We hope that Turkish statesmen, whose enlightenment and intelligence are well known, will recognize the urgent necessity for a sincere understanding between the two neighbouring States on the basis of the cession of the two provinces in accordance with the Berlin Treaty; then perhaps, later on, a union may be formed in order to oppose the common enemy. The obsolete policy of non possumus, behind which Turkey persists in sheltering herself has been, on more than one occasion, hurtful and fatal to her.
The province of Epirus, without the town and department of Jannina, is like a body without a head. The town of Jannina, which fills so glorious a page in the modern history of Hellenism, has been ever since its foundation the capital of Epirus in every point of view. It is only the bad faith of the Turkish Government which could take advantage of the inconceivable patriotism of the Albanians to create all of a sudden an Albanian nationality. It is true that there does exist an Albanian race, an insignificant branch of that powerful tree of the Hellenic family; but this race has never played an important, independent, free part in history. Once only, in the time of Scanderbeg, does Albania appear to have fulfilled a separate mission, in fighting against the Turks for the liberty and independence of her rugged mountains; but the brilliant star of this memorable and almost unique epoch in the poor history of Albania, the famous hero of Croia, according to recent researches into this part of the history of the Middle Ages, was not of Albanian origin. In those long combats for Hellenic liberty and independence, when the Albanian race fought with the ilephtes and armatoles of the national regeneration, it was not an Albanian idea which inspired those brave champions of our independence: it was the Greek standard, it was the sabanum of Constantine, under the shadow of which the tyrant was combated by the Greek patriots, and by those who, in this time of sophism and paradoxes, plume themselves upon Albanian nationality, in claiming with incomparable naïveté, in documents and manifestoes in which historical traditions are disfigured, the independence and liberty of a nation which never existed in history. These mountaineers, these intrepid combatants in a holy cause, remained, during all that revolutionary epoch of Greece, in the rear of the Hellenic idea, which was doubtless their national idea. This idea impresses its peculiar stamp on the life of the nation, in its material, moral, and intellectual existence; but such has never existed in the Albanian race. Unity of history, of language, of religion, all that constitutes the essence of nationality, is altogether wanting in the Albanians. This is not the time to discuss all the obsolete and paradoxical things which have lately been said about the Albanians by anthropologists, ethnologists, &c. &c. We do not wish, either, to pronounce against them the death-sentence of the celebrated geographer Kiepert, who wrote some time ago in the National Zeitung of Berlin, "We think the total dissolution of this part of an important and very ancient nation, which always retrogrades" to be very probable, and useful for European interests. Doubtless, the Albanians have a right of historical existence; but that history in which is always represented more or less the famous scientific conception of the great naturalist of modern times, the struggle for existence, is favourable only for those who know how to work and struggle successfully in the arena of civilization. Up to this moment, this race has been entirely unknown in history. A learned German naturalist, Haeckel, has found in this region of Eastern Europe the rudiments of a savage life exactly resembling as to manners the state of pre-historic times, especially in Upper Albania, where this race has a numerical and national preponderance. The Albanian nationality, then, about which its soi-disant representatives have made so much noise, has no real existence, and is at this day but a national Utopia, a terra incognita, existing only in the ardent imagination of certain high functionaries of the Sublime Porte, and certain religious fanatics of Mussulman Albania. As for the non-Mussulmans, they still remain supporters and friends of the Hellenic idea and of the Greeks, with whom they have always made common cause, and have played a glorious part in our history by their courage and patriotism. Let the Albanians show by their European culture that there are among them the elements of a compact race which has the full consciousness of its individuality; and, what is more important, let them abstain from declaring to-day against Hellenism, by becoming the instruments of treacherous movements whose sole aim is their absorption. The object of the Hellenic idea is not the absorption of the races with which it is called to live; it is neither fusion nor conquest, as has been more than once proved in history. It is only in the Greeks that the Albanians will find their natural friends and allies; it is only with them that they will not lose their national individuality, because they are their brothers, retarded in the history of humanity and of civilization.
But if the idea of an independent and peculiar Albanian race and nationality is shown to be false by ethnological research and by historical documents, it is a still greater error and a ridiculous pretension to say that the town of Jannina is the centre and the capital of the Albanian idea and nationality. This argument, which for some time past has been going the round of Europe, and which has found supporters in Italy,—in the Italian Government unfortunately,—is truly pitiable, and unworthy of being seriously debated, in the view of those who are at all acquainted with the history of modern Greece. But since, in these times of vain questions and useless and sophistical debates about the peoples of the East, much has been written and argued on this question in the European press, we think it may not be out of place to give some information on the political and intellectual state of Jannina, its population, and the historical and moral traditions of the town, which was formerly, prior to the creation of the new kingdom, the intellectual capital of Hellenism.
