The nation loves the householder, but also loves the bandit Nation-building and myth-making, the case of modern Greece, 1750--1862

This dissertation endeavors to describe and account for nation-building processes through a detailed investigation of the forces and factors that were involved in transforming brigand-irregulars into Greek national heroes during the 1750--1862 period. The overall aim is to contribute to the existing discourse concerning nations and nationalism by attempting to bridge the gap between modernist and ethno-symbolic accounts of the relevant phenomena. This has been accomplished by elaborating an analytical framework based on four general propositions and illustrating how they can contribute to more refined and context sensitive analyses of attempts at nation-building (i.e., nations and nationalism are constitutive components of modernity; they are constructed or invented forms of human organization; the importance ethno-cultural material in the formation of nations; and the inherently contingent and contentious nature of such processes). Finally, the thesis also accentuates that the following factors are necessary, but not sufficient, for successful nation-building projects: an affinity between the national identity or myth being propagated and the prevailing worldviews of the targeted population; and the establishment of durable and effective nation-building mechanisms and, accompanying, institutionalization of the particular myth or identity.