ABSTRACT

The story of Greek nationalism in the nineteenth century possesses unique interest for intellectual history in its preoccupation with the reinvention of the past. The broader epistemological problem motivating the analysis that follows could be considered to be the difficulty facing the academic study of Modern Greece in establishing itself as a recognizable and legitimate subject in contemporary scholarship. The comparison over structure and standards, however, could well be enlightening as it would be between Modern Greek studies and any other professionally constituted field of area-based historical study. On this level of analysis, all indicators of professionalization, such as the range and quality of research resources and instrumental studiorum in general, the number and scholarly standards of specialist journals. The challenge to the study of nationalism in the Greek context has precisely to do with the meaningful use of theory to fertilize historical research.