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Greeks and Armenians have had a long cultural, religious and political relationship, dating back to Ancient Greece and strengthening during the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. This tie is reinforced by the significant diaspora population of Greeks in Armenia (and also of Armenians in Greece).
[edit] Origins
The Greeks of Armenia are mainly descendants of the Pontic Greeks, who originally lived along the shores of the Black Sea. (The word "Pontic" comes from Pontus a pre-Olympian sea god and also a Greek word for "sea"). Seafaring Ionian Greeks settled around the southern shores of the Black Sea starting around 800 B.C. later expanding to coastal regions of modern Romania, Russia, Bulgaria and the Ukraine. The Pontic Greeks lived for thousands of years almost isolated from the Greek peninsula, retaining elements of the Ancient Greek language and making Pontic Greek almost unintelligible to most modern Greeks.
[edit] Modern
Armenian Greeks form the majority in areas along part Armenia's northern border with Georgia, in the northern part of the Lori district. The Largest communities can be found in Alaverdi and Yerevan [1], followed by Vanadzor, Gyumri, Stepanavan, Hankavan and Noyemberian. Greeks in Armenia number around 1,800 to over 4,000[2] with staggered emigration to other former Soviet republics and Greece for economic reasons. Greeks and Armenians often live together in mixed communities north of the Armenian border in Georgia.
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Armenia’s Greeks, as in the whole of Transcaucasia, speak the Pontic dialect, an extension of the Ionic dialect of the Old Greek language. A certain layer is occupied by the migrants from Trabzon city and Kars region in the 19th – 20th cc. (endoethnonym: ROMEYUS). All Armenia’s Greeks are fluent in both Armenian and Russian. The Greek population in Armenia today is about 6 000, with 300 in the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh. [3] |
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[edit] References
- ^ Hellenic Republic Hellenic Republic, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- ^ [1]
- ^ The Ethnic Minorities of Armenia, Garnik Asatryan, Victoria Arakelova.
[edit] See also
Armenia-related topics
