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1:29

Welcome to The New Books Network.

1:33

Hello and welcome to another episode on The

1:35

New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda

1:37

Melcher, and I'm very pleased today

1:39

to be joined by Dr. Maurizio Isabella to

1:42

tell us all about his recently published book

1:44

from Princeton University Press titled

1:46

Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions.

1:49

This is a fascinating book to understand

1:52

what was happening in the various countries

1:55

of Southern Europe

1:56

in the period after,

1:58

during the Napoleonic Wars.

1:59

the Congress of Vienna to figure

2:03

out kind of what is the monarchy

2:05

gonna look like, what is government gonna look like, what's the

2:07

role of the military, mainly

2:10

in Portugal, Spain, the Italian

2:12

peninsula, Sicily, and Greece. So you know, not a small

2:15

part of the world. And

2:17

Mertzio does a fabulous job of helping

2:19

us understand what happens in each of these

2:21

places in the 1820s, my

2:23

apologies, and also how they go together,

2:26

how we can understand these moments

2:28

and movements, and really

2:31

kind of reframe our broader historical

2:33

understanding of the time period and

2:35

the place. So Mertzio, I'm so pleased

2:38

that you're here on the podcast to tell us all about it.

2:39

Thank you very much, Miranda. It's entirely

2:42

my pleasure to

2:44

talk to you about my recently published

2:47

book, and maybe a

2:49

few words about myself.

2:50

Is that okay, Miranda? Yes,

2:53

I think we should probably start there. Before we dive

2:55

into all of these things in the book, could

2:57

you maybe introduce yourself a bit and explain

3:00

kind of why you decided to write this?

3:02

Yes, sure. I'm

3:05

a professor of modern history at Quinella

3:07

University of London, where I've been teaching for

3:09

the last 17 years. And

3:12

I'm an Italian national by origin.

3:14

And by origin, I was trained as a

3:16

historian of 19th

3:18

century Italy

3:21

and a spurn of ideas. And I've

3:23

always been interested in going beyond the national

3:26

as a historian. And

3:28

now, 10 years ago, I decided

3:32

to write a book about these revolutions

3:34

for, I guess, two different

3:37

set of reasons. The first was

3:39

mainly, I guess, political.

3:41

I decided to write this book

3:43

just in the aftermath of the financial

3:46

crisis, that the

3:49

crisis of the term affected

3:53

Spain, Portugal, Italy, and

3:55

Greece, they led to a rescue package. in 2011.

4:04

And in this context, sort of stereotypes

4:08

about Southern Italy being the problem

4:11

area of Europe,

4:13

along with kind of renewed ideals of

4:15

exceptionalism among scholars, not

4:18

resurfaced. And

4:20

so I was aware of

4:22

this context, which I wanted to

4:26

deal with historically

4:29

by going back to a moment in history

4:31

where actually Southern Europe

4:33

was at the forefront of the struggle for democracy,

4:36

although already sort of

4:39

weaker than Northern Europe. So

4:41

this is the political context that led me to

4:44

write this book. There was also an

4:46

intellectual reason. I had been, until

4:48

then, a stern of ideas interested in

4:50

the circulation of ideas, and I wanted to

4:53

retrain myself as a historian

4:55

to write about more countries

4:58

beyond Italy and also deal with other

5:00

types of history, not just intellectual history,

5:02

but also social history, political

5:05

history, history of culture

5:07

and history of practices, as well as global history.

5:10

That's a very interesting combination

5:12

of reasons, and I think comes through

5:14

a lot in the content of the book. And

5:17

so given that idea of kind of the sense of time

5:19

and identifying key moments, can

5:22

you tell us a bit about what period

5:24

you chose to cover in the book and sort of

5:26

how you made that decision of what time

5:29

to look at?

5:29

Yes, absolutely. The

5:32

1820s are the main objects

5:35

of the book because

5:37

it is in the 1820s there are a set

5:39

of simultaneous revolutions broke

5:41

out in just over a year

5:46

in Spain, Portugal, the

5:48

Kingdom of Piedmont, Sardinia, Naples,

5:51

Sicily, and Greece.

5:53

But I reassess this revolution

5:56

moment from the South in a longer

5:58

chronological span.

