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Event
Information:
The Greek population mark their
Independence Day every year with a
massive parade and party through the
streets of the major cities across
the country.
The Greek War of Independence, also
known as the Greek Revolution was a
successful war of independence waged
by the Greek revolutionaries between
1821 and 1830, with later assistance
from several European powers,
against the Ottoman Empire, who were
assisted by their vassals, the
Eyalet of Egypt and partly the
Vilayet of Tunisia.
The
consequences of the Greek revolution
were somewhat ambiguous in the
immediate aftermath. An independent
Greek state had been established,
but with Britain, Russia and France
claiming a major role in Greek
politics, an imported Bavarian
dynast as ruler, and a mercenary
army. The country had been ravaged
by ten years of fighting, was full
of displaced refugees and empty
Turkish estates, necessitating a
series of land reforms over several
decades.
The
population of the new state numbered
800,000, representing less than
one-third of the 2.5 million Greek
inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire.
During a great part of the next
century, the Greek state was to seek
the liberation of the "unredeemed"
Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, in
accordance with the Megali Idea,
i.e. the goal of uniting all Greeks
in one country. Shortly after the
war finished, the people of the
Russian-dependent Poland, encouraged
by the Greek victory, started the
November Uprising, hoping to regain
their independence. The uprising,
however, fell and the Polish freedom
was to wait until 1918. The newly
established Greek state would become
a springboard for further expansion
and, over the course of a century,
parts of Macedonia, Crete, Epirus,
the Aegean and other Greek-speaking
territories would unite with the new
Greek state.
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