Greeks
| Greeks (Έλληνες) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Total population | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| approx. 17,000,000 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Regions with significant populations | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Language(s) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Greek | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Religion(s) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Predominantly Greek Orthodox, with Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Atheist and other minorities. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Footnotes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a An estimated 3,000,000 claim Greek descent.[12] |
The Greeks (Greek: Έλληνες, IPA: [ˈelines]) are a nation and ethnic group who have populated Greece and the area of the Aegean Sea for over 3,500 years.[13] Today they are primarily found in the Balkan peninsula of southeastern Europe, the Greek islands, Cyprus, and throughout the world as part of the Greek diaspora.
Ancient Greek colonies and communities were established throughout the Mediterranean, including Magna Graecia, Marseille and Barcelona, but Greek people have always concentrated around the Aegean coasts, where the Greek language has been spoken since antiquity. The Mycenaeans were the first historical people to arrive in the area now referred to as 'Greece'. According to Thucydides, the name of Hellas spread from a valley in Thessaly to all Greek-speaking peoples through Homer's works.
During the Byzantine Empire, which was dominated by ethnic and linguistic Greeks, the culture shifted away from paganism and ancient philosophies in favor of Christianity and a successor empire to Rome. The Byzantine Empire was overcome by the Ottoman Empire, but the Greeks who lived at the core of that Empire did not lose their ethnic identity. As a result, until the early 20th century, Greeks were distributed across the southern Balkan peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, Pontus, and Constantinople, regions which coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization.
Other ethnic Greek populations can still be found from Southern Italy to the Caucasus and diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, the vast majority of Greeks self-identify as Greek Orthodox Christians.[14]
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Identity of the Greek people
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The Greek language has been spoken in the Greek peninsula (i.e. the southern Balkans) for over 3,500 years (and in western Asia Minor for a little less),[15] and has an unbroken literary history which makes it one of the oldest surviving branches of the Indo-European languages. From Ancient Greece the Greeks have inherited a sophisticated culture and language documented over three millennia.[13] Modern Greek is recognizably the same as the language of Athens under Pericles in the 5th century BC. Few languages can demonstrate such continuity.
The terms used to define Greekness have varied throughout history. By Western standards, the term Greeks has traditionally referred to any native speakers of the Greek language, whether Mycenaean, Byzantine or modern Greek). Byzantine Greeks valued the classical tradition, considered themselves the political heirs of Rome, and deemed themselves the ethnic, cultural, and literary heirs of ancient Greece. The use of the older self-descriptive ethnic term Hellenes revived during the era following the Greco-Latin clashes between the Byzantine Empire and the Western Crusaders in the 12th century. It regained some popularity through its use by late Byzantine Emperors and scholars such Gemistus Pletho and Ciriaco Pizzicolli. It became fairly common with the emergence, in the late 18th century, of the nation-state and its gradual consolidation, but it was not until the early 20th century that its popular use was firmly re-established.
The Greeks today are a nation in the meaning of an ethnos (έθνος in Greek), defined by possessing Greek culture, and having a Greek mother tongue, than by citizenship, religion or by being subjects to any particular country. However, the Greeks are self-identified as a genos (γένος in Greek) in the sense that they also share a common ancestry. The term Greek also referred to the Eastern Orthodox Christian inhabitants of the Rum Millet of the Ottoman Empire.
Greece became the first country in the Balkans to come into being, both as a nation-state and breaking away from the Ottoman Empire. The Greek revolutionary movement formed its own definition of Greekness out of the Byzantine and ancient Greek cultural heritage along with the influences of western nationalism. This attracted foreign support from the Philhellenes (meaning friends of the Greeks).
Mycenaean Greeks
The Mycenaean proto-Greeks were probably the first historical people to arrive in the area now referred to as 'Greece' (the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula) in the 16th century BC and the first that can be considered 'Greek' as an ethnic identity taking into account the Linear B syllabary (used for writing Mycenaean) as the earliest attested form of Greek. There are clear elements of cultural continuity through the Greek Dark Ages (1200 BC - 800 BC), until the advent of Classical Greece (800 BC onwards) and the rise of the Polis and in particular Athens. For example, in Homer's epic poems the Odyssey the Iliad - the latter describes the epic Trojan War - it is quite clear that he views the Greeks of Prehistory as the forefathers of the early classical civilization he inhabited, the likes of Achilles and Odysseus were viewed by Athenians, as well as others, as prime-examples of the ideal citizen of a Polis.
