrictions with some events, such as school processions in metropolitan areas, going online or even cancelled.

Greek Australian students at the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, seen during a past march commemorating the Greek Independence Day Source: SBS Greek

This year's highlights include the lighting up of Sydney’s Opera House on 25th March in the colours of the Greek flag.

To honour the bicentenary, Australia’s Greek Orthodox Archdiocese set up a National Committee coordinating more than 250 nation-wide activities throughout the year.

The national day, though, hasn’t always inspired unity within the Greek community Down Under.

Associate Professor of History at UNSW, Nicholas Doumanis, a second-generation Greek Australian, recalls that ‘divisions’ over celebrations were present in some cities up until a few years ago.

A Greek miltary helicopter flies over the Acropolis in Athens during a trial fly-past ahead of Greece's Independence Day celebrations on March 25th. Source: AAP

“The Archdiocese and the ‘koinotites’ [local communities falling outside the purview of the peak Greek Orthodox church body] often were at loggerheads over who was the authority in the community and so they each had their own ‘parelasi’ [march].

“Which was a problem for our politicians because they didn’t know which one to attend.”

A Greek war with world significance?

So, what exactly is celebrated?

Annual commemorations on 25th March mark the declaration of the 1821 revolt in Greece against the 400 years of rule by the Ottoman Empire, although it's historically established that the actual declaration took place a few days earlier and in fact outside Greece.

The 25^th of March was promulgated as Greece̕s National Independence Day in 1838 by its first king, Otto, a German.

The king, alert to the ethnoreligious interplay in Greek identity, explicitly stated the date was chosen to coincide with the Holiday of the Annunciation, a landmark celebration in the Greek Orthodox calendar.

Greece's old flag of revolution with the image of Mother Mary embedded and insurgency slogans for the purposes of a re-enactment event in Kalavryta, Athens. Source: Helen Paroglou/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

In any case, the War of Independence eventually led to Greece’s recognition as an independent state.

It is argued the country was the first successful European experiment of a liberal-national movement creating a nation-state.

There were several developments in the region, Dr Doumanis says, “fracturing the political authority of the Ottoman empire, and Greek rebels were a part of that.”

Local Greeks fighting against the Turks for independence or enhancing their own power, however, weren’t the only ones spearheading the revolt. The motive of nation-building, in particular, was rather imported to Greece, Dr Doumanis explains.

“The story that we were taught in school is not untrue. It’s just there’s much more to it.

Re-enactment of the oath taking of the Greek fighters at St Lavra, which oral tradition promotes as the starting ground of the Greek revolution of 1821. Source: Helen Paroglou/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

“There were people who wanted to create an independent Greek state […] kind of a nation. And hardly anyone was talking about having a monarchy. They had something else in mind, the model of America or France, but the people who were pushing that idea were liberals, mainly from the diaspora.”

He refers to scholars and intellectuals living abroad, whose advocacy proved pivotal in inspiring a patriotic sentiment, as well as securing financing and public support internationally.

Coming to the support of Greeks, Russia, Britain and France, arguably set up the blueprint of modern interventions.

Greek political thinkers Rigas Velestinlis and Adamantios Korais help Greece stand on its feet, 19th century. Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art. Source: Theophilos Hatzimihail, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“For international history, it's extremely important that Greece is a lightning rod at this point, it's the centre of attention because it becomes a focus of sovereignty,” Dr Doumanis says, pointing out that the Greek revolt happens around the same time with the Latin American Wars of Independence, prompting a rethinking of the international order.

“So they [Western powers] had to figure out when do you intervene in a foreign state? How do we violate ultimate sovereignty? Does having revolutionaries make it look legitimate?”

Art ‘propaganda’ in 1821 & 2021

International mobilisation for the Greek war is attributed to a great extent to the ‘propaganda’ of the times, reaching wealthy European circles and prompting sensational newspaper reports: paintings juxtaposing civilian massacres by the Ottomans to highly emotive presentations of oppressed Greek people.

Melburnian Spiridoula Demetriou knows about these all too well thanks to her PhD thesis, Imagining modern Greece: Mesologgi, Philhellenism and art in the 19^th century.

Her focus was on Mesologgi, the town that became “renowned worldwide as the centre of war operations in mainland Greece during the Greek War of Independence” and the epicentre of “Philhellene propaganda in the revolt against Ottoman rule.”