Jannina is, of all the districts of Epirus, that in which the Greek population is the most numerous and the most compact. Out of 100,000 inhabitants of this district, there are only 5000 Mussulmans; and these also are of Greek origin, because they all speak Greek. And in Turkey in Europe, Jannina is the most Hellenic village, in which there is not one inhabitant who does not speak the language of the country. It is, perhaps, an historic curiosity, but still it is a fact which has already been proved, that the Sublime Porte has no right of conquest over this town, because Jannina has not been conquered by the Turks, but has only recognized the Turkish rule by a treaty which guaranteed to it all the rights of self-government—rights which were afterwards trampled under foot in consequence of a rising in the unfortunate town. In the seventeenth century, at the very dawn of the Hellenic revival, Jannina was already a centre of light which illumined the dark sky of Hellenism; for a long time this part of Epirus was the mother-country of the greatest patriots, and the most earnest propagators of national education. Athens was but a village, known only through history, when this town was already the central point of the national consciousness; the capital of the learning of the dispersed nation, which was without a political official centre. In the famous school of this town, afterwards called Ζωσιμαἱα Σχολἡ (The School of Zosimas), illustrious professors taught Greek literature; and, according to the testimony of many travellers, Jannina was the town whose inhabitants spoke the most correct Greek. Our national historian, M. Papparigopoulos, speaks thus of it in his French work, already well known and esteemed in Europe[77]:—"Jannina especially became a true nursery of teachers, who in their turn were placed successively at the head of other schools in Peloponnesus, in continental Greece, in Thessaly, in Macedonia, at Chios, at Smyrna, at Cydones, at Constantinople, at Jassy, at Bucharest." The intellectual superiority of this town lasted until the death of Ali Pasha and the creation of the new kingdom, when the centre of the moral and political activity and work of the nation was transferred to Athens, the town which, from its grand traditions, was worthy to become once more the capital of the great Hellenic idea. But the school of Jannina still remains one of the most renowned and the most useful centres for the propagation of the learning and literature of Ottoman Greece. At this day, for the foreigner who visits the capital of the kingdom of the Hellenes, the first spectacle which will attract his attention will be that majestic view of national monuments, worthy to be compared with the most renowned monuments of the European cities: these are the University, the Academy, the Polytechnic School, the Arsakion, the Seminary of Rizari, &c., all eloquent witnesses of the patriotism and self-sacrifice of the nation. Who are the founders of these monuments? By what means have these brilliant ornaments of the Hellenic revival been constructed? The greater part of their generous founders are Epirotes, natives of Jannina itself, that town of which one of the most illustrious savants of regenerated Greece spoke with so much appropriateness when he compared its school to a great river which has given rise to several streams, which in their turn have watered and fertilized all the other towns of Greece, but which to-day, contrary to all reason and to historic truth, is represented as the Albanian capital, and finds for this strange idea supporters who willingly sacrifice the rights of populations to political interests and necessities; a sad but eloquent sign of the moral confusion of our times, and of the bad faith which dominates over the political and international conceptions of some Governments.
The political life of Greece has, doubtless, been very stormy of late years. The state of confusion and uneasiness which followed the expulsion of King Otho, and, later, the unfortunate issue of the Cretan rising, acted to some extent as a drag on the peaceful progress of the new kingdom. Besides this, the adoption of a political Constitution dissimilar and entirely strange to our customs and political and social habits, the introduction of what is called in political language the Constitutional régime, transplanted from the cloudy region of England to the sunny climate of Greece, has not proved the political panacea which had been hoped for by the enthusiasm of the political ideologists of our times. Already, and especially during the last fifteen years, the intellectual life of a young nation full of health and vigour has been wasted foolishly in a barren struggle about political formalities, while other questions, more serious and more vital to the national development, have been neglected. No doubt we may console ourselves with the thought that we are neither the first nor the last for whom the fruit of the political wisdom of old Albion has proved so bitter and so indigestible, and that other nations of the Continent, more advanced than ourselves in civilization, have committed the same fault of not taking into account that the Government of a nation is not a mere question of forms, but that it ought to be the expression of its moral and social life, that it ought to represent its historical traditions and political aspirations. Like most of the Continental nations, we also have the external forms of the English Constitution, without having its internal essence, which constitutes the real value of its political institutions,—viz., Self-government. It is true that the political wisdom of nations does not improvise itself, nor reveal itself all at once in its fulness, as Minerva of old sprang from the head of Jupiter, clad in complete armour, but that it develops itself during their historic progress amidst vicissitude, and by turning to profit the lessons of trial and experience. It is this that gives us the hope that in future our nation, enlightened by the painful events of which we are now reaping the sad fruits, will become more clear-sighted, especially after the annexation of the new Hellenic provinces, when the need will be the more felt for a revision of our political system, and the reconstruction of our new political edifice on a basis more real, more