5:59

because I claim

6:02

that the origin of these upheavals has

6:06

to be found in the Napoleonic Wars,

6:08

in the Napoleonic expansion in these

6:12

European and extra European

6:15

territories, but also that these

6:18

revolutions had long-term

6:20

legacies and effects up to

6:23

roughly 1870,

6:25

which is maybe something we can talk about later

6:27

on. So the moment is a specific

6:30

moment when revolutions broke

6:32

out simultaneously, and

6:34

that's why I take it as the heart of

6:36

the book,

6:37

but I reframe it in a longer

6:40

chronological span. Very

6:42

helpful context. And I think probably

6:44

familiar to a lot of historians, the idea

6:46

that something might pop up in a way, but

6:48

there's a lot more before and after that's

6:50

relevant as well.

6:52

The idea of things happening in different

6:54

countries simultaneously

6:56

suggests that the answer to my next question might

6:59

be yes,

7:00

but of course, historians, the answer is

7:03

never yes or no. It's much more complicated

7:05

than that. So

7:06

to what extent, in what ways, were

7:09

these revolutionary moments connected

7:12

or related to the ones happening at the

7:14

same time in other places?

7:17

They certainly were. They were not just

7:19

simultaneous, but connected.

7:21

First of all, because there was

7:24

a kind of domino effect connecting

7:28

one to the other. The first

7:30

chronologically was the one that broke out

7:32

in Spain just

7:35

outside Paris on the 1st of January, 1820,

7:39

but very soon and very fast.

7:42

News about these events reached

7:45

the other countries across Southern

7:48

Europe, across the Mediterranean and beyond.

7:51

And though these news unleashed a sort

7:54

of set of events,

7:56

people in the squares of Lisbon

7:58

or in the squares of Naples, The Abones or

8:01

the cities of Messina

8:03

and Palermo in Sicily

8:05

were talking about these stylish events and

8:07

when revolutions broke out in these other

8:10

cities, they were actually shouting

8:12

in the squared scura to the revolution

8:15

of Spain. So first

8:17

connection is people being aware

8:20

of revolutions a bit

8:21

as it happened not so long

8:24

ago in with the Arab Spring.

8:26

What also connected these revolutions was a

8:28

circulation of information but also

8:31

printed material

8:33

that the constitutions that

8:35

were introduced as a result

8:37

of these revolutions circulated

8:40

across all of these countries. Other

8:42

public documents like the manifestos

8:44

that declared these revolutions were translated

8:47

and sent by

8:49

ship to other countries. Rumors

8:53

and fake news circulated

8:55

across space, across borders and

8:57

the sea,

8:58

but also individuals moved from one

9:01

country to the other country during

9:03

and after these revolutions. Volume

9:06

here, so freedom fighters, the best

9:08

known of them would be Lord Byron fighting

9:11

in Greece, by the way, hundreds of them

9:14

moving from Italy to Greece or

9:16

in other directions or to Spain

9:18

and Portugal

9:19

and also other types of displacement

9:22

connected these revolutions, for instance, refugees.

9:26

Interesting connections, especially that

9:28

idea of kind of in one square celebrating

9:31

it using the language of the other. And I

9:33

think

9:33

the allusion to the Arab Spring does help contemporary

9:36

audiences kind of understand this

9:39

idea of sort of zeitgeist, of hearing

9:41

the news and going, oh, well, what's that mean for us? And

9:45

thinking of that kind of contemporary audiences

9:47

understanding this, we,

9:51

this a lot of the history that you're talking about, a lot of

9:53

the arguments you're making who are maybe not as

9:55

present in the kind of current historiography

9:58

of our understanding of the world.

9:59

revolutionary history of the early 1800s.

10:03

How do you think that your book

10:05

and this focus on the history in Southern

10:08

Europe, the revolutionary elements there,

10:10

changes our wider understanding

10:12

about the period of revolution more broadly

10:15

across Europe? Well, I think

10:16

it changes our understanding of that period

10:20

at various levels. First of all, because it integrates

10:22

a part of Europe

10:24

that is generally ignored by generally

10:26

histories of the age of revolution or general

10:28

histories of Europe. And by

10:30

so doing, it offers

10:33

an alternative or more complex

10:35

sort of genealogy of the birth

10:38

of the struggle for representative government

10:40

in Europe. But

10:41

also it offers a revised chronology.

