Erken Dönem Osmanlı Devleti-Yunanistan Krallığı İlişkileri: Problemler, Çatışan Faktörler ve Uzlaşma

Abstract

19th century was a century in which some great changes and transformations experienced for the Ottoman Empire. Because, the emergence of the nation-state form based on the European model as an idealized structure in this century created a great danger for the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, which had until then united the groups with different identities and belonging in its own socio-political system. As a matter of fact, as a result of the armed struggle against the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the century, the first nation that left this system became the Greek nation and thus the first wound of Pax-Ottomana. That this situation created a prototype for other nations living in both the Balkans and in the different regions of the Ottoman geography, required the Ottoman Empire to apply several new applications to understand and survive the new world order. For the newly established Greek state, it was compulsory to expand its territory against the Ottoman Empire due to its stuck to the south of the Balkans, its lack of enough population and with its current status being distant from strategic centers and economic resources. Therefore, the ideal, which the Greek State had to construct and formulated with the name Megali Idea, produced practical solutions to the problems of the state in the conditions of that day and acted as an intermediary between the public and the administrators by giving an impetus to the Greek people. Because this ideal, in addition to expanding with irredentist policies, also carries the ideal of changing the individuals to a "Greek Citizen" by creating a homogeneous culture.In this study, the internal dynamics of the Greek nation-state form, the problems arising in the early Turkish and Greek relations based on political and socio-cultural goals, how these problems are approached, what are the methods of solution and compromise are discussed in the context of the changing governance-governed relationship. In this study, the relations between the two states were discussed through the problems of Macedonia, Thessaly and Crete. According to this, while Thessaly and Crete appear as a field of conflict between the two states, contrary to the classical historiography in which Turkish-Greek relations are seen as the usual form of antagonism, it was observed that there was a wide alliance and cooperation between the two states because of the strengthening of the Bulgarian Principality in the region about Macedonia.