These elements of self-identification on its own clearly constitutes cultural continuity, but there are other elements as well that solidify this idea, the first being that Mycenaean Architecture, echoing influence from other civilizations around the basin, as well as the Mycenaeans' own particular style, owing as much as to limitations of the geography of the area (see: Geography of Greece), that would eventually lead to the formation of Classical Greek Architecture and Hellenistic Architecture, for example, the ruins of the columns at Knossos echoing a very archaic version of the Doric style of architecture so widely used in the Classical period.
Religion is another factor, with the Mycenaeans own pantheon of gods mirroring in many ways the pantheon of that of the Classical Greeks, this influence defined not only culture but part of Classical Greece's value system as well as their art. There is also clear linguistic continuity between the Proto-Greek language and the various dialects of Classical Greece. In particular, the Greek language written in the Linear B script is clearly an archaic form of the latter Koine Greek language.
These elements combined together do not amount to say, the same cultural output and continuity that Modern Greeks feel with Classical, Hellenistic and Byzantine periods of Greek History, but they nevertheless constitute the beginnings of the Greek identity, and the foundation, albeit in comparison to 5th century Athens a basic one, of Greece's Pagan religion, language, architecture and art.
Classical and Hellenistic
Herodotus states that the Athenians declared, before the battle of Plataea, that they would not go over to Mardonius, because in the first place, they were bound to avenge the burning of the Acropolis; and, secondly, they would not betray their fellow Greeks, to whom they were bound by:
- A common language (ομόγλωσσον homoglosson – the use of one of the dialects of the Greek language),
- Common blood (όμαιμον homaimon – descent from Hellen, son of Deucalion),
- Common shrines, statues and sacrifices (practice of the ancient Greek religion – compare the Christian Greek and Demotic term ομόθρησκον omothriskon), and
- Common habits and customs.
As Thucydides observes that the name of Hellas spread from a valley in Thessaly to the Greek-speaking peoples after the formation of the text of Homer (the Panellenes of Il. 2.530 are the troops of Thessaly, contrasting with the Achaeans), not long before his own time. This places the idea in the Archaic period, when Greeks discovered that the world was wider, wealthier, and more cultured than they had imagined. Homer's Trojan War is, indeed, a conflict among Greeks: the Trojans speak Greek (although most modern historians believe they were more likely an Anatolian people, based mostly on later translations of the story by late writers), bear Greek names, and worship the Greek gods; and Priam is descended from Zeus (see Alaksandu). The Carians are the only people Homer considers barbarophonoi.
Hellen, son of Deucalion, combined into one group the smaller tribes that participated in the Delphic Amphictyon, such as the Aeolians, the Achaeans, and the Dorians.
As early as the 5th century BC, Isocrates, after speaking of common origin and worship, says: "the name Hellenes suggests no longer a race but an intelligence, and... the title Hellenes is applied rather to those who share our culture than to those who share a common blood". Panegyric 4.50. After the 4th century BC and Alexander the Great's conquest of the East, Greek became the lingua franca of the East Mediterranean region and was widely spoken by educated non-Greeks.
Byzantine Greeks
After the creation of the Byzantine Empire, Greek culture changed from Hellenic (Greek pagan) to Eastern Roman (Greek Christian culture), and the word "Hellene" became associated with the pagan past. Distinctions of nationality still existed in the empire, but became secondary to religious considerations as the renewed empire used Christianity to maintain its cohesion. However, the Byzantine Empire was dominated by the Greek element to such an extent that Emperor Heraclius (575 CE - 641 CE) decided to make Greek the official language. From then on, the Roman and Greek cultures were virtually fused in the East. By that time, the Latin West had began referring to Byzantium as "Empire of the Greeks" (Imperium Graecorum).
Greek nationalism re-emerged in the 11th century within specific circles and became more forceful after the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, and the establishment of a number of Greek kingdoms (such as the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epirus). When the empire was revived in 1261, it became essentially a Greek national state. Adherence to Greek Orthodox rites and the Greek language, became the defining characteristic of the Greek people.
Greeks in the Ottoman Empire
Under the Ottoman Empire, religion was the defining characteristic of "national" groups (milletler), so "Greeks" (Rumlar) were defined by the Ottomans as members of the Greek Orthodox Church, regardless of their language or ethnic origin. Conversely, those who adopted Islam during that period were considered 'Turks', regardless of their language or origin. Yet, the Greeks themselves upheld the autocephalous concept whereby they maintained their unique ethno-religious identity and consistently distinguished themselves from other non-Greek Orthodox Christian populations. However, some Greeks such as Alexander Ypsilanti, expected non-Greek populations such as the Moldavians and the Wallachians to rise for Greek independence because they were Greek Orthodox Christians. However, both the Moldavians and the Wallachians were cognizant of their non-Greek identities and refused to contribute.
