Page 307 - Beholding Liberty!

common determinant of Christianity. The Philhellenes influence public opinion in favour of the Greek demand for freedom, exert pressure on the governments of their countries, collect material aid for the Struggle in Greece and many of them rush to fight on the side of the Greeks, forming regiments of Philhellenes, with several battle- hardened high-ranking military men; quite a few of them will get wounded or even fall in the battlefield.
Already with the outbreak of the Greek Revolution, philhellenic enclaves
are created in many countries.
The barbarism with which the Otoman empire tries to suppress the Greek national uprising, as in the case
of the Massacre of Chios in 1822, enforces the philhellenic movement.
It will reach its peak in 1826,
with the heroic Exodus of Missolonghi, and will exert pressure as to the
ΙΙ.8
The phenomenon of Philhellenism
«We are all Greeks» Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hellas, 1822
decisively significant intervention
of the foreign powers in 1827, with
the naval battle of Navarino, which laid the foundations for the independence
of the Greeks.
Philhellenism was also reflected
in various manners and in temporal depth in fine arts, literature, theatre, music, and even more so in visual arts, with a multitude of artworks
of all kinds.
The phihellenic art, an offspring
of Neoclassicism as much as
of Romanticism, stands out
as a unique artistic phenomenon,
with derivatives of great historical
as well as aesthetic value.
The forging and spread of the philhellenic movement was a gradual and multi-levelled process, tangible evidence of the solidarity of people, partakers of the value of humanism.
ΣΚΗΝΕΣ ΚΑΙ ΜΟΡΦΕΣ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΑΣ Από την αρχαιολατρία στον Φιλελληνισμό 307