10:44

In what sense a revised

10:46

chronology? Because standard histories

10:48

of age of revolutions in Europe have

10:52

as a starting point 1789, the

10:54

French Revolution, 1815, the end of the Napoleon

10:56

wars, 1830, not another revolution in Paris, 1848, the European wide

11:04

revolutionary wave. And

11:07

very often the 1820s are hardly

11:10

mentioned. In his kind of

11:12

classic history of the age of revolution,

11:15

Eric Opson, talking about the dual revolution

11:17

of the industrial revolution, the French Revolution,

11:19

mentions, pleasingly

11:22

the 1820s, but dismisses them as

11:25

kind of minor events, but

11:27

elitist, weak, bereft

11:29

of any class action. I

11:31

turn this interpretation upside down.

11:34

I talk about these revolutions as mass

11:36

bases, as revolutions

11:39

supported by large

11:41

sectors of the populations. And that's why

11:44

I talk about a popular

11:46

constitution.

11:49

I think that's a great way now to kind of

11:51

dive into more of the specifics

11:54

of what's happening and what it means now that we have

11:56

all this useful context. So

11:59

thinking of this,

11:59

idea of

12:01

kind of when we start and end this,

12:04

when we understand what's leading up

12:06

to these simultaneous uprisings.

12:09

You argue in the book, quote, the 1820s

12:12

uprisings in Southern Europe demonstrate

12:14

the fragility, not the

12:16

solidity, of the post 1815

12:19

political order.

12:21

Can you tell us what you mean by this? Yes,

12:23

absolutely.

12:26

Again, so the received wisdom about

12:28

the restoration, the period between 1815 and 1848,

12:32

is that this is a

12:34

period of peace and stability

12:37

after the upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars,

12:40

and a period in which a new

12:43

system of international relations was

12:45

introduced and enforced

12:48

by the hegemonic powers of Europe,

12:50

via the principle of intervention

12:53

that was in fact experimented

12:56

first in Piedmont,

12:58

Naples, and in Spanish,

13:03

with the foreign armies, whether French

13:06

or Austrian, invading to crush revolutions.

13:09

And so within this framework, these are really

13:12

again minor blips that

13:14

didn't pose any threat to the

13:16

stability of the continent. While

13:18

for me, my interpretation is alternative

13:21

to this one,

13:23

in the sense that these

13:25

revolutions, the very fact that these revolutions

13:27

broke out, demonstrate that

13:29

large sectors of society were

13:33

not willing to accept the

13:36

settlement, the political and

13:38

institutional settlement agreed by

13:40

the Congress of the United 1815,

13:42

the reorganization of

13:44

the map of Europe, and the reorganization of

13:46

the states, as it had been

13:48

agreed, left

13:52

many social groups deeply

13:54

frustrated. And this is why

13:56

so easily, revolutions

14:01

broke out and so easily

14:04

they succeeded in basically

14:08

achieving their immediate goals without

14:11

much bloodshed. So

14:14

what then kind of take us through the

14:17

initial beginnings of this

14:19

unfolding? Because one of the things

14:21

that I found really interesting and really powerful

14:24

in your examination of what happened

14:26

in each place but then also how they're

14:28

connected is there seem to be

14:31

very much a script kind of this

14:33

is how these things start.

14:35

Can you tell us about sort of this process

14:38

and

14:38

comment on to what extent it was

14:40

the same in different places?

14:42

Yes absolutely.

14:45

The armies are those who

14:47

initiate the revolutions across

14:50

southern Europe. Army

14:52

officers and their soldiers

14:55

because one of the consequences

14:59

of the end of the Napoleonic War is

15:02

that as it always happens after

15:04

great sort of

15:07

periods of military action is that

15:09

you have the problem of

15:10

the demobilization

15:12

of the armies and this demobilization is

15:15

not successful. You have across

15:17

southern Europe and highly politicized

15:21

armies

15:22

in which officers

15:24

who had fought

15:25

the Napoleonic Wars and had actually acquired

15:28

new political ideas lose

15:32

their salaries or are fired

15:35

or they are demoted because they

15:37

had be on the wrong side not

15:40

on the side of the absolute

15:42

monarchies. So the army

15:44

officers there is a surplus of unemployed,

15:47

meditate

15:49

officers and soldiers across

15:51

southern Europe highly politicized by

15:54

the Napoleonic upheavals and these are

15:56

the groups that lead the revolutions

15:59

that declare the revolution that declared

16:01

the constitutions and they do so

16:04

following a certain sort of pattern of

16:06

behavior practices. They

16:09

organize in secret, through secret

16:11

societies, these revolutions and

16:14

then they initiate them by declaring

16:16

revolution, by reading out in the public,

16:19

in front of civilians, declarations

16:23

that force the existing monarchs

16:26

to introduce a constitution.

