Greeks or Hellenes ?

[akritas]

"Though the words 'Hellenism', 'Hellenic', 'Hellenes', 'Hellas' are less familiar than the words 'Greece' and 'Greek' to the English-speaking public, they have two advantages. They are not misleading; and they are the words which, in the Greek language, the Hellenes themselves used to designate their civilization, their world, and themselves. 'Hellas' seems originally to have been the name of the region round the head of the Maliac Gulf, on the border between Central and Northern Greece, which contained the shrine of Earth (http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Gaia.html) and Apollo (http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Apollo.html) at Delphi (http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Delphi.html) and the shrine of Artemis (http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Artemis.html) at Anthela near Thermopylae (the narrow passage between sea and mountain that has been the highway from Central Greece to Northern Greece and thence to the great Eurasian Continent into which Northern Greece merges). 'Hellenes', signifying 'inhabitants of Hellas', presumably acquired its broader meaning, signifying 'members of the Hellenic society', through being used as a corporate name for the association of local peoples, the Amphictyones ('neighbours'), which administered the shrines at Delphi (http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Delphi.html) and Thermopylae and organized the Pythian Festival that was connected with them." [Arnold J. Toynbee: Hellenism, The History of a Civilization; Oxford University Press, 1959]


Scholars agree that the majority of the ancient Greeks found difficult to see beyond the horizon of the city-state or to overcome the limitations that slavery and other facts of their life imposed upon their sight. That is to say, the ancient Greeks did not reach the picture of a world-society in which not only those who enjoy Hellenic culture, not only the wise, but all peoples, or at any rate all civilized peoples, have a place. These research findings explain why many ancient Greeks called the ancient Macedonians uncivilized barbarians .

According Thucydides, Andriotis, Hatzidakis and Wilkes, in the eyes of many ancient Greeks, the Macedonians, the Epirotes, as well as the Boeotians and the Thessalians were barbarian, uncivilized Greek tribes. Thus, Andriotis also argues that the designation barbarian was attributed by ancient writers to other uncivilized Greek tribes, as well, such as the Epirote tribe of Chaones (Thuc. 2.80) . Chatzidakis agrees on this asserting that as was the case with Macedonians, some included Macedonia and Epirus in Greece, while others did not. Thucydides speaks of the barbarian Chaones in B.80, while in 81 it is mentioned that the Thesprotians and the Molossi were also barbarians, according to Thucydides .

Hatzidakis affirms that the term barbarian Macedonian is not used in an ethnological sense, but with a derogatory cultural meaning. Admitting that, for some ancient Greeks, the Macedonians were an uncivilized Greek tribe, Hatzidakis says that for that reason many excluded certain tribes from the national community, for they were considered to be inferior compared with the general national civilization .

Hatzidakis, Andriotis , Hammond also attempted to prove and defend the greekness of the ancient Macedonians. On the contrary, some scholars (Georgiev ,O. Muller) supported that the ancient Macedonians were not Greeksand some others(Borza,Green) that ancient Macedonians hellennized. However, the archaeological findings of the Greek archaeologist Andronikos in Vergina put an end to the scientific disagreement about the origin of the ancient Macedonians. Therefore, now it is certain that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks despite the fact that, in the eyes of many ancient Greeks, the Macedonians were a barbarian, uncivilized Greek tribe.

For nationalists like the Afroeccentrists (Bernal) or FYROMian(Stefou) , the ancient Macedonians were not Greeks, since they were barbarians, a fact which to their view makes the Greek Macedonia theirs.

But what is Greek and what is Hellene.

What is the derivation of the Hellene(Hellinas) ? During the era of the Trojan War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War), the Hellenes were a relatively small but vigorous tribe settled in Thessalic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaly) Phthia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthia), centralized along the settlements of Alos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alos), Alope (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alope), Trehine (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trehine&action=edit), and Pelasgian Argos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos). Various etymologies have been proposed for the word Hellene, but none are widely accepted. These include Sal (to pray), ell (mountainous) and sel (illuminate). A more recent study traces the name to a city named Hellas next to the river Spercheus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spercheus), still named that today. Hellenes in the wider meaning of the word appears in writing for the first time in an inscription by Echembrotus (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Echembrotus&action=edit), dedicated to Heracles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracles) for his victory in the Amphictyonic Games (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amphictyonic_Games&action=edit),and refers to the 48th Olympiad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games) (584 BC).

