Greece is located on the Balkan Peninsula and nearby islands. It borders with many countries and Republics, for example: Albania, Bulgaria, Turkey and the Republic of Macedonia. The expanses of Greece are washed by the Aegean, Thracian, Ionian, Mediterranean and Cretan seas.
The word "Greek" appeared during the Roman Empire. This was the name given to the Greek colonists of Southern Italy. Later they began to call all the inhabitants of Greece, at that time - Hellenes. Until the Middle Ages, the Greeks lived according to their own rules and principles, having a great influence on the development of European culture. But with the resettlement of Vlachs, Slavs, and Albanians, their lives changed somewhat.
Peoples inhabiting Greece
Today, Greece is an ethnically homogeneous country - residents speak a common language, but also speak English. In terms of the number of people living in the country, Greece ranks 74th in the world. As for faith, almost all Greeks profess Orthodoxy.
The most populated cities in Greece are: Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Volos and Heraklion. There are plenty of mountainous and hilly areas in these cities, but people prefer to live on the coast.
The mixing of blood began at the beginning of our era. In the 6th-7th centuries. n. e. The Slavs occupied most of the Greek territories, from that moment on, they became part of the Greek people.
In the Middle Ages, Greece was invaded by Albanians. Despite the fact that Greece at that moment was subject to Ottoman Turkey, the influence of this people on the ethnic component was small.
And in the middle of the 20th century. Greece was overrun by Turks, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Gypsies and Armenians.
A huge number of Greeks live abroad, but folk Greek communities still exist. They are located in Istanbul and Alexandria.
It should be noted that today 96% of the population of Greece are Greeks. Only on the borders can you meet representatives of other peoples - Slavic, Wallachian, Turkish and Albanian populations.
Culture and life of the peoples of Greece
Greek culture and life were influenced by many factors, but there are things that have remained unchanged since the times of Ancient Greece.
The houses of Ancient Greece were divided into male and female halves. The women's part was accessible only to close relatives, and the men's part contained living rooms.
The Greeks never attached much importance to clothing. She was always simple and unsightly. Only on holidays can you wear a festive suit, decorated with patterns or made from noble fabric.
(Greeks at the table)
From time immemorial, the Greeks have been very hospitable people. They were always happy to have unexpected guests and unfamiliar travelers. As in the times of Ancient Greece, now it is not customary to sit at the table alone, so people invite each other for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The Greeks love children very much and spend a lot of time and effort raising them, giving them a good education and making them physically strong.
As for family relationships, the man is the breadwinner, and the wife is the homemaker. In Ancient Greece, it did not matter whether there were slaves in the family, the woman still took part in household chores.
(Greek grandma)
But modern conditions make their contribution to the life of the Greeks. And yet, they try to honor culture, observe religious traditions and, if possible, wear national clothes. In the normal world, these are ordinary European people wearing business suits or professional uniforms.
Even though the people of Greece listen to Western music, watch box-office movies and live like many others, they still manage to adhere to their culture. Every evening, celebrations with wine and national songs take place on the streets and in taverns.
Traditions and customs of the peoples of Greece
Each nationality has its own customs and traditions. The Greeks are no exception. It’s worth starting with the fact that in Greece 12 holidays are celebrated annually at the state level.
One of these holidays is Greek Easter. On this day people organize large-scale celebrations. Independence Day and the Annunciation are accompanied by military parades in all cities of Greece. The Rockwave rock festival has also become a Greek tradition. World rock bands come to this country to give street concerts. The Wine and Moon Festivals that take place in the summer are worth visiting.
Most of the customs are, of course, related to religion. For example, if a Greek is sick or needs God's help, he makes a vow that he will thank the saint.
There is also a custom of offering saints a small model of what they asked to be protected from evil or preserved - photographs or drawings of cars, houses of loved ones, etc.
Every city, region, and town in Greece has its own traditions and customs. They are very similar to each other. But the main thing is that every resident of this country considers it necessary and correct to observe them.
Greeks
Ov, units Greek, -a, m. The people who make up the main population of Greece.
and. Greek, -i.
adj. Greek, -aya, -oe.
New explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, T. F. Efremova.
Greeks
A people forming a group of the Indo-European ethnolinguistic family, constituting the main population of Greece.
Representatives of this people.
Residents of Ancient Greece - Hellas; Hellenes.
Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998
Greeks
GREEKS (self-name - Hellenes) people, the main population of Greece (9.72 million people). Total population 12.4 million people (1992). They also live in Cyprus (570 thousand people), in the USA (550 thousand people), Germany (300 thousand people), in the Russian Federation (92 thousand people), etc. The language is Greek (Modern Greek). Believers are mostly Orthodox.
Greeks
(self-name Hellenes ≈ Hellenes), a nation making up over 95% of the population of Greece. They also live on the island. Cyprus (78% of all island residents), in Egypt, Italy, Albania, USSR, Canada, Australia, USA and other countries. The population in Greece is over 8.3 million people. (1970, estimate), in other countries ≈ over 1.6 million people. They speak Modern Greek (see Greek language). Almost all G. believers are Orthodox. About half of the people living in Greece are employed in agriculture. On the coast and islands, Georgia is engaged in fishing and obtaining mollusks and sponges. Industry employs 1/5 of wage earners. On the islands and in some places of mainland Greece, folk arts and crafts are preserved: home weaving, embroidery, wood carving, ceramic production.
The ancient Greek people began to take shape at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e., after the resettlement of proto-Greek tribes ≈ Achaeans and Ionians to the Balkan Peninsula, and from the 12th century. BC e. ≈ Dorians, who assimilated the autochthonous population (Pelasgians, etc.). During the era of Greek colonization (8th-6th centuries BC), pan-Greek cultural unity and the common self-name “Hellenes” were established. At first it was the name of the population of a region in Central Greece, but then it spread to the entire Greek-speaking population. The Romans called the Greeks Greeks. Initially, this name applied to the Greek colonists of Southern Italy, but then passed to all Hellenes and through the Romans it became known to the peoples of Europe. During the Hellenistic period, the common Greek language “Koine” became widespread in the Eastern Mediterranean. The ancient Greece created a high culture that had a great influence on the development of the culture of Europe and Western Asia (see Ancient Greece). In the Middle Ages, the ethnic composition of the Greek population changed greatly: the Wallachians, Slavs (6th-7th centuries), and Albanians (13th-15th centuries) who moved from the north joined it, but the Greek population remained the basis. an ethnic element that directly connects modern G. with the ancients.
During the era of the Byzantine Empire, the Romans were the most cultured people of Europe and influenced the formation of the culture of other peoples of the Balkan Peninsula and Rus'. Turkish rule (14th century ≈ first quarter of the 19th century) left a significant mark on the material culture, life, and language of Georgia. For a long time, Greece fought for freedom and for the preservation of their culture (especially during the Greek national liberation revolution of 1821–1829). During this struggle, regional differences were overcome and the Greek nation was formed. The rich historical folklore of Georgia has been preserved—songs, tales, and funeral laments glorifying fighters for independence. For information on the history, economy and culture of Georgia, see Art. Greece.
Lit.: Peoples of Foreign Europe, vol. 1, M., 1964 (bib. p. 919≈20); Georgiev V., Studies in comparative historical linguistics, M., 1958.
Yu. V. Ivanova.
Wikipedia
Greeks
Greeks(- Hellenes, pronounced like Hellines listen)) - an ancient people of the Indo-European language family, part of the Greek subgroup of Paleo-Balkan languages, the main population of Greece and Cyprus.
Greeks (Sumy region)
Greeks- village, Kolyadinetsky village council, Lipovodolinsky district, Sumy region, Ukraine. KOATUU code is 5923282604. The population according to the 2001 census was 33 people.
