Social and Cultural History of Greece in the 19th Century

Emanuel Turczynski has written a compendium of critical Greek studies that attempts to tap into the mental and emotional state of individuals, as well as social groupings, at the time of Greek palingenesis and beyond. Turczynski sets before us an epochal fresco, a wide-ranging picture to which a myriad of contemporary testimonies, as well as later critical statements (by both Greeks and foreigners), contribute. One basic thesis runs like a thread through the entire work: For Turczynski, the national rebirth of Greece was not completed with the end of the successful national war of independence. The common Orthodox faith and the living language, which had been able to maintain its identity and assimilation power under the most difficult historical circumstances, are for the author not as decisive as preconditions for becoming a nation as the social consensus and the ability derived from it to build a community supported by all. And this process of socio-cultural consolidation - this is Turczynski's thesis - continues in Greece to this day. This study is the English translation of Peleus 16: "Sozial und Kulturgeschichte Griechenlands im 19. Jahrhundert"