Talk:Greek War of Independence

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ashmedai 119 (talk | contribs) at 04:33, 24 July 2022 (→Grossly imbalanced representation of Albanians). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 04:33, 24 July 2022 by Ashmedai 119 (talk | contribs) (→Grossly imbalanced representation of Albanians)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Greek War of Independence article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4

Template:Vital article

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Military history: Balkan / European / French / Ottoman

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Balkan military history task force (c. 500–present)
	European military history task force
	French military history task force
	Ottoman military history task force

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Greece Top‑importance

	Greece portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Greece, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Greece on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GreeceWikipedia:WikiProject GreeceTemplate:WikiProject GreeceGreek
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article has been marked as needing immediate attention.

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Turkey Mid‑importance

	Turkey portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Turkey, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Turkey and related topics on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.TurkeyWikipedia:WikiProject TurkeyTemplate:WikiProject TurkeyTurkey
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Egypt Low‑importance

	Egypt portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Egypt, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Egypt on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EgyptWikipedia:WikiProject EgyptTemplate:WikiProject EgyptEgypt
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Former countries: Ottoman Empire

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Former countries, a collaborative effort to improve Misplaced Pages's coverage of defunct states and territories (and their subdivisions). If you would like to participate, please join the project.Former countriesWikipedia:WikiProject Former countriesTemplate:WikiProject Former countriesformer country
	This article is supported by WikiProject Ottoman Empire (assessed as High-importance).

This article may be within the scope of Greek and Turkish wikipedians cooperation board. Please see the project page for more details, to request intervention on the notification board or peruse other tasks.

A fact from this article was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the On this day section on March 25, 2011 and March 25, 2013.

Archives

Archive 1: 2006
Archive 2: 2007

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 September 2018 and 13 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Annamaria2910.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:42, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Total Casualties

The total casualties both the military and the civilians ones, are not correct or accurate...I suggest of further researching the matter on this..Don't just find a source and add it there. I would have changed it, but lately Misplaced Pages has an issue with changes so...I am just suggesting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GiorgosY (talk • contribs) 18:28, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Title of the article in Ottoman Turkish

I permitted myself to correct 'isyani' by replacing hamza and, sin with ayn and sad; 'yunan' by removing the hamza on the vav. Ottoman orthography has been true to original in the use of arabic words to avoid ambiguity. Dmermerci (talk) 06:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Rich Greeks & Scholars, Ali Pasha

I think this article does not really cover the backround of the Revolution and its preparation. Except Dionysius, Feraios and the Filiki Etairia, there are not significant references to some important scholars, preparing the people. I think there should be an entire section devoted to them and their great work (i.e. we should give more weight to people like Kosmas o Aitolos, Methodius Anthrakites, Neofytos Doukas). Also, many rich Greeks that funded the Revolution (Demetrios Basileiou, Constantine Radus, L.Plakidas, Manthos Oikonomou, etc.) and we should refer to them seperatly. Also, the situation inside the Empire should be given more weight (ie, Vizier Ali Pasha's revolution that aided the Greeks greatly should be given more weight- Ali Pasha taught many Greeks in his military Academy, like Adroutsos, and was said to be Filikos). So, I propose to keep the section "Background" (to cover the historical Background) and create a new section like "Preparation of the Revolution" or so, with 4 sub-sections. In it, we could include "Armatoloi" and "Filiki Etairia", the second being much more focused in Filiki Etairia than it is now. The two new sections can be "Spiritual and Economical preparation" (or so) and "The situation in the Empire" (or so). That is a plan-starting proposal, that I believe should be reasonably discussed. What say you? --Michael X the White (talk) 17:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Provided some sources are given for it this could be useful. Note that Kosmas is covered in the article Cosmas of Aetolia and his article could also use expansion. Dimadick (talk) 07:35, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Philhellenes

"In Europe, the Greek revolt aroused widespread sympathy among the public but was met at first with the lukewarm reception above from the Great Powers, with Britain then backing the insurrection from 1823 onward after Ottoman weakness was clear, despite the opportunities offered the occupiers by Greek civil conflict and the addition of Russian support aimed at limiting British influence over the Greeks". The meaning and formulation of this phrase is unclear. Too long, too complicated. Would somebody with some knowledge of the facts mentioned have a look at it? Because I cannot edit the phrase as I do not understand the meaning. Thanx! Pel thal (talk) 13:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I rephrased it. Hopefully it is better now. Kyriakos (talk) 20:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

"(A little known fact is that) The Greek War of Independence of 1821 (against the Ottoman Empire) inflamed the imagination of leading American political figures who caught "Greek Fever". This revolt parallels the American Revolution and brings parallels between March 25th and the Fourth of July. Thomas Jefferson , author of the Declaration of Independence, had extensive correspondence regarding the principles of democratic government with Adamantios Korais, one of the intellectual fathers of the Greek Revolution. President James Madison, major author of the American Constitution, and President James Monroe supported the (Greek) revolt in private correspondence and in public speeches. Prominent politicians such as Daniel Webster, Sam Houston, and Henry Clay championed Greece on the floor of the United States Senate. the Greek War of Independence would produce an abundance of heroes, traitors, massacres, and foreign interventions. In that regard, the Greek War of Independence again parallels the history of the American Revolution. A significant percent of American colonists remained loyal to the British monarch and lived comfortably while Washington's famished troops shivered in their winter camps. Washington himself was a target of conpiracy of other generals who wanted to replace him as commander-in-chief. Due to related quarrels with General Gates, Benedict Arnold, the leader of the American victory at the crucial battle of Saratoga, eventually deserted to the British side. The climatic battle of Yorktown was achieved only with the assistance of the French Navy.

Similar patterns formed during the Greek Revolution. At one point General Theodoros Kolokotronis was actually jailed by political rivals. Co-ordination between Greek land and sea forces was weak. Some Greeks remained loyal to the Sultan; and Greece's European Allies did not wish to see a full-fledged democracy emerge from the conflict. Thus, the revolution that began as the new cutting edge of democracy forged the spirit of the French Enlightenment ultimately was forced by Britain, France, and Russia to accept the son of a Bavarian aristocrat as its constitutional monarch. The Sultan also had powerful allies such as Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt. Pasha, in fact, would continue the fight against the Greeks after the Sultan's own forces were defeated.

The most famous American poet of the time, William Cullen Bryant, wrote on behalf of the Greeks, and hundreds of poems, editorials and news stories by less famous persons appeared throughout the national press. Cities such as Ypsilanti, Michigan, were named after heroes of the revolution, and numerous state assemblies towns, and colleges passed resolutions in support of the Greek cause. Funds were raised to aid the Greeks, and American volunteers journeyed across the Atlantic to fight alongside the Greeks. The sculptor Hiram Walker created 'The Greek Slave' a mournful marble statue that depicted a Greek woman enslaved by the Ottomans." Excerpts from an article by Dan Georgakas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.131.20.65 (talk) 00:40, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Overreliance on Paroulakis book

If this article is to reach FA status, then it's going to have to incorporate the most recent scholarly historical research on the Greek War of Independence. As it stands, there is a huge over reliance on the work of Peter H. Paroulakis. Paroulakis is not a professional historian. He is a graduate in Law from the University of Melbourne.--Damac (talk) 19:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced quote:

"The Greeks never lost their desire to escape from the heavy hand of the Turks, bad government, the impressment of their children, the increasingly heavy taxation, and the sundry caprices of the conqueror. Indeed, anyone studying the last two centuries of Byzantine rule cannot help being struck by the propensity of the Greeks to flee misfortune. The routes they chiefly took were: first, to the predominantly Greek territories, which were either still free or Frankish-controlled (that is to say, the Venetian fortresses in the Despotate of Morea, as well as in the Aegean and Ionian Islands) or else to Italy and the West generally; second, to remote mountain districts in the interior where the conqueror's yoke was not yet felt."

Where does this come from? Paroulakis, Vakalopoulos, somebody else? By the way, I agree with Damac's comments about Paroulakis. We need prominent scholars. I'll use some stuff from Svoronos—not that he is recent, but at least he is prominent (and interested in socio-economic factors as well)!--Yannismarou (talk) 13:46, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Images and maps

Looking over the article, I've noticed that several of the sections are crowded with images and quote boxes and I've also noticed that gallery at the bottom. Should we keep the gallery and place the paintings of notable people there as that would help a bit with the crowding or should we get rid of the gallery all together and try and incorporate the images into the main part of the article. I also think that the article could use more maps showing the area during the war and operations during the war. Thoughts? Kyriakos (talk) 02:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I think there is an overuse of images. Sure they are "free" and we can use as many as we want, but that doesn't mean we should. There is limit to how many images you can have on a page before you are overwhelmed. Does the gallery add anything to the page or is it just a bunch of photos that belong on a person's biographical page? I agree with the need for maps. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 03:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

If you want this article to pass first through GAC and then through FAC, then the gallery should go. It is a no no! We should incorporate as many pictures as we regard as useful within the main article, and then get rid of it. I also agree with the need for maps, but who's going to make them?!--Yannismarou (talk) 12:13, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

How about using only some of the pix in the gallery when referring to a particular hero's input in the war? Pel thal (talk) 14:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with that, Pel thal. Currently we only on have the images of Feraios, Byron and Petros Mavromichalis in the article. The rest are in the gallery. Doesa nyone know anyone who could make some maps for us? Kyriakos (talk) 20:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

There was recently a discussion in Byzantine Empire and some offered in creatiing a map. I'll check it out.--Michael X the White (talk) 20:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Talessman, you mean? It was for a different issue I think (3-D animation map of the BE), but do check it out. Here, in order to create a map, we should have a source (a text offering the hints for the map or a source-map ). What is going to be our source for the map(s)? Do you have any books with military maps of the 1821 war?--Yannismarou (talk) 08:18, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

These are two nice maps about the insurrection in Macedonia. If there is any expert of you in maps, who can turn it into a proper wiki-map!--Yannismarou (talk) 10:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I think they look fine.Anyway, the discussion I mentioned didn't make any sense; we all just wanted a GIF but none knew how to make it... Meanwhile, I found two maps in the "Concise History of Greece, 1770-2000" by R.Clogg. The first, in page 30-31 shows the Greek communities in the Ottoman Empire and the second in page 68 shows the expansion of the Greek state 1832-1947. Also, I have found a map in "Atlas d'Histoire" of HAYT and "de boeck" in page 110 shoing the territorial breakdown of the Ottoman Empire between 1812-1913.I'll keep searching.--Michael X the White (talk) 10:13, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Macedonia section

"Mehmet Emin secured a victory at Kolindros while further north, in the vicinity of Naousa, the detachment of Karatasos, some 5,000 strong, recorded a victory but was checked by the arrival of fresh Ottoman reinforcements and then by Mehmet Emin himself who appeared with 20,000 regulars and irregulars" This phrase needs reformulating and a better choice of words in order to carify its meaning. Someone who knows the facts can help do this. Happy editing! Pel thal (talk) 14:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Bad bad English indeed! When our rewriting is more advanced, I'll ask some good copy-editors and wiki-friends of mine to have a look at the article. For the time being, I'll check the sources for this particular issue you raise.--Yannismarou (talk) 08:15, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
- Whole section rewritten (though not one of my initial goals!). I'll report progress in the Mission's page!--Yannismarou (talk) 13:24, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Blue boxes-images

Some issues with the blue boxes:

I am the master of blue boxes, but try not to overdo it! If they have long quotes in them, they start to look ugly, and I'm afraid some of them in the article are on the verge of looking as such.
If you have an English translation of a Greek text, mention your translator and source. Some of the blue boxes omit this info.
Some right-aligned blue-boxes coincinde with some left-aligned images, creating the "sandwitch" effect, and making the main text almost unreadable. These problems need fixing and attention.--Yannismarou (talk) 08:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

European Intervention problematic

The section is very problematic. First of all, it gives no comprehensive account of the diplomatic background, and does not treat the reasons that led to the shift of UK's stance under Canning. It mentions the London Treaty of 1827, but not how we got to this treaty, and it continues to use non-scholar sources, such as Paroulakis.--Yannismarou (talk) 15:26, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I only rewrote the section leading up to Navarino. I'll see if I can write the bit on Britain's change of stance. I'll also try and remove Paroulakis from that section by finding alternate sources. Kyriakos (talk) 21:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll also look at the section, and try to add to the diplomatic background issue.--Yannismarou (talk) 10:59, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm re-reading the 'A Concise History of Greece' at the moment and it may have some useful infomation. If it does have some, I'll use it to add to the section. Kyriakos (talk) 12:32, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

This book is really very useful.In page 86 you will find a very interesting picture about the help! There is a lot of info to add in oage 63 ( I have the Greek version), explaining how we came to 1827.That's the best info concerning E. Intervention I have found.--Michael X the White (talk) 13:10, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I have the English version which I think has different page numberings. But it is a very useful book. Kyriakos (talk) 20:22, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It's also in Google book for anybody interested in the book.--Yannismarou (talk) 10:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Added a paragraph to this section. However, I could not find any info on why Canning started to sympathize with the Greeks, only what happened afterwards this change of attitude. Pel thal (talk) 17:44, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

References

Is the Greek History book "Newer and Modern History"(Ιστορία Νεότερη και Σύγχρονη), Vas. Sfyroeras, Schoolbook for Triti Gymnasiou, 6th edition, Athens 1996 and distributed in Greek schools considered as a reliable source? Because a user that changed the "Klephts and Armatoloi" section called it "nationalistic myths". I was going to refer to this particular book in other contexts but in order to avoid edit wars, I think it should be clarified if it may be considered reliable. Pel thal (talk) 15:27, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd consider it to be reliable, why else would it be taught in school? Unless we teach false information lol. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 15:39, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, some people would argue that each country filters its history that is taught in schools. This is, however, not the case of this particular book but... Anyway, nice to see some logic replies once in a while:) Anyone else on this issue? Cheers! Pel thal (talk) 17:40, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't regard it as unreliable, but in an article aiming at getting the top quality status (GA or later FA) I would expect cited scholarly sources of the highest possible caliber, and not schoolbooks. Of course, such sources are better than nothing, but I would prefer to replace it some time, when a relevant specialized scholarly work is available. Recently, during Roman-Persian Wars FAC I was criticized for using Britannica ("It looks odd for a general encyclopedia to cite another general encyclopedia as a source" I was told), and not a specialized scholarly work!--Yannismarou (talk) 18:30, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Usually school history books provide a brief overview while a book by say a scholar would go into depth and interpret things. There's nothing wrong with finding additional sources though. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 19:02, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

There's a wealth of academic research out there that shows that history schoolbooks in many countries are used to justify the existence of the nation-state, legitimise its origins, sanctify its heroes and denigrate its enemies.

I can't comment on the book in question, but the issue of history books and their revision is a very contentious one in Greece, as typified by the 'history war' over a new book for the 6th primary school grade in 2007.

The safest approach is to use scholarly histories written by professional historians for an educated readership. That's the way to FA status.--Damac (talk) 19:12, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeap!--Yannismarou (talk) 19:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

OK! Giving a "solomonian" solution (wonder if this expression exists in English?), I propose that as long as there are no better sources, we could leave the referenced (to the history book or other controversial sources) sections and someone in possession of scholarly sources could verify these sections' content. Pel thal (talk) 19:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Well you were sourcing something we already had right? It wasn't like you added the information after reading the book. Do I have this right? Cause there would be a difference. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 19:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I only referred to the book in the section about Klephts and Armatoloi (adding a phrase that Yannis Makriyannis said about them being the "yeast of Freedom"-someone moved it to the section about central Greece I think) and today I added a brand-new paragraph to the european intervention section that some of you will write about if you find the scholarly works. Pel thal (talk) 19:41, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Which is the Greek word used: μαγιά or ζύμη?--Yannismarou (talk) 19:52, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Μαγιά. "Μαγιά της λευτεριάς" (σελ.122, ΣΤ' έκδοση) Pel thal (talk) 20:00, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

"μαγιά της λευτεριάς". Found it! We can cite Makrygiannis himself. The primary source itself. Does a second source like Sfyroeras or Kourvetaris add anything to what Makrygiannis said. If not, I do not see the need for a second source, accompanying the primary one.--Yannismarou (talk) 20:05, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Given that WP is a collaborative project, maybe we should establish the motto of this article or the WPGreece as "Είμαστε εις το εμείς και όχι εις το εγώ" that Mr. Makriyannis once wrote. One translates the texts, another wikipedian provides scholarly sources and someone else reverts the edits! (sorry, some wikihumour slipped out of me. I promise it won't happen again in this serious matter...) Pel thal (talk) 20:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Given that I was the user that made the edits discussed above, I think I am entitled to clarify my point. When talking about "nationalistic myths", I didn't mean to condemn Sfyroeras' book as such, but most of what was written on klephts and armatoloi (many Greeks wishing to preserve their Greek identity, Orthodox Christian religion and independence, chose the difficult but free life of a bandit, (klephts and armatoloi) began to establish relations with one another under a common ethnic identity. This collaboration was also based on mutual sentiments against foreign conquerors ), ie. Paroulakis-based info (see here). Nevertheless, I would like to stress the importance of scholarly approved sources -as Damac pointed out- especially when dealing with a rather misconceived topic, like the conditions of living of the Greek-speaking Orthodox population in the Ottoman Empire. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 21:06, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

But citing what Makriyannis said about the klephts is no "nationalistic myth".--Yannismarou (talk) 14:58, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I cannot find out where I said so or even implied something like that. Please take a look at this change. I didn't remove relevant info, but only relocated it in another section along with a request for a proper source -not a schoolbook!

