Why Did The Greeks Lose Their Independence

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The Greeks lost their independence in 1453, it wasn’t until the 1700’s that the Greeks had the chance to govern again. In fact, not to govern themselves but to govern others. In 1711 the Phanariots were appointed as princes of the Danubian Principalities. It was a traditional name given to the two principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Since the late middle ages those two principalities had been vassil states; which are states that’s internally autonomous but had to pay tribute to a larger empire and surrender control of its own policy to the lager empire. Up to the 1711 those two principalities had Romanian princes; however, after 1711 because those Romanians collaborated with the Russians and Austrians, the ottomans sacked them and replaced them with the …show more content…

The second opportunity that the Greeks got, came after the abolition of the Venetian empire in 1797. Napoleon invaded the territory of Venice and occupied the city of Venice in 1797. He abolished the Venetian republic which was the oldest republic of European history. Very briefly, the French from 1797 to about early 1800’s occupied the Ionian islands. Nevertheless, in 1800, the Russians and the Ottomans drove the French out of the Ionian island and they establish what is called a Septinsular Republic. Septinsular is a Latin phrase which means seven islands, in other words the republic of seven islands. It was technically an autonomous republic within the ottoman empire but it was under the Russian protection. The Septinsular Republic was in many ways a successor of the Venetian republic. Its constitution was called the Byzantine constitution but actually it was the Venetian constitution, meaning it resembled the venetian constitution more than it did for the Byzantine one. Kitromilidi, p.195-198. The society of the Ionian Island was divided into three classes: the Aristocrats, the Ciltadini and the

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