The modern English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language) word Greek is derived from Latin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin) Graecus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graecus), which in turn comes from Greek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language) Γραικός (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graecians) (Graikos), the name of a Boeotian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeotia) tribe that migrated to Italy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy) in the 8th century BC, and it is by that name the Hellenes were known in the West (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world). Homer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer), while reciting the Boeotian forces in the Iliad's Catalogue of Ships (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalogue_of_Ships), provides the first known reference to a Boeotian city named Graea (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Graea&action=edit), and Pausanias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pausanias_%28geographer%29) mentions that Graea was the name of the ancient city of Tanagra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanagra).

There is and the term Hellenistic .Some say that the Hellenistic is not mean Greek or Hellenic!!!. The deriviyion came from the Greek word Έλλην Héllēn and was established by the German (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany) historian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historian) Johann Gustav Droysen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Gustav_Droysen) to refer to the spreading of Greek culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_culture) over the non-Greek peoples that were conquered by Alexander the Great (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great). According to Droysen, the Hellenistic civilization was a fusion of Greek and Middle-Eastern culture that eventually gave Christianity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity) the opportunity to flourish.

The term Hellenistic mentioned first in the book of Droysen Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen that published at 1833.Modern historians see the death of Alexander the Great (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great) in 323 BC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/323_BC) as the beginning of the Hellenistic period.

The Hellenistic period of the Greek history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greece) was the period between the death of Alexander the Great (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great) in 323 BC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/323_BC) and the annexation of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Republic) at 146 BC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/146_BC). Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the advent of Christianity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity), it did mark the end of Greek political independence.

During the Hellenistic period the importance of "Hellenic proper" (that is, the territory of modern Hellas) within the Greek-speaking world declined sharply. The great centres of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria) and Antioch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch), capitals of Ptolemaic Egypt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_Egypt) and Seleucid Syria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucid_dynasty) respectively

So any other explainations such that the term Hellenistic is not mean Hellenic is un-accurate and of course propagandistic.The founder of this term was clear.


But Back in the definition of the modern Nation.
According to the current international thinking as Mr Michael Vakaoukas said there are two main models of nation:


(a) the territorial and civic model and
(b) the ethnic-genealogical model.

The theory of Renan belongs to the western civic model, as per which a historic territory, legal-political community, legal-political equality, and common civic culture and ideology are required for the formation of a nation. According to the alternative ethnic model, which is supported by one of the most prominent modern theorists of nationalism, Anthony Smith, nation as a community is based on the common predecessors, the common descent of the different ethnic groups and their native culture.

The question now is which model is the most appropriate for the Greek historical reality: the civic model of Renan, Gellner and Anderson or the ethnic model of Smith. In other words, which of the two types of nationalism (emanating from the two models) applies to the Greek nation: the civic model or the ethnic model?

The nations with an ethnic or genealogical basis seek to expand so as to include the ethnically kin populations that are beyond the current borders of the ethnic nation, along with the territories where they live, or aim for the creation of a much larger ethic-national state, merging into other culturally and ethnically kin states. This is the case of the pan-nationalism of the unredeemed and all other kinds of pan-nationalisms .The characteristics of the genealogical nationalism of the unredeemed fit the Greek nation almost perfectly. Greeks will still talk about the "The Great Idea" and the unredeemed Hellenism (e.g. that of northern Epirus), even though these ideas have fortunately faded after the Asia Minor Catastrophe. However, what is happening today and what happened in the 19th cent, when the Greek nation was built on the basis of the unredeemed-ethnic-genealogical nationalism and much less on the vision of Renan , are two completely different things.A nation is defined by its ethno-culturalism, not by its geographical borders. Common Language and Heritage are what unite a people

In other words, the example of the Greek nation substantiates Smith's theory. That is to say, the modern Hellenic nation is not an entirely modern formation, for it is based on much older cultural groups (ethnies). Greek ethnies (like Arvanites, Vlachs, Slavophones etc.) present "permanent cultural attributes" such as memory, value, myths and symbolisms.

Hellenic ethnies present a common cultural origin descending from ancient Greece and Byzantium. For example, all Greek cultural groups believe in the myth of "Gorgona" who seeks to find Alexander the Great. That is to say, the modern Hellenic nation (in the beginning) was not "a community of citizens" but a "cultural" group. Thus, as Smith points out, "the challenge for scholars is to represent more accurately and convincingly the relationship of ethnic, cultural (Greek) past to modern Hellenic nation.