16:29

In fact, in Spain, Portugal,

16:31

Piedmont and Naples, these are fairly

16:34

peaceful events. The army

16:36

forces the kings

16:39

to introduce a constitution without

16:41

bloodshed. The

16:43

case of the Greek revolution is different because in

16:46

the Ottoman Empire,

16:47

the declaration of the revolution by

16:49

its Atlantic coincides also with a war.

16:52

But it's not entirely different from the others because

16:54

here too,

16:56

the insurgents fundamentally, although

16:58

they're waging a war against the Ottomans, they're

17:00

also happy to negotiate with them to

17:02

obtain,

17:03

to meet their objectives. Can

17:06

you tell us a bit more about the goals

17:08

of these revolutions when they're standing up and making

17:11

the declarations? What do

17:13

they want?

17:14

To what extent does this end

17:16

up then being achieved?

17:17

They want to introduce constitutions

17:20

in the existing monarchies.

17:23

These revolutions are not Republican

17:26

revolutions. They're revolutions

17:28

to change the fabric,

17:31

the organization of the monarchies.

17:34

It is true that the revolution leads

17:36

temporarily to the establishment

17:38

of Republican government. But here too,

17:41

the insurgents are looking for a king

17:44

and they do so not only because it's a

17:47

system for diplomatic reasons

17:51

to make their revolution

17:54

more acceptable in the eyes of the

17:57

European powers, but because they also

17:59

generally... believe that the monarchical

18:01

government is superior. And

18:04

this is a belief that is shared by all the revolutions

18:06

who are whether claimed that after the Napoleonic

18:09

War,

18:10

during which the population Southern

18:12

Europe had shed their blood

18:15

to defend their monarchs, now

18:17

the kings have to pay a

18:19

debt of gratitude to them and

18:22

grant a degree of freedom to these populations

18:25

through the introduction of representative

18:28

government. And elections,

18:32

are they successful? What they are

18:34

in so far as constitutional are introduced.

18:37

The limitations to the success is

18:39

the fact that, of

18:41

course,

18:42

the production of constitutional government,

18:45

as much as it is very

18:48

popular, I mean, it's supported by large

18:50

sectors of the populations, it

18:52

also leads

18:54

to civil wars and

18:56

also produces resistance. So

18:58

it divides society for

19:00

a variety of reasons.

19:03

Constitutions are introduced, but

19:06

in Spain and Portugal, they also

19:08

produce a resistance from a royalist

19:12

movement, that is a mass movement hostile

19:15

to constitution, as a fortitude of absolutism.

19:19

And in other countries, civil wars break

19:21

out for other reasons, in the case of Sicily,

19:24

because Sicily wanted independence or time

19:26

from Naples.

19:27

In the case of the Greek revolution,

19:29

because some territories could not tolerate

19:32

the temporary leadership

19:35

of other territories over

19:37

them during revolution. So

19:40

the revolutions unleash another

19:43

wave of internal conflicts. These

19:45

revolutions ultimately collapse,

19:48

not because of internal weaknesses,

19:51

but

19:51

because of external pressures, because

19:53

of military intervention. Also

19:56

the Greek revolution, which is the only

19:58

revolution that succeeds. succeeds

20:01

thanks to the intervention of

20:04

foreign armies and foreign diplomats.

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21:28

Given the sort of internal

21:31

problems being created by this, the force is

21:33

unleashed.

21:34

Can you tell us a bit more about why these

21:37

revolutions collapsed and the role of the external

21:40

actors?

21:41

Yes, they collapsed because

21:43

of the intervention of much more

21:45

powerful and larger foreign

21:48

armies, in

21:51

front of which the local populations

21:53

did not rise up in arms, although

21:55

they were called to a kind of thoughts on

21:58

war against the foreign armies.

21:59

sensibly so because there

22:02

was no realistic chance

22:05

of success. This is certainly

22:07

the case of Spain, and Piedmont,

22:10

and Naples. So as much as

22:12

local populations were hostile to

22:14

absolute government, they

22:17

were also clear that

22:19

they could not lead a war against

22:22

more powerful

22:24

armies, not least because their

22:27

monarchs

22:28

supported foreign intervention and

22:30

were hostile to the Constitution.