P.S. I hopefully plan to rewrite the "Background" section till the end of September. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 16:26, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

From a logical point of view (and taking it for granted that the above people involved in the discussion do not have any objections!), I'll move the comment about the "yeast of liberty" from the Central Greece section to the section about the "klephts", properly cited. Actually, I'll do it now... The "yeast" discussion will soon be turning into bread in this hot atmosphere:) Pel thal (talk) 16:34, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Status

I offered some comments in the WP:GREECE mission page. More to come.--Yannismarou (talk) 12:57, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Clogg's book

I have found a lot of interesting stuff in Clogg's Concise History of Greece nad I've added them here. The thing is, I have the Greek Edition and I added that remark, so that there is not a confusion with the page numberlings. Could anyone who has the English edition (Kyriakos??) fix the numberlings according to the English edition?? (So that we stick to one edition as Yannis said in the Mission Page).--Michael X the White (talk) 13:42, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I have access to these editions:

Clogg, Richard (reprint 1999), A Concise History of GREECE, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0 521 37830 3 (pbk)
Clogg, Richard (2002) A Concise History of GREECE: Second Edition, 2nd ed., Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0 521 00479 9 (pbk)
Clogg, Richard (1979), A Short History of Modern Greece, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0 521 22479 9 (hard cover). Do you have the translation of the first or the second editon? Tell me if you need anything of the above. --157.228.x.x (talk) 17:01, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I have the translation of the 2nd edition. (2 on your list,Cambridge 2002, Gr:Katoptro 2003 )Thanks,Michael X the White (talk) 18:45, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

OK I think that's all for now. Quite different page numbering between the Greek and the English editions and the same stands for the first and the second English editions. Cheers --157.228.x.x (talk) 17:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Well done, 157.228.x.x! I'll be again with the article during the weekend (and this is a real threat, guys!)!--Yannismarou (talk) 07:08, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment on the "Greek" identity in the history

Since there is a little controversy in the editing I thought I should explain myself here.

We should be very careful about throwing around the term Greek when discussing the history predating the modern Greek nation. Today we can use Greek in a non-ambiguous way because there is an explicit state with the name Greece. But this has not always been the case.

Some points to bear in mind:

The Greek term was used effectively as an insult by the West in referring to the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. During the late stages of the Empire the inhabitants did began to identify with the Greek label to a degree but still viewed themselves more as Roman.
There was not really a concept of a "Greek nation" within the Roman Empire. Greek was seen as a language of culture but the fact that somebody spoke Greek was not seen necessarily as an indication of ethnicity (in the same way that English-speaking Americans are not thought of as British).
The people who formed the modern nation of Greece only partially thought of themselves as "Greeks" and more thought of themselves as "Romans" or "Christians" (terms which they tended to think of as synonymous). Due to the politics of the time and the evolution of thought in the Balkans during the 19th century, the people of Greece gradually eschewed their "Roman" identity and began to identify more with ancient Greece than their Roman heritage (the two are not separate, of course).
The people who formed modern Greece were Christians but not uniformly Greek-speaking. Greek was adopted as the language of the new nation both because it was the most widely spoken language among the Ottoman Christians, other than Turkish, and perhaps more importantly, it was their liturgical language (compare this to Israel adopting Hebrew which had been a dead language before the modern state appeared; most Jews knew some Hebrew but to have described them as a Hebrew-speaking people would have been dishonest).

So trying to apply the generic label "Greek" to any group of people between Alexander the Great's conquests and the modern Greek state is, at best, problematic and, at worst, disingenious.

-- Mcorazao (talk) 23:22, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Be honest here, there's no "controversy" (I changed your "Byzantine" to "Greek-speaking" so it made more sense in this context); you just needed to express yourself for whatever reasons. Nonetheless, I agree with most of what you wrote (probably because it's all so well-known) but, of course, comparisons between Greek and Hebrew in that regard are "at best, problematic and, at worst, disingenious(sic)" and the specific statement "any group of people between Alexander the Great's conquests" needs no comment. 3rdAlcove (talk) 03:43, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I offered an explanation out of respect for you guys since I have not been a regular editor here. I am not sure why there is a reason to question my motives ...

-- Mcorazao (talk) 05:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Neither am I and I didn't question your motives; your change was fine (I didn't revert you, correct?). In any case, this will be my last comment so apologies if you were offended. 3rdAlcove (talk) 07:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Nation vs. state

The second paragraph currently reads:

...the Greeks thus became the first people of the Ottoman Empire's subjects to secure recognition as an independent nation by the Treaty of Constantinople...

But the Treaty of Constantinople surely did not recognize the Greeks qua people/nation/millet as "independent". Otherwise all the millet-i-Rûm (i.e. all the non-Armenian Christians), including the many million Orthodox Greek-speakers in Thessaly, Macedonia, Thrace, and Anatolia (not to mention the non-Greek speaking Christians including the Serbs, the Romanians, etc.), would have been recognized "as an independent nation". The Treaty of Constantinople recognized the Kingdom of Greece (not the Greek people) as an independent state. I would correct this directly in the article, but I thought it might be better to discuss here on Talk first.... --macrakis (talk) 21:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Filiki Eteria

"The Filiki Eteria rapidly expanded, gaining members in almost all regions of Greek settlement, amongst them figures who would later play a prominent role in the war, such as Theodoros Kolokotronis, Odysseas Androutsos, Papaflessas, Dimitris Plapoutas, and Laskarina Bouboulina." Could somebody offer a more reliable source for that besides Paroulakis?--Yannismarou (talk) 22:38, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

No?!--Yannismarou (talk) 23:41, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Can you think of a source? Because I have no idea. But...since I will visit some libraries in the days and weeks to come, if you come up with something please tell me and I'll fix it and mention the source. Au revoir! Pel thal (talk) 10:01, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

How about Εμμ. Ξάνθου, Απομνημονεύματα περί της Φιλικής? Found it cited in an essay about the Filiki Eteria. I'll try to search it on the web but I can't promise miracles... Pel thal (talk) 16:07, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Just found a link citing several useful sources. Pel thal (talk) 16:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

There's a section about Filiki Eteria concerning Crete in a chapter in this book. Νικόλαος Μ. Παναγιοτάκης, Κρήτη, Ιστορία καί Πολιτισμος, Τόμος Δεύτερος, σελιδα 365. 1. Η δραση της Φιλικης Εταιρειας στην Κρητη. Βικέλαια Δημοτική Βιβλιοθηκη, Συνδεσμος Τοπικων Ενοσεων Δημον και Κοινοτητων Κρητης. 1988. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 04:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

All of the references that I have spell it as "Philiki Etairia" and not "Filiki Eteria" but I guess you must have already had that discussion. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 04:38, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Battle of Makrinoro

I've been reading Makrygiannis' memoirs and he mentions -among other battles already presented in wiki- a battle in Lagada of Makrinoro (Λαγκάδα του Μακρυνόρου) (B page 67-68). He claims that the gate of Makryioro was a key-point and vital for the revolution. Does anyone have any info and sources about this conflict?77.83.236.182 (talk) 15:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Dates

Just a question: how should the dates in this article be? E.g. should we write 24 February or February 24? Different sections have different ways of writing the dates. However, I think that the article should be uniform as far as dates are concerned. Pel thal (talk) 06:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Killed In Action

In the campaign box I can't seem to find the battle in which Karaiskakis got killed. Despite that he's referred as KIA in this article.

He was killed during the Ottoman siege of Athens. Kyriakos (talk) 23:28, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

French Flag

Why is the France represented by a white flag? Did they actually have a plain white flag? Or is the icon just there in order to induce a doublé entendre? Because that would be sort of racist. --T.M.M. Dowd (talk) 20:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it is a mistake. I'll try to fix it right now but, since I'm not good at editing pictures etc, I may need help from more capable editors. Bonjour! Pel thal (talk) 09:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

No, apparently it is correct, we had an edit-war over that a while back. Check and Bourbon Restoration. Regards, Constantine ✍ 09:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Just saw the same thing as CPlakidas. . Sorry! Pel thal (talk) 09:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Initial hostility and support

I think the stance of Austria, Hungary, Switzerland as well as others' should be more detailed and with more info.

Mistaken/False citations removed

I checked the citations provided for note iii explaining the claim that

"Modern scholars assert that the Greek Orthodox Church played a pivotal role in the preservation of national identity, the development of Greek society and the resurgence of Greek nationalism.".

in the "Greeks under Ottoman rule" part of the article and I found out that:

1. The book including Coughlan's article named "Cypurs: from Coroporate Autonomy to the Search for Territorial Federalism", edited by Yash Ghai and published in 2000, is not in "The Cambridge History of Turkey" but "Autonomy and ethnicity: negotiating competing claims in multi-ethnic states".

2. Coughlan is not talking in general about the Orthodox Church's role in the Ottoman empire, but about it's role in Asia Minor and Cyprus "during the last half-century of Ottoman rule". To prove what he says, Coughlan cites Kitromilides.

3. Kitromilides -as you might already guess- is referring to approximately the same period.

"The most important effect of the expansion of Greek education into the interior of Asia Minor was the spread of the Greek language among younger generations. Thus from the 1860s onward the major thrust of the educational effort was aimed at the substitution of Greek for Turkish as the language of the members of the Orthodox communities in the Turcophone regions of Asia Minor. The same objective applied to the Greek-speaking parts of the Greek East, like Pontos, Cyprus and the Greek-speaking communities of Cappadocia, with their highly idiomatic archaic and Byzantine idioms, which however were incomprehensible to speakers of the common Modern Greek tongue. These sharp linguistic peculiarities, which were looked upon as symptoms of cultural and ethnic degeneration, were as much a target of the linguistic rehellenization of the East as the Turkish speech of other Orthodox communities. Thus the educational effort of the nineteenth century promoted the linguistic homogenization of the Christian Orthodox populations of the East, as the basis of their incorporation into the broader community of the Greek nation."

What Kitromilides says is so obvious that I suspect that he was cited just because Coughlan does so in his article. *sigh*

So, I decided to remove Coughlan and Kitromilides, as they are irrelevant with the claim they are supposed to support Ashmedai 119 (talk) 15:22, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you enrich the article with more specialized and up-to-date sources? When working on it, and despite our ambitious goals (which could be still achieved), I had a serious problem to find such sources.--Yannismarou (talk) 12:43, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for being so late to respond, but I'm doing my military service and I didn't have a lot of free time the last few months.

Well, I think that Douglas Dakin's 'The Greek struggle for independence, 1821-1833', which is used as a textbook in relevant Uni classes, and David Brewer's more up-to-date 'The Greek War of Independence' could be quite useful. George Finlay's 'History of the Greek Revolution' could also be cited charily in reference with facts, as it is a primary source. Kitromilides enjoys the status of an authority on the current that gave birth to the Revolution, the Enlightenment, that is -and rightly so.

Now, if sources in Greek are to be used, I would recommend the third volume of the recently published "Ιστορία του Νέου Ελληνισμού" -which I have traced online here , in case that you are interested. Regards, Ashmedai 119 (talk) 08:30, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Crete

Have added references to existing text in the Crete section. But they are all Greek language references. I don't know the formal way of presenting foreign language references. Could somebody who knows how -> do the necessary? Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 05:41, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't find references for the second paragraph in the Crete section. Could probably expand the section using the same reference. But will leave that to somebody else whose got a professional bird's eye view of what happened historically. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 05:41, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Nervous about adding too much to Crete. But hope that you like what I've added. The information came from an on-the-fly translation from a comprehensive Greek text. But that's only a tiny part of what's available. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 07:41, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

If it's a "translation", as you say, it may still be plagiarism. Given the problems you had with plagiarism on another article (see Talk:Ali Pasha), I must ask you to provide some of the original text so we can assess how close the translation or paraphrase is. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:02, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Nice! Good job! You'll allow me, I suppose, to format a bit your sources, when I find some time?! "Crete" was indeed one of the sections which desperately needed sourcing. The last paragraph of the section is however still uncited. Can anybody source it? I would remove it as uncited, but it touches a delicate and interesting issue, the alleged reduction of the Muslim population during the Revolution. If this is indeed a fact, there must be some credible sources.--Yannismarou (talk) 08:07, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Plagiarism: "use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work." I am not sure of what exactly you are accusing Nipson (misquoting? bad translation?), but, based on the above explanation of the term, I'm pretty sure it must not be "plagiarism".--Yannismarou (talk) 08:22, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

When attempting a similar expansion of the Ali Pasha article, Nipson was found to have been using multiple literally copied sentences from the source he was citing. If he now says he worked by "translation" of the Greek original in the present instance, the obvious suspicion is that the passages he added are again literal or almost-literal renderings of the original. That would still be plagiarism. The fact that it is translated and as such not exactly the same words doesn't make a difference here, nor does the fact that each sentence has a footnote. The footnotes serve only to inform the reader that information contained in the sentence is derived from the source; if the whole sentence including its structure, logical connectives, line of argumentation etc. is taken from the source, that is not covered by the footnote. These properties will still be (falsely) understood to be our own original work, and as such the situation exactly fits the definition of plagiarism you quote above. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:34, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

ty Yannismarou you are more than welcome to format as best suits and benefits the whole section. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 08:28, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

IMO, what you describe does not fit the definition of "plagiarism", and I insist on that. But, despite our almost irrelevant difference on terminology, trying to understand your worries, what is exactly your problem? That Nipson may have copied word by word phrases from the original (even translated), and put them in the article? Is this what you are worried about?--Yannismarou (talk) 08:46, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

It is precisely what I said: "that the passages he added are again literal or almost-literal renderings of the original". And I insist that he show a sample of the original Greek he was working on, because if it's too close to it, it must be removed, and if he doesn't provide the original I will remove the passages to be on the safe side. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:50, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

If you do that without clear proofs of copyvio I am afraid I'll revert you.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I regard both the "plagiarism" accusations (if there are some grounds for a wikipedia policy infringement, then this is for copyvio, not "plagiarism", but I still believe that the relevant arguments are extremely weak for such an accusation) and the related threats for the removal of the materials as absurd. Personally, I do not intend to lose such a useful a material, and I prefer to be occupied with what really matters: the substance. I thus have four important questions to Nipson:

I see that the Panagiotakis' work is a collective 3-volume work, and Panagiotakis is the editor. Therefore, Nipson, for the article of this collective work you use, there must be another author, which should be cited instead of Panagiotakis. Who is this author? Can you check it?
Συνεργατες του τομου Μανολης Μπορμπουδάκης, Χρυσα Μαλτεζου, Νικολαος Μ. Παναγιοτάκης, Στυλιανος Αλεξίου, Γιωργος Αμαργιανάκης, Θεοχάρης Δετορακης, Κωνσταντινος Σβολόπουλος, Λιλή Μακράκη, Χάνγκεν ΦΛάισερ, Γεωργιος Αικατερινίδης, Νικολαος Κονσταντόπουλος.
Attempted translation of above paragraph:
Manolis Mbormboudakis, Chrisa Maltezou, Nikolaos M. Panagiotakis, Stylianos Alexiou, Giorgos Amargianakis, Theochari Detorakis, Konstantinos Svolopoulos, Lily Makraki, Hagen Fleischer, Giorgos Aikaterinides, Nikolaos Konstantopoulos.
Ok, but which of them is then the author of the chapter you use, and which is the name of this chapter.--Yannismarou (talk) 20:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
You're good. You ask all the right questions. The chapter is called: Η ΤΟΥΡΚΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ ΣΤΗΝ ΚΡΗΤΗ it starts from page 333 and ends at 436. The chapter was written by Theocharis Detorakis. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 04:41, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, but I am not so good! I am just a bit more experienced (after 3 years στο μαγαζί!) and accustomed with how WP wants its articles. I'm also a bit "κολλημένος" with correct and detailed referencing but this is a "mania" I had from university. And I definitely do not intend to lose the useful information you added in the article. We do not have the luxury to throw away good material, and to "bite" users who offer this material, even if we have then to work a bit more on it, in order to bring it within WP policies and standards. When we have to do with useful edits in an article my belief is "work on them and upgrade them; never throw them away". Unless, of course, the article gets extremely long, and you have to relocate this material per WP:SS. But this is another issue ... --Yannismarou (talk) 07:58, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
"In 1828, Ioannis Kapodistrias decided that something had to be done about the klephts and the pirates based at Grampousa. He sent Alexander Mavrocordatos with British and French fleets to Crete to deal with them." Doing some ce in your edits, I noticed that there is some incoherence between this sentence and the rest of your story. Why Kapodistrias "decided that something had to be done with the klephts"?! You don't explain what (if something) happened that forced Kapodistrias to take this decision. Had they become real klepths (=thieves)?!!!--Yannismarou (talk) 09:40, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Not long after the forts at Grambousa and Kissamou were captured they were practically abandoned by the insurgents because they were moving around Crete trying to spread the insurgency. This disturbed Mustafa (yet another leader) who rounded up 2,000 men in an to attempt to retake the forts. His efforts to take the forts failed but he managed to stop the spread of the insurgency to western provinces (page 382). The insurgents were surrounded/sieged in Grambousa for a couple of years. They had to resort to piracy to survive. For two years Grambousa was a hive of piratical activity and they weren't fussy about whether the ships they captured were Turkish or European. During that period the population in Grambousa became organised and they built a church called Panagias ths Kleftrinas (for the protection of klephts, namely the pirates). Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 20:36, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
And how's ~~"Grampousa"~~ and "Amouryelles" in Greek? I try to find Greek sources.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Γραμπούσας και Αμουργέλλες. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 20:08, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Just wanted to point out that there is a big difference between "Grambousa" and "Gramvousa". I think that "Grambousa" is better than "Gramvousa" unless there is a source that says otherwise because it is closer to the actual pronunciation. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 11:35, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Actually, it is not. Γραμβούσα is the more common form in Greek, and correspondingly Gramvousa is the most common form in English too. Constantine ✍ 13:16, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
ok. Thanks for that. Apologies for not knowing that. When I talked to somebody today they too pronounced it with a "v". It's a bit strange that the historian/experts have spelt it Γραμπούσας in the reference though. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 23:28, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Also noticed that on the top right of the page there's a note that has the British, French and Russian fleets only at Navarino. The British and French fleets at Grambousa also need to be added. Is it worth using the words "only in naval battles", instead of "only at the battle of Navarino", in the same way as was used for the "Vilayet of Tunisia" since the British and French navies were used at Gramvousa. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 20:17, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
"On 28 May 1822, an Egyptian fleet of 30 warships and 84 transports, led by Hasan Pasha, Mehmet Ali's son-in-law, arrived at Souda Bay with the task of ending the rebellion.""In 1823, the new military leader Hussein " I see here a "Hasan" in 1822 and a "Hussein" in 1823! Are they the same or different persons? If they are different, what happened to Hasan?--Yannismarou (talk) 10:13, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Around the end of February 1823 Hasan fell off his startled horse at Kastelli Pediados and was killed. But not before he rampaged around Crete burning villages all over the place. General Hussein is a completely different person. Hence the use of the word "new". Hussein was an 'αρχιστράτηγος' and a professional soldier. Hasan was not as competent and his soldiers were disorganised and difficult to control (αταχτους). Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 20:02, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Wow. I just did a search on Google for Panagias ths Kleftrinas. The only reference on the English web and the only reference on the Greek web is what we've just listed on Misplaced Pages. It's mentioned nowhere else! I can't believe that a romantic story like that has been overlooked globally. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 23:40, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Well, the bitter truth is that on-line and off-line sources for the Greek Revolutions are extremely poor and this is a shame for modern Greek historiography.--Yannismarou (talk) 07:55, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Hatzimichalis Dalianis

Just noticed that the specific section doesn't mention the revolt of 1826 under the Epirotes Dalianis and Argyrokastritis. I'll make some additions the following days.Alexikoua (talk) 06:00, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Good! Looking forward to them. But then we may seriously think if we should trim some sections of this article and create sub-articles per WP:SS. I'm afraid the article is getting overwhelmingly long, which is inevitable for an event with so many parameters, but we should think how we'll deal with this fact. If this is indeed a fact, because I may be the only one who believes it!--Yannismarou (talk) 07:58, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't Epirus deserve its own section or sub-section due to so much happening there? Although I suspect there is overlap with Macedonia. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 20:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

There had been plenty of revolutionary events in Epirus, like: the siege of Souli (1822), the failed siege of Arta, and the liberation of Parga by Perevos. I'll check about them soon.

Proposal

I suggest:

to trim Crete, Macedonia and create a 3-4 sentence section for Epirus.

to incorporate the 1822-1824 section should be incorporated in Pellopones and Central Greece.Alexikoua (talk) 10:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Gramvousa and Emmanouil Tombazis

I created a page for Gramvousa and another for Emmanouil Tombazis that I have Wikilinked to from Greek War of Independence. I hope you like them. I noticed that there is a beautiful photograph on Greek Misplaced Pages of Gramvousa. It's a bit large. Is it alright to use that photo for the Gramvousa section on English Misplaced Pages (made smaller)? The photo is at:

http://el.wikipedia.org/%CE%91%CF%81%CF%87%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BF:Imeri_Gramvousa.jpg

The Gramvousa article has already been subjected to a couple of edits including an edit that involved redirecting the Constantinople Wikilink to the Istanbul page. I have reverted that change. I prefer that the Wikilink directs to a page called Constantinople since the history concerns old Constantinople and not modern Istanbul. Be aware that my edit may well be reverted. I understand the technical reason why somebody would want to do that. I personally do not appreciate that kind of gamesmanship. Although I do appreciate the "de la Giocca" suggestion which is probably correct. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 14:44, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

The image is fine. It's already on Commons, so you can use it here right away. No need to worry about the size. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:20, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the image. :-) Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 04:01, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

"Παναγία η Κλεφτρίνα"

The issue has been raised whether the church of those pirates was called "Panagia i Kleftrina" ('Our Lady the Piratess')or "Panagia tis Kleftrinas" ('Our Lady of the Piratess'). Other references on the web (eg. ) convince me the word "Kleftrina" ('piratess') is grammatically indeed in apposition to the word "Panagia", not in a possessive construction. The genitive "tis kleftrinas" in the source Nipson used is evidently only due to the fact that the main noun "Panagias" is itself also in the genitive ("the church of Our Lady the Piratess"). In other attestations you get "afieromeni stin Panagia tin Kleftrina" ('dedicated to Our Lady the Piratess'), where both nouns are in the accusative, and here you have "Panagia i Kleftrina", with both in the nominative. So, yes, literally, the Panagia is indeed herself called a Klepht or Piratess here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:13, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Is everybody ignoring the reference itself which states "Panagias tis Kleftrinas"? What I suggest is if there is no other reference then the quoted reference must be assumed to be correct. Also note that the accent within Panagia is on the iota and not the alpha.Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 20:29, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Uhm, you do know what a genitive is, do you? Greek is an inflectional language; just because a source happens to use the whole phrase in the genitive case doesn't mean that is the citation form of the name. That's just how Greek works. In fact, genitive forms like panagias are never citation forms. And i just gave you two sources using the other case forms. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:32, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Just to explain further, "... tis Panagias tis Kleftrinas" is of course precisely the same kind of construction as found in "(eklisia) tis Panagias tis Kamariotissas", "... tis Arxisporitissas", "... tis Galaktotrofousas", "... tis Glykofilousas", "... tis Proussiotissas", "... tis Katakekrymmenis", and so many others. In all these cases, the citation forms are, of course, "i Panagia i Kamariotissa", "...i Proussiotissa", "... i Katakekrymmeni", etc. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:33, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Fut.Perf. is right!--Yannismarou (talk) 13:40, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't sit right to call the Panagia a Klepht. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 16:29, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

If you call it "Panagias tis Kleftinas", nothing changes! You are calling it once again a klepht! You are just using genitive, while nominative is the correct case!--Yannismarou (talk) 16:46, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Greek Revolution and Arvanites

The history of the Greek Revolution will be incomplete and rather obscure if we don't consider Arvanites element. This revolution which was in fact an Arvanito-Romeliotes uprising against Ottoman yoke, ended up being called “Ελληνική Επανάσταση”.

http://books.google.com/books?id=KEUOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=george+finlay+greek+revolution&hl=en&ei=2Y1hTJqBPMG88gbvsoSGCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

The "Arvanites in Revolution" narrative is mostly a 20th century construction, promoted by Greek Left and Albanian nationalism. Having red most of the original greek sources of the Revolution, including official documents, I didn't see any "Arvanites" mentioned, excepting the muslim Albanians who were doing the dirty job for the Ottomans. In some non-Greek primary sources you may find as "Albanians" the bilingual Greeks speaking Greek and Albanian. But this is as much reliable as calling "Arabs" all the people who can speak arabic.--Skylax30 (talk) 18:47, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Source for Areios Pagos Anatolikis Ellados.svg?

I saw this flag in the Areopagus' article, and now Constantine added it here. I also thought that it would be useful to have it in this article as well. The problem is that the file's description page provides no source. I then searched the web, but again I did not manage to find it in any reliable sources, except for wikipedia sites and blogs. Can anybody provide any source (book, article, site etc.) verifying the accuracy of this flag?--Yannismarou (talk) 08:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

This was Areopagus' seal, but I think that we cannot use it, because of copyrights.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:03, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I remember seeing it in a book on Greek flags a long time ago, and then in the web, so I created the original bitmap version. I don't really know what original source was used for it, it is certainly a unique design among contemporary revolutionary flags. I don't generally trust Greek flag books, they're prone to bad research and wholesale repeating of national myths (see the discussions on the Flag of Greece talk page). If someone has access to this book, perhaps it'd be of help. If the image presents a problem to achieving GA and (hopefully) FA standards, by all means let's remove it until it can be sourced. Constantine ✍ 09:25, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I say that we keep it for now, and we see. After all, keeping it may attract attention by somebody who can provide sources.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:33, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

"Massacres" section

I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate this section with all my heart! I regard it as uncyclopedic, purely written and as a failed attempt for exercise of diplomatic balance! My feelings about this section came to the surface again, because of the last reverts by Phanariote. As we say in Greek, this damned section puts in the same sac (σακί), the assassination of Gregory the 5th, the massacre of Chios, and the Tripolitsa slaughter! Events with completely different contexts, which happened in different areas and in different times are suddenly linked in a attempt to prove what?! That they both slaughtered?!! Really?!

I have repeteadly attempted to "save" the section, but I am always appointed with the result as hard as I may have tried. And, why are we obliged to deal with this situation?! Because of a pathetic troll (yes, I refer to Laertes d, and I don't give shit whether my caracterizations are extreme or not; that's how I feel and that's how I express myself), who made a mess of this article and obliged us to deal with a per se problematic section.

"Greek revolutionaries massacred Turks, Muslims and Jews, mainly inhabitants of the Peloponnese and Attica where Greek forces were dominant, identifying them with the Ottoman rule. On the other hand, the Turks massacred Greeks identified with the revolution especially in Anatolia, Crete, Constantinople, Cyprus, Macedonia and the Aegean islands." A long and useless list about who massacred more and where. As if we have a contest, about who exterminated more ethnicities and who did it in more locations!
"Some of the more infamous atrocities include the Chios Massacre, the Destruction of Psara, the massacres following the Tripolitsa Massacre, and the Navarino Massacre." Some examples so that we do not speak in vain! Who cares if they may have no relation with each other!
"There is a debate among scholars over whether the massacres committed by the Greeks should be regarded as a response to prior events (such as the massacre of the Greeks of Tripoli, after the failed Orlov Revolt of 1770 and the destruction of the Sacred Band) or as separate atrocities, which started simultaneously with the outbreak of the revolt." Is there actually a debate? Do the modern scholars really care about who did it first? For instance, reading Dimitropoulos, Theodoros Kolokotronis, 61-62, I don't see an effort of Frantzis, Spiliadis or Trikoupis (all Greek historians) to link the incident with other atrocities, but I see instead insightful approaches to the psychology of the mass. It is really shocking what Spiliadis writes, that the revolted mob had to be familiar with blood and death, in order to realize that their former lords were now their enemies, and that there was no way back.
"During the war, tens of thousands of Greek civilians were killed, left to die or taken into slavery. Most of the Greeks in the Greek quarter of Constantinople were massacred. A large number of Christian clergymen were also killed, including the Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory V.viii" Again, unrelated events, sentences without cohesion, and the execution of Gregory whose place is somewhere between "Danubian Principalities" and "Outbreak" but not here.
"Sometimes marked as allies of the Turks in the Peloponnese, Jewish settlements were also massacred by Greek revolutionaries. However, such a tragedy seems to be more a side-effect of the butchering of the Turks of Tripolis, the last Ottoman stronghold in the South where the Jews had taken refuge from the fighting, than a specific action against Jews per se. Many Jews around Greece and throughout Europe were supporters of the Greek revolt, using their resources to loan substantial amounts to the newly formed Greek government. In turn, the success of the Greek Revolution was to stimulate the incipient stirrings of Jewish nationalism, later called Zionism. Following its establishment, the new state attracted a number of Jewish immigrants from the Ottoman Empire, as it was one of the first countries to grant legal equality to Jews." This is the most interesting and the best-written part of the section; it is actually the only well-written part of the section, because it has a clear subject.

My firm belief is, for years now, that these atrocities should not be hidden. They deserve their place in the article, but in their historical context, so that they make sense and so that they do not look like an amateur patchwork. This section constitutes neither historical nor encyclopaedic writing. It is a stupid and condemned attempt to compromise incompromisable approaches of extremists of both sides. This section is the result of the mayhem that Laertes and the anti-Laertes brought to this article. The sooner we understand that we must get rif of this section, the better for the article.--Yannismarou (talk) 21:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, all you have to add is the context of each event like the Jewish section.--— ZjarriRrethues — 22:23, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

"They deserve their place in the article, but in their historical context, so that they make sense and so that they do not look like an amateur patchwork."

Hear, hear! This section should be abolished and bits and pieces should be allocated in relevant sections. It make no sense not mentioning all these events in their temporal context, but in the end of the article. Moreover, as far as I know, such a colligation is not advocated by any scholar studying the Greek Revolution. Why should Misplaced Pages?

PS. I 'm sorry to notice that "the best-written part of the section" about Jews is a mere copy from pages 421-2 of the source cited and hence should be rewritten -ideally taking into account more eminent scholars, like Katherine Fleming). Ashmedai 119 (talk) 23:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Fully agree with Yannis and Asmedai. Each event should be mentioned where and when relevant. Bunching sporadic episodes of violence against civilians together into a grand unified narrative of slaughter is misleading and ahistorical. Constantine ✍ 06:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

frequently?

"During this time, there were frequent revolts by Greeks attempting to gain independence"

tell me some? by the way, the reference's name was "the dark age of greece 1453-1821". and we are talking about objectivity here.

--78.171.96.86 (talk) 01:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

"During this time, there were frequent revolts by Greeks attempting to gain independence"

this sentence, wit a references of a book "the dark age of greece", should be removed from article. first of all, "the dark age of greece" is an anachronism as the ottomans didn't conquer greece, they conquered Roman Empire (later known as byzantine empire).

secondly, if the sentence above is true, these "frequent revolts" should be mentioned.

Niyeti bozuk http nesnesi (talk) 12:32, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

The book Woodhouse: A Story of Modern Greece (with the chapter "The dark age of Greece") is a perfectly good source. And the frequent revolts are mentioned further down in the main text. 79.160.40.10 (talk) 20:39, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

They were not mentioned when I first wrote that, so now it looks good.