When the Greeks, in answer to the apparently plausible but entirely misleading ethnographical statistics of their rivals, contended that educational figures were a better indication of `nationality' within Macedonia, their contention was not at all ridiculous: far from it. The position of Greek education corresponded exactly to both the strength and the weakness of Hellenism in Macedonia.

Many in Western Europe doubted whether Hellenism existed at all in Macedonia, and regarded it solely as the invention of the Greek press. Such people were proved to be wrong. Hellenism, although nearly defeated by force and revolutionary upheaval, managed to survive as Dakin mentioned.

Greeks or Hellenes ? Ancient Or Moderns ? The answer is one Hellenism


References
1-N. Andriotis, On the language and the Greekness of the ancient Macedonians
2-Wilkes, The Illyrians, Odysseus, trs. in Greek
3-Hatzidakis, Macedonians
4-Michael Vakaoulas,Modern Greek Identity
5-Douglas Dakin,The Greek Struggle in Macedonia

[Otto]

Excellent post! :clapping:

[Flipper]

Fantastic...I will come with some additions later.

For now, I want to add a theory about the city of Hellas expressed by a historian from sperchiada called Kanelos.

The surrounding areas around Sperchiada are known to be full of vamps (Eloi - pronounced Eli in Greek). It is said that the area in Fthiotis was called therefore Elli (feminine) which gave the local population the name Ellines and their kindom Hellas.

Another theory sais that the Cadmians from the north had a Kindom called Thrasio. While time passed the cities of Elli and the inhabitants of Thrasio were joined into one Kindom called Hellas.

[Flipper]

Recently new findings provide more information about Hellas. I'm going to hold a book on my hands soon. Stay tuned.

[akritas]

Since the maknews brainwash academaics (Uzunovski ) discover a similar post in AE forums regarding the Hellenism I want to add some thinks regarding the connection of the oral tradition and the several ethnies that composed of the modern Hellenism.

What the reader-searcher-student of the Greek history (ancient or modern) has instead are literary sources originating in oral tradition. While it goes without saying that this tradition should not be treated on an equal footing with documentary sources nor used without being correlated with archaeological and linguistic evidence, it can nevertheless be employed with profit for the reconstruction of history. This is recognised even by those searchers (e.t.c.) of contemporary oral traditions who are best known for their critical attitude to the value of these historical traditions.

Thus, according to Jan Vansina,

Without oral traditions we would know very little about the past of large parts of the world, and we would not know them from the inside …. Where there is no writing or almost none, oral traditions must bear the brunt of historical reconstruction.

In a similar vein, David Henige wrote:

Regardless of this weakness, however, the body of oral tradition, real and potential, represents, together with archaeology and linguistics, nearly all that the historian of sub-Saharan Africa has to work with in his efforts to understand the more remote past.

The question, however, is that of the terms on which the issue of the historicity of oral tradition should be approached.

Margalit Finkelber gave the best answer :
There are two ways in which historical myth can be used for understanding the past. First, it can be taken as telling us something about the past that it purports to describe; second, its historicity can be placed solely within the present, that is, within the period in which it was actually fixed. While older scholars favoured the first approach, the second is more widespread in our days.

Within the last decade especially, the focus of attention has decisively shifted from the Mycenaean 'past' to the Archaic and Classical 'present' of Greek myth. This in itself is a welcome development, which compensates for earlier scholars' neglect of the myth's role as a vehicle for interpreting and legitimating historical circumstances in the presen

Nobody today would deny that at any given moment historical myth functions as a cultural artefact representative of the period in which it circulates rather than the one which it purports to describe.14 This would be even more true of traditional societies, in which the transmission of information is either entirely or predominantly oral.

Sources
1-Henige, The Chronology of Oral Tradition, Oxford
2-Finkeleberg, Greeks and Pre Greeks, Cambridge
3-Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, Madison

PS.
This post also is dedicated and in those that try to pass the idea that oral tradition is not consern the history and only the writings remaining. Oxford, Cambringe and Madison Univerities have diffrent opinion with those from Soros Academy.(Koulouri and Rebousi).


Naste kala Macedoniaontheweb members

[Lakonian]

Awesome.

[akritas]

As I said in my initial post of this article I have used the Antony Smith model in order to identify the term Greek.
But what is the meaning of the (Greek) nation ?
We have any criterias to identify this term ?

