Fustanellas and veladas

Modern Greece's first populist prime minister, Ioannis Kolettis, wrote that "[Alexandros] Mavrokordatos perceived Greece as Europe and the proof of this is the constitution of his government…"

"Mavrokordatos turned his gaze around the chamber and, seeing people wearing the velada [a European formal coat], speaking English and French, he said: 'Behold the Greek nation and by it my government shall be born.'"

"But, my dear," wrote Giorgos Mavrogordatos in an excerpt from his book about the divisions in Greece, "the Greek nation is not the nation that meets in the chamber of Mavrokordatos, but the nation that meets in the chamber of Koletti; the Greek nation neither wears the velada nor speaks French or English; it wears fustanellas, and sometimes speaks Albanian and Vlach, and maintains the manners of tyranny [Turkish occupation] which will not be eradicated at once;...