Originally published on February 3, 2025 at 4:00 AM (Episode 394)
Introduction
If English speakers—or French speakers, or Spanish speakers, or really most any speaker of any language other than Greek…or Turkish—think about the Greek Revolution at all, then that’s amazing. If they do not, they continue to ignore one of the most consequential events of the 19th century: a series of imperial overlaps, social convulsions, massacres, sieges, expulsions, and battles that not only resulted in an independent Greece, but also changed forever the culture of the eastern Mediterranean, and birthed nationalism as both an idea and a lived reality.
The Greek Revolution wasn’t just about independence—it redefined identity, nationalism, and what a Greek actually was. Yanni Kotsonis joins me to discuss his new book The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism (Princeton, 2025). We touch on overlapping empires, cultural upheavals, and violent transformations that forged modern Greece and helped invent modern nationalism.
About the Guest
Yanni Kotsonis is Professor of History at New York University, where he was founding director of the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia. Raised in Athens, he was educated in Montreal, Copenhagen, London, and Moscow. He is the author of several works on modern Greece, Russia, and the history of nationalism.
For Further Investigation
Yanni Kotsonis, The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism (Princeton, 2025)
Mark Mazower, The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe (Penguin, 2022)
Roderick Beaton, The Greeks: A Global History (Basic Books, 2021)
Related Episodes
“The Greeks”—a three thousand year overview
“Amber Waves of Grain”—Ukrainian grain, and Greek grain merchants, were important for Greek independence
Listen & Discuss
Do you think nationalism was “born violent”—or could it have emerged differently? Share your thoughts in the comments, or better yet, share this episode with a friend.