Smith identified six criteria for the formation of the ethnic group as:

Ethnic group must have a name in order to developed collective identity.
The people in the ethnic group must believe in a common ancestry.
Members of the ethnic group must share myths (common historical memories).
Ethnic group must feel an attachment to a specific territory.
Ethnic group must share same culture that based on language, religion, traditions, customs, laws, architecture, institutions etc.
Ethnic group must be aware of their ethnicity. In other words, they must have a sense of their common ethnies.
If we summarise all these points, Smith defines ethnic community as:

A named human population with a myth of common ancestry, shared memories and cultural elements, a link with an historic territory or homeland and a measure of solidarity.

So Greek nation according Smith model is a population that sharing an historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members.

source
Smith, A.D. (1991). National Identity. London: Penguin, p. 52 & 94

[akritas]

In my first post I compared two theories regarding the National Identity.I explained a lot as about Antony Smith model.Ernest Renan was a French philosopher and writer, deeply attached to his native province of Brittany. He is best known for his influential historical works on early Christianity and his political theories.He was born at Treguier in Brittany
Renan's definition of a nation has been influential. This was given in his 1882 discourse Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? ("What is a Nation?").
Renan defined it by the desire of a people to live together, which he summed up in a famous phrase, "avoir fait de grandes choses ensemble, vouloir en faire encore" (having done great things together and wishing to do more).
Writing in the midst of the dispute concerning the Alsace-Lorraine region, he declared that the existence of a nation was based on a "daily plebiscite."

[Drama]

The Germans use often the term "Hellenes"(German: Hellenen) for us Greeks..

[Reaper]

I would like us to reclaim the ancient names homer uses:

Achaeans, Argives, and Danaans are names used interchangeably by Homer, to signify the Greek allied forces.

How cool is Danaans? I say we all start calling each other that on this site.

[Draco]

I quite like the old Ρωμιοί (and Ρωμαίικα for the language). One often overlooked reason for their suppression is that they are associated with the Byzantine Empire, and if the newly founded Greek state was called Ρωμανία, then it would be obvious that this new state was by definition irredentist and its purpose was to recreate the Byzantine Empire by annexing land from the Ottoman Empire (including Constantinople of course). If you think about it, this case has some parallels with the name dispute of FYROM.

[akritas]

Let me start with ethnic change and with a well-known example, that of the Greeks. Modern Greeks are taught that they are the heirs and descendants not merely of Greek Byzantium, but also of the ancient Greeks and their classical Hellenic civilization.

In both cases (and there have in fact been two, rival, myths of descent at work since the early nineteenth century), ‘descent’ was seen in largely demographic terms; or rather, cultural affinity with Byzantium and ancient Greece (notably Athens) was predicated on demographic continuity. Unfortunately for the classicist Hellenic myth, the demographic evidence is at best tenuous, at worst non-existent.

As Jacob Fallmereyer demonstrated long ago, Greek demographic continuity was brutally interrupted in the late sixth to eighth centuries AD by massive influxes of Avar, Slav and, later, Albanian immigrants.

The evidence from the period suggests that the immigrants succeeded in occupying most of central Greece and the Peloponnesus (Morea), pushing the original Greek-speaking and Hellenic inhabitants to the coastal areas and the islands of the Aegean. This shifted the centre of a truly Hellenic civilization to the east, to the Aegean, the Ionian littoral of Asia Minor and to Constantinople. It also meant that modem Greeks could hardly count as being of ancient Greek descent, even if this could never be ruled out.’

There is a sense in which the preceding discussion is both relevant to a sense of Greek identity, now and earlier, and irrelevant.

It is relevant in so far as Greeks, now and earlier, fellt that their ‘Greekness’ was a product of their descent from the ancient Greeks (or Byzantine Greeks), and that such filiations made them feel themselves to be members of one great ‘super-family’ of Greeks, shared sentiments of continuity and membership being essential to a lively sense of identity. It is irrelevant in that ethnies arc constituted, not by lines of physical descent, but by the sense of continuity, shared memory and collective destiny, i.e. by lines of cultural affinity embodied in distinctive myths, memories, symbols and values retained by a given cultural unit of population. In that sense much has been retained, and revived, from the extant heritage of ancient Greece.

