page_title: François Pouqueville
section_title: Taking part in the emergence of Philhellenism
hierarchical_section_title: François Pouqueville / Prisoner of the Turkish Sultan / Taking part in the emergence of Philhellenism
caption_attribution_description: painting
context_page_description: François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville was a French diplomat, writer, explorer, physician and historian, member of the Institut de France.
  First as the Turkish Sultan's hostage, then as Napoleon Bonaparte's general consul at the court of Ali Pasha of Ioannina, he travelled extensively throughout Ottoman occupied Greece from 1798 to 1820.
  With his far reaching diplomacy and with his writings, he became a prominent architect of the Philhellenism movement throughout Europe, and contributed eminently to the liberation of the Greeks, and to the rebirth of the Greek Nation.
context_section_description: In 1798, as a hostage of the Turks in Ottoman Greece, François Pouqueville had an uneasy view of the Greeks he encountered in the close entourage of his Ottoman guards. Not unlike Lord Byron who later, at his death in 1824, also became a symbol of philhellenism, Pouqueville felt at first unsure of the Greeks' sincerity.
  However, his work as the pashalic's physician in Tripolitza caused his Turkish escort to become gradually sparser and his frequent contacts with authentic Greeks made him appreciate their rich cultural background under a new light. Even though it was being suppressed by the seven generations long occupation of Greece by their Ottoman rulers, the Greek social identity appeared very much alive to Pouqueville and, as a fervent believer of the French revolution's humanism, he soon developed a growing sympathy for the budding Greek resurgence.
  His condition as a prisoner of the Turkish Sultan prevented him at the time to do more than bringing medical attention and treatment to the oppressed population, but his writings already showed a strong new current of intellectual and emotional support.
  His humane survey of Greece as early as 1798 is the 19th century's earliest manifestation of the philhellene movement. His impulse soon spread throughout Europe with the wide publication of his books setting in motion a constant trend amongst the greatest minds of the time to follow his steps across the newly revealed land of Greece.
  The antique nation's rebirth ensued over the next decades with its war of independence and its liberation, with the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.
  In 1801, twenty five months after being jailed in Constantinople, under the insistence of the French government and with the help from the Russian diplomats in Turkey, François Pouqueville was set free and returned to Paris.
caption: Greek boy defending his wounded father by Ary Scheffer, a French painter(1795–1858)
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