1. Introduction

The public announcement of the Hat-i Şerif in 1839, the first official edict of the Reforms known as Tanzimat, but mostly the Islahat Fermanı that initiated its second period, constitute major turning points in the production and enhancement of a new ideology, that of Ottomanism, which aimed to promote the equity among all the Sultan’s subjects on the basis of a common political consciousness which would made insignificant any religious or ethnical difference. This policy is already set into action since Mahmud II’s period (r.1805-1839). The ‘infidel’ Sultan, as he became known, after a series of rebellions of his Christian subjects (Serbian revolutions in 1804 and 1815, Greek revolution in 1821) he tried through a series of measures to wipe out the centrifugal powers and create the preconditions for the integration of the non-Muslims into the society and the administration. Thus, on the one hand, in 1826, he eradicated the janissaries, who had become a plague for both the administration and its subjects, on the other hand, in 1828, he promoted a series of measures regarding the attire of the civil servants and the army.

Until then, several Sultans with prime mover Suleyman the Magnificent (r.1520-1566), had described in every detail, through their fermans, the dressing code that subjects should follow depending on whether they were Muslims or non-Muslims, rich or poor, men or women. Accordingly, the attire of the bureaucrats or the military had been described depending on their rank and specialty. Now all these self- evident differences would be expunged by the introduction of a special head-gear known as fez. It was a novelty, whose violent imposition caused the reaction of considerable parts of the Muslim population, mostly in the capital. Beyond the discontent, triggered by the authoritarian way in which the Sultan had disintegrated the networks connecting the Janissaries with various guilds there, what made the Muslims furious was that the imposition of a common gear would make them equal to the non-Muslims.¹

2. Ottomanism and the non-Muslims

This was exactly the goal of this practice, paving the way to Ottomanism, which aimed at creating a society where all the powerful corporative groupings would be gradually dispersed and all the subjects would be transformed into citizens with equal rights and obligations vis-à-vis the Sultan. Mahmud II laid the foundations of this policy, which would be officially formulated in 1839, when his son Abdülmecid would ascend to the throne, among other ways, by the foundation of university schools, such as the School of Medicine in 1834, in which non-Muslims could study as well. However, it is after the Islahat Fermanı of 1856 and the direct involvement of the elite groups of various millets in this reconstruction process, that this undertaking will bear fruits. The Imperial Edict gave instructions to all communities regarding the election of representative assembleys and the elaboration on internal regulations, which would be submitted to the government for approval and would have the validity of a constitution. The secularization that Mahmud II had pursued concerned the relations of the subjects with the state. The secularization that his successor, Abdülmecid, was seeking now concerned relations within the ethno-religious communities. Until then, the presence of laity in the administration was common practice; it was, however, occasional and not officially enacted. Particularly, the Orthodox Phanariotes and the Armenian amiras were able to appoint and remove patriarchs, participating in their own way to Ottoman administrative arbitrariness.² Through the new arrangements, the role of the laity was institutionalized, a specific ratio was stipulated for representatives from the capital and the provinces, with members originating both from among the Elders and from the guilds. They, certainly, were not democratically elected representatives; they expressed, though, the local balance of powers.

The most important of all is that many of these laymen like the Greek-Orthodox Alexandros Karatheodoris Paşa (1833-1906), Yiankos Aristarchis Bey (1811-1897), Konstantinos Mousouros Paşa (1807-1885) and the Armenians Krikor Odian Bey (1834-1887), Ohannes Sakız Paşa (1830-1912), Servicen Efendi (1815-1897) were at the same time members of the Ottoman bureaucracy. Many of them had studied at the university schools that had been recently founded. Thus, they were properly instructed to become intermediaries between the Ottoman authorities and the communities. These people, Neo-Phanariotes and bureaucrats amiras, had made a good use of the non-Muslim participation process in decision-making and had embraced the Ottomanist ideology.³

3. Nation - Genos

In a memorandum submitted by the Patriarchate, in 1864, a three-member committee, headed by Stefanos Karatheodoris, diplomat and father of the renown mathematician Konstantinos Karatheodoris, it is clearly declared that there is only one nation, the Ottoman one, and Greeks or Bulgarians should not be considered as separate nations. The term they use to describe these populations is genos, in order to be diversified from the Ottoman nation. Here lie the ideological foundations of Helleno-Ottomanism, which on the one hand embraces a state-sponsored view as to national consciousness, on the other hand responds to the secessionist trends, mainly the Bulgarian claims that are considered to put in danger not only Ottomanism but also the unity of Orthodoxy, which, however, as it is expressed institutionally by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, has now appropriated very important elements of a Greek national identity.⁴

