Language policy
Such arguments did not find a sympathetic ear in the mainland Greek state. When in 1853 the Ionian poet Georgios Tertsetis was bold enough to enter the national poetry competition with the demotic poem "Corinna and Pindar" the adjudicator advised that "we must not dissipate our forces in the specific development of dialects, but concentrate them on the dignified formation of the Panhellenic language". The adjudicator was Alexandros Rizos Rangavis, one of the most influential literary men of the time. Language policy at the time was very much at the service of the Megali Idea, the grand re-unification of the entire Greek nation. Some critics were less polite; an anonymous newspaper article (probably written by Soutsos) sharply reminded Tertsetis that it was inappropriate for Ionians, who possessed "a poor dialect", to impose it on "the language of the free Hellenes".