Great Idea

…Dhiliyiánnis, a supporter of the Great Idea (Megáli Idéa) that promised the liberation of all Greeks under Turkish rule and even the recovery of Constantinople (Istanbul), occupied himself primarily with an aggressive foreign policy and organized his followers into the conservative Nationalist Party, in opposition to Trikoúpis’ Liberal Party. In…

It was during the debates that preceded the promulgation of the 1844 constitution that Koléttis first coined the expression the “Great Idea” (Greek: Megáli Idéa). This was a visionary nationalist aspiration that was to dominate foreign relations and, to a significant extent, to…

…king toyed with the “Great Idea,” the reestablishment of the former Byzantine Empire with its capital at Constantinople, but his intervention against Turkey in the Crimean War (1853–56) merely provoked a Franco-British occupation of Piraeus, and he failed to gain any additional territory for Greece. Otto’s backing of Austria…