Founding of the Septinsular Republic

In 1800, after Russian and Ottoman forces drove the French out of the Ionian Islands, Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed an agreement creating the Septinsular Republic, meaning the Republic of the Seven Islands. It included Corfu, Paxos, Lefkada, Ithaca, Kefalonia, Zakynthos and Kythira. The republic was officially under Ottoman suzerainty, paying tribute to the sultan, but it was under Russian protection, with Russian troops stationed on the islands. It was the first self-governing Greek state of modern times, more than twenty years before the Greek War of Independence. Its government was at first dominated by the local aristocracy, and it went through several constitutions and periods of political unrest. The young Corfiot Ioannis Kapodistrias served as one of its leading officials. He later became a Russian foreign minister and the first governor of independent Greece. Greek was used alongside Italian in official life. In 1807, under the Treaty of Tilsit between Russia and France, the islands were handed back to France, ending the republic, but it remained a symbol of Greek self-government.