The Megali Idea (Greek: Μεγάλη Ιδέα, lit. "Great Idea") is an irredentist concept of Greek nationalism expressing the goal of establishing a Greek state that would encompass all ethnic Greeks. The Megali Idea implied the goal of reestablishing a Greek state as ancient geographer Strabo wrote, with a Greek world extending west from Sicily, to Mikra Asia (Asia Minor) and Euxenus Pontus (Black Sea) to the east, and from Thrace, Macedonia and Epirus, north, to Crete and Cyprus to the south. Greek populations still lived in those territories in the beginning of 20th century. After the achievement of Greek independence in 1821, the Megali idea played a major role in Greek politics. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of the Greek people remained outside the borders of the limited Greece permitted by the Great Powers, who had no intention for a larger Greek state to replace the Ottoman Empire. The Greek state emerging under John Capodistria after the Greek War of Independence left out large groups of ethnic Greeks. The Great Idea encompassed a desire to bring these groups into the Greek state; specifically in the territories of Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, Thrace the Aegean Islands, Crete, Cyprus, parts of Anatolia, and the city of Constantinople/Istanbul, that would replace Athens as the capital.
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Venizelos
A major proponent was Eleftherios Venizelos, who expanded Greek territory in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 — southern Epirus, Crete, and southern Macedonia were attached to Greece. Thessaly, and part of southern Epirus, had been annexed in 1881. Victory in World War I seemed to promise an even greater realisation of the Great Idea, as Greece won northern Epirus, Smyrna, Imbros, Tenedos, Western Thrace, and Eastern Thrace.
Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)
A major defeat followed in 1922, however, when the Turkish nationalists defeated and expelled the Greeks from Anatolia during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922). Greece did retain western Thrace, and in 1945, at the end of World War II, won the Dodecanese from Italy.
Legacy of the Megali Idea
Although the Great Idea ceased to be a driving force behind Greek foreign policy after the Treaty of Lausanne, some remnants continued to influence Greek foreign policy throughout the remainder of the 20th century. There have been some cases in post-war history that could be linked to the transitory reappearance of 'megaloideatic' policies and propaganda. In 1974, in particular, the right-wing military regime in Athens sponsored a pro-enosis military coup in Cyprus, which was followed by the invasion and occupation by Turkish troops of the north of Cyprus (see Cyprus dispute). Another instance was the fact that Greece explicitly recognised the present Greco-Albanian border (and, implicitly, Albanian rule over northern Epirus) only after the fall of communism in the Balkans. But the delay in recognising the existing borders with Albania is more certainly associated with the nearly total isolation of Albania during the Cold War and especially the state of belligerency that had existed between the two states since the Second World War.
References
- Özhan Öztürk (2005). Karadeniz (Black Sea): Ansiklopedik Sözlük. 2 Cilt. Heyamola Yayıncılık. İstanbul. ISBN 975-6121-00-9
See also
- Foreign relations of Greece
- Greater Albania
- Greater Serbia
- Greater Bulgaria
- Irredentism
- Istanbul Pogrom
- Nationalism
- Northern Epirus
- Enosis
- Pontian Greek Genocide
- Propaganda
- Smyrna
- United Macedonia
- Greater Armenia (political concept)