For, even at the time of Slavic migrations, in Ionia and especially in Constantinople, there was a growing emphasis on the Greek language, on Greek philosophy and literature, and on classical models of thought and scholarship. Such a ‘Greek revival’ was to surface again in the tenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as subsequently, providing a powerful impetus to the sense of cultural affinity with ancient Greece and its classical heritage.

This is not to deny for one moment either the enormous cultural changes undergone by the Greeks despite a surviving sense of common ethnicity or the cultural influence of surrounding peoples and civilizations over two thousand years. At the same time in terms of script and language, certain values, a particular environment and its nostalgia, continuous social interactions, and a sense of religious and cultural difference, even exclusion, a sense of Greek identity and common sentiments of ethnicity can be said to have persisted beneath the many social and political changes of the last two thousand years



source:
Anthony D.Smith, National Identity, pages 28-31

[Xiotis]

This is not to deny for one moment either the enormous cultural changes undergone by the Greeks despite a surviving sense of common ethnicity or the cultural influence of surrounding peoples and civilizations over two thousand years. At the same time in terms of script and language, certain values, a particular environment and its nostalgia, continuous social interactions, and a sense of religious and cultural difference, even exclusion, a sense of Greek identity and common sentiments of ethnicity can be said to have persisted beneath the many social and political changes of the last two thousand years

source:
Anthony D.Smith, National Identity, pages 28-31

Akritas, this is an excellent quote coming from a prominent scholar of ethno/nationalism. Isn't it a farce that Stefov, one of the FYROMian diaspora's most popular (mock)"Historians", quotes Smith in 'articles' he authors that are meant to show that the Greek ethnos is a modern artificial invention? As you show Smith's view surely does not support the neo "Macedonist" position currently being peddled by the lunatics from FYROM and her diaspora.

[akritas]

Akritas, this is an excellent quote coming from a prominent scholar of ethno/nationalism. Isn't it a farce that Stefov, one of the FYROMian diaspora's most popular (mock)"Historians", quotes Smith in 'articles' he authors that are meant to show that the Greek ethnos is a modern artificial invention? As you show Smith's view surely does not support the neo "Macedonist" position currently being peddled by the lunatics from FYROM and her diaspora.

Actually call them as a "nation by design"!!!!They put them in the same position as the yugoslavian nationality. Dont forget that the book was written in 1992.

[Spartan]

Let me start with ethnic change and with a well-known example, that of the Greeks. Modern Greeks are taught that they are the heirs and descendants not merely of Greek Byzantium, but also of the ancient Greeks and their classical Hellenic civilization.

In both cases (and there have in fact been two, rival, myths of descent at work since the early nineteenth century), ‘descent’ was seen in largely demographic terms; or rather, cultural affinity with Byzantium and ancient Greece (notably Athens) was predicated on demographic continuity. Unfortunately for the classicist Hellenic myth, the demographic evidence is at best tenuous, at worst non-existent.

As Jacob Fallmereyer demonstrated long ago, Greek demographic continuity was brutally interrupted in the late sixth to eighth centuries AD by massive influxes of Avar, Slav and, later, Albanian immigrants.

The evidence from the period suggests that the immigrants succeeded in occupying most of central Greece and the Peloponnesus (Morea), pushing the original Greek-speaking and Hellenic inhabitants to the coastal areas and the islands of the Aegean. This shifted the centre of a truly Hellenic civilization to the east, to the Aegean, the Ionian littoral of Asia Minor and to Constantinople. It also meant that modem Greeks could hardly count as being of ancient Greek descent, even if this could never be ruled out.’

There is a sense in which the preceding discussion is both relevant to a sense of Greek identity, now and earlier, and irrelevant.

It is relevant in so far as Greeks, now and earlier, fellt that their ‘Greekness’ was a product of their descent from the ancient Greeks (or Byzantine Greeks), and that such filiations made them feel themselves to be members of one great ‘super-family’ of Greeks, shared sentiments of continuity and membership being essential to a lively sense of identity. It is irrelevant in that ethnies arc constituted, not by lines of physical descent, but by the sense of continuity, shared memory and collective destiny, i.e. by lines of cultural affinity embodied in distinctive myths, memories, symbols and values retained by a given cultural unit of population. In that sense much has been retained, and revived, from the extant heritage of ancient Greece.

For, even at the time of Slavic migrations, in Ionia and especially in Constantinople, there was a growing emphasis on the Greek language, on Greek philosophy and literature, and on classical models of thought and scholarship. Such a ‘Greek revival’ was to surface again in the tenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as subsequently, providing a powerful impetus to the sense of cultural affinity with ancient Greece and its classical heritage.

