Dimitris Stamatopoulos,
"Bulgarian Patriarchs and Bulgarian Neophanariotes: Continuities and Discontinuities in the Ecumenical Patriarchate During the Age of Revolution"
Michel De Dobbeleer, Stijn Vervaet, (Mis)understanding the Balkans. Essays in honour of Raymond Detrez, Ghent: Academia Press 2013, 45-57. Academia.edu.
Abstract
The Greek Revolution in 1821 violently interrupted the domination of the Phanariote world and its privileged alliance with the Ottomans. The Ottoman power had to revise the old model of governmentality. However, the (re)appearance of a new Neo-Phanariote elite after the end of the Revolution pushed some researchers to support that there was a linear continuity between the two eras of the Rum millet's administration. The present article argues that the Revolution spurred the Ottoman state to nationalize the terms of controlling the Christian Orthodox populations in the Balkans, introducing to the administration of the Ecumenical Patriarchate Bulgarian-speaking clerics as well as laics with Bulgarian origins. Accordingly, the article proposes to understand this crudal period not as a linear continuity between two eras just because some of the members of the old Phanariote personnel survived the destruction of the Phanariote world, but as a continuity marked by a significant regression of the Ottoman policy, the traces of which would be apparent in later years with the emergence of the Bulgarian issue.
Replies