Greeks (disambiguation)
Greeks- ambiguous term:
- Greeks- people of the Indo-European language family, the main population of Greece and Cyprus.
- Greeks- a common designation in narrow circles for the coefficients of the Black-Scholes formula.
Examples of the use of the word Greeks in literature.
Everyone was in high spirits and everyone agreed that Greeks- beautiful people.
The vast lobby was crowded, every seat occupied: smartly dressed women, British liaison officers, rich Greeks, French and Germans.
All the time Greeks They were talking excitedly about something, and the pilots were exchanging remarks among themselves in English.
The conversation was interrupted when they turned to the Greeks, and Greeks silently smiled at them, and they smiled at the Greeks.
Wayne learned it in Argentina, - Greeks They crowded around him, stamped their feet and drained their glasses.
People shouted, laughed and drank - they had never had to drink for victory, and Greeks They took this so seriously that the pilots could not help but laugh.
They shook hands with all the Greeks, and Greeks patted them on the back as they put on their greatcoats.
The Greeks had a very difficult time, and if the squadron did not repel these air attacks, Greeks, it is very likely that they will be forced to retreat instead of continuing the offensive.
The pilots felt awkward, they were embarrassed that they were the only Englishmen here: they knew that Greeks They expected not only British aviation, but also British troops.
No one knew how much longer they could hold on Greeks, since the shortage of ammunition and materials was felt more and more acutely.
But they did not camouflage either the aircraft or the large tent in which the ground staff lived, as they usually did Greeks, and on such a clear morning the Italians could not help but discover the airfield.
Everyone here Greeks“We are sure that the Germans will not keep you waiting,” Tep noted.
She saw how Greeks Having pulled out food from their backpacks, they break bread and cut cheese.
Tap drove the car along the outer edge of the road, as Greeks They stayed on the inside, believing that it was safer.
The uglier they behave, the more they will be hated. Greeks, - said Elena.
GREEKS (self-name - ‘Έλληνες), people, the main population of Greece and Cyprus. Population 12.3 million people (2006, estimate), including 10.4 million people in Greece (including the Pontic Greeks and Tsaconians - descendants of the ancient Spartans in the mountainous regions of the Peloponnese), 567 thousand people in Cyprus (in the south), 567 thousand people in Italy (mainly in the south) 121 thousand people, Albania (mainly in the south) 99 thousand people, in France (mainly in the area of Cargese in the west of the island of Corsica) 58 thousand people, in Egypt (in the area of Alexandria) 79 thousand people , Germany 360 thousand people, Great Britain 201 thousand people, USA 465 thousand people, Canada 157 thousand people, Australia 267 thousand people. Small groups of Karakachan pastoralists live in Romania (14 thousand people), Serbia (10 thousand people), Bulgaria (7.3 thousand people). In Turkey there are 4.1 thousand Orthodox Greeks (at the beginning of the 20th century about 1.5 million people) and up to 300 thousand Muslim Greeks. They speak Greek. Believers are Orthodox, there are Catholics (Greek Catholics - mainly on the islands of the Cyclades) and Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab (in Thrace, Rhodes, Turkey), and a small number of Jehovah's Witnesses.
The ancient Greek ethnic community was formed on the basis of the tribes of Dorians, Aeolians, Achaeans and Ionians, who occupied the south of the Balkan Peninsula, the Aegean basin and the western coast of Asia Minor in the 2nd millennium BC. During the era of Greek colonization (8-6 centuries BC), the Greeks settled along the coasts of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Despite political fragmentation, the Greeks were united by a common identity and self-name (from the 7th century BC - “Ελληνες; the ethnonym “Greeks” comes from the Latin language, originally, apparently, referred to one of the tribes of Northern Greece, which is reflected in the names cities of Graia in Boeotia and on the island of Euboea, was adopted by the Romans, probably from colonists from Euboean Graia in Cumae). Since the era of colonization, a significant Greek population appeared in Asia Minor and Asia Minor, the Greek language (koine) and culture became common to the elite of the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Greeks formed the core of the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire, from where their medieval self-name Romans (Greek ‘Romans’) comes. Groups of Thracians, Illyrians, Albanians, Celts, Vlachs, and Slavs who migrated from the north were assimilated by the Greeks. In the Ottoman Empire they formed the core of the Orthodox community (urum milet - ‘people of the Romans’). In Istanbul, the Greeks occupied an influential position (see Phanariots). At the same time, the Ottoman conquest and periodic persecution of the Christian population in the empire caused the emigration of Greeks and the formation of Greek diasporas throughout the world. The insurgent (see Klefts) and national liberation movements (see Greek National Liberation Revolution of 1821-29) contributed to the consolidation of the Greeks and the erasure of regional differences. The extermination of the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire during and after the 1st World War in 1915-23 (the Asia Minor catastrophe) led to their mass emigration from Turkey to the Caucasus and from the Caucasus to Greece; immigrants from Asia Minor formed a community of Pontic Greeks, including Greeks who spoke Turkic (Urum) and Adyghe (Urym) languages.
Greeks of Russia, USSR, CIS. The special relationship between Byzantium and the Russian state contributed to the emergence of a significant Greek colony there in the 15th century. The Greeks in Moscow owned monasteries and farmsteads; in the 17th century there was a Greek settlement. Many Greeks became part of the Russian ruling class [Trakhaniotovs, Khovrins, Larevs, Laskarevs (Laskirevs)]. The immigration of Greeks especially increased during and after the Russian-Turkish wars of the late 17th - 19th centuries, in which many Greeks participated on the side of Russia, and during the 1st World War. In 1779-84, a Greek battalion was formed (from 1797 the Balaklava Greek battalion, which carried out cordon service in the Crimea), in 1795 - a Greek division in Odessa (from 1803 the Odessa Greek infantry battalion). In 1814, the Greek rebel organization “Filiki Eteria” (see Eteria) arose in Odessa, later headed by A. Ypsilanti. Among the Greeks in Russian service in the 18th - early 20th centuries are N.A. Kapodistrias, the Ypsilanti family, the princes Kantakouzena, Mavrocordato, Muruzi. The largest Greek communities were in Odessa (in 1795 Greeks made up 10% of its population), Rostov, Taganrog, Ekaterinodar, Nikolaev. The Greek merchant class was one of the most influential in the south of Russia; a Greek commercial school existed in Odessa since 1817. After 1906, Greek newspapers were published in Odessa and Batum, and cultural societies arose. Among the compact groups of Greeks of the Russian Empire, the following stand out: the Mariupol Greeks of Ukraine, the Pontic Greeks of Georgia and the North Caucasus (mainly from the 2nd half of the 18th century). The last wave of migrations of Greeks from Turkey to Russia occurred after the Lausanne Conference of 1922-23. According to the 1920 census, 73.7 thousand Greeks lived in the RSFSR (of which 65.6 thousand people lived in the Kuban-Black Sea region), according to the 1926 USSR census - 213.6 thousand people. Since 1928, Greek autonomous regions were created in Ukraine, Georgia, and the North Caucasus. Social and educational associations, clubs, theaters, museums appeared, teaching and radio broadcasting were conducted in Greek, literature and the press were published (in 1926, Greek writing was normalized on the basis of dimotics with a simplified spelling, and Russian graphics were subsequently introduced). In 1937 - 1939, Greek autonomies were liquidated, cultural institutions were closed, in the 1940s, the majority of Russian Greeks were exiled to Kazakhstan (their descendants numbered 12 thousand people; according to the 1989 census, there were 46.7 thousand people), Uzbekistan (8 ,4 thousand people), Kyrgyzstan (2.3 thousand people), the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia. In 1956 they received the right to return to their homeland. Currently, 97.8 thousand Greeks live in Russia, including in the Stavropol Territory - 34.1 thousand people, Krasnodar Territory - 26.5 thousand people, Rostov Region - 3.2 thousand people, North Ossetia - 2.3 thousand people, Adygea - 1.7 thousand people, Moscow and the Moscow region - 5.6 thousand people, Tyumen region - 2.0 thousand people, Sverdlovsk region - 2.0 thousand people; 93 thousand people live in Ukraine (2006, estimate), Georgia - 33 thousand people (according to the 2002 census - 15.2 thousand people, in 1989 there were 100.3 thousand people). AGOOR has been operating in Russia since 1992, and in 1995 the Federation of Greek Societies of Ukraine was created.