This is not to deny for one moment either the enormous cultural changes undergone by the Greeks despite a surviving sense of common ethnicity or the cultural influence of surrounding peoples and civilizations over two thousand years. At the same time in terms of script and language, certain values, a particular environment and its nostalgia, continuous social interactions, and a sense of religious and cultural difference, even exclusion, a sense of Greek identity and common sentiments of ethnicity can be said to have persisted beneath the many social and political changes of the last two thousand years



source:
Anthony D.Smith, National Identity, pages 28-31

1)Unfortunately for the classicist Hellenic myth, the demographic evidence is at best tenuous, at worst non-existent.

2)pushing the original Greek-speaking and Hellenic inhabitants to the coastal areas and the islands of the Aegean.[/B] This shifted the centre of a truly Hellenic civilization to the east, to the Aegean, the Ionian littoral of Asia Minor and to Constantinople. [B]It also meant that modem Greeks could hardly count as being of ancient Greek descent, even if this could never be ruled out.’

This is quite false.

Twice he makes the claim that the modern Greeks can in no way be descended from the Ancient genetically, but only physically. But what does he base this conclusion on? Fallmereyer! It has been well established that Fallmereyer is quite flawed in his conclusion. So this guy making these conclusions based on already flawed conclusion is quite insulting and at the same time humorous.

1)First off we all know that the coastal areas have the largest cities thus the largest populations. So if the Greeks fled to the coastal cities then they STILL EXISTED.

2)It is known that the Avars only settled as far south as the Northern banks of the Danube and Pannonia(Hungary)

3) The Slavs could not have been that numerically superior to the Greeks otherwise they would have taken over the major towns of the coast. There are many early examples of there being Greek and Slav villages in the same valley. So there were definitely Greeks still in the hinterlands.

4)Furthermore it is quite accepted that the Slavs which did enter central Greece and the Peleponnese were quickly assimilated into Greek culture? It is quite evident that the Greeks were not so much of the minority as is claimed, otherwise they would have been the ones who would have been assimilated into the various Slavic cultures!

So let's say for a second we take into consideration the Slavic and later Albanian influences on the Greek genetic makeup. Can one say with any certainty that Ancient Greek DNA was completely wiped out by these new comers or became the minority in the genetic pool of the balkans peninsula? I say no. Considering that Greek remained the predominant language throughout the Balkans Peninsula until today just goes to show that the modern Greeks are still in essence the offspring of the Ancient Greeks.

5)I must make one last point. During the population exchanges with Turkey there was once more another influx of Ancient Greek DNA brought back into the homeland of the Greeks. The Pontians and other Greeks from the Eastern Aegean. The Pontians of course were originally settlers from Miletus an Ionian Greek Colony. As mentioned by the author of the article being discussed was one of the places the Ancient Greeks 'fled' to.

So how exactly are the modern Greeks not connected to the Ancient Greeks, except for religion?

[Andrew]

So let's say for a second we take into consideration the Slavic and later Albanian influences on the Greek genetic makeup. Can one say with any certainty that Ancient Greek DNA was completely wiped out by these new comers or became the minority in the genetic pool of the balkans peninsula? I say no. Considering that Greek remained the predominant language throughout the Balkans Peninsula until today just goes to show that the modern Greeks are still in essence the offspring of the Ancient Greeks.


And you're wright on saying NO Spartan :

Population genetics show that in Modern Greeks there is at least a 60% of ancient balkanian "blood" running in their veins.

Note that I've said ancient Balkanian , because there are no markers specific for the ancient Greeks , but there can be made some conclusions about ALL the ancient Balkanians (Greeks , Illyrians , Thracians , Paeonians etc).

To be more specific:

E-V13 (20%) + [J2+P15+I] (30%) = 50% of modern genetic pool dates from the Neolithic Balkanian times (8000 BC - 3000 BC)

Then although R1a1 is common in the ancient Kurgan IE that invated the Balkans in 3 waves from 4200-3000 BC and in the Medioeval Slavic incursions
still some conclusions can be made:

The genetic empirical definition of a Slavic nation is R1a1>30% . Poles and Ukrainians have it around 60% , Skops have it 35,2% (40% North-25% South)
...Greeks have it 11,8% (others found it 14%) and Albanians have it 9,8% ...
..Now NOT all of the R1a1 is Slavic since Cretans (an island that was not invated by Slavs) have it in 8,3% . And the fact is that this 8,3% in Crete is concentrated in West-Central Crete , around Psiloritis ..places that were colonized by the Acheans and the Dorians.