22:33

And authority,

22:35

a form of government, without

22:37

the support of the monarch, was

22:41

not conceivable, not realistic

22:45

at the time, given the diplomatic

22:48

complex, but also not conceivable

22:51

because of the

22:53

political culture of the populations

22:56

of the time. Monarch power

22:58

could not be dismantled.

23:01

It's what Napoleon had done,

23:04

but not what the local population in Southern

23:06

Europe wanted for themselves.

23:10

So speaking of this idea of

23:13

what kind of the local population wanted,

23:15

what they were willing to try in terms of

23:17

new ideas versus not, you

23:20

talk about these countries during the time period

23:23

having, quote, a blend of new ideas

23:26

of citizenship endowed with individual

23:28

rights alongside older

23:31

communitarian concepts of rights

23:33

as privileges, a really interesting blending

23:35

of kind of old ideas and new ideas.

23:38

Can you tell us about kind of what this looked

23:41

like and maybe some of the tensions it caused?

23:43

Yes, absolutely. This

23:45

constitutional text introduced

23:48

a number of individual rights,

23:51

and that's supported by the notion that the sovereign

23:54

is the sovereign nation as

23:57

a kind of... in

24:00

some of the free

24:02

citizens and who have

24:04

individual rights that are protected like the right

24:07

of property and also the right for

24:09

May citizens or the overwhelming majority

24:12

of them to vote, although

24:15

indirectly for a parliament

24:17

they introduce freedom of expression,

24:20

freedom of the press, although

24:23

freedom of expression is limited by

24:26

a lack of religious polarization.

24:28

And this is the first communitarian dimensional

24:31

of the culture of the time that

24:33

even a sovereign nation of

24:35

free citizens is still a religiously

24:39

homogeneous one, culturally

24:42

homogeneous one of Catholic of Orthodox

24:45

nations. So that's the first communitarian

24:47

element

24:48

that if you like limits not the

24:51

individual freedoms of the citizens

24:54

at the time. But there are other types

24:56

of freedom that

24:59

the supports of the revolution advocate

25:03

or want to defend and reexist.

25:06

The archisens for instance

25:09

support universal suffrage

25:12

for men, but they also want to

25:14

defend their corporate privileges

25:17

against the free market. And even

25:19

the political, the governance of their corporations

25:22

as part of the broader governance

25:24

of the state, for instance, in Sicily.

25:28

Vinegars and community of peasants

25:30

beneath the freedom of the commune

25:34

and the protection of common land against

25:36

privatization is a freedom

25:40

that the constitutions need to

25:42

defend against the encroachment

25:45

of land laws

25:46

willing to buy their land. So

25:48

freedom as the privilege of

25:51

a community as an entity

25:54

blended with the freedom of an individual

25:57

who as an individual has the right

25:59

to vote represent a

26:02

feature of these revolutions. And also

26:04

freedom of peripheries, freedom

26:06

of municipal

26:08

authorities or given

26:11

regions with their own legislative

26:13

privileges are something that local

26:17

populations in Sicily

26:20

or the Basque countries or

26:23

in the islands of the Aegean want

26:25

to defend along with supporting

26:28

the prostitution and representative

26:30

governments. We may see these types

26:32

of freedoms as incompatible

26:34

today but they were not in the mind of

26:37

the actors of these revolutions at the time.

26:40

Very interesting to unpick how

26:43

these different ideas sort of practically

26:45

went together, made sense in people's heads and

26:48

sort of in the same vein. I wonder if you

26:51

can tell us a bit about how these

26:53

revolutionary moments, all of these

26:56

changes happening politically, impacted

26:59

relations between the

27:01

revolutionary governments, the

27:03

monarchies, and of course the other huge

27:05

institution, the church. Yes,

27:07

absolutely. This is a

27:10

crucial aspect if you want to

27:12

understand these revolutions.

