Hellenization
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Hellenization (or Hellenisation) is a historical term most widely used to describe a growing cultural influence of Hellenistic civilization. It was most prominently achieved under Alexander III of Macedon who spread Greek language, culture and religion to the lands he conquered. The result, some elements of Greek origin combined in various forms and degrees with other elements taken from conquered civilizations, is known as Hellenism.
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[edit] Historic usage
The term is used in a number of other ancient historical contexts, starting with the hellenization of the earliest inhabitants of the Greece mainland, the Pelasgians, the Leleges, the Lemnians, the Eteocypriots in Cyprus, Eteocretans and Minoans in Crete, prior to the Classical antiquity period, as well as the Sicels, Elymians, Sicani in Sicily and the Oenotrians, Brutii, Lucani, Messapii and many others in what was about to be known as Magna Graecia.
During the classical period, there was the hellenization of the Thracians[1], Dardanians, Paionians and Illyrians[2], south of the Jireček Line.
In the Hellenistic times, the Macedonians – following the death of Alexander – hellenized the Assyrians, Jews, Egyptians, Persians, Armenians and a number of other smaller ethnic groups along the Middle East and Central Asia. The Bactrians, an Iranian ethnic group who lived in Bactria (northern Afghanistan), were hellenized during the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and soon after various tribes in northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent (modern Pakistan) during the Indo-Greek Kingdom. Even today there are several ethnic groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan that claim descent from the Greeks (see Kalasha).
Hellenized people variously adopted Greek language, alphabet, customs, and philosophy.
Hellenization also refers of the Byzantine Empire from Constantine's founding of Constantinople and the primacy of Greek culture and the Greek language under the emperor Heraclius in the seventh century (see Byzantine Greeks).
[edit] Modern usage
A disputed modern use is in connection with policies pursuing 'cultural harmonization and education of the linguistic minorities resident within the modern Greek state' (the Hellenic Republic) in relation to Aromanians, Arvanites, Roma, Slavophones, Turcophones[3] and the wider Muslim minority of Thrace. "The combined figures for those with a non-Greek national identity indicate that they do not exceed 1% of the 11 million population." [1] It has been suggested in connection with a statement from Greek Helsinki Monitor, arguing "Greece, like all other Balkan countries, has traditionally followed assimilatory policies and/or has discriminated against its citizens with a minority religious, ethnonational or ethnolinguistic identity. The Balkan wars of the 1910s and the First World War, along with the resulting bilateral agreements with Bulgaria and Turkey to exchange the respective minority populations, contributed to the substantial cleansing of the current territory of the Greek state from most of its non-Greek populations." [2].
However, others point out that a number of minority groups in Greece have come to be seen as integral to the modern Greek narrative while still retaining a degree of separate identity, attested to, this view highlights , by the persistence of Greek-Vlach public organisations and the avowedly Greek/vlach and Greek/arvanite status of several heroes of the country's popular narrative.
[edit] De-Hellenization
De-Hellenization (or De-Hellenisation) is another complex and debated term used to describe a cultural change in which something Greek becomes non-Greek (non-Hellenic). The process can either be voluntary, or, commonly, applied with varying degrees of force.
Through history, the term has been used in connection with the Islamization and eventual Turkification of some Greek populations in the Ottoman Empire, beginning with inhabitants of eastern thrace, and also of the slavicised Greek inhabitants in the Balkans (see Slavophone Greeks) , while the Aromanians of Greece stress links with the country , numbering at least 84 Vlach associations around its localities. (the membership of the Panhellenic Federation of Cultural Associations of Vlachs) [3], [4].
In recent times, it has sometimes been used in connection with the Second World War and the triple occupation of Greece [5], Enver Hoxha's regime in Albania [6] (a country with a large Greek minority in the southern part of the country) [7] and with the Greek Muslims.
De-Hellenization can also refer to the rejection of classical Greek philosophy in Western civilization. It was most notably used in this sense by Pope Benedict XVI in a lecture he gave in Regensburg in 2006. Pope Benedict sees the process of de-Hellenization as occurring in several stages. The first stage took place during the Reformation, when the Reformers saw Catholicism as being too greatly influenced by Greek philosophy. They developed the teaching of sola scriptura in an effort to reduce this influence. The second stage consisted of the liberal theology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which sought to secularize Christianity by eliminating from it many theological and philosophical elements. The third stage, inspired by cultural pluralism, and which is now in progress, seeks to make Christianity more available to different cultures by eliminating from it influences, such as Greek philosophy, which are not considered to be integral to Christianity, but merely historical accidents; thus, instead of Greek philosophy, other local influences may make themselves felt in different parts of the world.[4]
[edit] Re-Hellenization
Re-Hellenization (or Re-Hellenisation) is a further debated term used to describe a cultural change in which something which had been originally Greek, becomes Greek again, after a period of time in which it was not Greek (De-Hellenization). The process can either be voluntary, or applied with varying degrees of force.
The term is used in a number of contexts, regarding the re-hellenization of the southern Slavic population in the Balkans[5] in the Byzantine times. Greek[6] and international[7] authors have also used the term with regard to the territories the Greek state annexed from the Ottoman Empire. John Shea in particular attributes a major part in the re-hellenization process to the Greek Orthodox Church [7].
In modern times, it has been used in connection with governmental policies and exchanges among the linguistic and cultural minorities in Greece in relation to Arvanites[8], Aromanians[8], Megleno-Romanians[8], and Slavophone Greeks[8]. Arguably, the term can be used for the Kalasha tribe in Pakistan, that claims descent from the soldiers of Alexander the Great, and where Greek volunteers (with the help of the Greek government) have built 5 schools. [8]. The Vlachs of Greece (Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians) are another group associated with disputed origins. The Panhellenic Federation of Cultural Associations of Vlachs (Πανελλήνια Ομοσπονδία Πολιτιστικών Συλλόγων Βλάχων), a federation of at least 84 Vlach associations located throughout Greece, stated on the 28th February 2001 : we, the Vlach-speaking Greeks ,do not request recognition from outside as a minority because both historically and culturally we were and are an integral part of the Greek nation [9]. Other Vlach associations (from Romania, Albania, Republic of Macedonia, and especially those from the Diaspora) reject a Greek origin for Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ A Grammar of Modern Indo-European by Carlos Quiles,ISBN 8461176391,2007,page 76,"Most of the Thracians were eventually Hellenised(in the province of Thrace)"
- ^ Stanley M Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, Sarah B Pomeroy, "A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture", Oxford University Press, p. 255
- ^ The Turks of Western Thrace
- ^ Meeting with the representatives of science at the University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI, September 12, 2006
- ^ István Vásáry, "Cumans and Tatars. Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185–1365", Loránd Eötvös University, Budapest
- ^ Greece in the Twentieth Century, Theodore A. Couloumbis, Frank Cass Publishers (15 Sep 2003). ISBN 0-7146-8340-X
- ^ a b Macedonia and Greece: The Struggle to Define a New Balkan Nation, John Shea, McFarland & Company (23 May 1996). ISBN 0-7864-0228-8
- ^ a b c d Haris Exertzoglou, "Shifting Boundaries: language, community and the 'non-Greek speaking Greeks'"