The main traditional agricultural crop of the Greeks is grapes and olives (trade in olive oil became the basis of the economy of Greek city-states in antiquity); Citrus fruits, nuts, beans, vegetables, tobacco are of great importance; grain farming is developed in northeastern Greece and the Peloponnese. Transhumance and sericulture are widespread (since the 6th century, when Byzantine monks managed to export silkworms from China, Byzantium acquired a monopoly on the production of precious silk fabrics in Europe and the Mediterranean). In the north lives an archaic group of Karakachan cattle breeders. Traditional crafts - spinning, weaving, embroidery, and in Asia Minor - carpet production. The art of pottery and jewelry combines ancient, Byzantine and oriental traditions.
Spinner. Kerkyra Island.
Food - beans with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, vegetables, cheese, sour milk, on the coast - fish, shellfish. Traditional dishes are shish kebab (souvlaki), casserole of meat with vegetables (moussaka), “country” salad with cheese and olives (horiatiki). Drinks - wine (including retsina), beer, grape and fruit vodka (raki), infused with anise (ouzo), resin of relict trees of the island of Chios (mastiha), etc. At the end of each meal, oriental (“Greek”) is served coffee. The table is supposed to be covered with a checkered (mostly red and white) tablecloth. The dwelling in the mountainous regions of mainland Greece is of the Mediterranean type: stone, two-story (on the lower floor there is a barn and utility rooms, on the upper floor there are residential premises) with an external staircase and balconies on the 2nd floor; in the Peloponnese and the islands - the Levantine type: one-, one-and-a-half or two-story buildings made of stone and clay with a flat, conical or domed roof; in the north - Pannonian type: one-story with residential and utility rooms stretched in one row under a common roof; oriental type: with utility rooms in the lower stone floor and residential premises in the upper, frame structure with a bay window. In the cities, whitewashed houses with flat roofs predominate, often with external stairs to the upper floor. Frames are usually painted blue. The floor is usually stone, in the mountains it is often wooden. Characteristic are small round tables and copper braziers with lids. Options for a men's suit: wide-legged trousers with narrow legs (vrakes), a wide black or red belt, a sleeveless vest fastened with an X-shaped decoration (kiosteks - crossed chains, sometimes with a plaque in the middle), a fez; a short jacket with false sleeves and a short flared (up to 100 wedges) fustanella skirt (serves as ceremonial clothing for guards). Women's costume - a tunic-like shirt with a long wide skirt (fusta) and a sleeveless vest and jacket or with a dress; a richly embroidered apron and a wide belt with a large silver or gilded buckle (porpi) are always worn on top. Under Eastern influence, elegant swinging clothes made of velvet with embroidery are common. Breast decorations made of coins (giorntani) are typical. Shoes such as postols (tsaruhi). Traces of ancient cults are preserved: the cult of female sea spirits - Nerids, caroling (singing songs - kalanda) for the New Year, carnival processions with a stuffed horse on Maslenitsa, torchlight processions on Easter, rituals of making rain with the driving of Peperuda (Paparuna), etc.
Greek woman from the island of Crete.
Oral creativity was influenced by the traditional musical cultures of neighboring Balkan peoples (Bulgarians, Macedonians), Gypsies and Turks. Folklore includes fairy tales (about animals, magic, etc.; the typical character is the clumsy monster Drakos, defeated by a witty hero), proverbs (including in the form of a couplet), songs (tragudi - from “tragedy”), etc. The plot of fairy tales is popular, poems, songs about Areti and her brother Konstandinos, who rose from the grave. Song genres: heroic (Akritan, cycles going back to the Byzantine epic about Digenis, about the son of Andronicus, etc., where the Turks often act as the hero’s opponents instead of the Saracens); ballads (characteristic of the motif of the husband returning to his wife after a long separation; the so-called Charonian ballads about the duel of the deceased with Charon); historical (glorifying real historical persons and events, mainly from the period of the national liberation struggle, including songs of klefts and participants of the Resistance Movement during the 2nd World War); lyrical (including those performed at a farewell meal before leaving for a foreign land); ritual (rain-making songs, wedding songs, lullabies; funeral lamentations miroloi, performed by relatives of the deceased or professional mourners; calendar: calands, spring, May songs, etc.); labor (sailors, fishermen, shepherds, etc.); household. The main meter of folk poetry is a 15-syllable syllabic with an obligatory caesura on the 8th foot. Typical song and dance genres are sirtos, kalamatianos (round dances), pediktos (song-dance with jumps). Among the pan-Greek dances (horos), the slow male solo dance zeybekikos, the military dance of the highlanders tsamikos, performed by klefts, with solo performance of complex figures, probably reflecting Albanian influence, also stand out; In Crete, a warrior dance was performed in full armor - pendosalis. There is a dance floor (khorostasi) in every village and even in monasteries. The urban song and dance style of rembetiko with tragic texts is widespread (it developed in the 1920s mainly among Greek refugees, and in the mid-20th century acquired the significance of national music). Among the musical instruments are the long-necked lute bouzouki, the bowed instrument lyraki, various flutes, as well as bagpipes, violin, mandolin, which are part of the folk orchestra, which was supplemented with clarinet and guitar in the mid-19th century. Theories about the ancient roots of modern Greek folk music are speculative.
Lit.: Greek folk songs. M., 1957; Megas G. Greek calendar customs. 2nd ed. Athens, 1963; Poulianos A., Ivanova Yu. V. Greeks // Peoples of foreign Europe. M., 1964. T. 1; Greeks of Russia and Ukraine. St. Petersburg, 2004.
The arrival of Greeks from outside Greece is evidenced by a powerful pre-Greek substrate in the Greek language, possibly from a non-Indo-European language, from which vocabulary associated with the local conditions of Hellas and the terms of the high urban culture that flourished in Greece before the Greeks entered into Greek (Kretschmer 1896; 1933; 1940 ; Merlingen 1955).
If we take into account the unity and continuity of the Mycenaean culture, to the end of which the Mycenaean writing tablets belong, then the Greek language and ethnicity in Greece can be reliably deepened at least to its beginning, i.e. to midday XVII century BC. (according to the new chronology - until the 19th century BC). Mycenaean culture differs sharply from its predecessor. A researcher of this period of change in Greece, S. Dietz, states that the period of shaft tombs is characterized by a sudden and radical change in culture. This change occurred over a relatively short interval - during the life of two or three generations, if not one. In addition, the Middle Helladic and Mycenaean cultures are also separated by a horizon of destruction (noted in four places - van Royen and Isaac 1979, 45, 57). However, Mycenaean culture still retains strong continuity from the Middle Helladic culture in ceramics, crafts, funeral rites, etc. (Dickinson 1977: 53; 1989; 1999; Dietz 1991: 7).
