2.1 A Gradual, Unfinished Conquest
On June 4, 1456, Athens fell to the Turks. The conquerors’ progress had been facilitated by quarrels between Byzantine princes and by the policy of Venice, which had long tried to come to terms with them in order to gain commercial advantages.
However, the Turkish conquest of Greek lands was not complete by 1456: the empire of Trebizond survived until 1461; Rhodes fell only in 1522, Cyprus in 1571, Crete in 1669 and Tínos in 1715; as for the Ionian Islands, they escaped almost entirely from the Ottomans.
On the other hand, the pacification of Greece was never complete, and numerous uprisings occurred: in Morea (1463-1479), Rhodes (1522), and Central Greece (1571).
2.2 Relative Civil, Administrative and Religious Autonomy
However, the Turks were no more unpopular with the Greeks than the Venetians and, in general, the Latins. The sultans were tolerant of the Greeks, who retained their language, religion, and religious organization.
Greece was subject to an administrator of the Ottoman Empire, the beylerbey, under whose authority was placed the administrative division or eyalet of Rumelia; this was itself divided into seven provinces, or sandjaks (Morea, Evia, Boeotia-Attica, Thessaly, Aetolia-Arcadia, Epirus, Central Greece), and into districts administered by a subaşi. Later, groups of sandjaks – the vilayets – were created, headed by pashas.
Some of the land was confiscated and distributed as military fiefdoms to the sipahi (horsemen) or given in full ownership to Muslims or the Islamic clergy. But the Ottomans left their property to the Orthodox monasteries and large landowners who submitted; in the mountainous regions, the natives also retained their land and their freedom.
In the end, the Turkish occupation resembled that of an army camped in a conquered country and concerned above all with maintaining order; the Patriarch of Constantinople became a national leader for the Greeks. As tax collection was leased out, Greeks took charge of it, acquiring an authority in their localities enshrined in their recognition as village chiefs, later assisted by elected municipal councillors.
2.3 The Rise of Trade
Thanks to the capitulations signed by the Sultan with France, England (1580) and the United Provinces (1612), trade expanded throughout the Mediterranean world, and many Greeks took up the trade, taking over from the Venetians. In Constantinople, the Greeks of the Phanar district – the Phanariotes – grew wealthy and formed a bourgeoisie with influence even on the government, which relinquished certain functions to them, such as that of drogman (interpreter) to the Porte or Sublime Porte – the name formerly given to the Ottoman government.
Others swarmed as merchants in the ports of the Levant and the West, especially in Russia, where some entered the Tsar’s service (→ Capo d’Istria); the Romanian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia came under the authority of Phanariot hospodars (princes) from 1711.
2.4 The Awakening of National Sentiment (18th Century)
Greek national sentiment was awakened in the eighteenth century by the dual effects of Turkish decadence and Russia’s desire to take up the cause of all the Orthodox who had been subjugated by the Turks, and to find maritime outlets via the Straits (the area between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean formed by the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles).
In 1768, Tsarina Catherine II went to war with Turkey and sent her fleet to the coasts of Morea; the battle ended with the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (July 1774), which established a Russian protectorate over the Orthodox peoples of Moldavia and Wallachia, and allowed Greek ships to sail under the Russian flag. Henceforth, Russia would have the Greeks as its loyal “customers”.
The emigrant Greeks nurtured support for their cause among Westerners, impressed by the prestige of ancient Greece. Among them were Coraï (Koraís), a Smyrniote who went to France during the Revolution, and Feraíos (Konstandínos Ríghas), who stayed in Vienna, where he founded the Hétairie patriotic society and composed the Hellenic Marseillaise – handed over to the Turks, he was executed in 1798.
L’Hétairie was reconstituted in 1814, in Odessa, under the presidency of the Greek Ypsilanti, who had become aide-de-camp to Tsar Alexander I (and was in contact with Ali Pacha of Tebelen, who was in conflict with the Sultan).
To find out more, see the Orient article.