Chapter 1 The Greek “Proto-Question” and the Birth of Modern Citizenship 1 Natives and Foreigners under the Old Regime In 1611 a group of Wallachian boyars, led by the mare stolnic (High Steward) Bărcan of Merișani, plotted the assassination of the ruling Prince Radu Mihnea (r. 1611–1616). The attack was intended as retaliation for the fact that Radu Mihnea “surrounded them with numerous Greeks from Istanbul and Rumeli,” as a local chronicler reported.1 The plot was soon discovered by the Prince, who decapitated Bărcan along with eight other great boyars. This dramatic episode—the first instance in the Principalities’ history when “blood was spilled because of the Greeks,” as the historian A. D. Xenopol put it—marked the outbreak of what, in retrospect, Romantic historiography would term the “Greek Question” in Moldavia and Wallachia.2 Over the next two centuries (1611–1821), this “question” unfolded as a succession of violent anti-Greek plots, uprisings and legal campaigns by the local nobility and merchants against the unchecked political penetration and dominance of Ottoman Greeks. After the initial 1611 plot, a second major anti-Greek uprising took place during the reign of Alexandru Iliaș (r. 1616–1618); a third under Alexandru Coconul (r. 1623–1627); a fourth under Leon Tomșa (r. 1629–1632); a fifth under Matei Basarab (r. 1632–1654); a sixth under Radu Leon (r. 1664–1669); a seventh under Nicolae Mavrocordat (r. 1716–1717); and, finally, an eighth under Ioan Gheorghe Caragea (r. 1812–1818). This last uprising culminated with the 1821 failed coop- eration and eventual conflict between Tudor Vladimirescu and the Greek un- derground organization Philiki Hetaireia (Society of Friends), leading to the end of Phanariot rule. The Greek “proto-question” in the Principalities has been subjected to in- tensive research over several centuries.3 Due to its far-reaching implications, 1 Istoria Țării Româneșci 1290–1690. Letopisețul Cantacuzinesc, ed. by C. Grecescu and D. Simionescu (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Române, 1960), 90. 2 A. D. Xenopol, Istoria românilor din Dacia Traiană (Iași: Tipo-litografia H. Goldner, 1890), vol. 3, 448–449. 3 From the huge bibliography on the topic, I mention selectively: A. D. Xenopol, Istoria românilor din Dacia Traiană; A. D. Xenopol, “Les Roumains et les Grecs,” Revue de géographie 28 (January–June 1891): 38–50; and A. D. Xenopol, Epoca fanarioților 1711–1821 (Iași: Goldner, © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004401112_003 32 Chapter 1 the topic has been heavily politicized, as early historiography became a major terrain of political confrontation between rival local and Ottoman Greek po- litical factions. More recently, the topic has been approached by Romanian, Greek and foreign historians from new theoretical and methodological per- spectives.4 This chapter is in line with these recent historiographical trends, but approaches the Greek “proto-question” in the Principalities from a differ- ent analytical angle, regarding it as an outcome of a power struggle between two competing oligarchies: a local one and an Ottoman imperial one. The analysis focuses on the emergence of modern citizenship as a product of this oligarchic struggle for political preeminence in Moldavia and Wallachia, two tributary states on the Ottoman Empire’s European border. It is argued that, in its initial stage, the development of modern citizenship legislation in Moldavia and Wallachia was triggered by the two Principalities’ complex in- teraction with the Ottoman Empire, as a reaction to the substantial increase in the economic and financial burden placed on them by the imperial center; and to the gradual penetration of Ottoman subjects into the Principalities and 1892); Nicolae Iorga, Cultura română supt fanarioți (Bucharest: Socec, 1898); Nicolae Iorga, Istoria literaturii române în secolul al XVIII-lea (1688–1821), 2 vols. (Bucharest: Minerva, 1901); Constantin V. Obedeanu, Grecii în Țara-Românească cu o privire generală asupra stării cul- turale până la 1717 (Bucharest: I. V. Socecŭ, 1900), 12; Demostene Russo, Studii istorice greco- române. Opere postume, 2 vols. (Bucharest: Editura pentru Literatură și artă “Regele Carol II,” 1939); Andrei Pippidi, “Nicolas Soutzo (1798–1871) et la faillite du régime phanariote dans les Principautés Roumaines,” Revue des études sud-est européennes 6 (1968): 313–338. For the historiographical discourse, see Leonidas Rados, “Societatea Junimea și interesul pen- tru studiile bizantine,” Anuarul Institutului de Istorie “A. D. Xenopol” 41 (2004): 513–528; and Leonidas Rados, “Influența greacă în disputele istoriografice din spațiul românesc în a doua jumătate a secolului XIX,” Anuarul Institutului de Istorie “G. Barițiu, Cluj-Napoca” 47 (2008): 123–142. For recent works, see publications of the Omonia Publishing House, Bucharest: Stelian Brezeanu, Constantin Iordan, Horia C. Matei, Tudor Teoteoi and Gheorghe Zbuchea, Relațiile româno-elene: o istorie cronologică, 2003; Paula Scalcău, Grecii din România, 2nd ed., 2005; Paula Scalcău, Hellenism in Romania: A Chronological History, 2007; Leonidas Rados, ed., Școlile grecești în România (1857–1905). Restituții documentare, 2006; and Elena Lazăr, Interferențe literare româno-elene, 2007. 4 Paschalis M. Kitromilides, Anna Tabaki, eds., Relations gréco-roumaines. Interculturalité et identité nationale/Greek-Romanian Relations: Interculturalism and National Identity (Athens: Institute for Neohellenic Research, 2004); Nikos Panou, “Greek-Romanian Symbiotic Patterns in the Early Modern Period: History, Mentalities, Institutions—I,” Historical Review/La Revue Historique 3 (2006): 71–110; “Greek-Romanian Symbiotic Patterns in the Early Modern Period: History, Mentalities, Institutions—II,” Historical Review/La Revue Historique 4 (2007): 59–104; and Christine M. Philliou, Biography of an Empire: Practicing Ottoman Governance in the Age of Revolutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). For cultural developments in the Principalities during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, see Alex Drace- Francis, The Making of Modern Romanian Culture: Literacy and the Development of National Identity (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012)..