Hiller (1986) believes that the Greeks came earlier, and this was an ancient (obviously before the Dorians) invasion of some northerners on Greece. It is significant that those buried in mine graves differ in their physical type from the surrounding population - they are taller and more broad-boned. The 14 Mycenaean skeletons of nobles are on average 5 cm taller than the surrounding ordinary population (Angel 1973; Dickinson 1973; 1977), and some of the buried were particularly tall (Mylonas 1973: 426). Apparently, there were not very many newcomers, and they only planted their dynasties in local centers, forming a thin dominant layer - like the Normans in the East Slavic environment. The Normans quickly became glorified, the Mycenaean newcomers became Greek.
Anthropologist L. Angel notes that aristocracy in Mycenaean graves less Mediterranean in race, more "Dinaroid-mixed Alpine" than the ordinary population, and with strong northern Iranian influence"(Angel 1973: 389). By “northern Iranian” he meant the steppe population of the Northern Black Sea region. In the ocher burial mounds of the Hungarian steppes, exceptionally tall individuals are also found - up to 190 cm(Makkay 2000: 34).
Note also that the Pelasgians were one of the “sea peoples” of the Pelasti (a typo from the ancient Greek authors), the Peleset of the Egyptians, or the Philistines of the Bible, who emerged from the Middle Danube in the 12th century BC. (Kimmig 1964; Sandars 1978; Schachermeyr 1979; 1980). It is not necessary to attribute to them a long and persistent residence in Greece, but if their linguistic traces can be established, then they should turn out to be close to the Thracian ones.
When did the Greeks come to Greece?
As archaeologist Bleigen established, the map of pre-Greek toponyms in Greece coincides with the area of monuments of early Helladic culture. Judging by its proximity to the Early Minoan cultures on Crete and Western Anatolian (later there was no such proximity - on Crete, for example, there is no Minyan ceramics), this culture belonged to the population that left place names in -s (s)- and -nt- (-νθ-) : They are the ones that are widespread in the Aegean world - in Greece, Crete and Anatolia. From this, Bleigen concluded that the Early Helladic (E) culture was left by the predecessors of the Greeks in Greece.
This transition from Early to Middle Helladic (ME) is marked by the appearance of Minya pottery around 1900 BC. according to traditional chronology (according to the new one, 2500 BC). John Caskey later established that this was only the completion of changes that had begun earlier and occupied the entire RE III (Caskey 1968; 1969; Marinatos 1968). It is now clear that RE II (or the Koraku culture, as Renfrew 1972 called it) marked the last period of the previous civilization, ending around 2200 (according to the new chronology, around 3000 BC). It ended with fires in almost all the centers of Greece, some cities were abandoned and not rebuilt. In Lerna, life resumed, but on the ruins of the house of the local ruler, a mound with a cromlech was erected, which remained intact during the subsequent period. Thus, some tribes invaded the Peloponnese at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC.
The high culture of Early Helladic times disappeared (RE I - the Eutresis culture, and RE II - the Koraku culture). These are settlements with fortress walls, with burial grounds outside the settlement, two-story public buildings, seals, exquisite forms of dishes, for example, askas, etc. gravy boats resembling ships. It was replaced by a completely different, lower level culture. These are the archaeological cultures of Tiryns and Lefkandi located in adjacent territories - with light apsidal houses, which the excavators nicknamed “kennels”, with bofrs (household pits coated with clay), with burials inside the village, under the walls and floors of dwellings, with burials under the burial mounds in pits, pithos or stone cysts. There is also an improvement: some ceramics, the forms of which are completely new, began to be produced on a wheel (Minian ceramics).
From the Middle Hellenic culture they identify mounds, battle axes, maces and arrow shaft straighteners similar to those of the steppe (Northern Black Sea region).
According to Haley and Blagen, corrected by John Caskey, this was the arrival of the Greeks (also Palmer 1955; 1961; Marinatos 1968; 1973; Schachermeyr 1939; 1968; 1984; Sakellariou 1980a; 1991; Hiller 1982; 1986), and they came from the north , as evidenced by mounds, arrow shaft straighteners, apses of houses and graves, clay anchors, stone battle axes (Hood 1973b; Howell 1973; Hiller 1982; 1986). RE III has shrunk significantly compared to RE II. The changes mainly affected Boeotia, Attica, Corinth, Argolis, Arcadia, Laconia and Messenia. Sakellariu believes that the first wave of aliens (at the end of RE II) was insignificant and moved by sea, and the second, at the end of RE III, was massive and rolled across the mainland.
Syriopulos (1964; 1969) collected all the materials of Middle Helladic culture, not just pottery, and Howell analyzed them. It turned out that there are many analogies far away, and they are concentrated not in the steppes, but in two places - in Troy and on the Middle Danube.
In Troy these are layers II to V. In layer I the ceramics are somewhat different, but from the second city a continuous successive development begins, which continues until the fifth city.
On the Danube it is a circle of cultures united in the Baden cultural complex. This is the Baden culture in Austria, also known as Peczel in Hungary, the fluted pottery culture in Moravia, the related cultures of Kostolac in the lands of the former Yugoslavia, Kozofeni in Romania (Kalicz 1962; Petre şi Govora 1970). These cultures are characterized by fluted ceramics, made with an admixture of wood chips and fired without access to oxygen; bofry - utility pits coated with clay. The burials are sometimes cremated; more often the skeletons lie crumpled in pits, stone boxes and in clay vessels, often under the floor and walls of dwellings. There are also face urns that are extremely similar to the famous Trojan ones, discovered by Schliemann (in Troy II and later). Stone battle axes and maces, arrow shaft straighteners are also found in Danube cultures. There are also clay models of carts. There are no mounds.
The population was militant, mobile and numerous (the settlements were much denser than in previous cultures in this area). Its tendency towards expansion is reflected in the advancement of cultures of this type towards Italy and towards Greece and Anatolia.
At the Baden symposium, Evgen Neustupny dated the Baden culture to six centuries - from the mid-4th millennium to the 29th century BC. e., and this dating is now accepted by everyone.
Troy I was only a provincial city of a culture spread across Asia Minor and Macedonia, on the islands and shores of the Adriatic and straits. The center of this state was not Troy, but the city of Poliochni on the island of Lemnos. It was a purely maritime culture. In the neighborhood in Asia Minor there were other similar cultures, more continental (the Iortan culture). These cultures existed from approximately 3200 to 2750 BC.
Suddenly, peaceful life in the west of Asia Minor ended. Both on the mainland and on the islands. Troy I was destroyed, Troy IIa and Beyjesultan were burned. The shores are devastated, in place of 50 settlements of the Troy I culture - about a dozen settlements from the time of Troy II. Around 2600, the island capital, Poliochni, was also partially burned. A fortress wall was built there in a hurry. Connections with Europe, from where tin for bronze came to Asia, were interrupted - in the Akkadian Empire under the Sargonids, bronze was replaced by pure copper - the Copper Age, the Eneolithic, returned for a while.
In general, tin in Europe was mined in three places - in Britain, on the Danube and on the Dnieper. But British things began to be imported to the continent quite late in the Bronze Age.
The essence of the events for Mellaart is clear: the invasion of barbarians from the sea, from the west (Mellaart 1966). This was the Baden culture. We can recognize them directly in the culture of Troy II - in its face urns (anthropomorphic vessels with raised handles), in stone battle axes, in floor burials and in vessels.
Troy II is being built as a powerful fortress, but Troy IIa is already burned. Around 2300 there was another complete disaster. Troy IIg was destroyed and burned, and at the same time, settlements were destroyed and burned across a vast territory of western and southern Asia Minor - the capital of Poliochni, the cities of Tarsus, Beyjesultan, Ahlatlibel, Gerey, Polatli. In the Konya Valley, out of 100 settlements of the Early Bronze Age, only 6 are populated again, and in the southwest - less than 100 out of 300. But the number of settlements in the southeast - in Cilicia - has increased greatly.
