The Unseen Continuity of Dependence: From Kapodistrias to the Eurozone
AI-assisted translation from the Greek. Greek original
The history of Greece after the Revolution of 1821 is often presented as a journey towards independence. Yet behind the official narrative, a core of enduring dependence remains: on foreign Powers, foreign Institutions, and today — on supranational mechanisms of control.
Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first Governor of free Greece, envisioned an independent state. From the outset, however, his vision ran up against the interests and ambitions of the three Great Powers. His assassination in 1831 was not simply the fall of a man, but the collapse of the possibility of founding a state with a will of its own. His replacement by the underage Bavarian Otto, and the imposition of the Regency (1833–1835), embodied the transition from an attempt at self-institution to a regime of external appointment.
From its very first steps, Greece became an “independent state under guarantee”: a paradox of political philosophy. It did not determine the terms of its own independence.
The truth is that this logic never disappeared. It merely changed form.
In the modern era, Greece’s membership of the European Union, and especially the Eurozone, offered stability and international support. But alongside these, it also entails:
the loss of monetary policy,
dependence on European financial discipline,
the obligation to implement supranational decisions.
Particularly from 2010 onwards, when Greece entered the Memoranda programmes, it was placed under enhanced surveillance — not very different, in its logic, from the Regency. There may be no foreign king, but there are external “technical teams” that determine what can be done.
This dependence is not merely economic; it is institutional, political and — ultimately — cultural. Greece seems to reproduce the same mechanism in a new guise: it does not formulate the Logos of its institutions for itself, but adapts to logics already articulated elsewhere.
The crucial question is no longer “whether” we are independent. The question is:
can we articulate an institutional Logos of our own?
Kapodistrias tried. He did not have time. Today, despite our dependence, we have a voice. Will we use it for substance or for superficial changes of power?
The historical continuity of dependence can be broken only through internal change. Not against others, but in support of our self-awareness as a community with a Logos.