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Radio War Nerd #542 — Byron & the Greek Revolt, pt. 1 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-15 14:04:30
Imported:
2025-08
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Recorded: August 13, 2025

The War Nerd launches a new series on Byron, poets & the Greek Revolt.

First - We discuss latest Ukraine war news, Pokrovsk debacle, summit 29:53 - Brief look at MAGA Bum Fights: Looney Loomer & the Seven Freaks42:31 - Lord Byron vs England's sycophants + post-Revolutionary Europe, Greece under Ottoman yoke

Reading:-That Greece Might Still Be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of Independence, by William St. Clair-The Greek Revolution: 1821 And The Making of Modern Europe, by Mark Mazower-Byron’s War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution, by Roderick Beaton-Bryon’s Collected Poems

Total time: 1:39:35Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

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Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

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Order your print or ebook of John Dolan's new book Erdogan Pizza: Dispatches from a Violent & Grotesque World

Files

Comments

Jack Ross

Let’s fucking go

Jimmy B

I just finished the Mazower book recently, excited to hear the RWN take on the Revolution.

devils cherry

in trueanon ep 458 they are interviewing an investigative reporter, and towards the end they get into some personal experiences she has with Laura. she talks about how allegedly there is even more to her craziness... in the real world stalking etc. people for trump, for example... like judges and their families. Mark, I think you would find it very interesting.

GoyBulletStopper

What the fuck is wrong with her face, reptoid

Townes

i never stopped saying pussy and retard

JoR

I think Loomer going to war against TC and MTG shows trump is “done” with the anti intervention part of his so called coalition. To me this was a reason for his public turn (real or not ) towards Ukraine . More importantly their anti Israel stances. That pisses him off too

CR

Were you involved in the making of that movie on Limonov? Whatever happened to it, anyway?

CR

There’s money in those expeditions! Someone finally got through to him.

CR

Bad plastic surgery. Or good, depending.

CR

We need to remember that Bush era Islamophobia has gotten so much worse. Most of it online is focused on Europe, but that same hatred is still prevalent in the U.S. even among the shitloads Bush liberals/moderates (Democrats). And that’s the same sectarian bullshit that allows so many prod bastards to dismiss or cheer the murder of Christians and others. They aren’t at Joel Osteen’s megachurch and are ethnically Arab/muslim/[random pejorative], so good, fuck them, too. But also let’s just accept that, to quote oliver stone via Willie Beaman in Any Given Sunday, America is built on kicking ass and the self imagery of kicking ass. We hate losers. And we don’t pity losers. We hate them for being losers. No one ever had to sell Americans on picking on the weak. They had to sell the valiant underdogs when it was in their interests to pick that side because they could be winners any minute now, and if we just give them a hand.

drizzly_november

Re: sources, On a Voiceless Shore: Byron in Greece by Stephen Minta is a much better look at Byron’s last days than the Beaton book.

Chubby Justin

it's funny that byron was essentially a marble statue account for hellenism

underthefloorboard

so Laura Loomer is the American equivalent of Katie Hopkins?

Lord-Admiral of the Pyrenees

There is some recent polling showing a massive pro Ukraine swing among Republicans Mark. The story that MAGA people are against the war is not true any more. Things are shifting.

JoR

Interesting, can you link it? I’m wondering how much is true shifts , or his base simply following his lead. Figures they switch sides once it’s impossible for Ukraine to even get a small victory lol

Lord-Admiral of the Pyrenees

Mark has discounted how polarisation works in the US. The war has become Trump’s war but whereas Mark thought that would make Trump unpopular what really happens is Trump’s popularity with Republicans boosts the war’s popularity

CR

We’ve reached the point where the Republicans no longer fear their base like they may have in the past. Now both parties hate their bases equally because cash rules everything.

.

It’s literally just a bait and switch for profit. Democrats too stupid to even say we’ll do a ceasefire in Gaza then back out. Nothing matters in this pig country full of mostly dumb pig people whose lives are secure. This is excluding socialist organizers who legitimately try to help people and protest this absolutely monstrous state.

xnfec

Probably not germane to this but on the subject of the Greek identity, I came across this in a podcast I think: An excerpt from Anythony Kaldellis' book summarized in a Facebook post When the island was occupied by the Greek navy, Greek soldiers were sent to the villages and stationed themselves in the public squares. Some of the children ran to see what these Greek soldiers, these Hellenes, looked like. "What are you looking at?" one of them asked. "At Hellenes," we replied. "Are you not Hellenes yourselves," he retorted. "No, we are Romans." [p.42] From https://brianschrader.com/archive/no-we-are-romans/

xnfec

Under the Ottomans, if everybody converted, who would be left to pay the taxes?

a clash of purple

A majority of Americans aren't politically active, they have opted out of the system that is run in their name (and funded by their tax dollars). The ones who are politically active by and large are freaks or self-serving weasels.

a clash of purple

That's actually an interesting question. *Can* you call yourself a Christian when your mouth is full of other men's cock? I feel like it's not impossible, though it might be hard for others to understand you. And for that matter, if you're Jewish, why do you care if someone's a fake Christian? What is a 'real' Christian from the perspective of a Jewish person? My favorite anecdote about Laura Loomer is that when the Chapo Trap House boys went to the RNC in 2016, they got press passes and passed Laura Loomer complaining at the door about not being allowed in. I guess she got closer to Trump after that, but the fact that at that time the Chapo boys were closer to being Republican insiders than her is funny to me.