Niyeti bozuk http nesnesi (talk) 16:23, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Role of Church

Noticing the fact that greek history books (the ones taught at greek schools) praise the "supportive" role of the Orthodox Church during the war i consider it of topmost importance that a section is to be written on the real role of the church. With source no other but the letters of Kapoditsrias himself to the Patriarchs (and vice versa). The best online source to find the letters is the Center of Resarch on history of the new Hellinism (Κεντρο Ερευνης της Ιστοριας του νεωτερου Ελληνισμου) by the University of Athens. http://www.keine-academyofathens.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=120%3A------------2000&catid=52%3A2009-02-25-10-32-12&Itemid=64&lang=el Where it is perfectly read that the church tried to convince Kapodistrias to make Greeks yet again slaves of the Ottomans.. Since i have limited time to write the section myself i hope that someone might get interested since it is pretty sad that Greeks get to be taught lies. (A greek highschool student)P.S. Theres absolutely no danger of contraddictions on the objectivity of what is written since it all shall be copy-paste of original letters/historical documents.85.75.208.41 (talk) 21:13, 10 February 2011 (UTC) 21:09, 10 February 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.75.208.41 (talk) 21:09, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

The above is pure anti-church myth, mostly originating from the left establishment of the universities. It is very clear that the leaders of the Revolution were mostly priests and the local archontes. There is plenty of bibliography on that, and if the "Greeks are taught lies", you can read the european newspapers of 1821. Here is one of the many: Journal de Savoie, June 15 1821, p. 228. --Skylax30 (talk) 21:19, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

About Greek Revolutions and Roman empire-Greece

There were indeed many Greek revolutions before the one that evenyually ended with the formation of the Kingdom of Greece.. You asked for one.. 1st Kladas revolt after the Ottoman Venetian war (1463-1479). He marched from Koroni to Mani in 9 October 1479 leading 16000 men and declared his will to continue fighting for independence. (Ελληνικές Επαναστάσεις, Παντελής Καρύκας). As refered to the article the revolutions of 1600 and 1611 in Agrafa and Ioannina respectively leaded by Dionysios the Philosopher. I already counted three and there are more. As for the relation of the Roman Empire and Greece i have to say that the Eastern Roman Empire , which was eventually (and unfortunately for my personal beliefs) conquered by the Turks of the Ottoman Sultanate , was the Greek speaking part of the Roman Empire. As for the name Grek and the reference that someone made that it was an insult i would say to read some of the following to have a more accurate opinion :1. Romanus III, "Towards the son of Romanus himself", p.49 2. Anna Comnena, "Alexiad", prologue 1 3. Anna Comnena, "Alexiad", 15, 7 4.Espugnazione di Thessalonica, pp.32, Palermo 1961 5. Nicetas Choniates, "The Sack of Constantinople", 9 ’¦Å, Bonn, pp.806. Finally despite thios arcticle is relatively accurate i would say that a revolution cannot be presented perfectly through scientific manners... Revolutions have to do with passion and so the historical terms of massacre from the Christian side is something odd. Being under foreighn occupation which treat you as a slave surely fills you with much hatred.. But thats another discusion. Finally i am deeply worried that Wiki generally refers Arvabites as Albanian migrants (something untrue by many historians).. It has been nice to participate in this talk.. Greetings.Panagiotes (talk) 02:07, 10 February 2013 (UTC)PanagiotesPanagiotes (talk) 02:07, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on Greek War of Independence. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080510143919/http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/lecture6.html to http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/lecture6.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers. —_{Talk to my owner:Online} 06:19, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Copy and paste policy of WP

It's my understanding that WP articles are assumed to be original writing in the editor's own words. Yet I often come across passages in articles written in what is apparently antiquated or literary prose, indicating the possibility that the article in question is a pastiche of copy-paste from its sources.

I don't have access to anti-plagiarism software, and have to go by my intuition, followed by Googling a phrase or short passage in an effort to find it on Google Books, which I often have done and found. Clearly, WP has a policy which is honored in the breach, but I'm not comfortable with this, as WP seems otherwise to strive for some sort of policy consistency, often obsessively.

I'm therefore curious about the following passage recently added to Greek War of Independence. It passes the Google Books test, yet I doubt it consists of the editor's original wording:

From the United States came the doctor Samuel Howe and the soldier Samuel Jarvis to fight with the Greeks.

This is not the only such passage recently made by the editor in question, A.S. Brown. In fact, a large portion of this article's prose may (my opinion) have been borrowed from Brewer's book without proper attribution (i.e. plagiarized). I'm therefore asking A.S. Brown and any other editor(s) to comment, not necessarily on the originality of the prose, but on the WP policy of "your own words," and whether there is any consensus on a requirement for original writing on WP.--Quisqualis (talk) 22:06, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Brewer, David The Greek War of Independence London: Overlook Duckworth, 2011 page 241.

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 7 external links on Greek War of Independence. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 08:42, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Fantasy Art, Poetry...

This article is too full of fantasy art, poetry and what appears to be propaganda from primary sources all prominently displayed. There should be more history, this does not come across as a serious history article. Some of this could be moved into a gallery or even to a separate article (which the longquote from Byron probably should be). Also text sandwiches are really not a good thing, they should be avoided because they display badly on small screens, netbooks, chromebooks etc. which many people use. I always make sure they are fixed before I pass articles in GA Reviews, and there is certainly no good reason to edit war over restoring them. Seraphim System 07:16, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Rigas work is essential for the understanding of the pre-revolutionary era in Greece. In fact he was the major contributor of the local Enlightenment.Alexikoua (talk) 07:22, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Restoring Byron as an image is a violation of MOS:IMAGES. A short quote like Riga should be worked into the text. I see you have been editing since 2008, but I don't expect you to know every part of MOS:IMAGES. Why don't you read it through and self-revert. Seraphim System 07:39, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, due to the formatting of the box quotes which I have not seen on any other article, and my dark theme which makes them a wonderful striking shade of brown by default, I thought it was an image when I removed it. It should still be removed, quoting the poem itself doesn't add anything and distracts from the text, which everyone works on, so we generally don't prefer garish quotations like this. It also creates a text sandwich, which is still a problem even if it not an image, and this should be obvious. This is a history article, I actually clicked on it to learn history and I can barely read it from the box quotes and text sandwiches. (It looks even worse on mobile btw.) Seraphim System 08:01, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

The quotes provide valuable and interesting context. The mere fact that you don't like them is not reason for removal. Have you edited wikipedia with another account before btw? You sound somewhat familiar. Khirurg (talk) 19:04, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

No, I haven't - sorry, there was one edit when I was new but I doubt that is what you meant and it was several months go - in that case, WMF did find that the Check User policy had been violated. Regarding the article and basic behavioral and civility guidelines, if you post on talk you should wait for a response before reverting. You certainly should not edit war and template others for edit warring. I have explained the issue with the current formatting, you are free to fix it or improve but not to ignore MOS or make the article unreadable for those with smaller screens/mobiles. Seraphim System 04:55, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

WMF? CheckUser? What the hell are talking about? You're removing sourced material and edit-warring like crazy. Stop it. Khirurg (talk) 07:22, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Stop what? Removing images that are not related to the text or otherwise discussed in the section? Fixing text sandwiches? Why would anyone restore a text sandwich? You know why I can't be an admin - I wouldn't be able to help myself if someone did something like that. I'm also a stickler for correct comma usage in general, but I don't expect anyone to know every detail of MOS. What I don't understand is why you continue to dispute it after it has been pointed out to you. Seraphim System 08:23, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

What is wrong with inserting the text as a blockquote after the line "Ypsilantis issued a proclamation calling all Greeks and Christians to rise up against the Ottomans" - I am not even making significant content edits anymore, because I don't feel they are wanted. This is a simple formatting revision. Why is it so hard to resolve that without it escalating to ANI? Seraphim System 08:28, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Greek War of Independence. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150402112930/http://300spartanwarriors.com/articlesandreviews/greekindependence.html to http://300spartanwarriors.com/articlesandreviews/greekindependence.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 10:17, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

The Casualties section

Due to the nature of this conflict and the rather poor record keeping of casualties outside individual engagements during this time, I feel getting an accurate and reliable number for either side is rather difficult to impossible. The numbers there seem very unlikely for both sides, even as estimations. It seems to even be admitted that a "Better source is needed". I was wondering what everyone would think about omitting the casualties, or replacing them with "unknown".... Thoughts? SJCAmerican (talk) 18:30, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Since it seems nobody has answered I will remove the casualties section, I will wait a while longer in case anyone wants to dispute SJCAmerican (talk) 18:30, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

So it seems nobody has any reservations against removing the numbers of the casualty section? SJCAmerican (talk) 03:31, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: "Greek victory" too simplistic

The Greek War of Independence was not just a Greek-Ottoman war, and the result simply cannot be summed up as a "Greek victory" which completely ignores and sidelines the essential foreign involvement and influence that led to the success of the revolution. The war involved many parties, from the French to the Egyptians, all of who played less than minor roles which ultimately led to the successful outcome for the Greek revolution. The situation was much like the American revolutionary war, which was more than a war between just the American and British, and where America's allies played a decisive role, because of this on the American Revolutionary War wiki, the war is listed as being an "American-Allied" victory, opposed to just say a "American victory". I feel the same should apply here to this war.

I propose a change from either of two proposals.

1. Change the result to "Greek-Allied victory"

2. Change the result to "Independence of Greece" or "Greek Independence"

SJCAmerican (talk) 03:39, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I think the second solution (which is also very close to the one adopted on the Greek WP, "Δημιουργία του ελληνικού κράτους") seems better : 1)in this case the Allied did not formally declare war againt the Ottoman empire (though Russia did on its own later) and presented themselves as "mediators", not "allies of Greece against Turkey", even if their intervention eventually changed the balance in favour of the Greeks (before Navarino they had also forced Cochrane to leave the gulf of Corinth eg, so they weren't unequivocally a party in the conflict) 2) In military terms it is misleadingly simplistic to call the war a "Greek victory" since they were on the verge of total defeat before Navarino, both land forces and Navy failing to achieve signifiant successes in 1827. The war was successful only because of the Western intervention on the diplomatic and military fields.--Phso2 (talk) 18:12, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure what the Greek phrase directly translates to, google translate basically says "Establishment of Greece". I also don't think the revolution was on the verge of failure per say, the Greek rebels achieved rapid success and only with Egyptian intervention was it severely threatened, things definitely didn't favor the Greeks, but even then the Egyptians were defeated at mani and were dissuaded from attacking the capital of the revolt in Nafplio due to the strong Greek fortifications and presence there, the egyptians also suffered some heavy losses during their campaign, also it should be mentioned that the foreign intervention in the Morea only served to evict the Egyptians the Ottomans themselves still had a presence and were driven out by the Greek themselves. But again as I mentioned overall foreign intervention was decisive. So how would anyone feel about maybe having the result being "Independence of Greece" or "Greek independence" SJCAmerican (talk) 19:47, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

In 1827 in the Peloponnese the Greek controlled only Argolis, Corinthia and Mani and their fleet was unable to stop its opponent, they had not been able to stop the Egyptians except on half-hearted attacks by the latter months ago, and the Western intervention at Navarino was hastened by the fear that the Egypto-Ottoman navy was about to set sail to the Saronic islands and put an end to the war ; Philhellene Thomas Gordon describes the situation in the months before Navarino in these terms : "vanquished Greece lay(ed) in convulsive throes". So you may think that there was a hope that the Greeks alone could have turn the tides and won alone by miracle, but this is not grounded in actual descriptions of the events. Of what "Ottoman presence in the Peloponnese" do you allude to?--Phso2 (talk) 21:39, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I was referring to the Ottoman forces that were left behind after the Egyptians evacuated, such as those in Central Greece. I was pointing out that the Greeks weren't defeated and the war continued even after Navarino, so that wasn't necessarily the end of the war, and the revolution was still active, Though I feel going into all this is irrelevant as we seem to be in agreement that simply a "Greek victory" is too simplistic, correct? I think would should stay on this topic, do you have any proposals of what it can be changed to, I have already suggested "Independence of Greece" and "Greek Independence" SJCAmerican (talk) 21:57, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

far too many Greek commanders and leaders

This infobox is getting needlessly bloated, we really should only include the most important political and military leaders. Some figures here like Anastasios Tsamados, Antonios Kriezis don't really belong here SJCAmerican (talk) 17:36, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

I tried to shorten the list, only to add a couple of religious leaders. The greek revolution was ethno-religious, and many of the political leaders were bishops, at least in the first year. Even some of the military leaders were priests, like Papaflessas and Athanasios Diakos. --Skylax30 (talk) 12:16, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Casualties and losses

The number of 25.000 is too mediocre. In Chios only, at least 20.000 people had been massacred. Ι suppose the source counts only the warriors - soldiers. --Skylax30 (talk) 12:01, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Correct, the casualties under combatants refer to soldiers and not civilians, civilian casualties are listed underneath you can see it says "estimated as high as 105,000" furthermore I am certain that these estimates are only for those killed in battle, and don't include those who perished from disease, starvation.. otherwise the numbers for both combatants would be far higher, I also believe Egyptian caustslies are omitted from the Ottoman side, the casualties section can definitely use more research, detail and work, but in a conflict like this, which was very chaotic, totalling casualties outside battles is very difficult. SJCAmerican (talk) 20:05, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

1832 should be when the war ended not 1829

While the last battle was fought in 1829, the war should be said to end in 1832 with the ratification of the Treaty of Constantinople. This is similar to the American Revolutionary War the last battle was the Siege of Yorktown which took place in 1781, but peace and recognition of the U.S was not realized until the Peace of Paris in 1783. SJCAmerican (talk) 21:11, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Roman Empire's War Of Independence?

I would be interested to know if many ethnically Greek people involved thought of it as a Roman War Of Independence (rather than the post-empire term 'Byzantine'). To any Greek readers: If you hear the phrase "Capital of Greece" do you think "Constantinople" or "Athens"? Middle More Rider (talk) 23:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Keep in mind "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Greek War of Independence article.

This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject." SJCAmerican (talk) 20:43, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, for this article, what was the context at the time? We know that up until the Turk occupation of 1453, the emperor referred to himself such as Avtokrator kai Vasilevs Romaion etc., so did that fade away by the war of independence or were they fighting as Romans? Is it right to just call Athens the capital, or is it the provisional capital, with the true capital being occupied Constantinople? Also, it would be nice if the nonsense term 'byzantine' was eliminated from this article. Many people, fans of history, feel this term should be eliminated from every history article, book etc. from the present day onwards. Middle More Rider (talk) 13:59, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove the Casualties section

Due to the nature of this war, a very long, chaotic conflict in which combatant and non combatant deaths often intermingled (especially during sieges, such as Tripolitsa, or Missolonghi), the wide spread prevalence of famine, disease, and starvation among the civilian populations and combatants. Totaling the number fatalities outside of individual battles is quite difficult to impossible, this has to lead to varying estimates, the figures right now (20,000-25,000 dead) are from Cummings,which are currently admitted to being less than concrete (note the "better source needed") there are many other estimates for instance Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod place battle deaths at 15,000 for the Greeks and 6,000 for the Ottomans (I think omitting Egyptian causalities) the Greeks themselves place their numbers at 15,000, I have even seen estimates of for example from Jeffery Dixon which state 44,000-50,000 Ottoman deaths from all causes. I think it is safe to assume getting an accurate picture of casualties for the entire war is very difficult, and with the great variation of estimates I think it is better to omit the causalities section of the infobox all together, at least until when/if more of a consensus is established, would anyone oppose this action? SJCAmerican (talk) 19:02, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

also outside of Greece

The Patriarchate of Jerusalem celebrates it. Jerusalem patriarchate celebrates March 25 1821|talk]]) 18:07, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Tunisian flag till 1831.svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 02:55, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Use of family, regimental and local flags

I wonder why the commanders of the Greek revolutionary army have their family or local flags in infobox instead of the appropriate flag of the nation/army they were part. As I know there was one Greek flag from 1822.Alexikoua (talk) 20:12, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Dates of the End of the War

Hi, I just want to clear up on some confusing dating in the article. In the beginning, the article says the war of independence lasted till 1830 meanwhile the right-hand template states it lasted till 1829. Additionally, the treaty ending the war was signed in 1832, called the Treaty of Constantinople. The article seems to be a little inconsistent so I think it would be best to standardize it. I personally favour using the Treaty of Constantinople as a marker of the conclusion of the war but I will leave it to discussion to see if I may be wrong before changing. 21Helios12 (talk) 02:34, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Edits without any citations.

Again same people edit without giving any citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.133.229.61 (talk) 13:20, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Quotes requested

Could the editors adding the text with following citations please provide the quotes from the books that support their change?

