Melbourne Lecture Examines Colonial Rule in Greek Islands

The history of Greece’s Ionian islands under British rule came under the spotlight in a lecture given in Melbourne on Thursday.

Dr. Katerina Bregianni, research director at the Modern Greek History Research Centre of the Academy of Athens, delivered a talk at the Australian city’s Greek Center.

Bregianni’s work focused on the state system on the islands and how local society interacted with the administration.

The islands came under British influence in after 1809 when U.K. forces took them from France.

The 1815 Treaty of Paris turned them into territory formally under British influence, but islanders later agitated for enosis (union) with an independent Greece, joining their fellow Greeks in 1864.