Modern independence
This strong relation between Greek national identity and Greek Orthodox religion continued after the creation of the modern Greek state in 1830, and when the Treaty of Lausanne was signed between Greece and Turkey in 1923, the two countries agreed to use religion as the determinant for ethnic identity. However, in many important respects, the Greek state adhered from its founding to remarkably secular principles. For instance, Jews were granted full citizens rights in 1830, the year Greece's independence was formally recognized, thus making Greece the second state in Europe (after France) with an emancipated Jewish community.
Today, the deeper integration of Greece into the Western strategic system and the effects of migration (both emigration from Greece in the 1950s and 1960s, and immigration into Greece in more recent years) have led to a perception of multiculturalism similar to that of Western European nations.
Names used for the Greek people
Throughout the centuries, the Greeks have been known by a number of names, including:
- Pelasgians (Πελασγοί) - The ancient Greek references to the Pelasgians are confusing; however some ancient Greek and Roman writers describe them as Greeks.[16][17][18]
- Hellenes (Έλληνες) - In mythology, Hellen, son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, received from the nymph Orseis three sons, Aeolus, Dorus and Xuthus. Aeolus and Dorus, and two sons of Xuthus, Achaeus and Ion were the legendary founders, respectively, of the four principal tribes of Hellas, the Aeolians, Dorians, Achaeans and Ionians. Originally, only a small tribe in Thessaly were called Hellenes, but the word soon extended to the rest of the peninsula and came to represent all Greek people. In early Christian times it was sometimes used to mean "pagans". It remains in Greece today, the primary national name.
- Greeks/Grecs (Γραικοί) - In mythology, Graecus was the brother of Latinus and nephew to Hellen. It was the name of a Boeotian tribe that migrated to the Italian peninsula in the 8th century BCE and probably through contact with natives there brought the term to represent all Hellenes, which then established itself in Italy and in the West in general. Aristotle and Apollodorus mention that it was the name used by Greeks before adopting the name Hellenes
- Romioi (Ρωμιοί) - Romans is the political name by which the Byzantine Greeks called themselves during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. In parts of mainland Greece and Asia Minor, the use of this name survived well in the 20th century. The name in antiquity signified the inhabitants of the city of Rome in Italy, but with the elevation of the Greeks in the Roman Empire, it soon lost its connection with the Latins and acquired a completely different definition. Roman Emperor Caracalla with his Constitutio Antoniniana (212) granted all free people in the Roman Empire citizenship. The term Roman (Romaios) represented for the Greeks their Roman citizenship and their Hellenic ancestry. The word Romaioi came to represent the Greek inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire. It remains still in use today in Greece, being the most popular national name after Hellene and in Turkey to signify the Greek Orthodox minority. It is found also in the Koran; one Surah is entitled Ar-Rum meaning the eastern Romans, Byzantines, or the Greeks.
- Achaeans, Argives, and Danaans are names used interchangeably by Homer, to signify the Greek allied forces.
- Yavan or 'Javan', traditionally in Hebrew, Javan was the name of the tribe (and then the nation) which, according to the Torah, migrated from early Biblical times to establish the Balkan peninsula.
- Yunan (Ίωνες), and Yavana were names used by Indians who encountered Alexander the Great and his successors who ruled areas of Central Asia. Originally from the Persian Yauna, itself a transliteration of the Greek Ionia, is the name by which the Greeks are known in the East today. The term became established in Asia from the Persians, who in contact with the Ionian tribes in western Asia Minor in the 6th century BC, extended the name to all Hellenes.
History of the Greeks
The history of the Greek people is closely associated with the history of Greece, Constantinople, and Asia Minor. During the Ottoman rule of Greece, a number of Greek enclaves around the Mediterranean were cut off from the core, notably in Southern Italy, the Caucasus, Syria and Egypt. By the early 20th century, over half of the overall Greek-speaking population was settled in Asia Minor (now Turkey). During the 20th century, a huge wave of migration to the United States, Australia, Canada and elsewhere created a Greek diaspora.
