Alasdair Grant, “George Finlay among the Scottish Philhellenes”
Alasdair Grant, “George Finlay among the Scottish Philhellenes”
Dr Alasdair Grant (University of Edinburgh), “George Finlay among the Scottish Philhellenes”
Abstract
This lecture places the historian and philhellene George Finlay (1799–1875) in the context of the network of Scottish philhellenes that developed during the years after 1821. This group embraced Thomas Gordon, the soldier and historian; Edward Masson, the educationalist and attorney; and, of course, Lord Byron. Years later, the polymathic academic John Stuart Blackie was added to Finlay’s circle; while not a participant in the Revolution, he was nonetheless an influential lover of Greece. The papers of George Finlay, held at the British School at Athens, contain a wealth of correspondence between Finlay and these important figures. This correspondence, placed alongside their published works, reveals the complex dynamics of how the members of this group perceived and characterized one another and their respective contributions to revolutionary and post-revolutionary Greece.
This BSA Bader Archive Lecture was recorded 27 May 2021.
