Unclaimed colonies: Anglo-Greek identities through the prism of the Dilessi/Marathon Murders (1870)

This paper examines the Anglo-Greek dialogue on Greek and British European identities following the Dilessi/Marathon Murders, a case of kidnapping and murder of three upper class Britons by Greek brigands, which became the European cause célèbre of the 1870s. It focuses on British and Greek narratives of brigandage and uses them to provide some insight into the ways both sides conceptualised modernity. The uses of the Greek, Irish and Scottish past and present in this dialogue formed a discourse in which history, imperialism and romanticism were woven altogether. This paper argues that these intertwined ideas and processes were complicit in the formation of modern British and Greek national identities.