The Enlightenment as Social Criticism

In 18th-century Greek culture, Iosipos Moisiodax (c.1725-1800) was a controversial figure, whose daring pronouncements in favour of cultural change embroiled him in ideological conflicts and made him a target of persecution. One of the first intellectuals in south-eastern Europe to voice the ideas of the Enlightenment in public and without qualification, he advocated the use of vernacular Greek in education and aspired to see the backward and intellectually conservative Balkan societies remodelled along European lines. In this study of a passionate reformer, the author retraces Moisiodax's career and contrasts the Greek Enlightenment with the Western Enlightenment as a whole.