The image of the Greeks in the work of the Bulgarian revolutionary and intellectual Georgi Rakovski

Abstract

Rakovski had an ambivalent attitude towards the Greeks. Instilled with
Greek education and consorting with Greeks, he regarded the Greeks as a
model for the Bulgarians, emphasizing above all their patriotism, love of
learning, and solidarity when the circumstances called for it. Once he had
moved into political action on behalf of the Bulgarian national awaking, he
gradually came to regard the Greeks as the Bulgarians’ adversaries. The
graecomania of the wealthy Bulgarians posed an obstacle to the Bulgarian
national cause and he attributed it to a plan of the Oecumenical Patriarchate
to “hellenize” the Balkan peoples. Rakovski soon turned his fire on the
political forces in the Greek state, whose “Great Idea” he regarded as a
fantasy invented by the Phanar.