Modern and ancient Greeks
The most obvious link between modern and ancient Greeks is the language, which has enjoyed a documented tradition from at least the 14th century BC to the present day, some 3400 years. The Byzantinist Robert Browning, compares its continuity of tradition to Chinese alone.[19]
Modern scholars and scientists have supported the notion that there is a dominant racial connection to the ancient Greeks. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, and Alberto Piazza, have found evidence of a genetic connection between the ancient and modern Greeks.[20] Recent genetic analyses of Greek populations have provided strong evidence supporting the existence of overwhelmingly significant levels of continuity between ancient Greeks and modern Greeks (low admixture attributed to genetic isolation due to physical barriers such as hills and mountains).[21][22][23][24]
On the other hand, some scholars, notably popular in Nazi Germany, have supported the refuted theories of the 19th century historian Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer, who claimed that the ancient Greeks genetically disappeared at some point, and as modern Greeks have no genetic or cultural connection to them, Europe owes them nothing. His essays were refuted by numerous scholars of his time and were characterised by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities as biased and unscientific.
Culture
Language
Greeks speak the Greek language, an Indo-European language which forms a branch in itself, although seems to be more closely related to Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian) and the Indo-Iranian languages.[25] Greek literature has a continuous history of nearly 3,000 years, and has been written in the Greek alphabet since the 9th century BCE.
Greek demonstrates several linguistic features that are shared with Romanian, Albanian and Bulgarian (see Balkan sprachbund), and has absorbed numerous foreign words (primarily of Western European or Turkish origin). Due to the movement of Philhellenism in the 19th century in the rest of Europe, which emphasized the modern Greeks' ancient heritage, these foreign influences were excluded from official use via the usage of Katharevusa, a somewhat artificial form of Greek purged of all foreign influence and words, as the official language of the Greek state. In 1976, however, the Greek parliament voted to make Dhimotiki, the modern dialect of Athens, the official language, making Katharevusa obsolete.
Some members of the diaspora cannot speak the Greek language, but are still considered Greeks by ethnic origin or descent.
Greek has a wide variety of dialects of varying levels of mutual intelligibility, which in addition to official variety (Standard Modern Greek - Κοινή Νεοελληνική), include the Cypriot, Pontic, Cappadocian, Griko (Calabrian Greek) and Tsakonian (the only surviving representative of ancient Doric Greek) varieties. Yevanic, also known as Romaniote or Judeo-Greek, is the language of the Greek Jews (Romaniotes), and survives in small communities in Greece, New York and Israel.
In addition to Greek, many Greeks in Greece are bilingual in other languages. Such languages include Arvanitic, Aromanian (also known as Vlach), Slavic (also known as Dopia), Russian, Italian, English, and Turkish. In the diaspora, most Greeks also speak the languages of the areas in which they live.
Religion
The majority of Greeks are Eastern Orthodox Christians, belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church. There are also small groups adhering to other Christian denominations or religions. The main non-Orthodox Christian denomination are Roman Catholics, and more recently Evangelicals and other Protestant groups. Since the days of the Ottoman Empire there has been a Muslim minority within Greek society, and for much of its history, Greece has had a Jewish community.
See also:
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Symbols
The most widely used symbol used by Greeks is the flag of Greece, which features nine equal horizontal stripes of blue alternating with white representing the nine syllables of the Greek national motto "Ελευθερία ή θάνατος" (Eleftheria i thanatos – freedom or death), which was also the motto of the Greek War of Independence. The blue square in the upper hoist-side corner bears a white cross, which represents Greek Orthodox Christianity. The Greek flag is also widely used by the Greek community in Cyprus (which has officially adopted a neutral flag so as to ease ethnic tensions with the Turkish minority – see flag of Cyprus), and by the Greek minority in Albania, which has led to ethnic clashes with the ethnic Albanian majority.
The pre-1978 (and first) flag of Greece, which features a cross on a blue background, is widely used as an alternative to the official flag, and they are often flown together. The national emblem of Greece features a blue escutcheon with a white cross totally surrounded by two laurel branches. A common design involves the current flag of Greece and the pre-1978 flag of Greece with crossed flagpoles and the national emblem placed in front.
Another highly recognizable and popular Greek symbol is the double-headed eagle, the imperial emblem of the Byzantine Empire and a common symbol in Eastern Europe. It is not currently part of the modern Greek flag or coat of arms, although it is officially the insignia of the Greek Army and the flag of the Church of Greece. It had been incorporated in the Greek coat of arms between 1925 and 1926.
