ATHENS — Since the country’s financial meltdown, Greeks have protested what many here criticize as the unfairness of the biting austerity measures that have raised taxes and trimmed salaries and benefits for average Greeks, while the elite escaped similar burdens or being held accountable for their part in creating the mess in the first place.

Suddenly, to the satisfaction of many here, that dynamic has begun to change. With new vigor, Greek prosecutors working independently of politicians — and sometimes in the face of passive resistance from them — are pursuing corruption cases against a widening pool of current and former high-ranking state officials and members of the business elite once deemed untouchable.

In country after country, officials have had difficulty deciding whether or how to prosecute those responsible for the conditions that led to the financial crisis that began in 2008 and the dark economic period that followed. Here in Greece, the country most afflicted by the collapse, prosecutors say that investigations, launched over the past year or so, are finally coming to fruition.

Analysts add that the prosecutors have more sway now than ever as Greeks smarting from more than three years of austerity demand punishment for those who ransacked state coffers and pushed Greece close to bankruptcy. The combination of the strong public desire for catharsis and a weak government has given the prosecutors far more room to maneuver than they have had in the recent past.