William St. Clair. That Greece Might Still Be Free The Philhellenes in the War of Independence. London: Oxford University Press, 1972. ISBN 0-19-215194-0, p. 43
J. M. Wagstaff, War and Settlement Desertion in the Morea, 1685-1830, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 3, No. 3, Settlement and Conflict in the Mediterranean World. (1978), p. 301
Phillips, Alison W. The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833. London, 1897, p. 61

Thank you. FDW777 (talk) 17:14, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I can only assume the failure to reply by one editor, despite being pinged on ANI to this precise discussion, is because they can't provide the quotes. I have read the first two, and they contain no text I can see that references the addition. I very much doubt the remaining reference, an 1897 book, even contains the term "ethnic cleansing". The addition was improperly referenced. FDW777 (talk) 23:12, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how this is supported by those sources. The 1897 source surely doesn't use this language (too modern). Wagstaff one page 305 has "internecine strife", but I don't see "ethnic cleansing".--Eostrix ( _hoot🦉) 05:48, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

The quote from page 301 Wagstaff that's of any potential relevance is The war began as the popular rising of a colonian people against its masters. A series of uncoordiated, largely undocumented attacks was made on the Muslim population of the Morea during March and April 1821. It is reported that, as a result, more than 3000 Muslim farmhouses and dwellings were destroyes and between 10000 and 15000 people-perhaps 31 per cent of the Muslim population-were murdered. However that's nothing like the quotes provided at Turkish War of Independence, it simply confirms that Muslims were killed and homes destroyed, but not that is was a specific aim of the war itself. FDW777 (talk) 08:23, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

It does not have to contain exact name of "ethnic cleansign". See the wikipedia article. The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 defined ethnic cleansing as "a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas". William St. Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free The Philhellenes in the War of Independence, especially Chapter 4 "Two Kinds of War" clearly describes ethnic cleansign. It is telling how many turks were there and after the massacres most of them were dead with the exception a little partion who managed the excape. Their holdings and valuables confiscated. The region had a lot turkish residents and they had been killed or sold the slavery. "Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous." this is from wiki article. What happened to turks was systematic, it was forced removel, it was based on ethnicity and it created a homogeneous region. In conclusion it was a ethnic cleansing.

in page 41 "The Greeks, however, offered a convention whereby they would be granted a secure passage to Africa. They had neither the intention

nor even the means of doing this and one of the Greek negotiators boasted later that he destroyed the copy of the agreement so that no evidence should remain. When the gates were opened the Greeks rushed in and the whole population of between 2,000 and 3,000 were killed with the exception of about 160 who managed to escape." says their intentions and means were killinn the local turkish population and they did so.

The spelling of ethnic cleansign was not there but according to wikipedia definitions it was ethnic cleansign. Göktuğ Canik (talk) 11:53, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Phillips, Alison W. The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833 in chapter 4;

page 48 and 49 "Everywhere, as though at a preconcerted signal, the peasantry rose, and massacred all the Turks men, women, and children on whom they could lay hands.

In the Morea shall no Turk be left,

Nor in the whole wide world.

Thus rang the song which, from mouth to mouth, announced the beginning of a war of extermination. The Mussulman population of the Morea had been reckoned at twenty-five thousand souls. Within three weeks of the outbreak of the revolt, not a Moslem was left, save those who had succeeded in escaping into the towns."

"...With an imposing religious ceremonial a crucifix was erected in the central square of the town, and a pro- clamation issued in the name of the Greek leaders, containing merely these emphatic words, * Peace to the Christians ! Eespect to the consuls ! Death to the Turks.' l The sole immediate result, however, of the rising at Patras was the destruction of a once flourish- ing town."

page 51 "Kalamata, besieged by Petrobey and his Mainotes, had fallen even before the arrival of Kolokotrones. Of the Ottoman inhabitants, the men were massacred, the women and children enslaved ; and on the banks of the wild mountain torrent that rushed past the town twenty-four gorgeously vested priests, surrounded by an army of five thousand warriors, sang a solemn Te Deum, in celebration of the first victory of the war."

page 57 "The Turks, weakened by famine, and rendered desperate, whether they trusted the promises or not, grasped at the last straw of hope that was held out to them. They opened the gates of their citadel, and laid down their arms. The greater number of them now elected to go into exile ; and the work of embarkation began. Six hundred had already gone on board the brigs, when, suddenly, the Mainotes burst into the town, murdering and outraging all those who had not as yet succeeded in reaching the shore, or who, trust- ing in the promise of Prince Demetrius that their homes and lives would be spared, had chosen to remain in the town."

page "they plundered the Turks, and forced the Jews to give up to them all the money and jewellery in their possession. With the wealth of which they were thus deprived these poor wretches had hoped to purchase the protection of the captains of the Armatoli; and as soon as they could do so, they informed the Greeks of Nourka's treachery, and laid down their arms on promise of personal safety. That promise was immediately violated. The massacre commenced with the Jews. Men, women, and children were murdered without mercy, after being tortured to make them reveal their supposed hidden treasures. The poorer Mussulmans shared the same fate."

Again clearly describing ethnic cleansign and even genocide. I can not quote all the book but there are many more paragraphs telling the massacres and intentions. Göktuğ Canik (talk) 12:25, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

See WP:SYN, also WP:ONUS even if the claims were properly referenced which they aren't. FDW777 (talk) 18:19, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Deletion of well sourced content

I recently added the phrase "and Albanians" to one sentence describing the demography of Athens during the Greek War of Independence. This same sentence names the ethnic groups of the Muslim inhabitants, but the Orthodox ones lack such detail. This addition is well supported by numerous sources. The users that undid my addition have provided no valid reasons for the deletion. It seems that it is not allowed to bring up the existence of the Albanian people in this thread, unless it is about the Albanians that participated on the Ottoman side. I think history should be presented truthfully and impartially here, but unfortunately it is being intentionally distorted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Çerçok (talk • contribs) 15:33, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

I am still waiting for a reason why my edit was reversed. Khirurg insinuated first that the information is not relevant, however this part of the article describes the demographic of Athens, so it has to be done accurately or not at all. Then he insinuated that the sources were not credible, which is not the case as I put three sources from first-hand witnesses. Then Othon reversed my edit giving absolutely no reason. Once again, I await any good argument for hiding the existence of Orthodox Albanians in a part of the article which speaks about demographics and does mention Muslim Albanians and Orthodox Greeks, among others. Seems like a clear and intentional double-standard to, but please do explain yourselves. (Çerçok (talk) 11:12, 16 October 2021 (UTC))

In 1821, Athens had about 10,000 people, half of whom were Christian Greeks and the other half were Muslims, being either Turks, Albanians or Greek Muslims was changed to In 1821, Athens had about 10,000 people, half of whom were Christian Greeks and Albanians and the other half were Muslims, being either Turks, Albanians or Greek Muslims citing the following

John Cam Hobhouse, writing in 1810, quoted in John Freely, Strolling through Athens, p. 247: "The number of houses in Athens is supposed to be between twelve and thirteen hundred; of which about four hundred are inhabited by the Turks, the remainder by the Greeks and Albanians, the latter of whom occupy above three hundred houses." Eyre Evans Crowe, The Greek and the Turk; or, Powers and prospects in the Levant, 1853: "The cultivators of the plain live at the foot of the Acropolis, occupying what is called the Albanian quarter..." (p. 99); Edmond About, Greece and the Greeks of the Present Day, Edinburgh, 1855 (translation of La Grèce contemporaine, 1854): "Athens, twenty-five years ago, was only an Albanian village. The Albanians formed, and still form, almost the whole of the population of Attica; and within three leagues of the capital, villages are to be found where Greek is hardly understood." (p. 32); "The Albanians form about one-fourth of the population of the country; they are in majority in Attica, in Arcadia, and in Hydra...." (p. 50); "The Turkish village which formerly clustered round the base of the Acropolis has not disappeared: it forms a whole quarter of the town.... An immense majority of the population of this quarter is composed of Albanians." (p. 160)

It does not appear to be properly referenced as far as I can see. FDW777 (talk) 12:33, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

You mean it is not in the right format? That can easily be fixed. But I am afraid the problem is the systematic deletion of everything that has to do with Albanians by Greek users and moderators (well-sourced information are being deleted in other pages too, on clearly invalid excuses). Anyway, sources are now in the right format, and I added one more just in case.

In 1821, Athens had about 10,000 people, half of whom were Christian Greeks and Albanians and the other half were Muslims, being either Turks, Albanians or Greek Muslims.

There are now four sources in proper formatting, supporting my previous edit. This information should be in the article, however I will wait for responses before adding it.Çerçok (talk) 15:49, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

References

Brewer, David The Greek War of Independence, London: Overlook Duckworth, 2011 p. 169.
"Thus the Arvanites were already inhabiting Athens when the city became capital of Greece in 1834." (p.27)Panourgiá, Neni. Fragments of Death, Fables of Identity: An Athenian Anthropography.
"The number of houses in Athens is supposed to be between twelve and thirteen hundred; of which about four hundred are inhabited by the Turks, the remainder by the Greeks and Albanians, the latter of whom occupy above three hundred houses." (p.245)Hobhouse, John Cam. Travels in Albania and Other Provinces of Turkey in 1809 & 1810.
"The cultivators of the plain live at the foot of the Acropolis, occupying what is called the Albanian quarter..." (p.99)Crowe, Eyre Evans. The Greek and the Turk; or, Powers and prospects in the Levant.
""Athens, twenty-five years ago, was only an Albanian village." (p.32); "The Turkish village which formerly clustered round the base of the Acropolis has not disappeared: it forms a whole quarter of the town.... An immense majority of the population of this quarter is composed of Albanians." (p.160)About, Edmond. The Greeks of the Present Day.

Well, it seems no one has any valid objections to bring so the information should be added. Please do not go back to force deletions if you do not explain your objections here. Çerçok (talk) 15:28, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Its not really the format. It is that it is anachronistic and it does not follow WP:AGEMATTERS and WP:NOTABILITY thats why can't go. Additionally, you have been throwing insults for the ethnicity of some users here. May I ask why? You should be civil and do not judge fellow editors with according to their ethnicity. Also pinging @Khirurg: since you have referred to him. Othon I (talk) 16:53, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I have not insulted anyone. Stop shifting the topic.Çerçok (talk) 19:33, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Oh yes you did, you said this as it can be seen above "But I am afraid the problem is the systematic deletion of everything that has to do with Albanians by Greek users and moderators (well-sourced information are being deleted in other pages too, on clearly invalid excuses)". Please do not make such commentes again otherwise I will request an admin to intervene. Best Othon I (talk) 21:05, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I said nothing about the format, I said it wasn't properly referenced. Since none of the quotes provided talk about Orthodox or Christian Albanians it's not referenced. FDW777 (talk) 17:31, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Arvanites are Orthodox Christians. So the quote "Thus the Arvanites were already inhabiting Athens when the city became capital of Greece in 1834." refers specifically to Orthodox Albanians, and if you read the sentences preceding this one, you will see the author explains they had been there since the Middle Ages. So according to the author, Orthodox Albanians, or Arvanites, were in Athens during the Greek War of Independence. There is no way to interpret this otherwise.Çerçok (talk) 19:33, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

That's your interpretation, I say it isn't referenced, it's synthesis and it's of no direct relevance to events between 1821 and 1829. FDW777 (talk) 19:38, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

The relevance of the issue can only apply to the original statement (which it I believe you deem is relevant enough), not its correction. Çerçok (talk) 06:20, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

(unindent) First of all the material is not relevant to the article and seems largely intended to use the article to push a specific POV (WP:COATRACK), second it is based on 19th century sources that largely consist of the recollections of individuals "strolling" around Athens, so it fails WP:RS and WP:AGEMATTERS. Third, the OP had better tone down the aggro or he will find out what a "topic ban" is in short order. Khirurg (talk) 19:58, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

That is only one of the sources - although just noting that Arvanites were present does not require a scientific sample of the population. But what about this paragraph from "Fragments of Death, Fables of Identity: An Athenian Anthropography":

By the fourteenth century Orthodox Christian Arvanites had made their way into the Greek thema of the Byzantine Empire... ...From then on Arvanites occupied the Attikan plains from the area of Mesogeia to in the southeast to the northwestern areas of Phyle and Khassia. Thus, the Arvanites were already inhabiting Athens when the city became the capital of Greece in 1834.

This is a book from 1995. The other sources are from the 19th century. How is this non-reliable, too old or anachronistic?Çerçok (talk) 20:49, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I was able to verify the source that is currently in use for the article, and it turns out the book has been gravely misquoted. The author says:

Athens was a town of some 10000 inhabitants, half of them Albanians, and the rest Turks or Greeks.

And here is what how the article puts it:

In 1821, Athens had about 10,000 people, half of whom were Christian Greeks and the other half were Muslims, being either Turks, Albanians or Greek Muslims.

A grave distortion. I will correct the article.Çerçok (talk) 23:48, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I will add a whole paragraph of the original source just to clarify for everyone what it says:

On the see-saw of Greek fortunes the structural failure to organize the defences of East Roumeli was offset by one success: the capture of the Akropolis of Athens. Athens was a town of some 10000 inhabitants, half of them Albanians and the rest Turks or Greeks, 'an impoverished community', thought Finlay, 'consisting of torpid landed proprietors and lazy petty traders'.

The inaccuracy of the sentence in this article is unjustifiable. The source does not even specify religions, and the numbers are different from what was claimed here. I will now replace the misquote with the correct citation. Çerçok (talk) 06:20, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

(unindent) First of all, I will strongly advice you to learn how to write in WP talk pages. Please familiarise yourself with Misplaced Pages:Indentation rules. Second, I will again advice since you seek consensus here to not deliberately the material that 3 editors are explained already to you as violating the WP guidelines for WP:COATRACK, WP:AGEMATTERS and even the relevancy of your edits. They do not add any value, only serve your POV. This is a friendly warning, if your continue I will request from an admin to intervene. Best Othon I (talk) 08:01, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Do you deny that the source was misquoted? My last article edit did not even use any additional sources, only the one that was already there, simply correcting. Why did you restore a misquotation? Please do not divert attention to the other sources or the format. Why did you restore a misquote? Çerçok (talk) 08:25, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

WP is written according to the WP:NPOV guidelines. Additionally, you need to achieve consensus in order to add material that is challenged/disputed by other editors. Then add he material. I have not misquoted anything, I have reinstated the stable version. Again, I would advise you to stop being aggressive otherwise I will request an admin to intervene. Best Othon I (talk) 08:44, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Take it easy and stop diverting. I did not say you misquoted anything, I said you restored a misquote. Do you deny that the current version misquotes the source? Çerçok (talk) 08:52, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Please refrain from such comments and be civil. The article is stable as is, the content is sourced. The focus are the Greeks and not the Albanians. Your edits are irrelevant and do not add value, what is the value-added to specify the demographics of Athens at that time? Which was a village as well there were Greeks and other nationalities coexisting, that's what the sentence says. Read what WP:COATRACK is and familiarise yourself. Please drop the stick and move on. Othon I (talk) 09:16, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Once again you are sidetracking. The content is wrongfully sourced because it misquotes the book. I did not add the sentence on the demographics of Athens, I only corrected it. So your argument on how relevant this sentence is, has nothing to do with my edit. Please try to discuss the accuracy of the sentence which I edited, as that is the main point. I showed you the quote from the book and I showed you what the article currently states. You have to admit this is a misquote, or argue the book is accurately quoted (though I do not see how). It is that simple. Of course I won't move on until truth is established. Çerçok (talk) 09:27, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

The truth? Alright, so what you present as "truth" is a reference to what Finlay saw in Athens during a stroll. There are shed loads of other sources that do explain the situation back then in Athens, you just WP:CHERRYPICKING the one serves your POV which is near the margin of the Albanian nationalistic POV. The article is stable. If you would like to continue you need first to reach a consensus. Otherwise many users that do not comply have been banned from Balkan topics. Best Othon I (talk) 11:36, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Once again, you are avoiding the issue. The accuracy of the book is a separate thing altogether that goes beyond the matter here, and something that we can discuss subsequently. But since you have already accepted the book is reliable enough to be quoted in this article, you should also accept this simple truth: the book states something very different from what the article does. This is a misquote. It violates WP:VERIFIABILITY as it is not supported even by the source it lists. What the article currently states in indefensible. Please do not WP:COATRACK from this very simple issue, just give a reason why you insist on keeping an inaccurately cited statement in the article. And please stop with the unnecessary threats WP:CIVILITY. Çerçok (talk) 12:18, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