This means that if the Acheans and Dorians brought a 8,3% in Crete then it's
rational to postulate that of the 11,8% Greek (others found it 14%) , at least 9% is Ancient R1a1 and the remaining part (lets say 14-9 = 5%) is Slavic.

so I repeat ...50% neolithic and at least 10% ancient IE makes at least 60% of modern genetic pool dating from Ancient times ...
...and that 60% is not bad at all it's still a majority!!!

[Paulos Melas]

we are greeks....full stop! Being greek is pretty much related with greek culture and mostly related with greek language!!!!

[tymphaios]

This thread has been revived from 2005. The Slavoskopians, like Fallmereyer in the past, for reasons easily understood wish to prove that the Romioi, Greeks and or Hellenes are different things. Not so surprisingly some of these arguments are based on genetic discontinuity about which in the days of Fallmereyer no one actually knew anything, while the Skopians know even less. The Slavoskopian view has become that as they are a 20th century nation, it compares unfavourably to a nation being around much much longer, especially when the issue of whether Alexander was Greek or not is discussed. So one claim is that Greeks are not Hellenes. Unfortunately to them:

“Hellenes were called those previously known as Greeks”
Parian Chronicle, Lost Fragment 6 (264 BC)
http://www.ashmolean.museum/ash/faqs/q004/q004008.html

Failing that it is next charged that even if there were Greeks or Hellenes, there was no Greece or Greek ethnicity or race. One might as well say that the earth is known to be square.

“and when those Hellenes who had the better mind about Hellas came together to one place, and considered their affairs and interchanged assurances with one another, then deliberating together they thought it well first of all things to reconcile the enmities and bring to an end the wars which they had with one another... for they made it their aim that if possible the Hellenic race might unite in one, and that they might join all together and act towards the same end, since dangers were threatening all the Hellenes equally.”
Herodotus Histories Book 7, paragraph 145 (5th C BC)

“there is the bond of Hellenic race, by which we are of one blood and of one speech, the common temples of the gods and the common sacrifices, the manners of life which are the same for all; to these it would not be well that the Athenians should become traitors.”
Herodotus Histories, Book 8, paragraph 144 (5th C BC)

Those Slavoskopians who have not followed this argument claim that during Roman times there was a Macedonia separate from Greece (New Testament, Acts). St Paul visited Macedonia and the New Testament names cities that had all Greek names. St Paul uses the term Hellenes (translated in English as “Greeks”) when referring to the non-Jewish inhabitants of Thessalonica and Berea:

"1 When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. 2 As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ," he said. 4 Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women."
Acts 17:4

"10 As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. 12 Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men."
Acts 17:12

Byzantine historian Anna Komnena uses the terms Hellenes and Romans interchangeably, for example:

Now the man [Bohemond] was such as, to put it briefly, had never before been seen in the land of the Romans, be he either of the barbarians or of the Hellenes (for he was a marvel for the eyes to behold, and his reputation was terrifying).
Anna Comnena, Alexiad, Book 13, X

Frantzes in his Chronicle of the 15th C uses Roman, Greek or Hellene interchangeably:

V.5. “Ioannes Justiniani … was appointed to guard with four hundred soldiers, Italian and ROMAN, the region of the Gate of saint Romanus…”

V.8. “Iakovos Kokkos the Venetian… having obtained three very fast light ships, placed four hundred courageous young men in them, GREEK and Italian"

VIII.11. “He wants to devour us and this city, that the thrice-blessed Constantine the Great that king dedicated and granted to the panagnos and yperagnos despoina Theotokos and aeiparthenos Maria, that she may be the lord and aid and roof of our homeland (patrida) and sanctuary of the Christians and joy of all the HELLENES, the most glorious amongst all that are under the rising sun.”

Of course as long as there is historical continuity, the Slavoskopians cannot claim that Greeks are imposters or that the Macedonians were Skopians. So some concentrate in the period under Turkish rule, claiming that the church used the Greek language which otherwise had disappeared, implying that the people spoke Slavic or other non-Greek languages. They are ignorant enough not to be aware of the vast corpus of demotic songs from the period of the Ottoman occupation:

http://jacketmagazine.com/11/johnston-folk.html

See also Rodney Gallop's "Folk-songs of modern Greece" (http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4631(193501)21%3A1%3C89%3AFOMG%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K) with several Greek folk songs from the 18-19th centuries. G.F Abbott in his "Macedonian Folklore" (http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-840X(190312)1%3A17%3A9%3C472%3AAMF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4) collected specifically folk songs, riddles and stories from Macedonia.

