European scholars show interest in the Greek cause

Around the middle of the 18th century, there was a great increase of scholars who showed interest in Greece and compared ancient Greeks with contemporary Greeks. This interest was greatly influenced by artistic movements such as romanticism and classicism. The most well-known among the European scholars were Frenchmen Choiseul-Gouffier, Chateaubriand, Germans Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, the English poet Byron, etc. Some of them visited the Greek provinces of the Ottoman Empire and became fascinated by the Greek landscapes, which they described extensively. Meanwhile, they acknowledged with sympathy and sadness the dreadful state of the local population and pondered on the ideal of human greatness. The consequence of this movement was the increased interest in the fate of the Greek nation and the deliberation, at a European level, on its emancipation.