Post by Sokol on Aug 28, 2011 19:04:00 GMT -5
Macedonia and Greece, John Shea, 1997 pp.77-96
THE GREAT ETHNIC MIX OF GREECE
Just as Macedonia and other Balkan states were invaded by Slavs and other peoples from the north and from within the Balkans themselves, so were the lands that eventually were to become modern Greece. We need to examine this issue, since the modern Greeks repeatedly argue that they are direct ethnic descendants of the ancient Greeks and Macedonians. The fact is that the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural developments that these invasions created simply built upon similar movements of peoples into and out of the Balkans in the ancient past.
THE MYTH OF GREEK ETHNIC PURITY
Greek writers give a great deal of emphasis to the idea of Greek racial purity. For instance, in speaking of the movements of Germanic tribes in the Balkans before the Slavs, the writer of Macedonia History and Politics says that the Goths were beaten off and the invasions in the fourth century did not lead to "ethnological adulteration." In speaking about more modern times the writer says (p. 43), "Greece became involved in the 'Macedonian disputes,' because of political pressure from the Bulgarians and Yugoslavs, and because of the sensitivity of the Greeks towards the historical continuity of their race." Clearly this view about racial purity amongst the Greeks, presented here in a magazine distributed by the Greek government in English-speaking countries, is important to the Greeks.
(gap)
The Aryan model. The Aryan model, an alternative theory about the development of the ancient Greeks, first appeared in the first half of the nineteenth century. It denied any influence of Egyptian settlements and expressed doubt about a role for the Phoenicians. An extreme version of this model was propounded during the height of anti-Semitism in Europe in the 1890s, and then in the 1920s and 1930s; this particular explanation denied even the Phoenician cultural influence." According to the Aryan model, there had been an invasion from the north, an invasion not described by ancient writers, which had overcome the existing pre-Hellenic culture. Greek civilization was seen as the result of the mixture of the Indo-European speaking Hellenes and the older peoples over whom they ruled.
(gap)
Linguistic evidence and the ancient model. Bernal provides evidence in support of his view that Egyptian and Phoenician elements were powerful in the development of ancient Greek culture. He notes that it is generally agreed that the Greek language was formed during the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries B.C. Its Indo-European structure and basic lexicon are combined with a non-Indo-European vocabulary of sophistication. He argues that since the earlier population spoke a related Indo-European language, it left little trace in Greek; thus the presence of that population does not explain the many non-Indo-European elements in the later language. Bernal suggests that it has not been possible for scholars working in the Aryan model over the last 160 years to explain 50 percent of the Greek vocabulary and 80 per cent of proper names in terms of either Indo-European or the Anatolian languages supposedly related to "pre-Hellenic." Since they cannot explain them, they simply call them pre-Hellenic.
(gap)
INFLUENCES IN THE GREEK ETHNIC MIX
Slavery in the ancient world. While it is difficult to gauge the intermixture that took place between the older established inhabitants and the infiltrating Greeks wherever they may have come from, the tradition of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean may have had an even greater impact on the physical nature of the people. It has been estimated that in classical times the number of slaves in Attica was roughly equal to the number of free inhabitants, or around 100,000." In Sparta there was an even greater proportion of slaves, and most of them, the helots, were Messenians. While the slaves of Athens were a wide racial mix and therefore less likely to unite on the basis of a common language, these Messenian helots of Sparta all spoke Greek, and had a kind of group self-consciousness. Thus they presented "special problems of security for their Spartan masters, whose numbers were constantly on the decline."
(gap)
Celtic Influence. In 282-280 B.C., a Celtic army of about 170,000 led by Brennos and Achicorius entered Macedonia and, with Bolgios, overwhelmed the country. The Celtic army swept into Greece, defeating the Greeks at Thermopylae, and went on to sack the temple of Delphi, the most sacred site of the Hellenic world, before withdrawing. The Celtic army eventually withdrew in an orderly manner, taking their loot with them. No Greek army was strong enough to attack them. The Celtic invasions had a lasting effect on Greek consciousness, being commemorated in Greek literature.