Trojan culture, however, spread far to the east of Troy. And from this catastrophe until the beginning of the 2nd millennium, when the Anatolian Indo-European languages were attested by written sources, there were no more catastrophes of equal scale. So, at least the last catastrophe, ok. 2300, which destroyed Troy IIg, was caused by the arrival of the Luwians, Mellaart rightly decided.
This suggests that the Hittites came earlier than the Luwians, since they found themselves deeper in Asia Minor, and that at first they lived in its western part, where after them the Luwians ended up, brought by the second wave of invasion. In view of the similarity of events, apparently, the first catastrophe can be explained by the same invasion of the Indo-Europeans, only that time it was other tribes - in particular, the Hittites and Palais. The invasion of the Luwians pushed them into the depths of Asia Minor.
Hittite, Luwian and related languages are in some ways close to the Celto-Italic group, in some ways Slavic-Baltic, in some ways Greco-Aryan (Gindin 1970). Their similarities with the Tocharians are also found.
Pre-Greek toponymy is partly Proto-Hittite. It is not limited to Greece and Asia Minor, but extends to the entire Balkan Peninsula and Italy. This was shown by a map compiled in 1954 by F. Schachermeir. Thus, the map of toponymy with known suffixes does not coincide with the early Helladic culture, as Bleigen and all his followers believed, but coincides with the area where the expansion of the cultures of the Baden circle was directed. And this area includes the Middle Helladic culture.
Thus, this grandiose migration cannot in any way be considered the arrival of the Greeks, it was the migration of the Hittites and other Anatolian Indo-Europeans (Baden culture) to the coastal south of Eastern Europe. But if the newcomers settled in Asia Minor for a long time, then in other places they were crushed and displaced or assimilated by subsequent newcomers, leaving only toponymy and something else.
However, the Hittites and Luwians did not come to Greece in this capacity, not in this guise. They came to Greece from the north, without going into Asia Minor, as Indo-Europeans completely unaffected by the Hutt influence, whose dialects were then not so far from Proto-Greek, also closer to the Proto-Indo-European state than the Achaean dialect of the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization. Apparently, before the separation of the Anatolian group, the dialects that were included in it (Hittite, Luwian, etc.) were not located near the ancestors of the Greeks and Armenians.
It is interesting that the image of a deity found in Crete in Armenae (west of Knossos) in the Late Minoan III rock grave 24 (Hiller 1977, Taf. 22a) according to the research of Calvert Watkins (Watkins 1999), both by name (Runza, Runta or Kurunta), and in terms of deer characteristics in appearance it coincides with the Celtic Deer God Cernunnos, who can be seen on images of the Parisian altar (a horned anthropomorphic figure with the inscription “Cernunnos”) and the cauldron from Gundestrup. Let us also recall the abundance of deer antlers in the Nalchik burial ground, which reveals its connections with the Baden culture.
The influence of the local Anatolian, Hattic and Hurrian peoples was too strong. After all, all the gods of the Hittite pantheon bear Hattic and Hurrian names, and the vocabulary, with the exception of the most basic vocabulary, is not Indo-European. It can be assumed that in Greece the situation was similar, but there the local high culture that influenced the newcomers was not Hattic or Hurrian, but one that left this powerful pre-Greek substrate - with Labrys, Axamints, Plinths and other benefits, for which the contribution of newcomers from the Danube is not easy to discern.
Thus, the early separation of the Hittite-Luwian dialects from the Proto-Indo-European ones became clearer.
Because the managed to connect the Hittites with the Baden culture, and the Baden culture is erected by origin to the funnel beaker culture, the question of the early and radical separation of the Hittite language must be connected with the question of the sharp division between the Baden Circle cultures and the opposite part of the Funnel Beaker culture. Kalitz reconstructs their constantly hostile relationship, their constant alienation.
Note that the first Baden manifestations in Greece and Anatolia are the Tiryns culture and the Troy II - V culture, and they appeared at different times: the Tiryns culture is half a thousand years later than the Troy II culture.
In his work on hydronymy (it was about the origin of the Slavs), Udolf drew up a map according to which the center of origin of Indo-European is in Central Europe.
The first appearance of the Greeks in Greece, their invasion from the north, differed from the Dorian invasion primarily in that the Dorians settled among their fellow tribesmen, and the first Greeks met here a foreign people with a foreign language, although perhaps not entirely incomprehensible. In addition, the Dorians settled in the same country, and the first Greeks arrived from afar. According to these indicators, the first Greeks occupy a middle position between the Dorians and the “peoples of the sea.” Meanwhile, both quickly adopted local ceramics, and often local burial customs and are therefore archaeologically elusive. It is significant that in the Greek language a number of words related to ceramics do not have Indo-European roots, i.e. borrowed These are “clay” (keramos), “forge” (keramion), types of vessels - kantharos, aryballos, lekythos, depas, phiale (Grumach 1968 - 69).
Hammond (1972; 1976) excavated mounds in Albania and Macedonia with cromlechs, stone boxes and other structures, synchronous with RE II - SE. There are mounds in Greece too. The Early Helladic burial grounds were without mounds, just like the Baden ones. It turns out that the mound was brought to Greece by the proto-Greeks.
The most unambiguous evidence of the presence in Greece of northern newcomers of a non-Baden appearance are shards of corded pottery. Corded ornament was common in Northern and Central Europe on vessels of the Funnel Beaker and Corded Ware cultures, and in the steppes - in the Mikhailovsky, Repinsky, Yamnaya, Middle Dnieper and Catacomb cultures.
Neither the Mikhailovskaya nor the Usatovskaya cultures can be the source of the proto-Greeks - they are almost a thousand years older. But the Central European Corded Ware cultures can just be taken into account from a chronological point of view, and the Nerushai culture and its branches in Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia may be the source.
If we proceed from the dating of the shard from Eutresis and from the absence of mounds in RE III, then the proto-Greeks, if this is what they are, invaded at the end of Early Helladic III already in a country captured by their proto-Hittite or proto-Luvian predecessors. It is worth noting here that the destruction of RE III does not compare with the scale of destruction of the previous catastrophe - at the end of RE II. At the end of Early Helladic III, only Eutresis and Koraku were destroyed, all the rest - 500 years earlier. This is similar to the Dorian method of infiltration, in which there should be little destruction.
The population that built the apse houses and had the culture analyzed by Best is indeed related to the Trojans and ultimately goes back to the Baden culture, being proto-Hittite, while those who brought Corded Ware and battle axes came separately from the north.
So, the proto-Greeks appeared on the borders of Greece soon after the country was occupied by their predecessors, the Hittites or Luwians, who adopted the local civilization. New newcomers began to disturb the country with a mixed, and perhaps already Hittoid population, from the north, and then infiltrate this southern territory in the manner already described. This process had its ebbs and flows, but it ended after half a millennium with the complete development of the territory by the proto-Greeks and the destruction of the remnants of local resistance. Probably, the situation of trilingualism (Pre-Greek, Proto-Hittite and Proto-Greek) facilitated the transformation of the language of the conquerors into the lingua franca of Greece and then into a single Greek language.
Where did the proto-Greeks come from?
Linguistic reference points exclude Central Europe: the Greeks must have lived next to the Aryans and Armenians, since they once spoke the same proto-language.
