THE CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS ATHENS AS THE GREEK CAPITAL SINCE 1832: COINCIDENCE OR HISTORICAL JUSTICE?
Relevance and objectives of the study. The peculiarity of the constitutional status of the Greece capital is that Athens is the face both of the Modern Greek state from the beginning of the 30s. XIX century in international relations and the cultural and intellectual center of ancient Greece. After having leading position in the ancient world, Athens disappeared in the Middle Ages, and during the Ottoman rule, it was a small military settlement with a garrison stationed in it. Other settlements came on the first positions during the Greek Revolution of 1821-1827. They was economically developed, better equipped and with a larger population than Athens. In the conditions of building a new form of social relations, their development and complication of the structure, it is interesting to trace how Athens again became the main city in the fate of independent Greece. The mission is to reveal the reasons for choosing Athens in 1832 as the capital of the Modern Greek state. Materials and methods. The methodological potential includes the methods of historical legal analysis, which al-lowed studying the path of Athens development from the settlement to the capital in the new history of Greece in order to find an answer to the question posed in the title of the article. There is covered topic book M.L. Smith "Athens: the history of the city" about the specifics of the city evolution of Athens and the features of the social, economic and civilizational development of Attica. Results. The article are analyzed the main stages of the development of Athens from the Greek territory settlement of the Ottoman Empire to the legal status of the modern Greek state capital, enshrined in the constitution. A table of the development level of some Greece regions in comparison with the average European level of regional GDP per capita is compiled. A presented radar chart clearly illustrates the comparative assessment of the south (Athens) and the north (Thessaloniki) of Greece by 6 indicators. Conclusions. The capital legal status of Athens, enshrined in the constitution, is historically justified and fair. From today’s perspective, it has no alternative and is unequivocally supported by citizens. However, capital choice for the Greeks was an accident. In other words, it is a coincidence that the center of the ancient world and the capital of modern Greece are in the same place. Moreover, a coincidence based on the symbolism and sentimentality of the "foreign" king.