La formación de la Grecia moderna y el irredentismo balcánico

Abstract

Interethnic conflicts in the European Southeast after the deep socio-poli¬ tical transformations at the end of the bipolarity have revealed that there are still in force insurmountable contradictions in the Balcanic national identi¬ ties forged against the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. This paper analizes the configuration of the Neohellenic nationalist ideology, a clue for all the geographic area, given that -either by analogy or by opposition-, it explains a chain reaction of similar intellectual attitudes in the rest of the peoples with an orthodox tradition. The result is the development of various irredentist policies. The two cultural models of the modern state-nation (the occidental, enlightened and revolutionary, and the oriental, theocratic repre¬ sented by Russia) are re-elaborated in the Greek region and produce a syn¬ cretic and irreal imaginary identity; this is based upon the myth of linguis¬ tic and ethnic continuity that pretends to assimilate the opposed worlds of pagan Antiquity and the Byzantine tradition.