Greek Revolution Dbq

People who supported the Greek revolution thought of Greece as home of the Greek Empire and therefore thought of the character of the Greek to be similar of their ancestors. On the other hand, opponents of the revolution viewed the Greeks of the revolution as drunken criminals. Either way, the current condition of the Greeks was that of oppression as the Turkish army used violence on the Greek citizens.

To supporters of the revolution, Greece stood for the beginning of modern civilization. Shelly writes (D 7) that Europeans were all Greeks as their culture has roots in ancient Greece, and Davis (D 1) writes that Greece was the place where Plato taught, symbolizing the beginnings of philosophy and sciences as Plato was an important intellectual figure. Shelly and Davis's writings were written conjuring images of nationalism, indicating the writers were sympathetic to nationalist thought and they would have supported the revolution as it would give a nation to the Greek people and therefore their writings would only look to Greek interests and emphasize the importance of Greek interests. The character of the Greeks at the time were therefore of modern Greek supported by the ancients. The Greek exiles writes (D 6) that Ares has waken the heroes of the tombs to support the Greeks in their revolution and Mavrocordato (D 10) writes that the Greeks had the hand of god at the time. Since Mavrocordato was the president of the Greek revolutionary government he would have written that the Greeks were the good guys and exaggerate the savageness of the ottomans to make Greece look good to the eyes of the foreigners. To supporters of the revolution the character of the modern day Greeks was alike to that of ancient Athens.

To opponents of the revolution, the Greeks were the low form of the society. The Sultan (D 2) writes of the Greeks as if there were robbers and Pasha (D 9) writes that the Greeks were nothing but a bunch of drunkards. However, both rules were Turks and generally viewed themselves as superior to others, so they would write that the Greeks were inferior. The Sultan and the governor would oppose the revolution as it was an assault on their own power, also others thought lowly of the Greeks as Kaklphoglou (D 4) wrote that the Greeks just wanted to imitate the Frenchman and Dallaway (D 5) also wrote that the Greeks were of the low form of society and were untrustworthy or no different from the Turks. Generally, opponents of the revolution had a low view of the Greeks.

The Greeks were oppressed by the ottomans Savary (D 3) writes that the ottomans have injured the sciences and arts and Davis (D 1) wrote that Turkish captain destroyed the ancient splendor. Davis would only concern himself with the Greek culture and not the ottoman culture he is trying to emphasize the importance of ancient Greece. Therefore, Davis would overemphasize the oppressive actions of the Turks to support his views. Also, the Greek nationalists