Microsoft Word 1 Arif thesis cover final doc

CHAPTER 2 – HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 
32 
accompanied by references to the Great Idea (a literal rendering of Ἡ Μεγάλη 
Ἰδέα)
5
.This is generally represented as a Greek irredentist programme with origins in 
the early years of the independent kingdom, which united in its support all the 
otherwise rancorously uncooperative Greek politicians.
6
The origins of the Great 
Idea are in many accounts specifically located in a speech of Ioannis Kolettis 
(himself a Vlach with a background in the Janina court of Ali Pasha) delivered on 14 
January 1844 in support of the rights within the kingdom of Greeks born outside it
7
. 
The relevance of the Great Idea to the Anatolian War is more taken for granted than 
argued for
8
. Much about the Great Idea in general could be examined more closely 
than it has been. One could start by establishing the words which Kolletis actually 
used (which have been variously transmitted)
9
and what he may have meant by 
them
10
. One could then consider the reality or otherwise of the supposedly universal 
and enduring grip on political discourse of an extremely protean notion; it is worth 
remembering in this connexion that “the Great Idea” is also instanced as a term of 
ridicule or disapprobation
11
. Such an examination is beyond the scope of this 
summary; it suffices here to say that, whatever the connotations of the Great Idea, 
5
Eg. Llewellyn Smith, 1-3; McMeekin, 428; Pentzopoulos, 26 
6
Jenkins, 101 
7
Skopetea, 257 
8
Venizelos’s memoranda to the king in early 1915 in support of an Anatolian venture (Ventiris, Vol. 1, 371-379, 
384-388) have no reference, express or implied, to the Great Idea. 
9
Skopetea, 258 n. 4 claims to follow the text in the
 Proceedings
of the National Assembly but does not 
condescend to quote it. Dimaras, 405-406, quotes two paragraphs in a version which differs markedly from the 
corresponding passages in Kiriakidis, 494-500 and less so from one available at 
http://ola-ta-
kala.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/blog-post_6662.html
 (accessed 4 February 2018), which purports to reproduce what 
was published in the newspapers, 
Elpis
, 
Eon, 
and 
O Filos tou Laou
on respectively 15, 19 and 30 January 1844.
10
Dimaras, 411, does not pretend to know. It is difficult to read a territorial ambition into any of the versions 
cited in the previous note. Such an ambition could be read into the words which Llewellyn Smith, 2-3, presents 
as a quote from the speech with a reference (349, n.1) to a secondary source; but these words are absent from all 
those versions. 
11
Examples in Skopetea 263, 266-7, 289; Dimaras, 416 

---