Origins and History: The Modern Greeks (1 Viewer)

goldendawn

ὄσον ζῆς...
Joined
Aug 26, 2004
Messages
1,579
Gender
Male
HSC
2004
The origin of the Modern Greek people has been a polemic issue in modern academics since the 18th century. Political machinations, racial doctrines and nationalist fervour have in their own ways been forces of misrepresentation - often having been based upon selective readings and unstable applications of the sources of Byzantine history. There is much misinformation currently on the Internet on this topic also, and this has led me search for viable references, and ultimately to attempt to unify current anthropology with established history. I would firstly like to post my findings, but I would also like to ask for the help of anyone who may be able to refer me to the sources of specific information, which I still require (I will give an outline at the end of the post).

AN OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY

By the 6th century AD, Greece, Eastern Europe and what is now modern western Turkey were still under the rulership of the East Roman Empire, or the Byzantine Empire. Europe as a whole, however, was experiencing violent upheavals: invasions and mass migrations. Invasions of Goths and Vandals broke the West Roman empire; the Ostrogoths by this time ruled Italy and a decent proportion of Central Europe.

The Byzantine Empire also felt the effects of barbarian incursions (I am using the term barbarian here in its’ proper context: for the Byzantines it referred to non-Greeks – people who were not members of the Orthodox Church, or who weren’t tax paying members of the empire). Nomadic tribes of Central Asia were pushing into Europe: the Magyars, Avars, Tatars, Bulgars, the Huns and others are believed to have caused the great migration of Slavs from their northern homeland of the Pripet marshes into Eastern Europe (In ‘The Making of the Slavs’, Curtin points out that the notion of a homogenous Slav entity was a construct of the Byzantines – Curtin points out that the Slavs were in fact tribes of people speaking related languages led by tribal democracies. I am using the term Slavs to refer to these many tribes of people).

Byzantine chronicles state that the Slavs pushed into Byzantine lands, and during their maximum southern expansion, as far as the Isthmus of Corinth (Greece), and later into the Peloponnesus. Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote two centuries later of sixth century Greece that “all the open country was Slavonised and became barbarous, when the plague was devouring the whole world”. It is not true to say, however, that the older population of mainland Greece was expelled. Many did flee to the Aegean Islands and Southern Italy, but many still kept to the cities and coastal dwellings.

The Slavs, for their greatest part wandered the desolate countryside of Greece grazing their herds and keeping their distance from the remnants of the older Aegean population. It is likely that the Slavs experienced a great deal of hardship here; Greece is an arid land, and a far cry from the marshlands of the north (Cheetham, Mediaeval Greece). It was two centuries before the Byzantines regained Greece from the warlike Avars and the somewhat more gentle Slavs. But by the 9th century, Emperor Nikephorus began extensively bolstering the Greek population of Greece with Greeks from Sicily, Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands (Cheetham, Mediaeval Greece; Vacalopoulos, Origins of the Greek Nation). This was plausible as Greek people since ancient times were never confined to mainland Greece, and the Byzantine Empire was ethnically Greek to the foothills of Armenia (Bury, Hellenism in the Byzantine World).

This process was carried out for more than a century and a half by Nikephorus’ successors, and the remaining Slavs in Greece were either confined in the more arid regions of the Greek interior, or Hellenised – becoming Christian Greek-speakers, and being absorbed into the Greek population.

Albanians were settled in parts of Greece by the Byzantines, and later by the Ottomans. There were also substantial Albanian and Vlach migrations into Greece during and after the Middle Ages (Hammond, Migration and Assimilation in Greece). Vacalopoulos gives a very useful map of areas where Albanians may have once been established: parts of Pindus and Athens, Chalcis, Thebes, Amphissa; in parts of the prefecture of Korinthia and in Kalamata and other parts of the Peloponnesus (Vacalopoulos, Origins of the Greek Nation).

The extent of the Albanian influence in the Greek population is not wholly known, but it appears that most ethnic Albanians in Greece retain, through the generations, an understanding of their Albanian origins (Hammond, Migration and Assimilation in Greece). I believe that some mixing between Greeks and Christian Albanians is possible, though not at all total in the areas of proposed Albanian settlements.

Coming soon: understanding Greek history through anthropology and modern population genetics...
 

kami

An iron homily
Joined
Nov 28, 2004
Messages
4,265
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
Well it is evident that you have researched this subject with great depth, I think this critique/essay would benefit from more comment from anthropological viewpoints, perhaps it would be better if you enlisted the aid of any really really bored (or interested) history students in this endeavour. They might remember a few tidbits that can point you in the right direction. Otherwise you sound a lot like a history geared Attenbourough, and coming next week...lol
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top