Political Impact of Fallmerayer's Ethnic Theories
In the 1830s, philehellenes who had recently supported the creation of the modern Greek kingdom suspected political motivations in his writings; namely an Austrian desire for expansion southwards into the Balkans, and Austrian antagonism to Russian interests in the area reflected in his other writings. In this context, the calls by English and French intellectuals for a revival of "the glory that was Greece" were seen by Austrians in a very negative light, and any Austrian theory on the Greeks was looked on with suspicion by the philhellenes in the West.
Fallmerayer was first among his contemporaries to put forward a ruthless Realpolitik on the Eastern Question and the expansionist designs of Czarist Russia. He was a Slavophobe and "argued vehemently that only a strong Ottoman State could prevent Russian expansion into Western Europe."
Fallmerayer's theory was popular as part of the Nazi propaganda in Axis occupied Greece (1941-1944) during World War II; while classical educated Nazi officers used it as an excuse to commit numerous atrocities against the Greek population.
Read more about this topic: Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer
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