9 The Eptanissos State

History of Zante

On 21 March 1800, Russia and Turkey.signed a treaty in Constantinople which founded the Eptanissos State of the Ionian Isles. This State, according to the terms of the treaty, was to be a self-governing part of the Russian empire, and would pay an annual tax to the Porte in Constantinople.

This treaty provided the nobles of Zakynthos with a new opportunity for furthering their schemes for power. They sent a delegation to Constantinople as ambassadors of the Eptanissos State, who saw to it that a constitution was devised to lay down the principle for the government of the islands. This constitution stipulated that the Eptanissos islands should be a confederation, and that each island was to be administered by a local government, the members which were to be drawn exclusively from the hereditary nobility.

The people of Zakynthos did not agree, and they began to revolt. One of their democratic leaders, Antonios Martinegos, organised a movement which declared the island independent of the Eptanissos confederation. Playing on the acquisitive tendency of the English, they hoisted the Union Jack on the Zakynthos fortress on 10 February 1801. But the hopes of the Zakynthos democrats had been premature. Seven months and a number of strange agreements between the Great Powers later, the Turks and, to the chagrin of the Zakynthians, the English, returned the island to the Eptanissos State.

The nobles for their part continued their machinations, which resulted in several new constitutions, each more contradictory than the last, and eventually in another two years of rule by France, this time under the Emperor Napoleon.