Eugène Delacroix, Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi (1827, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux) Source: Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

For the second generation Greek Australian, the research undertaking had an inherent personal element too, having lived in the town “for extensive periods”, with both her parents hailing from the region.

“Mesologgi became emblematic not only of the Greek struggle for independence but of universal principles of freedom and self-determination,” Ms Demetriou explains.

But Greek revolution art is not just a thing of the past.

Formal exhibitions aside, this year’s bicentennial sparked a number of grassroots initiatives aiming to promote the anniversary to wider audiences.

In Greece - where national symbols such as the flag and rituals such as parades can be met with equally strong opposite sentiments in left and right-wing 'camps' – a social media war has erupted over a graffiti artist featuring faces of Greek revolution heroes in public spaces of the capital, Athens.

Some revere Evritos’ work and accuse the "anti-Hellenes" of "instilling fear" in the artist resulting in the secrecy of his identity.

Others condemn Evritos for being an "extreme right-winger" after images circulated online of graffiti art with anti-immigrant slogans and neo-nazi symbols appearing to bear his signature.

Away from the homeland, in Australia’s ‘Little Greece’ the national day faces minimal controversy.

Nick Papaefthymiou, who teaches the Greek Community of Melbourne dance group organised a photoshoot with members modelling in traditional Greek Revolution clothing and props, that are mostly part of his personal collection.

Nick Papaefthymiou (front right) organised a photoshoot with his students to commemorate the Greek bicentennial Source: Stav Lampropoulos

The simple answer as to what prompted the idea, he says, “is it is a way to honour and celebrate the 200 years’ anniversary of 1821.”

“But obviously it serves many other purposes […] These images will mean different things to different people,” Mr Papaefthymiou stresses, hinting to associations with historical events and more recent war stories that have shaped the Greek identity both for those born in Greece and diaspora communities, including in Australia.

Archival photo of Greek Australians celebrating Greek War of Independence anniversary with a photoshoot dedicated to the national day. Source: Stav Lampropoulos

What makes one Greek (Australian)?

According to historian Dr Doumanis, the Greek War of Independence has been central in the identity processes for the post-war wave of Greek migrants Down Under in particular.

“Every immigrant who came here knew about Kolokotroni and Karaiskaki (prominent Greek revolution fighters), they would recognise their pictures in books or in posters.

And it's this sort of foundation stories that help migrants who are moving to another country to maintain a frame of reference for their national identity.

Ms Demetriou’s experience “as a child of the diaspora in Melbourne” is a testament to how Greek school fostered a passing down of the national narrative to younger generations.

Reciting poems during a Greek Independence school commemoration Source: Spiridoula Demetriou

“The school readers across all levels contained patriotic poems extolling the bravery of the Greek insurgents, which we were required to recite at celebrations for the Greek national day,” she remembers.

Commemorations, Ms Demetriou says, have contributed to establishing “the Greek War of Independence narrative in national history”, and she argues a comparative example can be found in “the Anzac legend as a unifying factor in the construction of an Australian self-view.”

pectators wave Greek and Australian flags as they watch Australia's Alex de Minaur and Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas in their 2021 ATP Cup match Source: AAP Image/AP Photo/Hamish Blair

But not every individual of Hellenic heritage has been raised celebrating the 25th March national holiday, without this necessarily rendering them ‘less Greek’.

Third-gen Yianni Cartledge describes his experience as “minimal”.

“While I had heard about the War in Greek class at high school, I had never actually celebrated it. My grandparents, being from the island of Ikaria, had a different Independence Day."

Ikaria, just off the Turkish coast, was among the Greek islands that even after Greek Independence remained part of the Ottoman Empire into the twentieth century, Mr Cartledge explains. 

"On 17th July 1912, the locals of Ikaria declared their own independence from the Ottomans, and Ikaria became an independent state from July until November 1912, when it decided to join Greece due to famine."

He remembers his family occasionally attending a festival held annually on 17th July by the Ikarian brotherhood in South Australia marking the date of the island’s independence.

Ikarians celebrating their Independence Day in the 60s in Adelaide. Source: Courtesy of the Pan-Ikarian brotherhood

While not commemorating it, Mr Cartledge fully appreciates what the 1821 anniversary means to the broader community.

“Not only does it celebrate an origin story of the modern Greek people, but, for Greek Australians, it is an opportunity to share and showcase their culture, their family origins, and their tightknit community to the wider Australian community,” he says.

“For Greek Australians, identity is formed from the idea of having two homelands – one of our birth, being Australia, and one of our ancestors, being Greece."