Cyprus Frenzy of 1878 and the British Press

In June of 1878, the British Empire acquired the small Mediterranean island of Cyprus, after a secret agreement with the Ottoman Empire. The occupation of Cyprus was officially announced by the British government about a month later and what followed was an unprecedented mania with the island, which manifested itself through the publication of dozens of books and articles, the composition of poems, novels, and music pieces, the staging of operas and ballets, the appearance of dozens of advertisements in newspapers, the dispatch of special correspondents to the island, the announcement of forthcoming tours, etc. This book examines the “Cyprus Frenzy” of 1878 and the way it was expressed in both major and provincial newspapers in Victorian Britain. It follows the six main special correspondents who were commissioned to cover the occupation and who traveled to the island for that purpose: Archibald Forbes (The Daily News), St. Leger Algernon Herbert (The Times), John Augustus O’Shea (The London Evening Standard), Edward Henry Vizetelly (The Glasgow Herald), Samuel Pasfield Oliver (The Illustrated London News), and Hepworth Dixon (for several provincial newspapers). What is pertinent in the investigation of Victorian journalistic practices is the relationship between these correspondents and the military establishment, which was tasked with the duty of forming the first British government on the island. In this context, General Garnet Wolseley, who served as the island’s first High Commissioner, and his famous clique of associates are central characters in the story of Cyprus’ colonization. The book further considers the role of advertisements in propagating colonial discourse and it examines “Letters to the Editor,” published in major newspapers of the time, as a tool in the investigation of the Victorian readers’ reception and response to the occupation. By concentrating on the history of a very particular event—the British occupation of Cyprus in 1878—this book aspires to scrutinize colonial practices through a close examination of the mechanisms that they put in motion, the networks they utilize, and the fantasies they stir.

This is an exciting and uncannily pertinent exploration of a heavily entangled corner in the Eastern Mediterranean — Cyprus in and around 1878 — toward the formation of “the colonialist imaginary,” a phrase Marinos Pourgouris deploys with great sophistication as it testifies to complex, indeed divided, valuations of colonial possessions in the context of Philhellenism and Orientalism. Exactingly attentive to scholarly, literary, and journalistic writing, delving into a wealth of archives, Pourgouris beautifully shows the constellation of forces that energized the British public, seized (and distracted) its attention, seduced its imagination, and captured its consumerist fantasies. An urgent compendium of lessons yet learned., The political and diplomatic story of the British occupation of Cyprus in 1878 has often been told, but in this book Marinos Pourgouris vividly and freshly describes it in more human, everyday and broadly sociological terms. His fascinating account of the journalists who covered the event provides not only a hugely interesting picture of the Cyprus they encountered, but of the cultural complexity that shaped their responses and fed back into British society. This book shows how from the start Cyprus occupied a special and intimate place in the metropolitan imagination, with consequences that were longlasting and indeed are still current today., Characterized by the British claim to the ancient Greek inheritance and by an administrative apparatus convinced of its ability to modernize and civilize, the "Cyprus frenzy" bore singular clues to the mutually reinforcing narratives and images that circulated among British politicians, military personnel, journalists, academics, travelers, and ordinary citizens alike. In this copiously documented and lucidly presented account, Marinos Pourgouris opens our eyes to the extensive discourse networks through which "empire" became an intimate part of the British national imagination.

Marinos Pourgouris is assistant professor of literary theory and modern Greek studies at the University of Cyprus.