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Event
Information:
The
New York City's Greek Independence
Day Parade is more than a single day
event, but a full month's worth of
fun and festivities. The detailed
itinerary follows below, and
includes a flag raising in Downtown
Manhattan, a dinner gala in Midtown,
a reception at the Onassis
Foundation, and the parade itself
preceded by church services and a
breakfast.
Greek
Independence day is a celebration of
the success of the Greek revolution,
and enjoyed by the large Greek
population In New York city, The
background of the event comes form
The Fall of Constantinople in 1453
and the subsequent fall of the
successor states of the Byzantine
Empire marked the end of Byzantine
sovereignty. After that, the Ottoman
Empire ruled the Balkans and
Anatolia, although there were some
exceptions. Orthodox Christians were
granted some political rights under
Ottoman rule, but they were
considered inferior subjects. The
majority of Greeks were called rayas
by the Turks, a name that referred
to the large mass of non-Muslim
subjects in the Ottoman ruling
class. Meanwhile, Greek
intellectuals and humanists, who had
migrated west before or during the
Ottoman invasions, such as Demetrius
Chalcocondyles and Leonardos
Philaras, began to call for the
liberation of their homeland.
However, Greece was to remain under
Ottoman rule for several more
centuries. In the 18th and 19th
century, as revolutionary
nationalism grew across Europe,
including the Balkans (due, in large
part, to the influence of the French
Revolution to the Ottoman Empire's
power declined and Greek nationalism
began to assert itself, with the
Greek cause beginning to draw
support not only from the large
Greek merchant diaspora in both
Western Europe and Russia but also
from Western European Philhellenes.
This Greek movement for independence
was not only the first movement of
national character in Eastern
Europe, but also the first one in a
non-Christian environment, like the
Ottoman Empire
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