Megali Idea

Map showing Greek ambitions at the Paris Peace Conference after World War I, 1919 Map of Megali Hellas (Greater Greece) as proposed at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 by Eleftherios Venizelos, the leading major proponent of the Megali Idea at the time. The territorial expansion of Greece, 1832–1947.

The Megali Idea (Greek: Μεγάλη Ιδέα, romanized: Megáli Idéa, lit. 'Great Idea') was a Greek nationalist and irredentist concept that expressed the goal of reviving the Byzantine Empire, by establishing a Greek state, which would include the large Greek populations that were still under Ottoman rule after the end of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) and all the regions that had large Greek populations (parts of the southern Balkans, Anatolia and Cyprus).