Military victories were not enough for independence. Recognition by the other States and establishment of diplomatic and consular relations with them, were prerequisites for Greece to become truly independent.


As part of the celebration for the 200 years since the beginning of the Greek Revolution, the Service of Diplomatic and Historical Archives of the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs presents documents from its collection describing the course of recognition of the new Greek State by the existing States during and the first years after the Greek Struggle for Independence, the establishment of diplomatic and consular relations with them and the establishment of a consular network. The period covered runs approximately until 1840, the States at the time (independent and autonomous) are mentioned by their name then and the cities or areas where Greek consular Authorities were established are included in the part of the exhibition concerning the States to which they belonged at the time. Since Greece, unlike many countries with which it developed relations, used the old (Julian) calendar, in the descriptions of the documents all dates are listed based on both calendars, as far as possible. When one of the two dates is not mentioned in the document itself, it is cited in brackets. All documents originate from the Diplomatic and Historical Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, unless otherwise stated, and are digitized and posted on the digital platform of the Service of Diplomatic and Historical Archives arxeio.mfa.gr, on which the entire archival collection of the Central Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 1924 is available in a digitized format.

Curator, selection of documents, remarks:

Georgios Polydorakis