4. Greece and its role in national ideology

Certainly, it is not possible to ignore the significant influence of the new center of Hellenic ideology, Athens, as it is already fashioned from the early 1840s and as it emerges both from speeches by Ioannis Kolettis and others on the ‘Great Idea’ or the opportunistic practices followed by specific elite groups, a leading figure among which was king Otto who saw especially in the Crimean War (1853-56) as an opportunity to prove his supposed role as the protector of the Empire’s Orthodox population. Eventually, this war led to a humiliation for the Kingdom, while few years later, in 1862, Otto was compelled to abdicate. The very same opportunistic practices, however, led to a new defeat, this time as a result of the many Cretan rebellions in 1866-69. The decade of 1870s would give birth to new conditions. First of all, the disappointment of the Greeks within and outside the Kingdom from the failure of the policy informed by the ‘Great idea’ which, among others, isolated Greece politically in a period where the Bulgarians struggle for independence, for instance, was met with much European sympathy. On the other hand, the prospects of economic and social prosperity that the Reforms had created and, as a result, the integration of many Christian bureaucrats in the Ottoman administration, as well as the involvement in the economy of Christians, especially of Greek bankers like Georgios Zarifis (1810-1884) and Christakis Zografos, personal banker of the Sultan Abdül Hamit through contracting loans to the Ottoman government, made many people believe that the times had changed and that aggressive policy against the Empire had to be abandoned. In this new era, those who had been profited by the Reforms, whether they had sincerely embraced the Ottomanist ideology or not, argued clearly for the Empire’s territorial integrity, addressed cautiously or with open hostility the neurotic actions of the Kingdom and resisted to attempt by Greek state circles to ideologically hegemonies the future of Hellenism.

5. The Neo-Phanariotes

These new elite groups, at least those who were involved in the administration, were called Neo-Phanariotes. From their names we see that some of the old families among the Phanariotes (Mavrogenis, Aristarchis), which had survived the Greek revolution, were able to find again a place among this new ‘aristocracy’. However, there are new families which appeared as a result of the services that their members provided to the Ottoman dynasty as medical doctors or diplomats (Karatheodoris, Mousouros). The term Neo-Phanariotes can be considered to expresse the continuity in practices and conceptions between the pre- and the post-1821 setting. Nevertheless, there was a significant difference. The prior to 1821 Phanariotes of the Danubian principalities lived in an era when the Orthodox faith dominated their ideology, while the Greek language was part of a class culture just as like the good use of Ottoman language was an asset for Muslim leadership.⁵ In the new era, things were different. Greek language and culture had become the elements of a national identity which had prevailed as such in the circles of the Patriarchate and in whose name a struggle against ‘ethnoracism’ is carried out, in the 1860’s, against the Bulgarian and Romanian claims for ecclesiastical autonomy. Towards this aim are the educational and philological societies founded in the Empire, first and foremost, the ‘Philological Society of Constantinople’. The aim is the spread of Greek language and culture to Orthodox populations who ignore it, Slavophone or Turkish-speaking.⁶ On no occasion this policy of promoting a cultural hegemony challenged the Ottoman political frame. On the contrary, it uses it and, therefore, it legalizes it and deems it indispensable. Thus, the Helleno-Ottoman ideology of the1860s and 1870s can be comprehended as a dual hegemony, a political one of the Muslim-Turkish element and a cultural-economic one of the Greek-orthodox.

Certainly, such coexistence can be seen differently, as a political alliance of Greeks and Turks, who would govern together the Empire. Besides, it is a period when the Empire, as political and cultural category, has regained much of its old glory, since after the Ottoman Reforms and the declaration of the Ausgleich (Compromise leading to the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary) in the Habsburg dominions, it has proven her ability to adjust itself. This shift in the Imperial policies is not irrelevant to the unification of Italy and Germany with its effects to the imagination of smaller European nations. The adjustability shown by the Empires inspires many political players of various Ottoman communities to reflect on the possibility of a dual rule similar to that of Austro-Hungary. Helleno-ottomanism was a political vision of this kind. Something similar would be pursued the Bulgarians, whose movement had been tormented from the beginning with a split in its interior. The wealthy elite groups of Istanbul were indignant to the radical discourse of the revolutionaries like Georgi Rakovski (1821-1867) and Liuben Karavelof (1834-1879).On the contrary, intellectuals like Stoyan Tsomakof and Nikolas Genovic supported an evolutionary process, which would lead to autonomy within the imperial framework and having its consent. This policy was expressed in practice by a political vision of dual rule, where the Sultan would be declared at the same time Tsar of the Bulgarians.⁷