Even songs about the Roman and Byzantine border guards Akrites survived by oral transmission:

http://jacketmagazine.com/01/mj-greek-folk-songs.html

And even fragments from Homer’s Odyssey continued to be orally transmitted in Greek songs:

www2.open.ac.uk/ClassicalStudies/GreekPlays/newvoices/issue1/Nostos-Marigo%20AlexopoulouCG%201.doc

This would be enough to prove that the Greek language and cultural continuity has not been interrupted at any time, even under Turkish occupation when Greek schools were for a time banned.

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To be a Macedonian is to be Greek

[Spartan]

Great research Tymphaios!

[Andrew]

we are greeks....full stop! Being greek is pretty much related with greek culture and mostly related with greek language!!!!

Something interesting about our language boys :D:D:D !!!

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/858/text1df9.png (http://imageshack.us)
[URL=http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=528&i=text1df9.png][IMG]

Did I read well : " the Greek language is a UNIQUE linguistic phenomenon ...it's practicaly the same language (evolved by time) for the last 4000 years UNLIKE Latin which is a dead language that gave birth to it's daughter languages ..Greek continues on being the same language !!!"

Yaba Daba Doo :banana::D:banana::D:band::jump: !!!

[akritas]

Again, one could point to both ethnic continuity and ethnic recurrence.
Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Persians, Chinese and Japanese could be cited as examples of ethnic continuity, since, despite massive cultural changes over the centuries, certain key identifying components—name, language, customs, religious community and territorial association—were broadly maintained and reproduced for millennia.
In other cases, such as the peoples of Ethiopia, the Fertile Crescent, northern India and the Balkans, ethnicity has been more of a recurrent phenomenon.[Anthony D. Smith , Nationalism and Modernism, page 191]

All this points to the importance of social memory; as the example of the relationship between modern and ancient Greeks shows,

ethnies are constituted, not by lines of physical descent, but by the sense of continuity, shared memory and collective destiny, i.e. by lines of cultural affinity embodied in myths, memories, symbols and values retained by a given cultural unit of population.[Anthony D. Smith , Nationalism and Modernism, page 192]

[Pan]

I think a lot of the problems with Skopie and some other parts of the world are down to the fact of the name "Greece". Our country is called The Hellenic Republic. The view of Skopie always boils down to the mainland of "Greece" what we are now but never do they look at the Hellenes and the areas where these people lived and populated. This being round the Black Sea, Aegean, Adriatic, Mediterranian etc. Thus part of the arguments are down to the fact the Makedonian people being Hellenic seems to be far away from them to being "Greek".

We should always promote the word Hellenic, Hellas, Hellene and people may understand more of what things were.

I hope I don't sound too confusing in what I say and people understand what I mean.

[Speto]

I think a lot of the problems with Skopie and some other parts of the world are down to the fact of the name "Greece". Our country is called The Hellenic Republic. The view of Skopie always boils down to the mainland of "Greece" what we are now but never do they look at the Hellenes and the areas where these people lived and populated. This being round the Black Sea, Aegean, Adriatic, Mediterranian etc. Thus part of the arguments are down to the fact the Makedonian people being Hellenic seems to be far away from them to being "Greek".

We should always promote the word Hellenic, Hellas, Hellene and people may understand more of what things WERE.

I hope I don't sound too confusing in what I say and people understand what I mean.

Exactly!
I think, to be thinking of that past as if it's still reality today, is to be delirious.

Let's get real people.

[Drama]

neither, Ethnic Macedonian are decedents of Alexander The Great.

Exactly,
and that's why we Macedonians carry names like our King "ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ" and not some Slavic crap like "ALEKSANDAR" :clapping:

[NOSTOS5]

Greeks refer to the inhabitants of Greece who have an Orthodox belied and speak the Greek language...

a Hellene is beyong race and is baout a way of thought and ideology..

all Greeks can become Hellenes but many call themselves when in their hearts they are not.

[Mavet]

As we know Greeks tends to keep their national beliefs at high level, although not quite right... They have not right doing so!