James Whale

Brilliant! Id love more historical poetry analysis!

Alexandros

Finally, a Greek revolution epidosde of RWN! Another comment mentioned this, but one thing that's missing from John's analysis of pre-revolutionary Ottoman Greek identity is the Roman/Byzantine dimension. Ottoman Greek peasants did not identify with ancient Greece (which they were mostly unaware of) but they did consider themselves to be Christians and Romioi (meaning "Romans"), which under the Ottoman millet system had taken to mean the same thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_millet

JoR

Looks like Seth Harp made it big and got on Tucker’s show. Guess you guys are the gateway drug to TC 🤣

tam

Good to hear Mark Mazower namechecked! His Greek revolution book isn't his best (I got the impression that he had fairly limited historical raw material to work with) but he's great at writing about European history because he notices the contribution played by smaller countries, unlike a lot of other historians who basically think of Europoe's history as UK, France, Germany, Italy at a push and 'the rest'...

tam

Also, you might be interested to know that me and most kids of my generation in the UK first became aware of Byron from 'Lord Byron lived here' an episode of the TV sitcom Hancock's Half Hour. It was actually from 1959, well before my time, but was the most popular tv show of the period so was still well remembered 25 years later. Not sure how well the humour still holds holds up, but it's culturally interesting and apparently accurately captured the spirit of the period very weill. I found it online here if you're curious https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2l5qqr

Quinn

Gotta say the literature episodes are always my favorite. Saying a lot because I always love the show in general.

Terry Dunk

Dying at John keep trying to smoothly segue to Byron and Mark refusing to allow it through barely contained elation at the next deranged Loomerism

Terry Dunk

I think it was 'gay' and retard, pussy was never formally proscribed

CR

The History of Byzantium finally reached the fall of Constantinople in 1453 after like 13 years of the podcast. And it’s been fascinating to listen to the history of Rome after Italian Rome fell. And in a lot of ways their fall is more relevant than the one marble bust twitter jerks off to. I’d love to hear more of JD’s take on eastern Rome.

CR

It says a lot about the GOP and the uniparty.

CR

Seniority system?

Norman

I don't think the Ottomans had any real interest in converting their Christian subjects, their whole military and beurocratic system was based on enslaving these people via. the Devshirme. Muslim states in general seem to have preferred keeping some Christians and Jews (or Zoroastrians, Hindus and Buddhists in the East) around because the Jizya they had to pay was one of the main sources of revenue for the state.

Matt C

Brian Merchant has a lot of Lord Byron cited in “Blood in the Machine” regarding his support of the Luddite movement in 1810-12

JoR

Yeah wasn’t she his Hs teacher? Like is this disputed? lol

Peter Z

Missed a chance to mention the Sardukar when talking about Janissaries.

Kieran

Can you suggest other literature episodes from them? I’m a new listener and really enjoyed this one.

radiowarnerd

Hi Tam, Thanks for mentioning that Byron episode. Katherine and I watched it and the plot device of scribbling Byron comments on the walls to be 'discovered' is not bad at all! But I don't think he would have written about Caroline Lamb. One of his actual poems was about her book, "I read the Cristobel, very well/ I read The Missionary. Pretty--very!./ I read Glenarvon, too, by Carol Lamb/ Goddamn!"

Don Tickles

What's the movie reference folks? Horsemen something?

Steven Aracic Del Corso

Interesting episode. With respect to impressions of the Ottoman Empire, I think it also depends on which period of its history one chooses to emphasize. Obviously Christians were always second class citizens, as indicated by the devşirme, but still were largely accommodated and could more or less govern themselves through their Church authorities. By the time you get to the 18th century though, Ottoman state and social institutions are coming apart under pressure from centralizing European monarchies and the effects of the Price Revolution, which eventually worked their way into the Middle East. The fiscal demands fed both the rise of a new layer of regional notables, who began to squeeze the local populations in unprecedented ways, and fed the lawless conditions, of which the hajduks, klephts and armatoloi (really, often the same people, just depending on whose paying who) were symptomatic. The start of the Serbian Revolution demonstrates a lot of this really well, as the insurrection was actually at first fought in the name of the Sultan, - having been sparked by the killing of a popular representative of the Sultan by renegade jannissary notables. They perceived him as an obstacle, but he was particularly respected by the local Christians for his attempts to restrain their abuses.