Abstract
Nearly all Greeks would be surprised to learn that Lord Byron (1788–1824) much preferred the company of Turks, and Muslims in general, over Greeks. When Byron went on his Eastern Grand Tour in 1809, Greek independence was a hopeless cause, a utopian quest. The Greeks he fell in love with were in fact Muslim Albanians, and the entire country was then part of the Ottoman Empire. Byron’s poetry sparked an Eastern craze, and included a sympathetic portrait of Turks and the Ottoman Empire which had an enduring effect.
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Katz, D.S. (2016). Lord Byron, Turkophile and His Grand Tour to the East (1809–1811). In: The Shaping of Turkey in the British Imagination, 1776–1923. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41060-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41060-9_3
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-41059-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-41060-9
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