Tsar Alexander I resolved the dilemma which the Greek crisis of 1821 presented to Russia's Orthodox sensibilities by opting to uphold the Concert of Europe and Metternichean order: any fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire along ethnic or religious lines raised a dangerous precedent for the break-up of Russia's own multinational empire. Russia thus declared herself neutral and denounced the Greek freedom-fighters as insurgents. It was the ill-fated Ypsilantis rising in Moldavia in 1821 which Alexander immediately condemned, abandoning the Greek rebels to defeat by Ottoman troops. There was, however, considerable sympathy for their co-religionists among such Russian generals as Petr Wittgenshtein and Pavel Kiselev, as well as support for the Greek cause among the Decembrists who hoped that Ypsilantis would trigger rebellion elsewhere. Pavel Pestel, the leading figure of the Decemblists' Southern Society and an aide-de-camp to General Wittgenshtein, was assigned to report on the Danubian unrest. Despite Ypsilantis's failure, Pestel remained convinced that armed conspiratorial revolt offered the best means of seizing power and thereby effecting political and social change.

It is the reception of the Greek's struggle for independence at other levels of Russian society which the present volume, the first comprehensive study of Russian responses to the Greek revolution, seeks to explore. In doing so, Theophilus Prousis also illuminates specific aspects of Alexander's Russia by examining philhellenism in the context of government relief aid, the Decembrist movement, the resurgence of interest in classical antiquity, and Russian Romanticism. Proceeding from a consideration of the common Byzantine heritage of the Orthodox commonwealth, Prousis surveys the contribution made by Greeks in Russian service (e.g., Sturdza, Ypsilantis and Kapodistrias), and highlights the important role of Odessa in fostering Russian philhellenism.