Phanariots

"Phanariots" is the name the Encyclopaedia of Islam gives collectively to the prominent Greek families that settled around the Greek Patriarchate in the quarter of Fener, in Istanbul. ¹ They were Orthodox Christian subjects of the sultan, and the articles read show them in Ottoman service as interpreters and as princes of the two Danubian principalities. ¹ This record describes them as the Encyclopaedia of Islam does, from the Ottoman point of view, and the family names it lists are given as it spells them.

The Fener article says that, according to tradition, the quarter was assigned to the Greeks after the conquest of 857/1453, and that the Patriarch moved there in 1011/1603 to the church of St George, rebuilt in 1720 and still the seat of the Orthodox Patriarchate. ^{3 1} Early on there settled nearby, besides the Patriarchate's ecclesiastical and secular officials, the few old Byzantine families that had stayed in Istanbul and other distinguished and wealthy members of the community. The Patriarchate's school, run by clergy, kept up the ancient classical studies. These prominent Greek families came to be called Phanariots collectively. ¹

Thanks to their links with the Christian world, and to the fact that many had been educated in Italy, the Porte drew on them, in particular in the 12th/18th and early 13th/19th centuries, for various influential employments. ¹ Members of these families acted as dragomans of the Porte and of the Arsenal, and as contractors supplying furs and meat to the palace. ¹ The article names among the families the Maurokordatos, Kantakouzenos, Gkikas, Karatzas, Soutsos, Khantzeres, who are the Handjeri of other sources, Maurogenes, Hypsilantes, Mourouzes, Kallimakhes, Mousouros and Aristarkhes. ¹

One of them is quoted in the article on freedom: the Phanariot Handjeri, in a dictionary of French, Arabic, Persian and Turkish printed in Moscow in 1840-41, rendered "liberté civile" and "liberté politique" as rukhsat-i sharfiyya and rukhsat-i mulkiyya. ⁴ The article on Halet Efendi adds that an Ottoman statesman's closeness to the Phanariots brought him under suspicion, and that he is said to have tried to clear himself by showing as great a hatred of the Greeks as he was supposed to have friendship; see Halet Efendi. ⁵

The Fener article says the Phanariots were regarded as more reliable than the native princes, for some of whom they had earlier acted as agents at the Porte, and that over a century they were the ones appointed as voyvodas or hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia. It dates Moldavia from 1123/1711. ¹ The Bogdan article, on Moldavia, speaks of the "Phanariot period" from 1123 to 1236, 1711 to 1821, and says that after the treachery of Dimitrie Cantemir in 1123/1711 the voyvodas were chosen only from a few Phanariot families, the Mavrokordati, Kallimachi and Hypsilanti, and were now merely Ottoman officials. ² The article on Ahmad III dates the appointment of Phanariot Greeks to the governorship of the Principalities from 1716 onwards, following the treachery of Cantemir and his fellow hospodar of Wallachia during the Pruth campaign. ⁶ The sources therefore differ between 1711 and 1716 for the start of the system; the Bogdan article concerns Moldavia only, and the Ahmad III article speaks of the Principalities together. See the principality of Wallachia and the Pruth campaign.

The article on Wallachia says the Ottomans no longer trusted the Romanian princes, who were so ready to choose their rulers from the Greeks of the Phanar who had distinguished themselves in the sultan's service. It dates the end of the Phanariot regime to 1821 and the revolt of Tudor Vladimirescu, who, after first acting in agreement with the Hetairia, turned against the Greeks as instruments of Ottoman domination. ⁷

In the second half of the 12th/18th century the Phanariot families began to leave Fener for the healthier villages on the Bosphorus, such as Kuruchesme, Arnawutkoy and Tarabya. ¹ After the Greek War of Independence many of them migrated to Greece, and descendants of Phanariot families are still found in modern Romania. ¹

The articles read do not count the Phanariots, do not describe their own view of their service, and do not follow individual families beyond the lists given. The Wallachian start date is not stated in the OCR text of the Fener article and is left open.