Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks (Greek:Φαναριώτες, Romanian: Fanarioţi, Bulgarian: Фанариоти) were members of those prominent Greek (including Hellenized Romanian and Albanian) families[1] residing in Phanar[2] (Φανάρι, modern Fener),[3] the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.

For all their cosmopolitanism and often western (sometimes Roman-Catholic) education, the Phanariots were aware of their Hellenism; according to Nicholas Mavrocordatos' Philotheou Parerga:We are a race completely Hellenic.[4]

Phanariots emerged as a class of moneyed ethnically Greek merchants (they commonly claimed noble Byzantine descent) in the latter half of the 16th century and went on to exercise great influence in the administration in the Ottoman Empire's Balkan domains in the 18th century.[2] They tended to build their houses in the Phanar quarter in order to be close to the court of the Patriarch, who under the Ottoman millet system was recognized as both the spiritual and secular head (millet-bashi) of all the Orthodox subjects (the Rum Millet, or the “Roman nation”) of the Empire (except those Orthodox under the spiritual care of the Patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria), often acting as archontes of the Ecumenical See; thus they came to dominate the administration of the Patriarchate frequently intervening in the selection of hierarchs, including the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

Overview

Some members of these families, which had acquired great wealth and influence during the 17th century, occupied high political and administrative posts in the Ottoman Empire. From 1669 until the Greek War of Independence in 1821 Phanariotes formed the majority of the dragomans to the Ottoman government (the Porte) and to foreign embassies due to the higher level of education of Greeks compared to the general Ottoman population.[1] Along with the church dignitaries, the local notables from the provinces and the large Greek merchant class, Phanariotes represented the better educated members of Greek society during Ottoman rule and until the start of the Greek War of Independence. During the latter, Phanariotes played a crucial role and influenced the decisions of the Greek National Assembly, the representative body of the Greek revolutionaries, which met on six occasions between 1821 and 1829.[1][5]

Between the years 1711–1716 and 1821, a number of them were appointed Hospodars (Voivodes or Princes) in the Danubian Principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia), usually as a promotion from dragoman offices; that period is usually termed the Phanariote epoch in Romanian history.[2]

Ottoman Empire

The roots of Greek ascendancy can be traced to the need of the Ottomans for skilled and educated negotiators as the power of their empire declined and they were compelled to rely on treaties more than the force of arms.[2] From the 17th century onwards the Ottomans began meeting problems in the conduct of their foreign relations, and were having difficulties in dictating terms to their neighbours; the Porte was faced for the first time with the need of participating in diplomatic negotiations.

Given the Ottoman tradition of generally ignoring Western European languages and cultures, officials found themselves unable to handle such affairs.[6] The Porte subsequently assigned those tasks to the Greeks who had a long mercantile and educational tradition and could provide the necessary skills. As a result, the so−called Phanariotes, Greek and Hellenized families mostly native to Constantinople, came to occupy high posts of secretaries and interpreters to Ottoman officials and officers.[7]

Diplomats and Patriarchs

As a result of Phanariote and ecclesiastic administration, Greeks expanded their influence in the Empire in the 18th century while retaining their Greek Orthodox faith and Hellenism. This had not always been the case in the Ottoman realm, as in the 16th century it was the South Slavs who were the most prominent in Imperial affairs. Unlike the Greeks, they were willing to convert to Islam in order to enjoy full rights of Ottoman citizenship, especially in Bosnia, while Serbs also tended to acquire high military positions.[6]

In time, a Slavic presence in the administration gradually became a hazard for the Ottoman rulers, as it was prone to offer full support to Habsburg armies in the context of the Great Turkish War. By the 17th century, the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople became the absolute religious and administrative ruler of all Christian Orthodox subjects within the Empire, regardless of their ethnic background. All formerly independent Orthodox patriarchates, including the Serbian Patriarchate renewed in 1557, came under the authority of the Greek Orthodox Church.[7] Most of the Greek Patriarchs were drawn from among the Phanariotes.

Two Greek social groups therefore emerged and challenged the leadership of the Greek Church.[8] These were the Phanariotes in Constantinople and the local notables in the Helladic provinces (kocabaşıs, gerontes, dimogerontes, prokritoi). According to Constantine Paparrigopoulοs, one of the major Greek historians, Phanariotes initially sought the most important secular offices of the Patriarchical Court and, thus, they could frequently intervene in the election of bishops, as well as influence crucial decisions of the Patriarch.[5] Greek merchants and clergy of Byzantine aristocratic origin, who acquired great economic prosperity and political influence, and were later known as Phanariotes, settled in the extreme northwestern district of Constantinople, which had become central to Greek interests after the establishment of the Patriarch's headquarters in 1461 (shortly after Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque).[9]

Patriarchate

After the 1453 Fall of Constantinople, when the Sultan virtually replaced de facto and de jure the Byzantine Emperor among subjugated Christians, the Ecumenical Patriarch was recognized by the Sultan as the religious and national leader (ethnarch) of Greeks and the other ethnicities that were included in the Greek Orthodox Millet.[10] The Patriarchate earned a primary importance and occupied this key role among the Christians of the Empire because the Ottomans did not legally distinguish between nationality and religion, and thus regarded all the Orthodox Christians of the Empire as a single entity.[11]

The position of the Patriarchate in the Ottoman state encouraged projects of Greek renaissance, centered on the resurrection and revitalization of the Byzantine Empire. The Patriarch and those church dignitaries around him constituted the first centre of power for the Greeks inside the Ottoman state, one which succeeded in infiltrating the structures of the Ottoman Empire, while attracting the former Byzantine nobility.[11]

Merchant middle class

It was the wealth of the extensive Greek merchant class that provided the material basis for the intellectual revival that was the prominent feature of Greek life in the half century and more leading to 1821.