(gap)
Greeks as Slavs. In recent historical time other Europeans have held the view that the people of modern Greece have little ethnic connection with the ancient Greeks. Robert Browning, 32 a writer who is sympathetic to the Greeks, discusses the writings of the Bavarian Johann Philipp Fallmerayer, who in 1830 proposed that the Slav invasions and settlements of the late sixth and seventh centuries resulted in the "expulsion or extirpation of the original population of peninsula Greece. Consequently the medieval and modern Greeks ... are not the descendants of the Greeks of antiquity, and their Hellenism is artificial." Fallmerayer's view that not a drop of pure Greek blood is to be found in the modern Greek is often held to be extreme. A more moderate version of essentially the same idea was presented more recently by R.H. Jenkins.
Browning concedes that the Slavic impact was considerable in the Balkan peninsula, and that there was great intermixture of races in Balkan Greek lands. He says Fallnierayer wits right in drawing attention to the extensive Slav invasion and settlement in continental Greece. Despite the great attention given by the Greek government to renaming towns, villages, rivers and other geographic locations, there remain large numbers of place names of Slavonic origin. Even so, Browning suggests, the majority of the Greek-speaking people lived in Constantinople and Asia Minor, and in these more distant locations were not so strongly affected by the Slavs. He says also that the original population was not extirpated or expelled, since many remained in coastal regions, cities, and inaccessible areas.
Nicholas Cheetham is uncompromising in the language he uses to describe the Slav influence. He says that between the fifth and seventh centuries "a sharp and brutal revolution altered the whole character of Hellas... It also involved a steep decline of civilized life and an almost total rejection of former values... The most striking change affected the ethnic composition of the people and resulted from the mass migration of Slavs into the Balkans which began in the sixth Century.”
(gap)
Greeks as Albanians. Slavs were not the only groups to move into the southern part of the Balkan peninsula. Many Albanians came in also. Albanians settled in Athens, Corinth, Mani, Thessaly and even in the Aegean islands. In the early nineteenth century, the population of Athens was 24 percent Albanian, 32 percent Turkish, and only 44 percent Greek. The village of Marathon, scene of the great victory in 490 B.C., was, early in the nineteenth century, almost entirely Albanian."
Nicholas Hammond a historian who is sympathetic to the Greek view that the ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribe and who has had several works published in Athens, is unable to support the Greek view on this matter. He says that by the middle of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century the majority of people in the Peloponnese were Albanian speakers. The fascinating point is that the people with whom they were competing for land were overwhelmingly not the original Greek-speaking Roman citizens, but the new breed of Greek-speaking Slavs. As Hammond says, many Greek-speaking people at that point in time were probably ethnic Slavs.
(gap)
Greeks as Vlachs. Also quite numerous during the eighteenth century in Greek lands and in territories that were to become Greek were the Vlachs. Hammond says that the Vlachs came in with the Albanians and provided leadership. He suggests that the Vlach peoples probably originated in Dacia, an area that is now part of Romania. Hammond says that the Vlachs managed to acquire possession of the great Pindus area. In general, they stayed in northern Greece and were never assimilated in terms of language the way that other ethnic groups were, though some groups ended the nomadic life and settled in Macedonia and in Thessaly.
(gap)
Greeks as Turks. A recent issue that has engaged the vigorous attention of Greek politicians is the position and status of Cyprus. It is an area of conflict with Turkey, and one in which Greece has attempted to influence world opinion in its direction by fostering the theory of Greek ethnic purity. In 1964 German archaeologist Franz Maier argued that the Turkish Cypriots were a "people" and not a minority, and that Greek Cypriots and Greeks were not really racially Greek but a mixture. Similarly the Cypriot sociologist Andreas Panayiotou has been quoted as saying that Cypriots were not Greek, but were a synthesis of Greek, Turkish and other elements. He advocated that the Cypriot dialect should become the island's official language.
Some external observers (perhaps with their own case to make) have come to similar conclusions: "Greece, while denying the presence of ethnic and religious minorities within its borders, tries to convince the world that the Orthodox people living in its neighboring countries are ethnic Greeks. But this is not true. In Cyprus, the Southern Cypriot Orthodox whom Greece presents to the world as Greek Cypriots, are not ethnic Greeks.”
