Trouble with the Outlaws: Bandits, the State, and Political Legitimacy in Greece over the Longue Durée

Abstract Using the case of modern Greece, this article examines the long historical resonance and embattled legacy of state relations with bandits. Whilst there have been enduring debates about the motivations of bandits in the armed struggle for Greek liberation from Ottoman rule in the nineteenth century, their central role within that struggle is nevertheless widely acknowledged. After independence in 1832, bandit histories eventually became a core part of nationalist myths on which the modern Greek state staked its legitimacy. As this article contends, however, this stake was not unproblematic, and was not to go unchallenged. At notable junctures over the course of the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries, the Greek state faced counter‐claims to these cherished tropes, when outlawed groups sought to present themselves as the authentic inheritors of the nationalist bandit mantle. This article thus draws attention to the potential for extended political reverberations over the ascription of bandit tropes and their significance in claims of legitimacy by political actors. In so doing, the paper offers a conceptual bridge over a divide commonly found between, on the one hand, studies of banditry, and, on the other, research on groups of outlaws that emerge over successive periods within the same geographic space.