From the previous consideration, we can conclude that the Aryans lived in the Ponto-Caspian steppes, and they owned the Yamnaya, and then the Catacomb and Srubnaya with Andronovo cultures, and the Phrygians lived in Hungary and Romania, they owned cultures with face urns and inlaid ceramics. The Thracians, who were closest in language to the Greeks, were associated with the culture of multi-roll ceramics, which developed on the basis of the Nerushai culture of Moldova and Romania. Thus, the Nerushai culture has the best chance of being the culture of the proto-Greeks. Nerushayskaya, or its closest branches in the steppes of Serbia and Hungary.
Apparently Proto-Greeks came to Greece from beyond the Lower Danube, with the Nerushai or related culture. OK. 2500 BC in the steppes lived the population of the catacomb culture, in the Danube part of the steppes - the Nerushai culture of burials with ocher, most often called Budzhak, or in the early version - Dniester, in the late Budzhak. This Nerushai culture has the same burial method as the Yamnaya (mounds with pit graves and crumpled bones with ocher), but the ceramics are different, Balkan. Was this the result of the infiltration of the real Yamnaya culture or even the Repin culture from the east into the territory of the Foltesti-Cernavoda I culture, i.e. Romanian version of the Usatov culture, it’s hard to say. Let us recall that in the Usatovo culture the dead are buried in mounds with a cromlech, and in Lerna, as a result of the arrival of a new population, ca. 2500, and a mound with a cromlech was erected on the site of the ruler's house. So B.V. Gornung (1964) proposed to consider the Usatov culture as proto-Greek. But the Usatovo culture ended 700 - 800 years earlier.
The Nerushai culture, which developed on the basis of one of the cultures of this region (the Usatovo or Corded Ware culture or the Globular Amphora culture or all three together), was strongly influenced by the Yamnaya culture, either pan-Aryan, or, rather, Iranian. The latter version could explain the isogloss common to Iranians and Greeks - the fate of the Proto-Indo-European s, its transition to h. Later contacts with the catacomb population of the Lower Danube, apparently Indo-Aryan, could have affected the mythology of the Greeks and Indo-Aryans, which has significant commonality.
So, according to the most common hypothesis, the common hearth of the Aryans and Greeks is a retinue of cultures with a megalithic heritage and with the traditions of black-polished ceramics and corded ceramics, widespread along the shores of the Black Sea. In the second half of the 4th millennium BC. Novosvobodnaya, Kemiobinskaya and Repinskaya cultures, as well as the Usatovo-Chernavoda-Foltesti culture represented the dialects of the Greco-Aryans.
Then the Yamnaya, which arose on the basis of the Repin culture, gave rise to all the Aryans, from the remaining part of the Yamnaya culture in the west, the Armenians and Phrygians were formed (through the Glina-Schneckenberg culture), the culture of multi-roll ceramics that developed there was Thracian, and the invasion of the Budzhak (Nerushai) culture, which developed on The basis of the culture of Usatovo - Chernavoda - Foltesti, gave rise to the Greeks in Greece. If so, then the initial unified state of these languages was earlier and somewhere on the territory of Central Europe. According to this scheme, the Thracians, Armenians and Phrygians should be closer in language to the Aryans than to the Greeks. It is precisely this correlation of languages that is diagnosed by I.M. Dyakonov (1982).
The Greeks had an Indo-European name for the sea - ποντος, related to the Slavic ponti ‘path’. Also in Greek, “up” means moving inland, and “down” means moving toward the sea. This is clearly movement along rivers, for example, along the Danube.
One alternative hypothesis suggests a very early separation. If we assume that the population of Novosvobodnaya were already Indo-Aryans (hence the abundance of Indo-Aryan components), and then this ethnic tradition was transmitted through the Novotitarovskaya culture to the catacomb cultures, then the Repin culture, synchronous with Novosvobodnaya, was already Iranian, like the entire Yamnaya culture. In this case, the Usatovo culture was Greco-Thraco-Phrygian, and the division of the Greco-Aryans into branches occurred even before their arrival in the Northern Black Sea region. This hypothesis is contradicted by the presence of borrowings from the common Aryan vocabulary fund (before its division) in the Finno-Ugric languages.
To be continued...
Greece occupies the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula and islands in the Aegean, Mediterranean and Ionian seas. The area of the country is about 133 thousand square meters. km, about a fifth of it falls on the islands. The largest islands belonging to Greece: in the Mediterranean Sea - Crete (8.3 thousand sq. km), in the Aegean - Euboea, Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Rhodes (the largest among the Dodecanese islands), Naxos (the largest island of the Cyclades) ; in the Ionian Sea - Kefallinia and Corfu (Kerkyra). Mainland Greece is washed by the sea on almost all sides and only borders Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey in the north. The length of land borders is 12 times less than sea borders. The seas washing the Balkan Peninsula - the Aegean, Mediterranean and Ionian - play a prominent role in the country's economy.
The relief of Greece is very dissected, very mountainous: mountains occupy about 4/5 of the entire area of the country. There are few lowlands, they are small and fenced off from each other by mountains; Most of them are adjacent to the sea. The main mountain systems are the Rhodope Mountains in the northeast of the country, Pindus in the north and center of the peninsula, and the Peloponnese Mountains in the south. The highest mountain range in Greece is Olympus in Thessaly with the peak of Ano Olympos (about 3 thousand m in height); The ancient Greeks considered this mountain to be the seat of their gods. Most of the islands are also mountainous; There are active volcanoes on the islands of the Aegean Sea.
The climate of Greece is very diverse: in the lowlands it is typically Mediterranean - there are humid, warm winters and hot summers; in the mountains - moderate and even cold, dry; many mountains in the north are covered with snow for more than half the year. In other areas, snow falls occasionally and usually melts quickly.
The river network is sparse, the rivers are short, many of them dry up in summer, and there are almost no navigable ones.
In ancient times, Greece was rich in forests, but now there are very few of them. Forest vegetation has been preserved only in places in the northern and central regions of the country (oak, pine, spruce, beech). The low-lying and hilly coasts are covered with bushes. In the mountains above the forest zone there are alpine meadows. The animal world is poor. Wild animals, which are talked about a lot in ancient myths, are now almost exterminated. Only here and there in the northern mountains there were wild boar, roe deer, fallow deer and some other animals left. But the feathered kingdom is very diverse.
The depths of the Greek land are quite rich in minerals. There are raw materials for ferrous metallurgy (iron, manganese, chromium), and for the chemical industry (sulfur pyrites, magnesium salts), and a variety of building materials - gypsum, marble, limestone, granite and many others. There is very little energy raw material, although mountain rivers are to some extent able to compensate for this deficiency.
Population
Greeks are the main population of two states: the First Republic and Cyprus. In mainland and island Greece in 1961 there were 7 million 960 thousand people out of 8 million 387 thousand people of the country's population, i.e. about 95%. In Cyprus, their number was 460 thousand people, i.e. 80% of the island's population.
Since ancient times, the Greeks have settled in other countries. In ancient city-states, a system of forced emigration was practiced, which took the form of periodic establishment of colonies (Greek colonization was especially intense in the 8th-6th centuries BC). These migrations continued over subsequent centuries, especially during the era of the Byzantine Empire. During the period of Turkish domination (XV-XIX centuries), Greek colonies arose in many European countries, including in the south of Russia, Italy, Austria, etc. Many Greeks now live in the United Arab Republic (80 thousand people), in Turkey (100 thousand people) and other countries of the Middle East, Albania and the Soviet Union. There are 309 thousand Greeks in the USSR (1959), of which 41.5% consider Greek their native language. The Greek old-timer population lives mainly in the cities and towns of the Azov region, the Northern Black Sea region, the Crimea, the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and in the Tsalka region of the Georgian SSR.
