That Greece Might Still Be Free

"William St Clair decided he was going to write about the ‘philhellenes,’ the people who flocked to Greece in order to aid with the Greek Revolution and the war of independence. They usually met with terrible fates, but they’re considered to be heroes both in Greece and in Europe in general. The French, the British, the Germans, the Italians, will all say, ‘Yes, we too contributed to your revolution.’ But as William St Clair began to do his research, he discovered the things I’ve been telling you about: the mass violence, what happened to these poor philhellenes, who arrived thinking they were going to see people in togas and sandals standing for lofty philosophical ideals. What they found it what you’d expect to find—peasants, bandits, landowners, tax collectors, etc. It was pretty prosaic stuff and ugly too. St Clair was outraged by this saying, ‘This is not at all what we were told it was!’ And he describes in graphic detail the violence, the betrayals, the disillusionment. It was a visceral reaction. He was right to write this book. It was on the bookshelf of just about every educated Greek when it came out. It was hardly recognized at all in public but everyone knew it and read it. There’s this tendency to have one public voice and one private voice. My problem is that my private voice became my public voice, but that’s another story. That Greece Might Still Be Free is very good at opening up this view, and it did for me as well. What he wasn’t good at doing—and couldn’t because it was too soon—was to say why. Why did this take place? In his descriptions, what it comes down to is that these were nasty types. OK, maybe they’re not nice people but still, there has to be more of an explanation… I pay tribute to William St Clair with this recommendation. He did a good job at the time, and now we can take it further and ask, ‘How do you explain this?’ It might be a bit heavy for the beach. Don’t read it aloud to your children because they’ll be crying at the end of it. But it’s a very good book."