Historian examines changes in Greek nationalism

The definition and significance of the word “national,” may be clear to many in the United States, but when used in certain countries like Greece, “national” carries a whole other connotation, a historian said Wednesday at Harvard University.

For the Greeks, Alexander Kitroeff said, nationalism has been a constantly changing concept “rooted in language, religion and history.”

Kitroeff, who is an associate professor specializing in modern Greece, explained his ideas about Greece’s nationalism to a small group of about 10 graduate students and professors as part of the Humanities Center at Harvard Seminar on Modern Greek Literature and Culture.

One of the main themes discussed was that of the “Great Idea,’ which resulted from Greece’s original formation as a nation.

Kitroeff compared this process to the creation of the 13 colonies in North America. He said the Greeks during this time wanted to expand into nations and regions that had other ethnic Greeks living within their borders.

Kitroeff also said there is a typically negative view that Greek nationalism is “irrational as well as ethnically exclusionary.”

As he illustrated the nationalistic attitude of Greece, Kitroeff also described the way that the Crimean War of the 1850s shaped Greece.

Two of the most important Greek intellectuals of the 1800s, Konstantinos Asopios and Alexandros Mavrokordatos, were also discussed.

“Both were firm believers in the “Great Idea’ but their vision of Greekness was more secular and politically less militant,” Kitroeff said.

Kitroeff said Asopios, who was the provost at the University of Athens at the time, was “a crusty, independently minded academic.”

“Asopios spoke about ancient Greece but the way he talked about it, it was very clear that he was comparing modern and ancient Greece,” Kitroeff said. “Asopios did make political statements, albeit couched in an academic format.”

Mavrokordatos on the other hand, was prime minister of Greece during the late 1850s and “believed that Greece should prepare itself domestically first. . . that it ought to be more deliberate in what territories and population it would lay claim to,” Kitroeff said.

Instead of believing that Greek or Hellenic unity should be based only on culture, Mavrokordatos thought it should also be “contingent on political and material requirements,” Kitroeff said.

Hellenic College assistant professor Mata Dova said she attended because she researches a related subject.

“I found the research on Asopios and how he organized his ideas most interesting,” Dova, a native of Greece, said. “It is interesting to see how many definitions of Greek there are.”

Attendee Kemon Taschioglou, said he was most fascinated in the way Greek identities are shaped in modern times.

“[Kitroeff’s] acknowledgement on the different kinds of Greek identities and seeing how that is still maintained today is interesting to me.”