In modern Greece, where the annual population growth is 80-100 thousand people, emigration is a constant national disaster. Many thousands of Greeks leave their homeland every year in search of work and a “better life.”
The main reasons for emigration are the poor development of productive forces in the country, the contradictions of the capitalist system, which generates mass unemployment, and the persecution of democratically minded citizens.
Mostly people between the ages of 15 and 35 emigrate. Thus, the country is losing its best forces. Most emigrants are farmers, sailors, shepherds; Since they do not know the language of the country to which they immigrate and do not have professional qualifications, they are used in heavy work in industry and transport or in urban maintenance.
In 1961, there were over 400 thousand Greeks in the USA, 40 thousand people in Canada, and 80 thousand people in Australia. In the late 50s and early 60s, a wave of emigrants headed to the Federal Republic of Germany.
In total, there are over 10 million Greeks in Greece and abroad.
In addition to the Greeks, in the north of Greece live Slavic-Macedonians, Albanians, Turks, Aromanians (Vlachs, Vlachs, or Kutso-Vlachs), Armenians, etc. in cities. A significant increase in the population of Greece and increased homogeneity of its ethnic composition occurred in 1922-1927 . due to immigrants from Malaya. Asia and the areas adjacent to Greece, Bulgaria and the European part of Turkey: the population exchange was carried out in accordance with the terms of the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1923. In total, during this time, 1 million 248 thousand Hellenes returned to their homeland, settling mainly in the following areas: Macedonia, Thrace, Thessaly, and about 370 thousand Muslims, mainly Turks of Thrace, and about 200 thousand of the Slavic-speaking population of Macedonia left the country.
Slavic-Macedonians (about 150 thousand people) live in the nomes of Florina and Kastoria. The Romance-speaking Aromanians, or Vlachs, are, in all likelihood, descendants of the local population (like the Slavic-Macedonians), mixed with the Romanized Thracians, and perhaps the Celts. The name “Vlachs” in the Byzantine era acquired a disparaging connotation (“Vlachs” means a rude, uncultured person). The Greeks call them kutso-Vlachs (“lame Vlachs”), hinting at their poor knowledge of the Greek language.
The Aromanians are engaged in shepherding along the ridges of Pindus, Olympus and Thrace; many of them settled in villages and cities. The smallest Vlach element were the Vlach-Meglenites in Karadjov (Macedonia), who replaced them in the 18th century. Christianity to Islam. In connection with the exchange of population, they were resettled to Turkish Thrace, Asia Minor and partly to Yugoslavia. Their former center - the village of Notya - is now inhabited by Trebizond Greeks. Albanians are settled in the north of Epirus near the Albanian border. In addition, in different places in Greece live the descendants of Albanian colonists who settled in the territory of present-day Greece approximately from the 14th century, and according to some information, even from the 12th century. Most Turks after 1923 moved from Greece to Turkey. A certain number of Turks (115 thousand people) now live in Thrace.
Ethnic history
The oldest ethnic component of the Greek people is the ancient Greeks - the creators of a high ancient civilization, which played an outstanding role in the development of the entire subsequent culture of Europe and the Middle East.
The question of the origins of the Greeks has been much discussed in the scientific literature. Since the Neolithic period, the areas washed by the Aegean Sea were inhabited by Pelasgians, Carians and Leleges. The question of the origin of the Pelasgians has not yet been resolved by science. Many scientists consider them to be a pre-Indo-European population and believe that the Indo-European element entered the Mediterranean only with the migration of the ancestors of the ancient Greeks.
Researchers who adhere to this theory (K. Pauli, P. Kretschmer, A. Fick) believe that the Cretan-Mycenaean texts (III and II millennia BC) were written in the Pre-Indo-European language; They also recognize the languages of the ancient population of Asia Minor as pre-Indo-European. According to this theory, Indo-European tribes (ancestors of the ancient Greeks) entered the Aegean world at the end of the 3rd or 2nd millennium BC. e. three waves: Ionians (XIX centuries BC), Achaeans and the Aeolians close to them (XVI centuries BC), Dorians (XII-XI centuries BC).
The modern Bulgarian linguist V. Georgiev approached the problem of the early stages of Greek ethnogenesis differently. He believes that the Greek language was layered not on some pre-Indo-European layer, but on another Indo-European language, related to Greek. This scientist considers Pelasgian to be such a language. The Pelasgians, in his opinion, settled the Peloponnese and Attica since the 4th millennium BC. e. or even earlier, and the Greeks entered Greece much earlier than hitherto thought - probably already from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. e. They appeared on Crete, according to the same scientist, not at the end of the 15th century. BC e., as other researchers believed, and earlier, since the Cretan-Mycenaean letter, as proven by the latest research, belonged to the Achaeans. Now many scientists also consider the Pelasgian language to be Indo-European.
The Ionians lived in Attica and in the northeastern part of the Peloponnese, as well as on many islands; the Achaeans occupied almost the entire Peloponnese and Crete; the Aeolians settled in what is now Thessaly and Central Greece, with the exception of Attica; The Dorians conquered the Achaeans of the Peloponnese and Crete and occupied several other islands of the Aegean Sea.
VIII-VII centuries BC e. for the ancient Greeks it was a period of rapid economic and cultural development. The growth of agriculture, crafts, and trade led to the creation of small slave-owning city-states (polises), the power in which belonged to the old patrimonial aristocracy. However, the polysons united and often fought with each other. Therefore, the dialects of the Greek tribes retained their isolation for a long time. Subsequently, in the classical era, each of them developed its own literature, especially rich in the Ionic and Attic dialects.
During this important period for Greek history, the so-called great Greek colonization took place - the establishment of numerous colonies on the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. During this period, pan-Greek cultural unity and a common self-name were established - Hellenes (sX,?nr|V8g). Initially, "Hellenes" was the name of one of the tribes in Thessaly or Epirus, but gradually it spread to the entire Greek-speaking population. Greeks ( Graeci ) were called Hellenes by the Romans; at first this name referred to the Greek colonists of southern Italy; through the Romans, this ethnonym became known to the peoples of Europe. However, the name “Greeks” is found in Aristotle as the name of the inhabitants of one of the localities of Epirus.
During the period of colonization, the power of the landed aristocracy was broken by slave-owning traders. Commodity relations emerged and strengthened, and the first Greek states were formed. All this led to the ethnic unity of the Hellenes. The Greco-Persian wars (first half of the 5th century BC) played an important role in uniting the city-states of Hellas.
One of the most developed Greek city-states was Athens, where in the VI-IV centuries. BC e. Crafts, navigation, and trade flourished. Athens became a prominent cultural center of Hellas. The Attic dialect became the most important Greek literary language; Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle wrote in it. Athens pulled neighboring regions into the orbit of its economic and cultural influence, which caused sharp opposition from other strong states, especially Sparta. In the 5th century BC e. the struggle between Athens and the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta led to the defeat of Athens.
Civil strife weakened the Greek states; in the middle of the 4th century. BC e. Greece was conquered by Macedonia. The vast power created by Alexander the Great included the Balkan Peninsula and many areas of the Middle East. The Hellenic people entered a new phase of their history, connected with the history of the countries of the East. During the same period, Greek culture spread throughout all the vast Hellenistic states and penetrated far into the depths of Asia, all the way to India and China.
During the Hellenistic period, around the 3rd century. BC BC, the common Greek literary language Koine (xoivtj), based on the Attic dialect, developed and then spread in the Eastern Mediterranean. Gradually, Koine ousted regional dialects from literature, which contributed to the further unity of the Greeks. Later, medieval Greek evolved from Koine.