I have tried to help you. You do not really want to be helped. Your additions are irrelevant to the topic and are a clear example of WP:COATRACK. I have given the warning for your ethnicity based accusations to the other editors as seen above "But I am afraid the problem is the systematic deletion of everything that has to do with Albanians by Greek users and moderators (well-sourced information are being deleted in other pages too, on clearly invalid excuses).". Enough said, if you continue this, you will get the same response from other editors. Not need to waste my time more on this. Good day. Othon I (talk) 13:16, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

It's not an addition, it's a correction. You have only impeded the improvement of the article by insisting on maintaining a lie in it. You have repeatedly refused to address the issue of misquotation, repeatedly diverted the topic of discussion, and never answered why you want an inaccurately cited statement to remain. This is a clear case of WP:COATRACK in an attempt to escape the failure to comply with WP:VERIFIABILITY. I have given you at many chances to explain yourself for deleting my latest correction of the cited statement, and you have intentionally diverted. I am afraid that under the provisions of WP:VERIFIABILITY I will have to correct the statement again. The misquotation cannot stand. So I will give you one more chance to explain. Please tell us why should an inaccurately cited statement be part of this article? Çerçok (talk) 13:59, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Çerçok, as you can see from my comment below, I am sympathetic to your basic point. But your tactics are terrible. You should assume good faith -- as should those who disagree with you -- and keep the discussion civil. Your statement "I will have to correct the statement again" suggests that you intend to edit war, which is not productive and not tolerated. That statement in itself is probably enough to earn you a block. --Macrakis (talk) 15:00, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Macrakis Thank you for taking a more balanced and open approach. I am not employing any tactics; I am new here. I do not want to be part of an edit war, and as you can see I have not re-edited the article yet. WP:VERIFIABILITY states that the burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Despite several days of exchanges, Othon I has not justified why an inaccurately cited statement needs to be in the article, so still waiting. I mostly agree with what you said in the comment below, that there is a broader issue about this article and I would welcome gradual changes, however I would like to resolve this one very specific, and easily verifiable problem first. We have the correct quote from the book now, we know that the one in the article is a distortion, so really there should be no issue here, assuming good faith. Çerçok (talk) 15:37, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Could you please name the gradual changes you are referring to? Othon I (talk) 15:54, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Othon I No, this section is and always has been about one particular sentence, which inaccurately cites a book. Please, do not WP:COATRACK any further. Please explain how do you justify maintaining an inaccurate citation in this article? Çerçok (talk) 16:28, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

(←)

Çerçok correctly observed that the article doesn't treat Orthodox Albanians very clearly. Almost all mentions of Albanians in this article are to Muslim Albanians fighting for the Ottomans. But there were substantial numbers of Orthodox Albanians in Greece in 1821, and many of them fought on the Greek side: "During the Greek War of Independence, many Arvanites played an important role on fighting on the Greek side against the Ottomans, often as national Greek heroes."Arvanites#History Nowadays, the local Orthodox Albanians of Greece are called Arvanites, but in 1821, they were called Albanians.

Of course, ethnic identity is a problematic concept in this period. Linguistic, political, and religious identification didn't necessarily coincide, the terminology isn't consistent, "ethnic" identity was fluid (cf. Stoianovich), Albanian nationalism didn't exist yet, and terminology was inconsistent.

Çerçok's edits aren't great, but his point that Orthodox Albanians are not represented adequately in the article is reasonable. So rather than fighting, I would recommend that other editors try to find a way of incorporating his point using encyclopedic language and good WP:RS. --Macrakis (talk) 13:55, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Not really, Orthodox Albanian-speaking / Arvanites people are mentioned a lot in the article, there are various references to Souliotes, Hydriots and others. What exactly is missing? can you please point out? Additionally, aren't the motives of an editor as the above clear to a editor of your experience? If you believe that a stable article as such lacks of information regarding certain topics, please make any relevant suggestions. Best Othon I (talk) 15:54, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't worry too much about motives. I worry about getting a well-balanced encyclopedia article. In response to intemperate and inappropriate language like Çerçok's ("deliberately racist deletion" etc.) which does not follow WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL, I try to educate the user about our standards here, but I also try to understand whether there is a substantive issue. In this particular case, as Çerçok pointed out, this sentence is at best misleading, and at worst incorrect:

In 1821, Athens had about 10,000 people, half of whom were Christian Greeks and the other half were Muslims, being either Turks, Albanians or Greek Muslims.

This makes it sound as though all the Albanians in Athens were Muslims, which is probably not correct. After all, Christian Albanians continued to be a significant part of the population of Attica in general and Athens in particular after the revolution. Also, the term "Greek Muslim" is anachronistic here. Any Greek family which had converted to Islam was defined at the time as Muslim, and not as Greek, even if they were Greek-speaking, which many of them were.

It is also unfortunate that the article talks about Muslim Albanians as Albanians, but Orthodox Albanians under names like Souliotes and Hydriots.--Macrakis (talk) 17:31, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Again all these need to be back by WP:RS especially the claim about Athens, most of the maps do not include Athens as Greek and Albanian-speaking especially after the revolution. Brewer in his book is just referring to what Finlay saw in a stroll probably around. It is not Indeed though, Arvanites where a dominant element in areas around Athens and this is reflected in the article, I am not sure why you believe the opposite. Additionally, you mentioned "but Orthodox Albanians or Albanian-speaking people are referred under names like Souliotes and Hydriots" which I frankly do not understand what you trying to say. Souliotes who have an article are known by that name and not as Orthodox Albanian only. We could probably stress it if you trying to say that but it is really the point that adds any value? The Arvanites where of course part of the struggle but what more can be said apart from the Souliot (Orthodox Albanians), Hydriot (The majority of them where Arvanites not all of them) and Spetsiot (The majority of them where Arvanites not all of them) contribution and the the event of the Tripolitsa massacre. Last but not least, sentence pointed out indeed needs to be revised. However, it currently references a source that indicates what someone (Finlay) saw in a stroll in Athens. We need a source of demographic or as you said encyclopedic nature. I will try to find something out but in no way in Athens half of the population where Arvanites. There were various people coexisting indeed but half of them is just WP:FRINGE since Arvanites had a quarter in Plaka area (or kandyli as was known back then), I will write something inclusive once I find the source such as "In 1821, Athens had about 10,000 people, half of whom were Christian Greeks and Albanians, and the other half were Muslims, being either Turks, Albanians and Greeks.". I will also add a part about the Benizelos family who were "in charge" in Athens since I believe its notable. Best Othon I (talk) 09:49, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

You need to stop distorting the source. It does not say that half of Athens were Arvanites but Albanians. In all likelihood this includes both Orthodox and Muslim Albanians, though religion is not even specified. Please stick to what is written, it is not difficult. And this is not about the period after the war, but at its start. I am happy to see that the appearance of the word "Albanian" has inspired a rigorous concern about the accuracy of the article as well as the reliability of the source, which you had absolutely no complaints about until I discovered that it actually mentions Albanians. But there is no need stall or waste any more time looking for the distorted source, here it is: . Çerçok (talk) 10:26, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Insult me once more and you are going to be reported and an AE will be on its way. The article needs sources and not one source. If you just stick to one source you are WP:CHERRYPICKING and the statement you are sticking falls under WP:AGEMATTERS, WP:OLDSOURCES etc. and is completely outdated. And as Macrakis said above Of course, ethnic identity is a problematic concept in this period. Linguistic, political, and religious identification didn't necessarily coincide, the terminology isn't consistent, "ethnic" identity was fluid (cf. Stoianovich), Albanian nationalism didn't exist yet, and terminology was inconsistent.. These people that Brewer calls them Albanians, other sources call them Arvanites. An inclusive statement can be written but sticking to one source that fits your POV is a tantamount endorsement of POV. I am going to find more sources related to the demographics of Athens before the war. You can provide more sources here related to the changes that you want make. In any case the contribution of Orthodox Christian Albanian-speaking people who were no more than 15% of the population of the regions of Rumelia, Morea, Epirus, Macedonia, Thrace, Aegean Islands, Crete and Ionian Islands its not so much of a great event but for sure it should be mentioned as it is, for the contribution of the Souliots and other Albanian-speaking people. Othon I (talk) 11:52, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I have not insulted you in the slightest. You have been speculating about my motives and threatening for days now, and I have not complained. Not because your speculations hold any truth but because I want to focus on the issue. The fact remains, this is the one source that you yourself accepted before. When I tried to add new sources you rejected them and restored the version that only has this one. But now that you know even this source says Albanians were half of the population in Athens, suddenly it is unacceptable and you criticize it, while still protecting a sentence that distortingly refers to it. After almost a week of WP:COATRACK, you are still holding in the article an inaccurately cited statement which violates the guidelines of WP:VERIFIABILITY as well as WP:Neutral Point of View. Protecting an inaccurate statement without providing any reasons to do so is just POV pushing I'm afraid. Accuracy cannot depend on any one person's unjustified desires. Çerçok (talk) 12:41, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Firstly read and familiarise yourself with what the WP:COATRACK WP policy means and read my comment above if you believe that I am not agreeing of adding that bit. It needs more WP:RS sources. Secondly, if you don't understand that your language is aggressive and inappropriate which 3 editors have explained that to you, it does not leave any other choice than to request admin intervention. Good day Othon I (talk) 13:04, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Alright then, if you are in agreement that "Albanians" should be added to the sentence, please go ahead and do so, since my own attempt was reverted. On my part, I do agree that more sources would improve the material and I am open and willing to subsequently discuss ways of doing so. However, this particular detail can be fixed from now. Çerçok (talk) 13:24, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

What does now mean, again refrain from such comments? Once all the sources are here the sentence will be updated accordingly. I am working on this and will be done soon. Othon I (talk) 13:37, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I said now meaning all the information is already available for the correction of the citation to be made. But since are saying you will expand to a more comprehensive version soon I am happy wait and see it when it is ready. Çerçok (talk) 20:08, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

A simple issue of a misquote that can be verified and corrected with a 3 second google search has now been dragged for 10 whole days. There is still no reason given for the delay or the refusal of the correction. The source itself, is very clear. Çerçok (talk) 15:06, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

I fail to see why contemporary demographics of a specific settlement is notable in this article. By the way Athens wasn't the most populated settlement the time when the revolution broke out, while the Greek capital just after the revolution was located in Nauplion.Alexikoua (talk) 05:32, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

@Alexikoua: It is indeed irrelevant the topic of the article however my edit was to make it more inclusive since the sentence was there. I happy as well to remove it from the article because I have also expressed the fact that it is not relevant nor notable too. Thanks Othon I (talk) 07:27, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

(←) Considering Alexikoua's comment and having a closer look to the paragraph, the sentence about the demographics of Athens it is indeed not relevant nor notable to the paragraph that it was placed. I strongly believe though that it would add value to the History_of_Athens#Ottoman_Athens paragraph were it is also already included. If you agree I will move it to that but, in this article it does not fit to that place. There is no any other mention to the demographics of another town. Best Othon I (talk) 09:27, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Exactly imagine adding that Vlore had a Greek community in the article about the Albanian deceleration of Independence. It's the same kind of out of the subject information.Alexikoua (talk) 10:32, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

(←) @Alexikoua:@Othon I: Once again, the issue of relevance, completely ignored while the article wrongfully described the demography of Athens, is brought up as soon as it is corrected to mention Orthodox Albanians. This is only one instance in a long list of systematic erasures of Albanians, and most importantly Orthodox Albanians, from the history of Greece. In this particular article, Albanians are mentioned 11 times (besides one in the end that does not refer to Greece). Here they are:

-'Muslim Albanians ravaged many regions in mainland Greece'

-'the Albanian general Omer Vrioni who become infamous for his "Greek hunts" in Attica'

-'the Ottoman state turned to hiring Albanian tribesmen to fight the Greeks'

-'the bulk of the Ottoman forces in Greece were Albanian mercenaries'

-'The Albanian tribesmen, whose style of war was very similar to the Greeks, fought only for money and were liable to go home when not paid or able to plunder in lieu of pay.'

-'Gogos Bakolas betrayed his own side to the Ottomans, allowing Albanian infantry to advance up the ridge.'

-'Northern Albanian forces under Mustafa Reshit Pasha from the Pashalik of Scutari'

-'Southern Albanian forces under Omer Vrioni from the former Pashalik of Yanina'

-'During the summer the Souliot Markos Botsaris was shot dead at the Battle of Karpenisi in his attempt to stop the advance of Ottoman Albanian forces'

-'unlike the Turkish and Albanian units'

-'held by Turkish and Albanian troops'

So 11 mentions that you are not claiming to be irrelevant, each and every single one of them in association with the Ottomans. Why is one side of history included, and the other omitted? If even the mention of Orthodox Albanians is strictly forbidden and immediately edited out, the same should apply to all ethnic labels, although this would impoverish the article. Please, Alexikoua, conforming to Neutrality Guidelines, how do you justify the complete ommitance of Orthodox Albanians in this article and the regular mention of the Albanians who participated in the Ottoman campaigns? Çerçok (talk) 11:13, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

You are off topic here. Mentioning Orthodox Albanians in the article has nothing to do with the demography of Athens before the war. The sentence is about demography o Athens so it does not fit just that, it fits somewhere else e.g. here History_of_Athens#Ottoman_Athens, none said that is wrong. As for the "ommitance of the Orthodox Albanians" from the article. Please feel free to make any suggestions based on WP:RS and WP:SECONDARY sources and stop moaning about it. Othon I (talk) 11:55, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Othon I Please refrain from use of such language and try to comply with Civility. This is not off-topic. There are two issues with the way the article depicts Albanians: the narrow specific issue that the demographic details of Athens are suddenly irrelevant as soon as Albanians are brought up, and the broader issue that Albanians are unjustifiably portrayed as part of the anti-revolutionaries. Albanians have played important roles on both sides. It would be fair to either mention them in both cases or not mentioning them at all. Çerçok (talk) 13:31, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

No it is not relevant for the paragraph, I have edited the line without reading the whole paragraph but since I read it after Alexikoua pointed that out, I agree that it is indeed not relevant to add the demographics of Athens when the topic is the fight in central Greece. In any case, it is relevant for this section History_of_Athens#Ottoman_Athens. As I said, please feel free bring the adequate WP:RS and WP:SECONDARY and add the related topics that you believe that are missing and again stop the accusations about omittance etc., a week ban was not enough for you? Othon I (talk) 14:56, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

What accusation? I don't think I accused you of anything. You should stop threatening though. If wish to ban me, go ahead with your plans if you wish. I agree on the info being more relevant to the history of Athens page. As for this article, I will prepare some improvements and present them here. Çerçok (talk) 19:09, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Cercok: the use of ethnographic terms on such a way is problematic, also note that "Turkoalbanian" is also used plenty of times but we avoid to make use of it.Alexikoua (talk) 13:12, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

"Turkoalbanian" is a problematic, politically charged, and outdated term which falsely equates religion with ethnicity. The corresponding problematic terms were "Latin Albanian" and "Greek Albanian". I agree that these should not be used any more. Orthodox Albanians, on the other hand, only means Albanians of the Orthodox faith, and just like Catholic Albanians or Muslim Albanians, is not offensive or problematic in any way. Please try to focus on the grave misrepresentation of Albanians rather than on these obvious non-issues. Çerçok (talk) 13:31, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Infobox

MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE says the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article. There is no mention of the Regency of Algiers (or any form of Algiers) nor Beylik of Tunis (ditto for Tunis) in the article, therefore they don't get mentioned in the infobox. Should there by any more entries than need removing then do, that does not justify the retention of entries that violation the guideline. FDW777 (talk) 16:26, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@FDW777:Now that these are mentionned by their name, are you satisfied and will you self-revert ? --Phso2 (talk) 17:34, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Ethnic Cleansign and Massacres Sources

I posted this at talk about quotes needed. But people still deleting information and sources.

See the wikipedia article. The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 defined ethnic cleansing as "a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas".

William St. Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free The Philhellenes in the War of Independence, especially Chapter 4 "Two Kinds of War" clearly describes ethnic cleansign. It is telling how many turks were there and after the massacres most of them were dead with the exception a little partion who managed the excape. Their holdings and valuables confiscated. The region had a lot turkish residents and they had been killed or sold the slavery. "Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous." this is from wiki article. What happened to turks was systematic, it was forced removel, it was based on ethnicity and it created a homogeneous region. In conclusion it was a ethnic cleansing. in page 41 "The Greeks, however, offered a convention whereby they would be granted a secure passage to Africa. They had neither the intention nor even the means of doing this and one of the Greek negotiators boasted later that he destroyed the copy of the agreement so that no evidence should remain. When the gates were opened the Greeks rushed in and the whole population of between 2,000 and 3,000 were killed with the exception of about 160 who managed to escape." says their intentions and means were killinn the local turkish population and they did so. The spelling of ethnic cleansign was not there but according to wikipedia definitions it was ethnic cleansign.