27:14

First of all, that everywhere governments wanted

27:18

to have the churches

27:20

on their side and according

27:23

to the Napoleonic model,

27:25

they want to use the churches, they want to

27:27

use the bishops

27:29

as a sort of

27:31

longer manners of their new political

27:33

power to get their support and

27:36

their endorsement for constitutional

27:39

government

27:40

and the production of constitutions. Do

27:42

they achieve in their goal? Well, partly

27:45

so because what is fascinating, what's

27:47

studying the relationship between church

27:49

and revolutionary government is

27:51

that the revolutions

27:53

sort of trigger a revolution also within

27:56

the church hierarchies. To talk about church

27:58

as a single

27:59

institutional,

28:01

misses the point. Catholic

28:04

and Orthodox churches were

28:06

very complex institutions that

28:08

imputed highly

28:10

educated people from

28:13

the upper classes, but also semi-literate

28:16

priests

28:19

or monks whose

28:22

political views and whose

28:24

aspirations were closer to

28:27

those of their own community of peasants

28:29

than to those of their hierarchy they had to

28:31

take orders from. This is crucial

28:33

to understand how the individual members

28:36

of the churches responded. So

28:39

some bishops had to send out

28:41

public documents to be read in

28:44

churches in support of the Constitution.

28:46

Some refused to do so,

28:47

for instance the Archbishop of Lisbon, the

28:50

Prime Minister of Portugal, and so he was expelled

28:53

from the country, and other bishops

28:55

also refused to support the

28:57

government. And at the level

28:59

of the local parishes, some priests supported

29:03

the Constitution and reached in favor of

29:05

the Constitution in front of their parishioners,

29:09

arguing

29:11

in favor of the compatibility

29:13

between constitutional government and

29:15

the Holy Scriptures. And others

29:17

in fact led the revolution, fought against

29:20

the revolution. The same can

29:22

be said about monks

29:26

in monastic communities, they were also

29:28

divided. So you find priests

29:31

fighting in armies, leading

29:34

soldiers in the battlefield,

29:36

as they did in Greece where all

29:38

the church members

29:40

supported, without

29:42

exception, the

29:44

revolution. You find them in parliaments

29:47

elected as members of the parliament,

29:49

you find them in patriotic societies,

29:52

talking about politics,

29:55

not priests and monks are everywhere

29:57

in the public sphere. Huh, I'm glad

29:59

you've

29:59

raised the idea that the church was not

30:02

one monolithic institution

30:04

and detailed kind of the different ways

30:07

that priests were involved in

30:09

the public sphere because I think that that

30:12

helps explain kind of the mixing

30:15

that was happening, the sort of the fact that

30:17

there's variation in different places

30:19

and understanding the roles of

30:21

the different actors. And to further

30:24

complicate the story, there's another

30:26

group of people I kind of would

30:28

love to ask you to bring into this conversation

30:31

of how they're being impacted

30:33

by change, how they're impacting change.

30:36

And that's the role of journalism,

30:39

the fact that there's so much literacy, that

30:41

there's so much improved communication. You

30:43

already mentioned at the beginning of the interview the idea that

30:46

a lot of people were simply able to be aware

30:48

of what was happening in other places and this had

30:50

an impact. Can you tell us more

30:53

about kind of this news

30:55

and information side of things

30:57

and how that played into the revolutions

31:00

and the

31:01

work against them?

31:03

Yes, absolutely. So before

31:05

the revolutions, there was hardly

31:08

any journalism in these countries. There were

31:10

just a few official gazettes.

31:12

There was not even

31:15

printed press in the Okoman Empire basically

31:17

did not exist. There was maybe one in

31:20

Constantinople. So what

31:22

these revolutions threw was

31:25

to sort of legalize free

31:27

journalism, political journalism. So there

31:29

is a sudden explosion

31:31

of the number, for the quantity,

31:35

and of

31:39

newspapers and political periodicals,

31:42

especially in Spain and Portugal

31:45

and Naples and to a lesser extent

31:47

in the conflicts of the Greek revolution.

31:51

Now here there is a kind of paradox

31:53

that we need to unpick because in fact

31:55

these are societies with

31:58

extremely high interest. illiteracy

32:01

rates, the majority, the overwhelming

32:03

majority of citizens in these countries

32:06

cannot read. So

32:10

how are these people

32:12

politicized and exposed

32:15

to information, to definition

32:17

of what a constitution is, to

32:20

the novelty of their rights? They are exposed

32:22

to it in very many different ways

32:26

and via a different

32:28

set of means. Political

32:31

communication becomes

32:33

faster and intensified thanks

32:36

to public debate and public reading.

