Page 112 - Beholding Liberty!

PRELUDE 3
[Hilarion Sinaite of Crete]
To the everywhere expatriates those who are committed to the Glory and Benefit of the Race. Constantinople: Greek Printing House of the Race, 1820
Library of the Hellenic Parliament
HILARION SINAITE OF CRETE (1765- 1838), who studied and served in Crete, Cairo, Ios, Bucharest, and Constantinople, was close to the Patriarch Gregory V; in 1821 he was appointed met- ropolitan of Tarnovo in Bulgaria. He translated the Bible into Modern Greek.
He is also credited – as ‘supervisor of the press’ – with this work, which heralded the renovation of the Patri- archal Printing Press and invited Greek intellectuals to
have their works published there. A number of liber- al scholars, including Korais, perceived this – perhaps rather over-suspiciously – as an attempt to centralise, and therefore control and censor, the publishing activi- ties of the exponents of the Greek Enlightenment.
A eulogy of typography and the Enlightenment in Greece, this text demonstrates the dominant po- sition of the Church as the spiritual leader of the Greek nation.
PRELUDE 4
Fearless of Marathon [Adamantios Korais]
Salpisma Polemistirion (A Trumpet Call to War). Second edition, corrected, and augmented with an addendum at the end.
In the Peloponnese: From the Hellenic press of Fearless of Marathon, 1821
Library of the Hellenic Parliament
THE SECOND EDITION (December 1821), revised and augmented, of the revolutionary pam- phlet Salpisma Polemistirion (Call to Arms), published in 1801. It is a pseudonymous work of the leading figure of the Greek Enlightenment, Adamantios Ko- rais (1748-1833).
Credit as author and publisher is given to ‘Atromitos [Fearless] of Marathon’ and the Peloponnese is listed as the place of publication; the book, however, was in fact edited by Filippos Fournarakis and printed in Paris , probably by Eberhart. It features a foreword by Guerrier de Dumast, translated by Kostantinos Polychroniadis. De Dumast, in turn, had translated the Salpisma into French (Appel aux Grecs) in July 1821.
The first edition, also under the pseudonym Atromitos of Marathon and listing Alexandria as the place of publication, was in fact printed by Didot in Paris. In the meantime, it had also been translated into Russian by Spyros Destounis (St Petersburg, 1807).
The book, as did the first edition, features a frontispiece with the image of an enslaved woman
in the ruins, worn out and dressed in tatters, her arms raised, pleading for mercy, mistreated by the Ottoman figure beside her. The image recalls the iconic depiction of enslaved Greece on the title page of Choiseul Gouffier’s Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce (Paris 1782) [cat. no Ι.1.2].
Despite Korais’ reservations about the timing of the Greek uprising – he argued for ensuring that strong foundations of education and national awareness were put in place first – his enthusiasm, too, is evident in this book. He appeals to the emotions of his fellow Greeks, while also invoking the ancestral grandeur and cultural heritage of Greece. His nationalist call is non-negotiable: «DEATH OR FREEDOM! We have no other choice left, if long slavery has not completely erased from our souls the very sentiment of being human».
Thus, Korais’ pamphlet is indicative of the revolutionary fervour that had gripped Hellenism on the brink of the Revolution and of the ideological ferment that led to the uprising in 1821.
112 BEHOLDING LIBERTY!