The emergence of modern Greek studies in late-nineteenth-century France and England: The yearbooks of the Association pour l’encouragement des études grecques en France (1867) and of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (1877)

Abstract

Was the field of modern Greek studies perceived as an ‘exotic’ discipline in the making, or was it considered to be a branch of the already canonised Hellenic studies? This chapter examines two major associations that were established in the late nineteenth century in France and in England and dealt with the promotion of Greek studies: the Association pour l’encouragement des études grecques en France (1867) and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (1877). Their yearbooks constitute an unexamined treasure of information illuminating the reception of modern Greece and, at the same time, the construction of the modern Greek cultural identity by French and English Hellenists, from the mid-1860s onward.