Melbourne: Clear sky, 3 °C

Sydney: Scattered clouds, 10 °C

Athens: Clear sky, 32 °C

Lord Byron: A man of his time

FOTIS KAPETOPOULOS undertakes a brief examination of Lord Byron’s real Greek love.

Node Tools
(4)

Rate This

2.866665
15 votes
Your rating: None
Lord Byron: A man of his time

Lord Byron on his deathbed.

“I like the Greeks, who are plausible rascals - with all the Turkish vices, without their courage. However, some are brave, and all are beautiful, very much resembling the busts of Alcibiades; - the women not quite so handsome.” From a letter by Lord Byron to Henry Drury 3 May 1810
15 Sep 2009
Fotis Kapetopoulos

The 35th International Byron Conference has just concluded at Athens University and the biography of Byron on the conference’s website does not highlight the man’s ardour for adolescent boys and women that looked like adolescent boys; hashish, opium and a good beating now and then.

Lord Byron is a hero to modern Greeks as the most influential westerner to support the Greek war of Independence against the Ottoman Turks in 1821.

Byron put his money and body on the line for the Greek Nationalist Revolution, dying on the way to battle the Turks.

He was a revolutionary Whig and a student of classical Greece and a great English poet who had reached almost pop star status by 1818.

The 6th Baron Byron, of Rochdale, (January 1788- 19 April 1824), Lord Byron, simply referred to as Vironas by Greeks, was, like all Philhellenes of the time, enamored with visions of brave Spartans and high-minded Athenians.

These images of Hellenes were invented in the minds of Enlightened British, French and German aristocrats and bourgeoisie, but had little to do with either, Indian-like ancient Greece, nor the Greeks Byron found in Ottoman Greece.

Scandal, debt and a search for sexual freedom, as much as Philhellene, inspired radical values, motivated Byron’s adventures in the Mediterranean.

Byron left England for fear of persecution over his bisexual life style, the scandalous affair with the married Lady Caroline Lamb and a mass of debts.

Louis Crompton in Byron and Greek Love: Homophobia in 19th Century England reveals correspondence from Byron’s Cambridge friends recommending the Mediterranean as a place for accessible homosexual experiences.  

To modern Greeks, Byron is almost a mythological figure. Modern Greeks being a messy Greco-Roman-Slavic-Turkic-Semitic lot emerging from the Ottoman Empire who with the leadership of people like Byron declared themselves Greek.

The forced westernisation, process which began in Ottoman Greece between 1821 and 1921, was more about creating Greeks rather than liberating them. 

For the Ottomans religion was the main identifier and they let the Greek Orthodox Church and feudal landlords do their job of keeping the peasants in their place.

Historian, Mark Mazower in his book The Balkans writes that when a Greek activist in the early 20th Century went to Ottoman Macedonia he could not find one peasant who would identify himself as Greek.

Ottoman Macedonians simply saw themselves as Christian, Muslim or Jewish. Clearly, the idea of being Greek was always stronger than the reality. 

John Keegan in A History of Warfare highlights how Byron was disgusted with the tactics used by the Greek klephtes - bandit rebels against the Ottomans.

Western Philhellenes attempted in vain to train them in close order fighting, but these klephtes used hit and run tactics, like those faced by Alexander the Great in Asia Minor and those used by the Taliban in Afghanistan currently.

The Greek klephtes were self-interested marauders with little of the courage that Byron and others Philhellenes expected. 

Byron, who wished for a new Thermopylae at the side of the Greeks was as, Keegan points out, “depressed and disillusioned” by the Greeks he met.

William St Clair, a historian of Philhellenism, writes that westerners, ensconced in the ideal of ancient Greek bravery, “hated the Greeks with a deep loathing and cursed themselves for their stupidity in having being deceived.”

Byron was a child of the British Empire and Enlightenment’s revolution and after all a romantic poet;

Maid of Athens, here we part,
Give, oh, give back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Ζωή μου, σας αγαπω.
 
Above is an excerpt of a poem he wrote for a 12-year-old girl that he fell in love with in Athens. Byron offered her mother £500 to win her daughter’s favours, an offer that was refused.

As the 50-year-old actor Rupert Everett who will play Byron in a Channel 4 television documentary was quoted by The Independent as saying when visiting Istanbul; “Byron said the only difference between the English and Turks was the English spent all their time whoring and drinking, while the Turks preferred sodomy and sherbet.”

The actor adding, “I’m looking forward to a bit of sodomy and sherbet myself.”

Byron was a complex man with a complex life. He played an important role in the formation of the modern Greek identity and in the development of Western values in the Hellenic imagination.