32:38

And newspapers and

32:40

manifestos and decorations were read

32:43

in squares, in

32:46

churches, at sermons,

32:50

by priests were a form of political

32:52

communication. They were

32:54

read in public, in patriotic societies

32:57

and clubs and listened

32:59

to by people who could not

33:01

read. They were read and discussed

33:04

among the ranks of the members

33:07

of secret societies that become

33:10

public institutions. During

33:12

revolutions, the carboneria, the comoneros

33:14

or the filipid, are secret

33:17

societies that organize

33:19

the revolutions, but they are also

33:21

societies that

33:25

contribute to the expansion of the public

33:27

sphere during revolutions, whose

33:30

members discuss politics,

33:34

interfere in

33:37

the canvassing and the electoral

33:39

campaign for the elections,

33:42

discuss

33:44

parliamentary debates, and

33:46

of course there is also the uncontrolled circulation

33:49

of rumors

33:51

that fuels the expansion

33:53

of the public sphere

33:55

beyond the printed material. Can

33:58

you tell us a bit about the rumors? Yes. Rumors

34:00

are a fascinating feature

34:04

of these revolutions.

34:06

And in fact, rumors tended

34:09

to be condemned by revolutionists

34:12

as a kind of form of irrational communication

34:16

fueled by the enemies of the revolutions

34:19

and taken on by callable,

34:22

uneducated people. So

34:26

they undermined the revolution. In

34:29

reality, there

34:32

is a little distinction between

34:34

pretty communication and verbal communication

34:37

between,

34:38

and the distinction

34:41

we have in mind today, and they had

34:43

in mind, between irrational

34:45

printed political journalism

34:48

and an irrational sort of circulation

34:53

of rumors based on conspiracy

34:55

theory, is one

34:58

that does not exist. Even the newspapers

35:02

contributed to the circulation of rumors.

35:05

Rumors were fueled. What

35:07

was the content of rumors? A

35:10

lot was, rumors were about invasion.

35:12

This is a moment in which the

35:14

Austrian army invades Dieuenmont

35:17

or invades Naples. So there were fear

35:19

of other invasions in Spain, Portugal.

35:23

Sometimes fake news were

35:25

fabricated by revolutionaries as

35:28

a tool of political

35:30

battles. For instance, you'd spread the news

35:33

in Naples that the Russian

35:35

army

35:36

and the Greek army would come soon

35:39

to rescue the revolution and reinstate

35:41

the constitution after the collapse of

35:43

the revolution.

35:44

And the same happened in Spain where

35:46

counter-revolutionaries spread

35:48

fake news about the imminent arrival

35:51

of the Russian army that crushed

35:53

the constitution.

35:54

So rumors were used constantly

35:58

as a tool of the... political

36:00

battles going on during the revolutions also.

36:03

They were not just the product of uncontrolled

36:06

irrational fears

36:09

spread by the uneducated. I

36:12

think that that will sound quite familiar

36:15

to many people thinking about politics today.

36:17

Yes, exactly. So thank you for telling

36:19

us about rumors and

36:21

the many uses of them. Thinking

36:24

then, sort of towards the longer term

36:26

period of the book, obviously, you've detailed

36:29

a lot of changes, a lot of reactions,

36:31

a lot of counter reactions.

36:33

What were the long term consequences

36:36

of the revolutions, both the one that

36:38

succeeded and the others that failed? Well,

36:41

the main long

36:41

term consequence was a sort of legacy

36:44

of instability because although

36:46

these revolutions were crushed and

36:48

Greek was turned into

36:51

a semi independent state, where

36:53

there was no constitutional freedom, it

36:56

became an absolute monarchy.

36:59

The quest, the aspiration for constitutional

37:02

government represented in institutions

37:04

remain there could only be temporarily

37:07

suppressed. And also the quest

37:09

for local autonomy is in the defend of

37:11

privileges. In

37:14

a complex in which the monarchs remained

37:17

hostile to it. And

37:20

so this fostered a kind of

37:23

long term instability with

37:25

various attempts to

37:28

find

37:29

a sort of compromise between revolution

37:32

and restoration with the introduction

37:34

of costipletials between the 1830s and 50s that

37:36

say it rescued the

37:39

idea of representative government, but that

37:42

introduced it on the basis of very limited

37:44

suffrage.

37:45

So in delight of

37:48

these attempts to find

37:51

compromises, the costipletials

37:53

of the 1820s were ditched as

37:57

no longer useful.