THE GREAT ETHNIC MIX OF GREECE
Just as Macedonia and other Balkan states were invaded by Slavs and other peoples from the north and from within the Balkans themselves, so were the lands that eventually were to become modern Greece. We need to examine this issue, since the modern Greeks repeatedly argue that they are direct ethnic descendants of the ancient Greeks and Macedonians. The fact is that the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural developments that these invasions created simply built upon similar movements of peoples into and out of the Balkans in the ancient past.
THE MYTH OF GREEK ETHNIC PURITY
Greek writers give a great deal of emphasis to the idea of Greek racial purity. For instance, in speaking of the movements of Germanic tribes in the Balkans before the Slavs, the writer of Macedonia History and Politics says that the Goths were beaten off and the invasions in the fourth century did not lead to "ethnological adulteration." In speaking about more modern times the writer says (p. 43), "Greece became involved in the 'Macedonian disputes,' because of political pressure from the Bulgarians and Yugoslavs, and because of the sensitivity of the Greeks towards the historical continuity of their race." Clearly this view about racial purity amongst the Greeks, presented here in a magazine distributed by the Greek government in English-speaking countries, is important to the Greeks.
(gap)
The Aryan model. The Aryan model, an alternative theory about the development of the ancient Greeks, first appeared in the first half of the nineteenth century. It denied any influence of Egyptian settlements and expressed doubt about a role for the Phoenicians. An extreme version of this model was propounded during the height of anti-Semitism in Europe in the 1890s, and then in the 1920s and 1930s; this particular explanation denied even the Phoenician cultural influence." According to the Aryan model, there had been an invasion from the north, an invasion not described by ancient writers, which had overcome the existing pre-Hellenic culture. Greek civilization was seen as the result of the mixture of the Indo-European speaking Hellenes and the older peoples over whom they ruled.
(gap)
Linguistic evidence and the ancient model. Bernal provides evidence in support of his view that Egyptian and Phoenician elements were powerful in the development of ancient Greek culture. He notes that it is generally agreed that the Greek language was formed during the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries B.C. Its Indo-European structure and basic lexicon are combined with a non-Indo-European vocabulary of sophistication. He argues that since the earlier population spoke a related Indo-European language, it left little trace in Greek; thus the presence of that population does not explain the many non-Indo-European elements in the later language. Bernal suggests that it has not been possible for scholars working in the Aryan model over the last 160 years to explain 50 percent of the Greek vocabulary and 80 per cent of proper names in terms of either Indo-European or the Anatolian languages supposedly related to "pre-Hellenic." Since they cannot explain them, they simply call them pre-Hellenic.
(gap)
INFLUENCES IN THE GREEK ETHNIC MIX
Slavery in the ancient world. While it is difficult to gauge the intermixture that took place between the older established inhabitants and the infiltrating Greeks wherever they may have come from, the tradition of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean may have had an even greater impact on the physical nature of the people. It has been estimated that in classical times the number of slaves in Attica was roughly equal to the number of free inhabitants, or around 100,000." In Sparta there was an even greater proportion of slaves, and most of them, the helots, were Messenians. While the slaves of Athens were a wide racial mix and therefore less likely to unite on the basis of a common language, these Messenian helots of Sparta all spoke Greek, and had a kind of group self-consciousness. Thus they presented "special problems of security for their Spartan masters, whose numbers were constantly on the decline."
(gap)
Celtic Influence. In 282-280 B.C., a Celtic army of about 170,000 led by Brennos and Achicorius entered Macedonia and, with Bolgios, overwhelmed the country. The Celtic army swept into Greece, defeating the Greeks at Thermopylae, and went on to sack the temple of Delphi, the most sacred site of the Hellenic world, before withdrawing. The Celtic army eventually withdrew in an orderly manner, taking their loot with them. No Greek army was strong enough to attack them. The Celtic invasions had a lasting effect on Greek consciousness, being commemorated in Greek literature.
