Editing Megali Idea (section)

{{Short description|Irredentist concept which sought to revive the Byzantine Empire}}
{{Redirect|Greater Greece|the Ancient Greek settlements in southern Italy|Magna Graecia}}
[[File:Great Greece Map Claimed by Venizelos at Paris Peace Conference 1919.jpg|thumb|Map showing Greek ambitions at the Paris Peace Conference after World War I, 1919]]
[[File:Map of Greater Greece.png|thumb|Map of Megali Hellas (Greater Greece) as proposed at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 by [[Eleftherios Venizelos]], the leading major proponent of the Megali Idea at the time.]]
[[File:Map Greece expansion 1832-1947-en.svg|thumb|The territorial expansion of Greece, 1832–1947.]]

The '''Megali Idea''' ({{langx|el|Μεγάλη Ιδέα|lit=Great Idea|translit=Megáli Idéa}})<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AjDYlMB9amwC |title=The Mediterranean in the Age of Globalization: Migration, Welfare & Borders |last=Mateos |first=Natalia Ribas |publisher=[[Transaction Publishers]]|isbn=9781412837750 }}</ref> is a [[nationalist]]<ref>{{Citation |last=Miller |first=James Edward |title=Introduction: Manifest Destiny Meets the Megali Idea |date=2009-02-01 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5149/9780807887943_miller.6 |work=The United States and the Making of Modern Greece |pages=1–22 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |doi=10.5149/9780807887943_miller.6 |isbn=9780807832479 |access-date=2022-10-21|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=A. |first=Jenkins, Mary |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/35675237 |title=To megali idea - dead or alive? : the domestic determinants of Greek foreign policy |date=1994 |publisher=Naval Postgraduate School |oclc=35675237}}</ref> and [[irredentist]] concept that expresses the goal of reviving the [[Byzantine Empire]],<ref>Roumen Daskalov, Tchavdar Marinov, Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies; BRILL, 2013; {{ISBN|900425076X}}, p. 200.</ref> by establishing a Greek state, which would include the large Greek populations that were still under [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] rule after the end of the [[Greek War of Independence]] (1821–1829) and all the regions that had large Greek populations (parts of the southern [[Balkans]], [[Anatolia]] and [[Cyprus]]).{{sfn|Clogg|2002|page=60}}

The term appeared for the first time during the debates of [[Prime Ministers of Greece|Prime Minister]] [[Ioannis Kolettis]] with [[Otto of Greece|King Otto]] that preceded the promulgation of the 1844 constitution.<ref name="BA0">[https://www.britannica.com/place/Greece/Building-the-nation-1832-1913 ''History of Greece''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190607080822/https://www.britannica.com/place/Greece/Building-the-nation-1832-1913 |date=2019-06-07 }} Encyclopædia Britannica Online</ref>{{sfn|Clogg|2002|page=244}} It came to dominate foreign relations and played a significant role in domestic politics for much of the first century of Greek independence. The expression was new in 1844 but the concept had roots in the Greek popular psyche, which long had hopes of liberation from Ottoman rule and restoration of the Byzantine Empire.<ref name="BA0" />

<blockquote>Πάλι με χρόνια με καιρούς,
:πάλι δικά μας θα 'ναι!
(''Once more, as years and time go by, once more they shall be ours'').<ref name="BK0">D. Bolukbasi and D. Bölükbaşı, ''Turkey And Greece: The Aegean Disputes'', Routledge Cavendish 2004</ref></blockquote>

The Megali Idea implies establishing a Greek state, which would be a territory encompassing mostly the former Byzantine lands from the [[Ionian Sea]] in the west to Anatolia and the [[Black Sea]] to the east and from [[Thrace]], [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonia]] and [[Epirus]] in the north to [[Crete]] and [[Cyprus]] to the south. This new state would have [[Constantinople]] as its capital: it would be the "Greece of Two Continents and Five Seas" ([[Europe]] and [[Asia]], the Ionian, [[Aegean Sea|Aegean]], [[Sea of Marmara|Marmara]], Black and [[Libyan Sea|Libyan]] Seas). If realized, this would expand modern Greece to roughly the same size and extent of the later Byzantine Empire, after its [[Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty|restoration]] in 1261 AD.

The Megali Idea dominated foreign policy and domestic politics of [[Greece]] from the [[Greek War of Independence|War of Independence]] in the 1820s through the [[Balkan wars]] in the beginning of the 20th century. It started to fade after  the [[Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)]], followed by the [[population exchange between Greece and Turkey]] in 1923. Despite the end of the Megali Idea project in 1922, by then the Greek state had expanded four times, either through military conquest or diplomacy (often with British support). After the creation of Greece in 1830, it acquired the [[Ionian Islands]] ([[Treaty of London, 1864]]), [[Thessaly]] ([[Convention of Constantinople (1881)]]), [[Macedonia (Greece)|Macedonia]], [[Crete]], [[Epirus (region)|(southern) Epirus]] and the Eastern Aegean Islands ([[Treaty of Bucharest (1913)|Treaty of Bucharest]]), and [[Western Thrace]] ([[Treaty of Neuilly]], 1920). The [[Dodecanese]] were acquired after the Second World War ([[Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947]]).

A related concept is ''[[enosis]]''.