“It was not even Lord Byron’s intention to be in Greece,” said Jennifer Wallace, Director of English Studies at the University of Cambridge. “He wanted to explore the Mediterranean: Lisbon, Malta, Sardinia, Constantinople, but something stopped him at the port of Patras,” he continues. It’s a surprise for the audience at the Anglo-Hellenic League event for the Philhellenic poet’s legacy, ahead of the 200th anniversary of his death.

But is he the symbol of philhellenism and heroism that we believe or did he simply want to enter the history page in any way? These were some of the questions asked at The Hellenic Center in London, trying to unravel the multifaceted personality of the young English nobleman.

“During his second trip to Greece and during the civil war, Lord Byron had expressed his frustration with the Greeks by saying some pretty insulting things about them,” points out Ioannis Hundis de Fabbri, PhD candidate in the History of Ideas at the University of Aberdeen and a counselor in the House of Lords. “Greeks often forget this “ugly” side as they are not ready to hear the opposite”.

Nevertheless, no one can deny that Byron contributed to the creation of a more general philhellenic movement in the United Kingdom, which later influenced the Greek Struggle for Independence. In fact, Lord Byron’s close collaboration with the revolutionary Alexander Mavrocordatos contributed to the creation of the Greek state as we know it today.

And Roderick Beaton, emeritus professor of the “Heart” Chair at King’s College London, did not stop there. “We could say that the independence of Greece was a pioneer for the independence of other European states that we know today,” he said. Belgium became independent a year later, the creation of Germany came several years later, Italy, and the list goes on with many more countries.

Image: Zoe Katzayiannaki/DW

Also mentioned in the Parthenon Sculptures

Whatever Lord Byron’s position may be in the present day, Greco-British relations continue to have a long history. Characteristically, the Anglo-Hellenic League was founded in the wake of the Balkan Wars in 1912-1913 to counter anti-Hellenic propaganda in the United Kingdom. Although there are still weak points in this relationship and the mutual understanding between the British and the Greeks, the effort to resolve them continues.

On this occasion, the Parthenon Sculptures were once again mentioned at the event. After all, Lord Byron had not left Elgin’s theft of the marbles unaddressed. In his poem “The Curse of Athens” he had even accused the Scottish Elgin as “uncivilized” and not his compatriot – as he was English – in a conversation he envisioned having with the goddess Athena.

The poem in question displeased many Britons, supporters of the then all-powerful British Empire, and many of his readers began to abandon him. But he did not stop and his story is reborn. According to the president of the Byron Society, Robin Lord Byron, who attended the event, efforts are being made to move the statue of Lord Byron, which was given as a gift from Greece to the British government in 1882, to a more prominent place, this of Kensington Gardens, as it is currently in an inaccessible location on Park Lane. Lord Byron died after several days of fever in Messolonghi, on April 19, 1824.