The great journey of Satovriandos (1768-1848) in the East begins on July 13, 1806, from Paris and is completed on June 5, 1807, with his return to the same city. For this edition, we have chosen the excerpt that concerns Satovriandos' journey to Greece up to Constantinople. This piece, besides being directly relevant to us as it gives us the impressions of a great writer about Greece under Ottoman rule, is also the most famous. The exploration of the places of Greek antiquity, the search and description of ancient ruins, the impressions from contemporary Greeks, and the deep criticism of Ottoman despotism were particularly attractive topics for educated readers in the West.

The reader of the Travelogue should not expect pity or sympathy for the still suffering Greek people. This people, in any case, will find its identity by conversing with the ruins and shedding its blood for it. Satovriandos is an honest observer. He records only what his eyes see guided by the gaze of curiosity, the gaze of the mind that Euripides spoke of. "Ruins everywhere and not a single person within these ruins!" he writes in Sparta. And later in Athens: "I thought I saw antiquities everywhere." And these ruins reflect the dawn that in a few years after his visit will become the birth of modern Greece. Modern Greece was born from the ruins of its antiquity, and Satovriandos describes its birth long before it is welcomed by the delivery room of History.

(from the preface by Takis Theodoropoulos)