(gap)
Greeks as Slavs. In recent historical time other Europeans have held the view that the people of modern Greece have little ethnic connection with the ancient Greeks. Robert Browning, 32 a writer who is sympathetic to the Greeks, discusses the writings of the Bavarian Johann Philipp Fallmerayer, who in 1830 proposed that the Slav invasions and settlements of the late sixth and seventh centuries resulted in the "expulsion or extirpation of the original population of peninsula Greece. Consequently the medieval and modern Greeks ... are not the descendants of the Greeks of antiquity, and their Hellenism is artificial." Fallmerayer's view that not a drop of pure Greek blood is to be found in the modern Greek is often held to be extreme. A more moderate version of essentially the same idea was presented more recently by R.H. Jenkins.
Browning concedes that the Slavic impact was considerable in the Balkan peninsula, and that there was great intermixture of races in Balkan Greek lands. He says Fallnierayer wits right in drawing attention to the extensive Slav invasion and settlement in continental Greece. Despite the great attention given by the Greek government to renaming towns, villages, rivers and other geographic locations, there remain large numbers of place names of Slavonic origin. Even so, Browning suggests, the majority of the Greek-speaking people lived in Constantinople and Asia Minor, and in these more distant locations were not so strongly affected by the Slavs. He says also that the original population was not extirpated or expelled, since many remained in coastal regions, cities, and inaccessible areas.
Nicholas Cheetham is uncompromising in the language he uses to describe the Slav influence. He says that between the fifth and seventh centuries "a sharp and brutal revolution altered the whole character of Hellas... It also involved a steep decline of civilized life and an almost total rejection of former values... The most striking change affected the ethnic composition of the people and resulted from the mass migration of Slavs into the Balkans which began in the sixth Century.”
(gap)
Greeks as Albanians. Slavs were not the only groups to move into the southern part of the Balkan peninsula. Many Albanians came in also. Albanians settled in Athens, Corinth, Mani, Thessaly and even in the Aegean islands. In the early nineteenth century, the population of Athens was 24 percent Albanian, 32 percent Turkish, and only 44 percent Greek. The village of Marathon, scene of the great victory in 490 B.C., was, early in the nineteenth century, almost entirely Albanian."
Nicholas Hammond a historian who is sympathetic to the Greek view that the ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribe and who has had several works published in Athens, is unable to support the Greek view on this matter. He says that by the middle of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century the majority of people in the Peloponnese were Albanian speakers. The fascinating point is that the people with whom they were competing for land were overwhelmingly not the original Greek-speaking Roman citizens, but the new breed of Greek-speaking Slavs. As Hammond says, many Greek-speaking people at that point in time were probably ethnic Slavs.
(gap)
Greeks as Vlachs. Also quite numerous during the eighteenth century in Greek lands and in territories that were to become Greek were the Vlachs. Hammond says that the Vlachs came in with the Albanians and provided leadership. He suggests that the Vlach peoples probably originated in Dacia, an area that is now part of Romania. Hammond says that the Vlachs managed to acquire possession of the great Pindus area. In general, they stayed in northern Greece and were never assimilated in terms of language the way that other ethnic groups were, though some groups ended the nomadic life and settled in Macedonia and in Thessaly.
(gap)
Greeks as Turks. A recent issue that has engaged the vigorous attention of Greek politicians is the position and status of Cyprus. It is an area of conflict with Turkey, and one in which Greece has attempted to influence world opinion in its direction by fostering the theory of Greek ethnic purity. In 1964 German archaeologist Franz Maier argued that the Turkish Cypriots were a "people" and not a minority, and that Greek Cypriots and Greeks were not really racially Greek but a mixture. Similarly the Cypriot sociologist Andreas Panayiotou has been quoted as saying that Cypriots were not Greek, but were a synthesis of Greek, Turkish and other elements. He advocated that the Cypriot dialect should become the island's official language.
Some external observers (perhaps with their own case to make) have come to similar conclusions: "Greece, while denying the presence of ethnic and religious minorities within its borders, tries to convince the world that the Orthodox people living in its neighboring countries are ethnic Greeks. But this is not true. In Cyprus, the Southern Cypriot Orthodox whom Greece presents to the world as Greek Cypriots, are not ethnic Greeks.”