Megali Idea facts for kids

The Megali Idea was an idea in Greek nationalism since the end of the Byzantine Empire. The goal of Megali Idea was the liberation of all Greek-inhabited lands occupied by Ottoman Empire.

Images for kids

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  Map showing the Greek pretensions on the Paris Peace Conference after WWI, 1919

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  Map of Megali Hellas (Great Greece) as proposed at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 by Eleftherios Venizelos, the leading major proponent of the Megali Idea at the time.

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  Sultan Mehmed II's entry into Constantinople.

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  Ethnic map of Asia Minor in 1917. Black = Bulgars and Turks. Red = Greeks. Light yellow = Armenians. Blue = Kurds. Orange = Lazes. Dark Yellow = Arabs. Green = Nestorians.

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  Constantine I of Greece was called Constantine XII by his supporters, the purported successor to the Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos

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  Eleftherios Venizelos tried to realize the Megali Idea

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  Greek claims in Epirus and Macedonia after the first Balkan war

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  Poster celebrating the "New Hellas" after the Balkan Wars.

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  Map of Megali Hellas after the Treaty of Sèvres and featuring a picture of Eleftherios Venizelos.

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  Greek soldiers in Smyrna, May 1919.

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  The island of Cyprus, showing the areas controlled by the ethnic Greek Cypriots of the Republic of Cyprus (south), and the areas controlled by ethnic Turkish Cypriots (north).