In 146 BC. e. Greece was conquered by Rome. High Greek culture greatly influenced the cultural development of the peoples of the Roman Empire. The entire Roman aristocracy and intelligentsia knew Greek.
At the end of the 4th century. n. e., after the division of the Roman Empire into Western and Eastern, Greece became the core of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
Greek remained the literary language of the empire. But the Greeks themselves at this time were officially called Romans, that is, Romans. The Byzantines had a huge influence on the formation of the culture and art of other peoples of the Balkan Peninsula, as well as Ancient Rus'. For the development of Western European culture and science, Byzantine philosophy was of great importance, which at first preserved ancient traditions, history, philology, as well as the natural sciences, especially medicine (from the 11th century). The fine arts of Byzantium (icon painting, monumental church and secular painting, mosaics, book miniatures) and architecture, the heyday of which dates back to the 9th - mid-14th centuries, constituted an entire era in the history of European art. Applied art generally corresponded to the tastes of the ruling strata of society and, to a lesser extent than in the art of other peoples, expressed folk artistic ideas. Objects of decorative and applied art (fabrics, mosaics, bone carvings) were influenced by ancient traditions, as well as Eastern influence (especially in textiles and ceramics). Products made of glass, metal and enamel were famous far beyond the borders of the empire.
The population of the Byzantine Empire, which we conventionally call the Byzantines, was not ethnically homogeneous. Its main core was the Greeks; however, over the centuries, starting from the early Middle Ages, multilingual groups joined the Greek people: Romanized Vlachs, Thracians, as well as Illyrians and Celts, Albanians, Normans, and later Turks and other peoples of Asia Minor. The admixture of the Slavic element was also significant. In the VI-VIII centuries. Slavs settled throughout Greece. Some scientists (for example, the German historian I. Fallmerayer) exaggerated the role of this Slavic and generally non-Greek element in the formation of the modern Greek population, believing that modern Greeks are descendants of Slavic and other conquerors rather than of the ancient Hellenes. But this view is wrong. The latest anthropological studies (A. Poulianos) have shown that the foreign admixture to the original Greek population was small. Modern Greeks are the descendants of the ancient Greeks and those relatively few foreign groups that mixed with them and adopted the Greek language.
Foreign tribes that invaded Greece had some influence on the ethnic composition of the Greeks, but they themselves did not survive as a separate ethnic element in the country. Almost all Slavs, with the exception of those who inhabited the northern outskirts of modern Greece, assimilated. Their widespread settlement in the past is indicated by modern toponymy, which has preserved Slavic roots throughout Greece up to the south of the Peloponnese (the Zagorje mountain range in Epirus, the city of Grevena in western Macedonia, etc.).
Constant wars with neighbors - Persians, Arabs, Slavs, Normans, etc., as well as feudal political anarchy weakened the empire. In the XIV-XV centuries. Byzantium was conquered by the Ottoman Turks. The economic development of the countries of South-Eastern Europe, including Greece, has slowed down. The regions inhabited by the Greeks were economically divided, their population sharply decreased due to wars and emigration. Only in the XVII-XVIII centuries. There was a rise in economic life, especially in coastal cities. At the same time, the Greek nobility of Constantinople (the so-called Phanariots) managed to seize some government positions, and the Greek merchants took control of a significant part of the trade of the Ottoman Empire. The highest Greek clergy received supremacy over those areas of the Balkans where Orthodoxy was preserved. It became a reactionary force, suppressing the national culture of the Slavic and other peoples and preventing the development of the national liberation movement in Greece itself.
At the end of the 18th century. A cultural and educational movement began among the Greeks, marking the first step towards national revival. The social support of this movement was the rapidly growing Greek bourgeoisie (rich mainly from maritime trade); Its exponents were the first Greek enlighteners - Adamantios Korais, Rygas Velestinlis and others. They were inspired by the ideas of the Great French Revolution. A favorable political situation for the development of the national liberation movement was created by Russia's military victories over the Turkish Empire.
Greeks living outside their homeland took an active part in the struggle for national independence. In 1814, a secret society “Filiki Eteria” arose in Odessa, which means “Friendly Society”, or “Union of Friends”. Alexander Ypsilanti, on behalf of this society, raised the banner of the liberation war in 1821. The popular uprising spread throughout mainland Greece and many islands. The core of the rebel army was made up of the people's avengers, whose troops from the very beginning of the Turkish conquest, from the 15th century, waged a guerrilla fight against the invaders, hiding in the mountains. The Turks, who feared and hated them, called them klefts, which means “thieves” (usually translated as “robbers”). But in the popular understanding, very soon this word began to mean heroes, freedom fighters.
In 1822, Greek independence was proclaimed, but this turned out to be more of a symbolic act - the brutal war continued. The entire progressive public of Europe sympathized with the struggle of the Greek people. Volunteers traveled to Greece from different countries to join the armed rebel forces. Among them was the great English poet Byron, who died in Greece. Pushkin and other writers and public figures in Russia sympathized with the struggle of the Greeks. The Tsarist government of Russia, fearing to lose its influence among the peoples of the Balkans, also came out in support of the Greeks; after Russia's victory over Turkey in the war of 1828-1829. Greece gained independence. Its independence was recognized at the London Conference of Ambassadors in 1830.
The national liberation struggle of the Greek people against the Turkish Empire strengthened the national consciousness of the Greeks, contributed to their unity, overcoming regional differences, and strengthening the consciousness of national unity among the masses.
However, not all lands inhabited by Greeks were included in the Greek state: Epirus, Thessaly, most of the islands, including Crete, remained under Turkish rule. In Greece itself, the situation of the people remained difficult, since all power belonged to the large commercial bourgeoisie, rich landowners. The country was ruled first by the Bavarian and then by the German-Danish dynasty - proteges of the great powers. After a long struggle, the democratically minded part of the officers (who came from the petty bourgeoisie and peasantry), who created the so-called Military League, carried out a coup d'etat (1909) and, with the participation of a progressive figure in the national movement of the Cretan Greeks, Venizelos, carried out democratic reforms that somewhat improved the situation of the peasants. Thessaly and part of Epirus joined Greece after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, Western Thrace, Epirus, southern Macedonia and Crete joined Greece after the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913.
In the First World War, Greece participated on the side of the Entente powers, which determined its policy.
During World War II, the Greek people were led by? The Communist Party, founded in 1918, stubbornly fought against the Italian and then German occupiers, on whose side the Bulgarian government took the side. The whole world knows the feat of the patriots Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas, who tore the fascist flag from the Athenian Acropolis. The National Liberation Army ELAS, created by the National Liberation Front, liberated the entire mainland and many islands of Greece in 1944, but in 1945 it was dissolved by the reactionary government that came from exile, relying on the British interventionists. After the parliamentary elections of 1946, which the Communist Party boycotted, and the falsified plebiscite that restored the monarchy, the defeat of democratic forces began in the country. In 1947, in the areas liberated from the monarcho-fascists by the newly created democratic army of Greece, a provisional democratic government arose, which lasted only until 1949.
Nowadays Greece is a constitutional monarchy. Legislative power in the country belongs to the king and the unicameral parliament, executive power to the Council of Ministers, the chairman of which is appointed by the king.
The reactionary government, which had been in power for a long time, persecuted the Greek democrats. The Communist Party is in an illegal position. In 1951, the hero of the national movement Nikoe Beloyanis was executed. Members of the anti-fascist resistance are languishing in prison. The national hero of Greece, Manolis Glezos, was also imprisoned for a long time.
However, the struggle continues. The popular protest took on a particularly wide scale in 1963, after the insidious murder of a member of parliament and peace fighter Grigoris Lambrakis.