Missolonghi as the Symbolic Focal Point of European Liberalism

MODERN GREEK STUDIES

SPEAKER: Aristides N. Hatzis, Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; Director of the Laboratory for Political and Institutional Theory and the History of Ideas

In the early 1820s, Missolonghi was a minor and relatively obscure town, scarcely known even to Europeans with some familiarity with the Levant and Greece. By the end of 1826, however, it had emerged as a symbolic focal point of Philhellenism and, more broadly, of European liberalism. This transformation can be attributed to three interrelated developments. First, Alexandros Mavrokordatos established Missolonghi as the political base of his operations and of a circle committed to institutional and constitutional reform. Second, representatives of the London Greek Committee selected the town as the base for their efforts to recast the Greek Revolution as a radical political and institutional experiment. Third, the final months of Lord Byron’s life, spent in Missolonghi, endowed the town with exceptional cultural and emotional significance. These developments help explain the intensity of European interest during the final stages of the siege. They also account for the profound shock, mourning, and renewed political engagement that followed its fall - reactions shaped in particular by the memory of the Sortie, which galvanized philhellenic activism across Europe.