International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Throughout the nineteenth century Greece remained a small country with a population of approximately 750,000; geographically it comprised Peloponnesus, the Cyclades islands, and the hinterland of Athens reaching up to the Lamia region in the north. The annexing of the Ionian islands in 1864 and of the Thessaly region in 1881 did not alter the overall picture significantly: the majority of Greeks lived outside the country's contemporary borders up until 1912. The main centers of what might be called a Greek bourgeois class were to be found in Constantinople, Smyrna, Alexandria in Egypt, in the Russian coast cities on the Black Sea, or elsewhere around the East Mediterranean basin. This small kingdom missed the first industrial revolution of the steam engine and continued to be an agrarian society. A deficient railroad network was built after the 1880s but was not completed until almost 20 years later. Shipping was active but it was only in the city of Hermoupolis, on the island of Syros, that it had an obvious industrial impact. Mining was another important activity, yet it was mainly to be found on some islands – Euboea, Melos, and Naxos – near the coast, and the technology used was rudimentary. The combination of these factors meant that there was nothing to give rise to a well-defined working class. Social tensions were never acute in the cities or in the provinces. The agrarian ... log in or subscribe to read full text