Phillips, Alison W. The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833 in chapter 4; page 48 and 49 "Everywhere, as though at a preconcerted signal, the peasantry rose, and massacred all the Turks men, women, and children on whom they could lay hands. In the Morea shall no Turk be left, Nor in the whole wide world. Thus rang the song which, from mouth to mouth, announced the beginning of a war of extermination. The Mussulman population of the Morea had been reckoned at twenty-five thousand souls. Within three weeks of the outbreak of the revolt, not a Moslem was left, save those who had succeeded in escaping into the towns." "...With an imposing religious ceremonial a crucifix was erected in the central square of the town, and a pro- clamation issued in the name of the Greek leaders, containing merely these emphatic words, * Peace to the Christians ! Eespect to the consuls ! Death to the Turks.' l The sole immediate result, however, of the rising at Patras was the destruction of a once flourish- ing town." page 51 "Kalamata, besieged by Petrobey and his Mainotes, had fallen even before the arrival of Kolokotrones. Of the Ottoman inhabitants, the men were massacred, the women and children enslaved ; and on the banks of the wild mountain torrent that rushed past the town twenty-four gorgeously vested priests, surrounded by an army of five thousand warriors, sang a solemn Te Deum, in celebration of the first victory of the war." page 57 "The Turks, weakened by famine, and rendered desperate, whether they trusted the promises or not, grasped at the last straw of hope that was held out to them. They opened the gates of their citadel, and laid down their arms. The greater number of them now elected to go into exile ; and the work of embarkation began. Six hundred had already gone on board the brigs, when, suddenly, the Mainotes burst into the town, murdering and outraging all those who had not as yet succeeded in reaching the shore, or who, trust- ing in the promise of Prince Demetrius that their homes and lives would be spared, had chosen to remain in the town." page "they plundered the Turks, and forced the Jews to give up to them all the money and jewellery in their possession. With the wealth of which they were thus deprived these poor wretches had hoped to purchase the protection of the captains of the Armatoli; and as soon as they could do so, they informed the Greeks of Nourka's treachery, and laid down their arms on promise of personal safety. That promise was immediately violated. The massacre commenced with the Jews. Men, women, and children were murdered without mercy, after being tortured to make them reveal their supposed hidden treasures. The poorer Mussulmans shared the same fate." Again clearly describing ethnic cleansign and even genocide. I can not quote all the book but there are many more paragraphs telling the massacres and intentions of ethnic cleansign.

Please look with neutral point of view not with nationalistic view. If you think soruces somewhat invalid then explain yourself. Do not undo things just because you don't like it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Göktuğ Canik (talk • contribs) 18:00, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

See WP:NOR, also WP:UNDUE once you get over the original research hurdle. FDW777 (talk) 19:06, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Theese boks are not results of original research. First you said you read the books and there was no part in theese book about information given. After giving some quotes, you are saying no original research. In the first page of the second book first paragraph says "this book is not result of original research." So you did not read the books. Stop lying and being one sided.

"Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Sources are reliable and neutral. "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Misplaced Pages editors or the general public." According to reliable sources ethnic cleansign viewpoint is held by a significant minority and massacres viewpoint are in the majority. Göktuğ Canik (talk) 19:55, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it is original research. It's classic synthesis to take a definition and claim any incident meets that definition. FDW777 (talk) 20:12, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Not to mention also WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS and WP:UNDUE. Khirurg (talk) 20:23, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Dear turkish users, have you noticed that the article is about a national revolution, and not about a chess tournament?--Skylax30 (talk) 13:48, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Grossly imbalanced representation of Albanians

This article is in an unjustifiable state of double standards. I already brought this up several months ago, and after all this time, very disappointingly, I see that noting has changed. Albanians were involved in the revolution in both the Ottoman and the anti-Ottoman forces, and played important roles for both sides. This article mentions Albanians a total of 12 times, every single one of these times in connection to the Ottomans. This is unacceptable. I am now starting this section to discuss how to make the article more balanced. My suggestion is to include some sentences noting the role the Albanians played in some of the important battles against the Ottomans, possible in relation to Hydriots and Souliots, among others. Çerçok (talk) 12:05, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Hydriots and Souliotes are mentioned several times in the article. Additionally Ottoman Albanian forces are mentioned also several times in the article since most of the Ottoman forces have been dispached from Albania or were in well known battles such us the one in Kefalovryso which they Ottoman Albanians of Mustai Pasha killed Botsaris. What do you suggest? To rename Hydriots and Souliotes to Orthodox Christian Albanians or Albanian-speaking people? I don’t know if there is any RS that can back this since these people are known by these names per WP:NOTABILITY. In any case please feel free to bring reliable and secondary RS and I will be more than happy to discuss. Best Othon I (talk) 12:16, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. I suggest that ethnicity gets mentioned both ways, not only in the case of Albanians in the Ottoman army. There are many perfectly reliable sources who mention Souliotes, Hydriotes, and others as Albanians, specifically as Christian Albanians, so the same standard can be applied in both cases. But now that you mentioned this, I believe it is necessary to make an improvement to the Souliotes article first, then come back here. Çerçok (talk) 18:39, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Nope. If you have problems with other articles, take the discussion to their respective talk pages, not here. I will kindly ask that editors refrain from ethnic flag planting of modern-day nationalist politics with historical events of the past. Heck, some heroes of the LGBT community participated in the Greek War of Independence, but I am not going down to the path of talking about their identities or asking for them to be included even though the War of Independence had some unfortunate influence upon from the Church, while the presence of LGBT elements in the War of Independence is omitted. If the identities of people have contributed somehow to the historic event, then yes, these entities may be mentioned cautiously, per WP:BALANCING. However even if that is the case, having strong sources isn't just required, they have to explicitly state that their ethnicity or origin had contributed or was WP:RELEVANT to the War of Independence. Anything less than that is just more unencyclopedic WP:BALKANS-level of ethnic flag planting serving only nationalist political agendas. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 20:05, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

What SilentResident said. If you're thinking of changing every mention of Hydriots, Soulites, etc, to "Christian Albanians", that's not going to happen. Khirurg (talk) 05:17, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I completely agree with Çerçok here. Unfortunately the article is currently trying to diminish the tremendous contributions of ethnic minorities to the Greek War of Independence. This follows the Greek nationalist and fringe viewpoint that said minorities never existed and were "Greek". This is unacceptable. Many sections of the article need to be rewritten to accurately describe how the events actually happened. Ahmet Q. (talk) 06:48, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

What is certainly fringe is the massive contribution of the so called "Albanians" or Arvanites in the Greek War of Independence which such wasn't really massive event, apart from Souliots, some Hydriots and some Spetsiots, I do not really see any other Albanian-speaking people contributing that do worth noting them. Now if you would like to push your typical nationalist POV, good luck with that. Suggest here your edits and the community will discuss whether to include or not. PS, for the record, the article Greeks is about Greeks from the ancient times up to the point of modern times not only modern times. I noticed that you have a similar confusion about it as Botushali, I am more than happy to explain to you its scope however, an editor that edits articles of a topic that fail to understand or has a limited capability to understand should familiriase themselves with the scope of the article, or request help from the community and the community is more than happy to help for certain. Othon I (talk) 07:19, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

so called "Albanians" nice way to directly demonstrate your POV, I know you have had in the past difficulties accepting the fact that Arvanites and Souliotes are of Albanian origin. But do not worry, every single ethnic minority's contributions will be discussed in the article. As for the article about modern Greeks which some POV-pushing editors are trying to confuse with the unrelated ancient Greeks; there is no continuity between said populations. I know this might come as a shocker to POV-editors with limited knowledge about the subject, it is simply a fringe viewpoint that has no place on Misplaced Pages. Fortunately, I have a surprise in that regard coming. Ahmet Q. (talk) 07:48, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I am not sure what do you mean, I am perfectly fine with the fact that Arvanites are of Albanian origin and I have even contributed about it. As your POV of no continuity? What continuity? If you can prove the Greek culture and language does not have continuity then be my guest. Please bring reliable WP:RS and secondary sources and I am happy to discuss. PS, the "so called Albanians" goes to the fact that they have been identifiying themselves as Arvanites not Albanians. Albanians is the term used as an exonym to these people. Othon I (talk) 07:59, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

The Greek War of Independence isn't "Greek" because "only ethnic Greeks" fought in it as the War's name may somehow falsely suggest in the eyes of certain editors, (and thus, causing them to feel, perhaps, that their nation's contributions to it as being downplayed or unappreciated?). The War is "Greek" only in the sense that it led to the formation of the Greek state. Period. Those who fought in the War for Greece's independence are from what I know so far, even Albanians, and the Arvanites who do not identify themselves as Albanians, Italians, Slavs, Romas, Pomaks, Aromanians, and other Wallachians who do not identify themselves as Aromanians, fought for the Greek cause. Even English, French, Americans and Russians. Of all faiths. Even Catholics and Orthodox Christians, Sunni Muslims, and even Atheists. To not mention the LGBTQI people as mentioned earlier in this discussion. (My apologies if I missed any groups.) Yet, I am not hearing other groups, be it ethnic, religious or social ones, seeking to be treated with more spotlight than needed for the scope of the article just to prove a WP:POINT. Now, whoever here seeks to stir unnecessary debates of "giving more WP:UNDUE prominence" to a certain group based solely on the criteria of ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation rather than to the notability of their contributions to the War's cause, then they aren't here to improve the article but to prove that nationality does matter somehow even though this isn't the present article's concern, since the Greek War of Independence wasn't a war based on these characteristics. If the editors insist, then perhaps a discussion should open at the AE. Some of you may not be aware, so allow me to remind you that the AE has made clear one thing: that nationalist disruption in the WP:BALKANS topic area has to be monitored and tackled decisively. and I can't describe how far this discussion's goal is from the AE's goal. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 13:22, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment: I am really saddened with how such a discussion has opened, because it actually hurts my own plans to add a section in the Greek war of Independence mentioning exactly all these groups. Because the Greek War of Independence was notable for the participation of multiple ethnicities, religions and social groups of different backgrounds, united by one goal. For as long as editors keep raising nationalist debates like that, it makes me wonder if I am opening a Pandora's box here. I still am trying to believe I am not. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 13:40, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

The only sad part here is that even though I only said that ethnicity can be mentioned both ways, you preemptively decided that this is unacceptable without even waiting for a specific suggestion on my part (unlike Othon I who at least is willing to assess). Actually I was going to say that one option is to add a section which deals with this issue, without interfering much with the existing form of the article, while another is to add details throughout the article to adjust the current imbalance. Çerçok (talk) 17:10, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

The only sad part here is that your edit history and contributions log show a heavy (and non-encyclopedic if I may say) ethnicity-related edit pattern in the WP:BALKANS topic area which appears persistent at least, as is the case for more editors around here, even editors who are editing in other topic areas which too fall under wp:Balkans. At the AE, editors got (and please, remember carefully this statement of mine because the admins can attest to this) got topic-banned for less serious patterns than this. And no. I am not "threatening" as you probably go assume now, but denoting how problematic this whole thing is. An editor giving a heavy emphasis on ethnicity, is raising ethnic debates on various articles. That's not happening elsewhere in Misplaced Pages at the same level as it happens here. And since this is not a mere content dispute but behavioral issue damaging the Balkans Topic Area, then it is as serious as it can get. Only very few other topic areas have that frequent ethnic-based disruption except perhaps Caucasus and the Middle East topic areas, where the AE already enforced a number of topic bans to accounts doing ethnic edits with much shorter contribs logs as yours. Do you realize how problematic this is? Because I do.

But guess what. Some of you editors, will have realized by now, without me mentioning it, how patient I have been trying to be for not bringing this to the AE's attention already, mainly because some editors are already making tangible improvements to their editorial conduct, with some of them acting like true Wikipedians around who seek to improve the project, such as User:Ktrimi991 who I personally like alot and respect despite our heated past. I was hoping more editors from the Albania Topic Area will follow his fine example of editorial maturity but, witnessing this debate now, doesn't exactly give me alot of faith that problems are over yet. This is just one more addition of a long problematic edit pattern your account has been involved with, which won't look good in front of the AE, whose scrutiny is notorious. And trust me, I have a good reason to take things seriously here in Misplaced Pages. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 18:49, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I invite you tell me exactly what I did wrong in this section of the talk page that I opened, because I do not know. I agree that ethnicity-related edits are an important issue in Balkan articles, and that is exactly what I am trying to address. Çerçok (talk) 19:12, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I do not wish to enter into the substance of the discussion or respond to some inexact points made above, but I think it would be easier to reach an agreement were all parties to it sharing some common points of reference about the matter discussed. So, I find the analogy made above between Albanians and LGBT people rather unfortunate. I hope the reason is obvious, but fwiw I quote from a recent synethetic work on the Greek revolution, Mazower's The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe (2021), p. xxxv: "the most important thing to realize about the war of 1821 is that it was not really a two-way Greco-Turkish struggle at all: if one thing was perfectly obvious at the time, it was the exceptionally large and often decisive role played in the conflict by the Albanians, both Christian and Muslim." In this sense, I do not think it of no use to suggest to anyone interested in the matter to take into consideration scholarly writings on the importance of the actions and, perhaps more importantly, the inaction of Albanian troops for the development of the Greek uprising until Ibrahim entered the scene, such as this by Hakan Erdem or this more recent take on the matter, which is based on newly assessed Ottoman archival documents. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 07:34, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you again Ashmedai 119 for this very interesting and useful comment. The article urgently needs some rewriting. Considering your neutral and professional approach to the article about the Macedonians, I think you would be the perfect user for doing that. Do you mind improving the article? Ahmet Q. (talk) 08:15, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Ashmedai, thing is, there is no analogy between Albanians and LGBT people. We are not talking about sizes there. Nationalities of people as being more significant due to numbers isn't something that can be disputed here I think. But the point here - which every editor should keep in mind - is that the actual participation in the war of independence was done for reasons that surpass the people's personal identities. Albanians and Greeks, Slavs, Romas and Pomaks didn't unite forces to fight the Ottoman Empire because of their ethnicity but because the people and groups living in the Greek peninsula tried to gain their freedom after centuries of slavery and oppression. This is not something that may be changed just because some editors around may feel that ethnicities should matter more than their actions and goals in participating in the war which are the focus and scope of the article. Just making myself clear here. Ι would rather let Ashmedai propose improvements to the article here in the talk page so we can discuss them rather than seeing someone with a heavy nationalist contribs log. In this context, Ashmedai is welcome to suggest any improvements, while Ahmet Q is reminded that the Greek War of Independence is a high profile article and editors from the Albania Topic Area are not allowed to spill over there any nationalist flag planting (like how it was done anywhere else in the WP:BALKANS topic Area, for which I am still wary and I have filled the Admins such as EdJohnston about it). Any improvements should be careful, and that means, to not deviate the focus from the scope of the article, by avoiding WP:UNDUE, WP:BALANCING, WP:RELEVANT problems. For a positive WP:GOODFAITH step towards the right direction, I believe the proposals here in the talk page should mention not only Albanians but also contributions of the other ethnicities without dismissing them on faulty grounds such as "being less significant because of their small population sizes" or "their small impact to the war". When people and groups join and fight in a war, analogy-based arguments like this should have no place here at all, especially from the moment the Greek War of Independence is notable for its multi-ethnic character. Considering this, the groups should be covered adequately. I want to believe that no editor here with reasonable concerns of group representation in articles, would disagree to that basic encyclopedic principle? --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 10:07, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Ι would rather let Ashmedai propose improvements to the article here in the talk page so we can discuss them rather than seeing someone with a heavy nationalist contribs log. In this context, Ashmedai is welcome to suggest any improvements, while Ahmet Q is reminded that the Greek War of Independence is a high profile article and editors from the Albania Topic Area are not allowed to spill over there any nationalist flag planting

As I understand, editing is not restricted by nationality or by Topic Area editing history. I would also welcome a suggestion for improvement by Ashmedai that we can discuss here.

