reviving it: they began to write in the language of the ancients, to promote the
use of ancient names for the new generations, and on occasions even to dress
like ancient Greeks (St Clair 1972: 20).
The Enlightenment ideals of Western Europe met with opposition from the
traditional Greek society and the established Orthodox Church (Kitromilides
1994: (i) 53–4). Many Greek intellectuals experienced the French Revolution
Wrst-hand and became impregnated with its philosophical background. Most
importantly, they soon realized the potential of the new ideas of popular
freedom and sovereignty for their own struggle (Kitromilides 1994: (i) 61).
One of them was the Greek intellectual, Adama ́ntios Koraı ̈s, who exhorted his
compatriots to revive ancient Greece by imitating political events in France,
the nation which most resembled it. He tried to persuade his countrymen to
draw upon the wisdom of the ancient world. He also proposed the adoption of
a ‘puriWed’ language, a blend of ancient and modern Greek, and exhorted
others to regenerate in order to be prepared for freedom (Dakin 1973: 24;
Kitromilides 1994: (i) 62). In Greece itself the French Revolution had a direct
eVect at the time of the Napoleonic invasion of the Ionian Islands. Napoleon
Wrst invaded them in 1797, but they were subsequently annexed by the British
and again by the French in 1808. In this political turbulence, cultural and
political philhellenism had a greatest impetus in Greece. Greek antiquity was
acclaimed by Frenchmen and Greeks alike. In the early years of the French
occupation of the Ionian Islands, the French General Gentili appealed to
Greeks to claim the freedom enjoyed in Greek antiquity in his call for enrol-
ment into the French army (Dakin 1973: 27). On the Greek side, decisions such
as that of a local school in Corfu to change its name to the Academy of Korkyra
(the Greek name for Corfu) and to begin to date years with respect to the
Olympiad reXected the mood of the times (St Clair 1972: 21). These examples
show that, as had happened in Rome, a whole reinvention of tradition took
place from the end of the eighteenth century directly connected to the French
oVensive, a process which, in the case of Greece, continued under British rule.
In that period, the process of re-adopting the ancient island names continued.
In the Hellenic University, opened in Corfu by Lord Guildford, students and
professors alike wore classical attire. But in contrast to European philhellen-
ism, largely a literary phenomenon, in Greece philhellenism took on not only
a cultural character but also a political character which eventually led to
revolution (Kitromilides 1994: (i) 63–4). The political process to radical
republicanism unfolded from an earlier debate on the French Revolution in
the 1790s, to the development of the idea of the creation of a French-oriented
Hellenic republic, followed by a period in which journals such asLogios Ermis
continued to promote the awakening of Greek national consciousness in the
decade 1811–21 (Kitromilides 1994: (v), (xii) 8).
The 1820 Liberal Revolution 83