The Phanariot Past and its Afterlives: Historicizing “Corruption” in Central-South-East Europe (1750s-1920s)

The Phanariots have long animated the historiography of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Southeast Europe. Contemporary political commentators, as well as historians seeking to construct national(ist) narratives, branded the Phanariots with critiques of corruption, foreign interests, and the legacies of the Ottoman past. Yet, scholars have conducted scant research on how and why “Phanariots” and “Phanariotism” came to signify corruption, bad governance, and a seemingly inescapable Ottoman past after 1821. This workshop tends to this gap in historiography.