But the point here - which every editor should keep in mind - is that the actual participation in the war of independence was done for reasons that surpass the people's personal identities. Albanians and Greeks, Slavs, Romas and Pomaks didn't unite forces to fight the Ottoman Empire because of their ethnicity but because the people and groups living in the Greek peninsula tried to gain their freedom after centuries of slavery and oppression. This is not something that may be changed just because some editors around may feel that ethnicities should matter more than their actions and goals in participating in the war which are the focus and scope of the article.

Good point, but you need to apply it evenly. The first step is to recognize that this article has been affected by the same nationalistic editing that you are criticizing, then improve it.

The same argument has come up before when Albanians anti-Ottomans or even just Christian Albanians in Greece were discussed. Your objection to a not yet proposed edit, reminds me of how last year I corrected a citation about the population of Athens at the start of the war which manipulated the source entirely. Suddenly, editors who had not complained about ethnicity mentioned manipulatively in the citation, intervened with the "ethnicity does not matter" argument. And indeed all mention of ethnicity was erased in that paragraph. Similar pattern, ethnicity is stated pro-Ottoman Albanians, and not stated for anti-Ottoman ones. That is flag-planting pure and simple.

You claim to oppose nationalistic writing, then please recognize it in this article first, then we can talk about improvements.

We are not talking about sizes there... ...For a positive WP:GOODFAITH step towards the right direction, I believe the proposals here in the talk page should mention not only Albanians but also contributions of the other ethnicities without dismissing them on faulty grounds such as "being less significant because of their small population sizes" or "their small impact to the war".

No one is talking about sizes, and I don't think anyone has any objections to other groups being mentioned adequately. Çerçok (talk) 12:51, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

"Good point, but you need to apply it evenly. The first step is to recognize that this article has been affected by the same nationalistic editing that you are criticizing, then improve it." Çerçok, contrary to you, I am not seeing articles from the purely WP:NATIONALIST Albanian perspective of yours. IMO the problem affects multiple groups as I have stated here about "my own plans to add a section in the Greek war of Independence mentioning exactly all these groups." Under different circumstances, I would have been a natural ally to you and support your changes to the article since I myself too have spotted room for improvements. I trust Ashmedai 119 can make some balanced proposals which we can discuss. In meantime, I will kindly ask that any editors avoid edit warring around here and that they wait for consensus here in the talk page if they don't want to end up at the AE. The mess seen in the other Balkan topic areas won't be tolerated here. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 14:18, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

That is just your opinion. From what I have read in this talk page section, in my opinion you are seeing things precisely and purely through a nationalist perspective. And a very common one too, same as many others, not only here on Misplaced Pages. But how we see each-other is irrelevant to the improvement of the article. As we wait to see if Ashmedai would suggest an improvement, if you won't answer my questions, at least please stop threatening reactions to things that have not happened and responding to points that have not been made. Çerçok (talk) 15:25, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

You had asked "what you did wrong to open this discussion", and I just pointed to your contribs log. Isn't that enough of an answer already? This exactly is what concerns me, so excuse me if I am asking that we work towards a wp:consensus on how to improve the article regarding the ethnicity. Good day. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 16:40, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I also find the focus (some could say obsession) with ethnicity as tendentious and nationalistic. The war was very much fought on religious lines (Christians vs. Muslims). Khirurg (talk) 17:43, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

The only obsession I could see here are users trying, rather desperately, to not include the contributions of one ethnic group to the War of Independence. SilentResident your personal attacks against Çerçok have to stop. Your claims of Albanian nationalism against this user are unfounded and could easily get you sanctioned. Furthermore, if anyone here has a long (very long) history of disruptive editing, it is you. Since you have the habit of mentioning AE, why don't you open now a request? I think that might be really interesting and way better than making indirect threats. Ahmet Q. (talk) 18:05, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Don't derail the discussion by personalizing it. Talkpages are discussing content, not contributors. As far as sanctionable behavior, this would be the perfect example. I have seen editors sanctioned for a lot less. Khirurg (talk) 18:18, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

You came here just to accuse the other side of the dispute of having an "obsession" and a "tendentious and nationalistic" stance. So before asking other editors to not derail the discussion, make sure you are not the one who derails it. Ktrimi991 (talk) 18:33, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I didn't accuse anyone of anything. It was a general observation. I do think the focus on ethnicity in what was primarily a religious war to be tendentious. Khirurg (talk) 18:44, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

This whole out-of-topic dispute started from projections based on my previous contributions, so again, good point, but apply it evenly. Çerçok (talk) 21:43, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment Before our community of Balkan editors tackles with its expertise the issue of ethnicity will anyone bother to replace the semi-fictional Brewer, David The Greek War of Independence, London: Overlook Duckworth, 2011 with an actual academic source? Just in the last three years, at least 4 such studies have been published. The audience can read in the article the following piece from this source:
The Greeks had not expected Ibrahim Pasha to land during the stormy winter weather, and were taken by surprise. The Greeks initially laughed at the Egyptian soldiers, who were short, skinny fallāḥīn (peasant) conscripts, many of them blind in one eye owing to the prevalence of parasitic worms that attacked the eye in the Nile, wearing cheap red uniforms comprising a jacket, trousers and a skull-cap. However, the Greeks soon learned that the Egyptians, who were trained by French officers recruited by Mohammed Ali, were tough and hardy soldiers who, unlike the Turkish and Albanian units that the Greeks had been fighting until then, stood their ground in combat. --Maleschreiber (talk) 15:30, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

OK, after reading the talk section over and over, I am having the impression no one does dispute the fact that the Albanian-speaking subjects revolted against Ottoman rule, and joined the Greek-speaking subjects in the War of Independence. Nor does anyone dispute that the contributions of these groups were notable. Correct? --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 20:00, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Well not quite. Orthodox Albanian-speakers rose up together with the Greeks. Muslim Albanians overwhelmingly sided with the Ottomans and fought for the Ottomans. The religious dimension seems far more important and explanatory than the ethnic one, I'd say. Khirurg (talk) 20:31, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for returning to the main issue. I agree with that statement, although it is more nuanced than that. For example, Mazower (same book that was quoted above) states: "A few Muslim men actually fought on the Greek side – mostly Albanians. Mustafa Ghekas headed a so-called ‘Ottoman’ unit of several dozen mostly Albanian Muslims from small towns in central Greece such as Thebes and Livadeia". And of course there are cases of Christians fighting for the Ottomans. Personally, I would like to see these details at least mentioned somewhere, but if these are deemed to insignificant to be included by a majority of editors, I will agree with that decision. My primary concern is to address the overall imbalance in the presentation of Albanians in this article (and I am not excluding other groups here). Çerçok (talk) 21:59, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that the few exceptions on either side are significant, e.g. a few dozen men. Regarding your primary concern, can you give some concrete examples of the imbalance in the presentation of Albanians in the article and some suggestions on how to address it? That would be helpful. Khirurg (talk) 23:32, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I already mentioned two options above, but since we decided to allow Ashmedai to propose an improvement, I am waiting for that. Çerçok (talk) 23:36, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, Muslims fought at Greek side, and this is a fact. And from what I understand, I don't think they were too few to be meaningless for the article. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 08:04, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

For clarification, @Ashmedai 119: are you preparing a text proposal to add to the article? If not, can you @Çerçok: do so? Ktrimi991 (talk) 15:19, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I tried to think some proposals to add to the article without creating a new section but that was not possible without rewriting of existing sections in the article to make it reasonable to mention the identities without interrupting the natural flow of text but I am lazy to do that as it will require some effort. I think it will be easier if a separate section is created instead, provided that it is balanced, considering the size of the rest of the article. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 17:38, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, a separate section could work well. It could include info on Aromanians too, as some Aromanians gave a very notable contribution. Idk about Slavs/Slavic-speakers. Ktrimi991 (talk) 17:48, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

If the other groups are covered too in the proposals, if they indeed intend to make any, that will save me time and I will be grateful. Perhaps a message may be left at the relevant National Wikiprojects asking for help? I know that besides Russians, South Slavs also have contributed too, but their sub-group identification is where help will be appreciated. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 21:49, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. Vasos Mavrovouniotis comes to mind, for one. But any proposed additions should be very mindful of length, because the article is already extremely long at 103 kb of prose, well over the recommended 100 kb maximum. Khirurg (talk) 23:43, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Albeit the concerns I am having about section length, for me are about analogies here: the section size compared to article length. An article about a War of independence known not its ethnic character, but mainly for being idealistic. (Idealistic, because the Christian Balkan subjects of the Empire fought for the ideals of freedom and self-determination, revolting against the tyranny of an autocratic imperial government that imposed them the notorious Blood Tax, "Devshirme" (at some point, each Greek Christian and other Christian family was obliged to sacrifice a member, and specifically donate the first male child born in the family to Ottoman authorities at a very young age, never to be seen again), plus the discrimination in the empire, on both financial and religious grounds, with Christians having to pay disproportionally higher financial taxes compared to fellow Ottoman subjects who followed the state religion, and depriving the empire's people of access to quality education and the chance to experience the process of the Renaissance the rest of the West has already been through) then the section may be informative on the matter of ethnicity but without being disproportionate to the article size, giving the impression that this revolution was about ethnicities. - ❖ SilentResident ❖ 06:16, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Idealizing the War of Independence as a religious war is oversimplifying the events. Multiple complex factors including ethnicity played an important role during the war, it cannot simply be described as a war between Christians and Muslims. Ahmet Q. (talk) 07:44, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Summarizing the academic consensus on the main factors (being treated as 2nd-class citizens, social, financial and educational discrimination, etc) and sentiments (historical, political and religious, etc) that were fueling the revolts and led to the eventual revolution against Ottoman rule isn't an attempt at "idealizing" the war I am afraid. Is a reminder to the editors, including you and me, to not turn this debate about a non-ethnic war into one where ethnicity mattered really up to the point of even creating a separate section about ethnicities in an article about an war that wasn't ethnic. As a matter of fact, in that war, Greeks fought Greeks, and Albanians fought Albanians. Facts are facts and this is indisputable. A small separate section is as much as this article can have so any information in it will have to be concise and be WP:RELEVANT and contribute to the overall scope ofthe article. This means, any mention of ethnicties should be WP:BALANCING to the rest of the article content without deviating focus from it. Got it? --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 08:25, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

The length of the section will be determined by the amount of relevant content available and not by your personal preferences. So you deciding that it will be small, before any content has been discussed is not constructive and doesn't portray good faith. I'll remind you that you are the one who proposed a separate section because you didn't want to change much of the current article. I would have preferred incorporating reliable sources about the subject in the different sections of the article.

Writing about populations other than the Greeks is not focusing the article on ethnicity, it is merely accurately describing historical events. By your logic we should remove any reference of Greek and Turkish from the article, this would obviously be absurd. Also, not all the contributions of the minorities were equal, some did more than others. This should be accurately portrayed in the sections per WP:RELEVANT. I will refer to Ashmedai's comment where they quoted a line of Mazower's brilliant work about the Greek Revolution: the most important thing to realize about the war of 1821 is that it was not really a two-way Greco-Turkish struggle at all: if one thing was perfectly obvious at the time, it was the exceptionally large and often decisive role played in the conflict by the Albanians, both Christian and Muslim. Ahmet Q. (talk) 11:58, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

"The length of the section will be determined by the amount of relevant content available that's what the essay WP:RELEVANT which I have been pointing to, does say, and I am glad you agree with me on that. "and not by your personal preferences." No personal preferences. In fact, Relevant is an assay, yes, but WP:BALANCING (another one I have been pointing you to) is far more important, is part of one of the 5 core pillars of Misplaced Pages, WP:NPOV and states (copy-pasting here for everyone's convenience): An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject.. Waiting for proposals. Good day. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 15:26, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind comments above and for the tag. I should say in advance that I do not consider myself possessing some kind of special expertise when it comes to the Greek War of Independence. Nevertheless, I am skeptical of the soundness of creating a separate section on Balkan non-Greek speakers who fought with the Greek side -- what would the point of such a section be? I think it would seem more like a list, as there is imo not that much connecting the course of the Slav-speaking cavalrymen of Hadji-Christos Dagovic with the Albanian-speaking Souliots. Perhaps a short paragraph should be added in the section on "Philhellenism" (now covering only Western Philhellenes)? I am thinking loudly. In any case it should be taken into consideration that Balkan Christian Slavs were at the time seen not as "Philhellenes" but as "other Greeks", in a way that Germans, for example, were not and indeed could not. The pro-Greek Muslims are of a smaller number, but perhaps worthy of a mention, if only for what they mean about the character of the revolution: a religious war for the masses of the Rhomaioi, but also one with a civic dimension, so that one could be an "Ottoman by religion and a Greek by country", as somebody formulated at the time (cited in Loucatos, «Les arabes et les turcs philhellènes pendant l’insurrection pour l’indépendance de la Grèce«, Balkan Studies 1980.)

As far as the question of the Albanian-speakers/Albanians is concerned, I think the following changes could and should be made to the article: 1. add a passage describing the gradual entanglement of the Souliots in the Greek uprising (using Psimouli's book on Markos Botsaris and Tzakis's chapter from the Critical Dictionary (Kitromilides and Tsoucalas, eds) and also mention their participation in important military events, 2. clearly state that the navymen of Hydra and Spetses as well as the Souliots were Albanian-speakers 3. edit the passage concerning the employment of Albanian troops from the Ottomans until 1824 ("Short of men and money... in lieu of pay"), which is currently supported by way of reference to Brewer's questionable book, substitute references to Brewer with references to the more recent and scientific writings of Erdem and Ilıcak (linked in a previous message of mine in this discussion) and perhaps also expand it, 4. consider adding a passage on the Albanian factor during the last phase of the war and during the delimitation of the Greco-Ottoman frontier (Erdem and Gounaris, Δεν είν' ο περσινός καιρός...). I have not understood if this is the kind of changes that Çerçok had in mind, and of course I do not know what other editors think of them. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 20:47, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

That's even better. I like this. I consider your idea to be naturally more WP:BALANCING since it integrates the extra bit of info to the article without deviating from the article's scope. I admit my "proposal" for creating a separate section is merely the result of my laziness in messing with the article's existing content.Thank you very much, Ashmedai 119. Who else agrees with that? What do the others think about this? --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ 21:12, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you Ashmedai 119 for taking the time. I agree with these proposals, with only a few further suggestions: 1- Albanian-speakers is a pretty slippery term. Instead I would use simply Albanians, or Christian Albanians, especially for well-sourced cases such as the Souliotes. I would not be against putting that in the broader context of them gradually embracing the idea of Greek statehood and eventually nationality. 2- Since the highly politicized matter of ethnicity is being discussed, I would use Mazower, as more detached from Balkan political bias, as the main reference for these changes. Kitromilides and Tsoucalas should be consulted too of course. If we are all in agreement with such changes, I can suggest the edits here. Çerçok (talk) 00:01, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I generally agree with Ashmedai's proposals, and also think that they are better than creating a separate section, as these have a habit of growing quite large usually. I certainly don't agree that the Spetsiotes and Hydriotes should be described as "Albanians" in this article, since that is not true for all of them. For the Souliotes I am more flexible, although anyone interested in their ethnic origin can consult the Souliotes article. This article is about the war, not the ethnic origin of this and that group. I do agree regarding Mazower. On a separate note, given that there is a whole article on Serbs and Montenegrins in the Greek War of Independence, some mention of them should be made as well (e.g. Vasos Mavrovuoniotis. Khirurg (talk) 04:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Ashmedai and Çerçok as well. @Ashmedai 119 could you make the edits you proposed? Ahmet Q. (talk) 08:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the tag. I will be trying to do the proposed edits by Tuesday, but there is a significant probability that I will have only prepared part of them by then, and I am afraid that chances are my free time will be dwindling from then onwards for reasons beyond my volition. Regardless, there is an additional problem in the sense that this is a strange time of the year for me as I do not carry with me some of the materials that I mentioned above (Gounaris's book and Psimoulis's biography of Botsaris). However, an article version of the former is here and the main points of Psimouli's narration are included (to the best of my memory) in this, the second instalment of a two-part article series of hers in a Greek lay journal. If this does not pose a problem with other editors, I could provisionally use these digital versions for the time being and perhaps substitute the references in early to mid-September, when I will be able to.

Two additional notes: I do empathize with the aversion to nationalist takes on history, all too common in Balnak historiography, however, this should not be taken to mean that all historical scholarship from Balkan nationals should be automatically considered ladden with sins of such kind. I have also noted that there is a disagreement re the description of the Souliots, which is currently under discussion in the article's talk pages and which, in my view of the logic of things, means that it would be better to resolve it first before adding the material on the Souliots here. Cheers, Ashmedai 119 (talk) 04:33, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Categories: