The Greek Revolution shifted Middle Eastern identity politics from religious to national affiliation

Evidence

It was the Greek Revolution of 1821, however, which is accepted as being the turning point for the classical Ottoman millet system of sociopolitical organization. The Greek Revolution rejected the authority of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch as leader of all the Greek Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman Empire, and instead adopted the European model of the nation-state for the newly independent Greek state. Thus, towards the end of the Ottoman Empire several other millets took advantage of European (British and French) encroachments into the sovereignty of the Ottoman State and started to highlight their national/ethnic identities as compared to their religious affiliations. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3473

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Milgrom’s work on institutions and Medieval trade systems — both show how political institutions reshape identity and cooperation.
• SEED: Article angle: how a single revolution (1821) reorganized identity categories across an entire empire decades later.