The first Greek millionaire in the Ottoman era was Michael Cantacuzenos, who earned 60.000 ducats a year from his control of the fur trade from Muskovy;[12] he was eventually executed on the Sultan's order.

Impelled by the brand of local patriotism that has always been of feature of the Greek world, the Greek merchants endowed libraries and schools. It was not by chance that on the eve of the Greek War of Independence the three most important centres of Greek learning, schools-cum-universities, were situated in Chios, Smyrna and Aivali, all three major centres of Greek commerce.[13]

Civil servants

During the 18th century, Phanariotes appeared as a hereditary clerical−aristocratic grouping, managing the affairs of the Patriarchate, and becoming the dominant political power of the Greek community in Ottoman lands. In time, they grew to become a very significant political factor in the Ottoman Empire, and, as diplomatic agents, played a considerable role in the affairs of the Kingdom of Great Britain, France, and the Russian Empire.[14]

Phanariotes soon competed for some of the most important administrative offices in the Ottoman administration: several of these involved collecting Imperial taxes, holding monopolies on commerce, working under contract in various enterprises, being purveyors to the court, and even rulers over one of the two Danubian Principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia). At the same time, they engaged in private trade dealings, and acquired great control over the crucial wheat trade on the Black Sea. Phanariotes managed to expand their commercial activities first into the Kingdom of Hungary, and then to all other Central European states. Such activities intensified their contacts with Western nations, and as a consequence they became familiar with Western languages and cultures.[9]

Just before the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence, Phanariotes were firmly established as the political elite of Hellenism. According to Greek historian Constantine Paparrigopoulos, this was a natural evolution, given the Phanariotes' education and their experience in supervising vast regions of the Empire.[5] In addition, Svoronos argued that they subordinated their national identity to their class identity, since they merely endeavored to achieve peaceful co−existence between the conqueror and the conquered; Svoronos believes that, in this way, Phanariotes failed to enrich the Greek national identity, and lost ground to the groups that grew through their confrontation with the Ottoman Empire, first the klephts and then the Armatoloi.[15]

Danubian Principalities

Establishment and contrasts

The period is not to be understood as marking the introduction of a Greek presence into the Principalities, which had already established itself in both provinces and had even resulted in the appointment of Greek Princes before the 18th century. After the end of the Phanariote epoch, various families of Phanariote ancestry in both Wallachia and Moldavia identified themselves as Romanian, and remained present in Romanian society — among them, the Rosetti family, whose member C. A. Rosetti represented the radical and nationalist cause during and after the 1848 Wallachian revolution. Also notable were the Ghicas (who, despite direct Phanariote lineage, held the throne in Wallachia with Grigore IV and Alexandru II as the first "non−Phanariote" rulers after 1821). Finally the Vacarescu family, of Greek Phanariote origin, provided some of the first poets to Romanian literature.

The attention of Phanariotes was concentrated on occupying the most favorable offices the Empire could offer to non-Muslims, but also to the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which were still relatively rich, and more importantly, autonomous (despite having to pay tribute as vassal states). Many Greeks had found favorable conditions there for commercial activities, by far more advantageous when compared with the difficultes inside the Ottoman Empire, and also an opportunity to gain political power. Many had entered the ranks of Wallachian and Moldavian boyar nobility by marriage.

Although rarely occurring, reigns of local Princes were not excluded on principle. This situation had even determined two arguably hellenized Romanian noble families, the Callimachis (originally Călmaşul) and Racoviţăs, to penetrate into the Phanar nucleus, in order to facilitate and increase their chances to occupy the thrones, and later to successfully maintain their positions.

While most sources would agree to 1711 being the moment where the gradual erosion of the traditional institutions had reached its ultimate stage, characteristics usually ascribed to the Phanariote era had made themselves felt long before it.[16] The Ottomans had been enforcing their choice for Hospodars throughout previous centuries (as far back as the 15th), and foreign — usually Greek or Levantine — boyars had been competing with the local ones since the late 16th century. Rulers since Dumitraşcu Cantacuzino in Moldavia and George Ducas, a Prince of Greek origin, in Wallachia (both in 1673) had been forced to surrender all of their family members, and not just selected ones, as hostages in Constantinople. At the same time, the traditional elective system in the Principalities had accounted for long periods of political disorder, and was in fact dominated by a small number of ambitious families (whether local or foreign), who had entered violent competition for the two thrones and monopolized land ownership[17] — a notable example is the conflict opposing the Craioveşti and the Cantacuzinos in the period before 1711.