solid, more durable, and more in conformity with our national character, with our needs, and with contemporary aspirations. Our political life, especially during its latter years, instead of adding a page to our contemporary history, has, on the contrary, consumed and wasted foolishly many of our intellectual faculties which might have been more usefully employed. At the moment when vague questions, which were useless to our national and political development, were being gravely debated in the Parliament of Athens, Greece might, with a more perfect political Constitution and military organization, have shown herself fully in a position to face the storm which still agitates the Balkan peninsula; might have shown herself to be a respectable Power, capable of measuring her strength with her enemies. The East was in flames, the populations of the Balkans in full revolt, only the Government of Athens had no definite policy. Whilst the Greeks of Turkey were waiting impatiently, and turning their eyes to the Cabinet of Athens, this latter, under the presidency of M. Coumoundouros, remained inactive and irresolute. When the danger became more serious, and all parties, under the impulse of an obsolete illusion, had united themselves in order to form that common Government which our press has called the Œcumenical Government, then was seen in all its obviousness the political incapacity of those parties who for fifteen years past had governed Greece, without doing anything, and without thinking of the important and serious position which Greece might have occupied in the East. This coalition ministry, without principles and without political aim, was driven from office, after a period of internal languor, in order to give place to M. Coumoundouros, the skilful perplexer of our policy, worthy to be compared in more than one respect with Walpole, whose memory, doubtless, does not occupy an illustrious and honourable page in English political history. It is this same uncertainty and confusion which reigns to this day in the thoughts and in all the actions of the Government, which under a wiser and more politic direction might and ought to say the last word in those negotiations, which already have been going on for a year between the Cabinets of Europe, on the subject of the new frontiers of Greece.
But if our political life cannot call forth the admiration and enthusiasm, nor win the applause of an impartial judge, the individual and social progress of the nation, on the contrary, in many points of view, compensates us to some extent for our political inexperience and incapacity in these latter times. If the Hellenic State, wearing a dress which is burdensome and strange to its customs and its free individuality, cannot advance as it should do, on the other hand society has in other respects made immense progress. The impulse which has been given to the active mind of the nation of late years is in every way remarkable. In its social development Greece does not encounter any obstacle which hinders the march of its civilization. The ancient class-divisions of Europe, which are now exciting terrible passions that threaten the overthrow of the social edifice, have no cause of existence under the calm and happy sky of regenerate Greece. The social work of the progress and development of the national forces goes on here without obstacles, in a perfect accord of all classes of society. We have not here classes having opposite aspirations, suspected one by the other, and ready to engage in a deadly struggle. We only want political wisdom, and then Greece, which has not to-day to expiate past faults, because she has already expiated many of them, will be capable of becoming a political society worthy of the nineteenth century.
We recommend to the readers of this Review two works recently published in French, in which they will be able to study the progress of Greece since its regeneration. These are—"La Grèce telle qu'elle est," by M. Moraitinis; and "La Grèce à l'Exposition universelle de Paris en 1878," by M. Mansolas, director of the Office of Statistics, in which may be found a record of the social and intellectual work which in the space of fifty years has transformed Greece, by changing the uncultivated desert of former times into a prosperous and vigorous society. The apology of much-misunderstood and much-decried Hellenism is made by the eloquence of the figures in this history, which is symbolical of its spirit. The regenerate country, by comparison with the other provinces which have remained under the yoke of Turkey, witnesses to the work which has been accomplished, and which has transformed the aspect of Greece, thanks to its national and political enfranchisement.
Fifty years ago Greece emerged from a catastrophe: she had been deprived of everything and devastated by a long and desperate war; she was without resources, without agriculture, without commerce, without manufactures, without the least social or political organization; everything had perished during her long struggle for independence, except her genius and her faith in the future. This faith has already wrought marvels. Agriculture, which is par excellence the basis of the prosperity of nations, has made considerable progress; its development goes on day by day in geometrical progression. Thus, in the space of the last fifteen years there have been taken into cultivation nearly 5,000,000 acres. The number of inhabitants engaged in the cultivation of the soil, including the shepherds, is, according to the census of 1870, 562,559 out of the 901,387 inhabitants (among the 1,457,894 inhabitants of the kingdom) whose employment could be stated. Of this number 218,027 are agriculturists, properly so called. This is the chief industry of the country. Like agriculture, manufactures have also made considerable progress of late. We extract from M. Mansolas' book the interesting description which he gives of the state and progress of manufacturing industry in Greece:—
"Any one returning to Athens after an absence of fifteen years would certainly be surprised to see, on landing at the Piræus, tall chimneys by the side of the railway station, and the vast district of industrial establishments which has been formed, where a few years ago one did not see a single cottage, a tree, or a blade of grass.