38:00

because they had introduced quasi-universally

38:03

direct suffrage for men, and

38:06

this was not acceptable

38:08

for part of the elites and the monarchs.

38:10

So in that sense, those constitutional

38:13

documents were abandoned. At

38:15

the same time, the memory

38:18

of these vents of the 18th Memphis

38:20

Revolutions had

38:22

an enduring effect

38:25

and were absorbed into a sort

38:28

of an idea

38:29

of a genealogy among liberals.

38:33

By

38:35

the time the

38:37

representative government

38:39

became a permanent

38:41

reality in Southern Europe,

38:43

the memory of these events was rescued

38:47

in the sense that they came to be seen

38:50

also by the establishment and by the elites

38:53

as the founding moment of

38:56

constitutional freedom in all of these countries.

38:59

And emancipation.

39:01

A very interesting combination

39:03

of sort of short-term suppression, but

39:06

with longer-term implications.

39:09

So thank you for taking us through that.

39:11

And of course, it would be remiss

39:13

of me not to point out that of all of

39:15

the aspects that you've been discussing,

39:18

obviously the book has all the

39:20

fabulous details behind it. So

39:22

for anyone who's intrigued by

39:24

what you've been telling us, obviously I'd point

39:26

them to read the book in its full

39:29

self to learn about

39:31

what's happening in each of the places in

39:33

detail for the topics we've discussed.

39:36

And

39:36

award the potential.

39:40

Well, there's a lot of detail,

39:42

right? And there's a lot of pieces. How can

39:45

you possibly cover these different

39:47

places in Southern Europe and all

39:49

the aspects in terms of the relations with the church,

39:51

the relations with the military, the relations with literacy?

39:55

I don't think anyone could do that in just one or two paragraphs.

39:58

So of course it's a long book. This

40:01

feels perhaps my final question maybe

40:04

a little bit unfair. We obviously

40:06

are the new books network, so usually

40:08

when I ask this the books are have been

40:10

out maybe for a little bit. But in fact,

40:12

as we're speaking, the book is not quite released yet

40:14

by the time that you're listening to it, it will

40:17

be. But this is obviously a

40:19

very kind of big milestone about to happen.

40:22

That said, you have finished the book.

40:25

It will soon, if not now, be available

40:27

to the listeners.

40:29

Do you have anything you might be thinking

40:31

of working on now that this project

40:33

is done, whether or not it's on the

40:36

same topic, whether or not it's a big book, maybe

40:38

you need to sleep for a bit first?

40:41

Yes, aside apart from resting

40:43

a bit, which

40:44

I do need as we all do when we finish a

40:46

big project. I'm

40:48

thinking about

40:50

writing a history of the age of revolutions

40:52

as a history of counter revolutions because

40:55

studying these revolutions made me aware

40:58

that popular

41:00

royalism and popular supports

41:03

of absolutism

41:04

was an equally important and

41:07

also historically novel phenomenon. That

41:10

needs to be studied in its own right

41:13

as a semi permanent feature

41:16

of the history

41:17

of Europe, especially

41:19

as we take

41:21

the South as our

41:25

sort of space of analysis. So

41:27

I'm thinking about

41:28

looking at the question of popular mobilization,

41:31

sort of politicization of the masses

41:34

from the point of view of those

41:36

people who

41:37

hated democracy, who did

41:39

not want constitutional government, who

41:42

intervened in the public sphere

41:44

in defense of the pins, but

41:46

could also question

41:48

monarchical power and act

41:51

independently, even if they did so

41:53

in the name of the restoration of the

41:55

public. Thank you.

42:00

So this is a thing that is also full

42:02

of a part and so a pirate contradiction

42:06

And

42:06

which does not meet all our

42:09

expectations and I want to explore it

42:11

as my next step

42:13

Huh?

42:15

Well that sounds fascinating, but it does also

42:17

sound like a large project So

42:19

best of luck investigating that and

42:22

while you do of course listeners can read the

42:25

book We've been discussing titled southern

42:27

europe in the age of revolutions just

42:29

out from princeton university press Murat's

42:31

you thank you so much for sharing your time

42:34

and expertise with us on the podcast

42:36

Well, thank you very much. Miranda. It's been a pleasure

42:38

to talk to you

42:39

Thank you

42:41

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