6. Helleno-ottomanism and Greece

In Greece, the ideology of Helleno-ottomanism took different dimensions. The failure of the ‘Great Idea’, had led the golden generation of the interregnum of 1862-64, a generation which reflected and acted in an atmosphere of relevant freedom of expression and political visions, to despair. The arrival of rich Istanbuliots in Athens, like Andreas Sygros (1830-1899), whose luxurious life and prospects for dynamic economic undertakings kindled Athenian public’s imagination for the opulence of Bosporus shores, led Athenian political circles to turn for the first time to a policy of cooperation with the Ottoman Empire. Even if it is considered as a political manoeuvre either towards the common Slavic danger and or as a result of the obvious weakness of the Kingdom to follow an aggressive policy, the main representative of this policy Epaminondas Deligiorgis(1829-1879), declared in his political speeches in 1873 the necessity of Helleno-ottomanism. The years that followed would eliminate this prospect at least in the form of cooperation between the two states.⁸ In 1875, the Ottoman government declares bankruptcy, which would bring the gradual removal of Greek bankers from the public finances of the Empire.⁹ The latter will be entangled in a war in 1877-78, from which will emerge deeply wounded. At least, it will be a certain consolation to know that its erstwhile ardent ally, Greece, did not proceed to the slightest hostile action against it. Perhaps, it was the reverberations of Helleno-ottomanist policy, most probably sheer inertia.

The last act of this policy will be staged as a farce. When, in 1876, Sultan Abdül Aziz was toppled in order to for the mentally disturbed Murad V to ascend to the throne, only to be replaced as well, by Abdül Hamid II, as it turned out later on an obsessed monomaniac, supporters of the Helleno-ottomanist ideology in Constantinople took action. Georgios Skalieris, a banker, and a significant figure of the period, visited Murad, under custody in the Çirağan palace, and asked him to acquiesce in his plan to invite the Greek army, which under the leadership of King George I, would enter Constantinople victoriously, would free Murad and they would rule together a Greek-Ottoman Empire.

These utopian plans brought no result. In terms of ideology, Athens gradually started gaining ground towards Constantinople on the political hegemony of Hellenism. Ηowever, for at least twenty years, the cabinets led by Harilaos Trikoupis (1833-1897), and despite the conflict of the Greek Prime minister with the Patriarch Joachim III in 1882, for the educational coordination in Macedonia, followed a moderate policy towards the Empire, as its priorities concerned the modernization of Greek society and not the expansion of the borders. The failed campaign which led to 1897 catastrophe, however, as well as the successful one of the Balkan wars in 1912-13, proved that both in Greece and especially in the Empire, new middle bourgeois groups, professionals, doctors, teachers, deem that Ottomanism and its minor cousin Helleno-ottomanism, as well, had failed, as they served only the interests of specific elite groups connected with the Ottoman administration and the Patriarchate. On the contrary, they found much more attractive the prospect of a well-organized implementation of the ‘Great Idea’.¹⁰

7. Helleno-ottomanism after the Young Turks Revolution

After the Young Turk Revolution, the military Souliotis Nikolaidis and the diplomat Ion Dragoumis, leading members of the secret Society of Constantinople, would reflect upon the prospect of the foundation of a new Eastern Empire, which would succeed the Ottoman one. In this new state, the mixed races would live in harmony in their fusion, with the Greek one eventually to prevail, thanks to its economic and cultural dynamism. It was only one among the many utopias, product of the predominant optimism.¹¹ Thus, Helleno-ottomanism would rise from the dead together with visions for equality before the law, only to be re buried together with all concomitant concepts once and for all in the turmoil of the Balkan Wars. Athens would prevail over Istanbul in a dramatic crescendo, in the peak of which the nation-state, the Greek and the Turkish one as well would make any imperial ideology out-fashioned and redundant.