Read more from
  • share

Comments

Dear Fotis, you really amazed me with your almost immediate response-comment which shows your sensitivity and your respect to the readers of your articles, which is something that honours you of course! Then I must tell that I mostly agree to your posting that helped in resolving several misunderstandings. Like you, I don’t think that the Greek continuity through the millennia has to be based just on racial linkages and this is the reason I spoke about the cultural Greek continuity through my previous posting. I have no problem to accept my Slavic, Arabian – or whatever; Martian if you like –origins as a Greek, provided that they are based on historic/solid facts. I am not a Nazi – Xrysi Aygi to worship DNA. DNA is the last resort of those “racists in despair”! Any attempt to a population theory however has to be based on facts. Through few and short examples in my rather condensed text (e.g. the possible Roman or Turkish contribution to the origin of the modern Greeks), I presented another perspective that I humbly think it of worth mentioning. Also the Slavic theory was set by Fallmerayer but has been refuted in total by the also Germans Thiersch and Hopf, the Slovenian Kopitar and others. To note also here the less known case of the south Albanian Tosks, people of Greek-Illyrian (Albanian) origin, who migrated south to Greece from South-Central Albania between 1300 – 1600 AD and produced through numerous intermarriages with the Greek local populations our Arvanites to whom the Greek Nation owes a lot. Dear Fotis, I was really glad to have this contact with you. I do not intend to further reverting as this could be considered as contrasting your sayings that is not the case of course. I wish you all the best! Dimitri
Submitted by Dimitri From Athens on Sat, 2013-05-11 23:52.
Dear Dimitri There is nothing wrong at all with being Hellenic with Slavic, Jewish or Islamic roots. I am very proud to be a Hellene and in fact, my name is Fotis Kapetopoulos, I was the editor of Neos Kosmos English edition for three years and I have and always believe that Greece is not defined by its 'purity' but rather its complexity, its multiculturalism. The failure of the modern Greek state has been its acceptance of Northen and Western European assumptions of ethnicity. Not too different to Byron's. If you have time examine the close cultural, philosophical and social links between ancient India, Israel and Greece - far more profound than those constructed in the 19th Century between Eucentric Diaspora and the modern Greek state. The terrible situation that Greece finds itself in now has much to do with the Greeks' focus on being European rather than being far more comfortable in being linked to Asia. Cheers from Fotis the proud Greek Australian
Submitted by Fotis Kapetopoulos on Fri, 2013-05-10 09:35.
It’s a pity that the writer of this article under this Greek name “FOTIS KAPETOPOULOS” has fallen into so many inaccuracies. I see the article is rather old but I hope that an attempt to assist to the restoration of truth can be considered always of help. The original parts of the text in QUOTES. QUOTE Modern Greeks being a messy Greco-Roman-Slavic-Turkic-Semitic lot emerging from the Ottoman Empire who with the leadership of people like Byron declared themselves Greek. QUOTE. Honestly I do not understand why anytime a Greek tries to establish a link between modern and ancient Greeks should be called a “racist” while others who seek the roots of moderns Greeks far out of the Greek lineage to prove for the contrary – absence of any racial link between modern and ancient Greeks – are not! Also I cannot understand why all these people who claim on Greeks’ behalf, that the Greeks origin can be traced into some Roman-Slavic-Turkic-Semitic “lot”, do not bother even a little bit to check the culture and the traditions and customs of the Greeks that have remained unaltered for millennia and in many cases they are the same as those practiced from the Homeric era? Just to name for the case, the traditional Greek Carnival as well as the funeral customs and traditions, practiced up to now to all over the Greece, from Macedonia to Crete, and remain unaltered since the antique times. Who handed over all these ancient Greek traditions to the modern Greeks? The Slavs or the Turks? To note also that as it is proven by the Roman laws of the time of the Roman Empire, Roman soldiers were not sent to occupied areas and the needs for local garrisons were covered in most cases by local natives, so where is the Roman element (out of the -Slavic-Turkic-Semitic“lot”)? And finally who are the Turks? On their first presence in the area they are described by the writers of that period (around 1.000 AD) as people of Asian origin and language. How it happens today that they have fully Mediterranean aspects? The answer can be traced on the populations that fell under their yoke and were forced to convert to Islam in the areas occupied by them. Everybody knows that nearly all of the areas of the coastal line of modern Turkey (and not only) were inhabited by Greeks, so where is the Turkish “lot”? QUOTE The forced westernisation, process which began in Ottoman Greece between 1821 and 1921, was more about creating Greeks rather than liberating them. QUOTE. Not so. The truth is that the forced westernisation, process that in some cases is still in effect within the Greek society, has nearly destroyed the traditional Greek identity. QUOTE Historian, Mark Mazower in his book The Balkans writes that when a Greek activist in the early 20th Century went to Ottoman Macedonia he could not find one peasant who would identify himself as Greek. Ottoman Macedonians simply saw themselves as Christian, Muslim or Jewish. Clearly, the idea of being Greek was always stronger than the reality. QUOTE. If Mark Mazower has really said just this, then he knows nothing about Macedonia and Macedonians. Macedonians always identified themselves as Greeks and one (out of many) proof to this, is the fact that they participated in the Greek Revolution of 1821. Also in the early 20th Century the speech of Captain Kottas to the Macedonian villagers is an additional proof that the people who lived in Macedonia “in the early 20th Century” had national consciousness and could identify themselves as Greeks or Bulgarians and not just as “Christian, Muslim or Jewish”. QUOTE Western Philhellenes attempted in vain to train them in close order fighting, but these klephtes used hit and run tactics, like those faced by Alexander the Great in Asia Minor and those used by the Taliban in Afghanistan currently. The Greek klephtes were self-interested marauders with little of the courage that Byron and others Philhellenes expected. QUOTE. “hit and run marauders without courage”? Do the battles at Vassilika, Alamana, Gravia Inn, Maniaki, Dervenakia, the three sieges of Missolonghi and many more given by the Greeks during the Struggle of 1821 for Independence, in land and sea, justify the term “hit and run” and the characterization “marauders without courage”? QUOTE Byron was a complex man with a complex life. QUOTE. That’s correct! Then why should we have just to focus only in his bisexual life style something that has been heavily underlined in this article? Thank you.
Submitted by Dimitri From Athens on Fri, 2013-05-10 05:08.
i wish to add that Byron's notability rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured aristocratic excesses, huge debts, numerous love affairs, and self-imposed exile. He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad and dangerous to know. Byron served as a regional leader of Italy's revolutionary organization, the Carbonari, in its struggle against Austria. He later travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero.
Submitted by angel on Sat, 2010-03-20 04:49.

Post new comment

Enter your Neos Kosmos username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.

Copyright © 2009-2012 Ethnic Publications Pty Ltd | Website development by ANSO