 A category of historical and geographical literature , focused on regional history and geography , emerged during the 18th century among Greek scholars . This kind of literature combined the collection of ethnographic data with a conviction in geography 's moral and religious purpose . Major representatives of this field were two scholars and clerics , Daniel Philippidis and Grigorios Konstantas . They came from the village of Milies in Thessaly , modern Greece , and were nicknamed Dimitrieis , from the ancient name of their birthplace ( Dimitrias ) . Both scholars were active members of the Greek diaspora in the Danubian Principalities , in modern Romania , where they studied and taught at the courts of the Greek Orthodox Phanariot and the Princely Academies of Bucharest and Iaşi . This environment offered in general a special attraction for ambitious and educated Greek people from the Ottoman Empire , contributing to the enlightenment of their nation . Philippidis ' and Konstantas ' work Geographia Neoteriki , published in Vienna in 1791 , belongs to a body of contemporary texts which strove to map out the European parts of the Ottoman Empire and Greece in particular . 
