25th March 2025

Spring came, Persephone ascended from Hades to earth again. Nature is blooming and the swallows are coming again. The sun is warmer and the hyacinths are fragrant in the alleys. Nature is celebrating and with it the Homeland and every Greek soul is celebrating the Anniversary of the Revolution of ’21.

On 29 May 1453, the city was sacked by the Ottomans. The Greeks, as Spyridon Trikoupis tells us in The History of the Greek Revolution “they bowed their heads to the victors but did not enslave their minds. Moved by two high principles, their religion and their brilliant origin, and benefiting from the laziness and improvidence of the rulers, they associated with the wise and industrial nations through shipping and trade and enriched and enlightened their minds. When the fullness of time came, the time required for the progress of the conquered and the stagnation for the conquerors, neither the failure of the revolutionary movement in the Danubian principalities, nor the renunciation of Russia, nor the excommunications and curses of the great church, nor the deprivations and dangers of the revolution, suspended the progress of the Greek revolution.”

At the same time, the Enlightenment movement, the demands for individual freedom, for equality among people, for the abolition of slavery, etc., caused ferments in Europe and the educated Greeks of the West developed an action aimed at awakening the enslaved Greeks and their liberation. Adamantios Korais urged: “Be educated.” He published books of ancient authors in an effort to recall the ancient Greek heritage. In Odessa, Skoufas founded the “Filiki Etairia” (~ “Society of Friends”) that connected all Greece, prepared and opened the agon. The idea of freedom and the belief that the time had come to let go of the yoke, was transmitted and inspired the Greeks with courage to make it a reality. The previously prevailing idea that Russia would liberate Greece, the establishment of the “Society of Friends” within Russia, the presence of I. Kapodistrias in the ministry of Emperor Alexander, “Thurios” of Riga, encouraged and emboldened the enslaved souls. The Revolution was a fact.

200 and so many years have passed since then, we celebrated so many more times.

Every anniversary we remember all the struggles of patriotic ancestors. We are inspired, we dream, we promise ourselves that we will preserve their ideals, we will be inspired by their virtues for a Greece free from external and internal conquerors. But the conquerors are everywhere within us, around us and even further outside of us.

The Ottoman conquerors left and others came. They ravaged the country from within. Like a Trojan horse they burrowed into the minds and the hearts of the Greeks and conquered them. Progress, evolution, security, consumerism, they called them, slavery at work instead of work for prosperity, technology at the service of human instead of human at the service of technology. Interests for our “good” as if we were disabled in a barren, inhospitable world, abandoned by the breath of creation. As if we lacked the hands, the mind, the sun, the water, the sky, the stars to nourish us and to remind us who we are. The creator was discredited, we believed in our egos and we did not seek him. Knowledge was focused not on what benefits but on what serves our conquerors-prisoners. We have invested in values that are alien to us by nature. Nature was devalued and we looked for “un-natural food”.

Consideration, our homeland betrayed us, others betrayed us, maybe we betrayed ourselves… And what happened to our ideals, our dreams? Did we hand them over to the conquerors to dream for us? But they have their own dreams and visions. We expect and increasingly bide from others. Did we forget until we believed we couldn’t;

We honor this year’s anniversary by keeping indelibly engraved the words of the Elder of Morea, Theodoros Kolokotronis, in our minds and hearts.

“My children! In this place, where I stand today, wise men walked and orated in ancient times…”

~Theodoros Kolokotronis, Pnyx, October 8, 1838

The ancestors who taught that by cultivating the virtues of temperance, prudence, valiance, patriotism, justice, solidarity, people are liberated from every conqueror and proceed to “good” works for the homeland and all of humanity

Bibliography

Homer. (2005). Homeric Hymns to Demeter, to Apollo (Kopanitsas, D., Transl.). Athens: To Rodakio.

Mandilara, A.; Nikolaou, G. (eds.). (2017). Filiki Etairia: Revolutionary Action and Secret Societies in Modern Europe. Athens: Asini.

Korais, A. (2010). Letters to the Nation. Athens: Roes.

Robertson, J. (2019). Enlightenment (Anagnostopoulos, Th., Transl.). Athens: Epikentro.

Trikoupis, S. (1993). History of the Greek Revolution. Athens: Livanis.

Webography

Speech of Theodoros Kolokotronis at the Pnyx – Wikisource. (n.d.). Retrieved 25 March 2025, from https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/Ομιλία_του_Θεόδωρου_Κολοκοτρώνη_στην_Πνύκα