Names
- See: Greek surname
Greek surnames are most commonly patronymics. Occupation, characteristic and location/origin-based surnames names also occur. Due to the lack of written records prior to the 19th century, surnames were not formally maintained and could be changed by occupation or characteristic. After the advent of widespread written records, surnames have remained constant handed down from father to children.
Timeline of Greek migrations
Some key historical events have also been included for context, but this timeline is not intended to cover history not related to migrations. There is more information on the historical context of these migrations in History of Greece.
- Pre-29th century BCE — Greek tribes migrate into the Balkans.
- 20th century BCE — Settlements established on the Greek Peninsula
- 17th century BCE — Decline of Minoan civilization, possibly due to the eruption of Thera. Settlement of Achaeans and Ionians in the Greek peninsula (Mycenaean civilization).
- 13th century BCE — First colonies established in Asia Minor.
- 11th century BCE — Doric tribes move into peninsular Greece.
- 9th century BCE — Major colonization of Asia Minor.
- 8th century BCE — First major colonies established in Sicily and Southern Italy.
- 6th century BCE — Colonies established across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea
- 4th century BCE — Campaign of Alexander the Great; Greek colonies established in newly founded cities of Ptolemaic Egypt and Asia.
- 2nd century BCE — Conquest of Greece by the Roman Empire. Migrations of Greeks to Rome.
- 4th century — Establishment of Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Migrations of Greeks throughout the Empire, mainly towards Constantinople.
- 7th century Slavic conquest of several parts of Greece, Greek migrations to Southern Italy take place. Byzantine Emperors capture main Slavic bodies and transfer them to Cappadocia. Bosphorus re-populated by Macedonian and Cypriot Greeks.
- 8th century Byzantine dissolution of surviving Sclaviniai and full recovery of the Greek peninsula.
- 9th century Retromigrations of Greeks from all parts of the Empire (mainly from Southern Italy and Sicily) into parts of Greece that were depopulated by the Slavic Invasions (mainly western Peloponnese and Thessaly).
- 13th century — Byzantine Empire dissolves, Constantinople taken by the Fourth Crusade; becoming the capital of the Latin Empire. Reconquered after a long struggle by the Empire of Nicaea, but fragments remain separated. Migrations between Asia Minor, Constantinople and mainland Greece take place.
- 15th century — Conquest of Byzantium by the Ottoman Empire. Greek diaspora into Europe begins. Ottoman settlements in Greece. Phanariot Greeks occupy high posts in Eastern European millets.
- 1830s — Creation of the Modern Greek State. Immigration to the New World begins. Large-scale migrations from Constantinople and Asia Minor to Greece take place.
- 1913 — Macedonia partitioned; Unorganized migrations of Greeks, Bulgarians and Turks towards their respective states.
- 1910s — approximately 353,000 Pontian Greeks killed [2].
- 1919 — Treaty of Neuilly; Greece and Bulgaria exchange populations, with some exceptions.
- 1923 — Treaty of Lausanne; Greece and Turkey agree to exchange populations with limited exceptions of the Greeks in Constantinople, Imbros, Tenedos and the Muslim minority (mainly Greeks, Pomaks, Roms and Turks) of Western Thrace. 1,5 million of Asia Minor and Pontic Greeks settle in Greece, and some 450 thousands of Muslims settle in Turkey.
- 1947 — Communist regime in Romania begins evictions of the Greek community, approx. 75,000 migrate.
- 1948 — Greek Civil War. Tens of thousands of Greek communists and their families flee into Eastern Bloc nations. Thousands settle in Tashkent.
- 1950s — Massive emigration of Greeks to West Germany, the United States, Australia, Canada, and other countries.
- 1955 — Istanbul Pogrom against Greeks. Exodus of Greeks from the city accelerates; less than 2000 remain today.
- 1958 — Large Greek community in Alexandria flees Nasser's regime in Egypt.
- 1960s — Republic of Cyprus created, as an independent Greek state, under Greek, Turkish and British protection. Economic emigration continues.
- 1974 — Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Almost all Greeks living in Northern Cyprus flee to the south and the United Kingdom.
- 1980s — Many civil war refugees were allowed to re-emigrate to Greece. Reverse migration of Greeks from Germany also begins.
- 1990s — Collapse of Soviet Union. Approx. 100,000 ethnic Greeks migrate from Georgia, Armenia, southern Russia and Albania to Greece.
- 2000 — Greece fully implements the Schengen Treaty.
- 2000s — Some statistics indicate the beginning of a trend of reverse migration of Greeks from the United States and Australia.
