ABSTRACT
A conventional view in the historiography of modern Greece tends to connect the origins of Greek nationalism, what is usually described as the Great Idea, with attitudes and aspirations dating from the late Byzantine period, specifically from the period of decline after 1204, which witnessed the rise of millenarian hopes for the recovery of Constantinople by the Orthodox heirs of the Eastern Roman Empire. This view, which has been propounded by Byzantinists, including such distinguished authorities as D. A. Zakythinos, A. A. M. Bryer and Helene Ahrweiler, 1 appears to suggest that the expressions of Greek nationalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may be placed in the same historical continuum as the intellectual and psychological reactions to the destruction of Byzantine power in Asia Minor after the battle ofManzikert in 1071,2 the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, the fall of the empire in 1453 and of Trebizond in 1461. The same historical continuum also comprises the expressions of the hope for redemption of the Christian people from infidel captivity during the centuries of Ottoman rule. This latter view, which connects the origins of
PASCHALISM.KITROMILIDES
theGreatIdeawiththepopulartraditionsoftheTourkokratia,appearsinthe workofscholarsofGreekfolkloreandpopularculture.3
