Greece

A land caught between ancient glories and the

modern world

The 2004 Olympic Games were held in Athens – where the modern Olympics were
first celebrated in

1896 – in conscious commemoration of the ancient tradition. Games had been held in
Olympia every

four years for over a thousand years, between 776 BCE and 528 CE.

Karl Mathis/EPA/Corbis.

What is it to be Greek? Two poems might provide an answer. The first, by

Kostis Palamas, the poet responsible for the lyrics of the first Olympic

Games anthem in 1896, wonders ‘What is my motherland’? Is it her

landscape and the monuments left behind by all previous inhabitants – the

ancient Greeks, the Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, Ottomans and others?

The second, ‘Mythistorema’, written in 1935 by the Nobel prize-winner

George Seferis, likens the poet’s feelings about Greece to those of someone

waking up from a deep sleep, holding in his hands an ancient marble head,

having dreamed his entire life that he was inseparable from it; he does not

know what to do with the head and he is tired of holding it. In Palamas’s

poem contemporary Greece is nothing less than an amalgam of 2,000 years

of history, including the deeds of her conquerors, all of which left traces on

the physiognomy of the land. In the second poem contemporary Greece is

unable to decide her identity; instead, she swings between the present and

antiquity, as the latter is unbearable for a country trying to obtain a

contemporary consciousness.
Greece originated as a modern nation state in a revolt against the

Ottoman Empire in the 1820s. Before this it was not evident that the new

state would be called ‘Greece’ (‘Hellas’ in Greek) or its inhabitants

‘Greeks’ (‘Hellenes’). ‘Greek’ in the vernacular denoted a pagan, a

meaning given to the word by the Church Fathers. When Christianity rose

to supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 4th century, it replaced

the old religions and the culture of the Greek city – its public worship,

debates on public issues at the agora, theatre performances, wrestling arena

and Olympic Games. This was undeniably a dramatic change. The question

has often been asked: did the Hellenic world survive after the end of

antiquity?

But what was the Hellenic world? Plato described the Greeks as frogs

sitting around a pond, a reference to the Greek settlements around the

Mediterranean and the Black Sea. But did the term ‘Greek’ refer to an

ethnicity or a civilization? For the historian Herodotus in the 5th century

BCE, the Greeks had a common language and religion, and shared the same

ancestors: therefore they were one race, even if they lacked political unity

and national consciousness. A few decades later the historian Thucydides

put forth a more sceptical view. He wrote, for example, of barbarians who

became Greeks, by which he meant that previously they solved their

problems with arms, as barbarians did, but later turned to the law, as Greeks

did. In these terms, anyone could be identified as Greek so long as he

shared Greek values. In the 4th century BCE Isocrates observed that Greeks

were those with Greek education, suggesting that Hellenism was a cultural
rather than ethnic category. In the ‘Hellenistic’ era inaugurated by

Alexander the Great and the Macedonians, Hellenism was largely a cultural

force, as cities with a Greek way of life extended deep into Central Asia.

Many Greek writers of that time were not writing in their first language.

Under the Roman Empire, Hellenism, through poetry, philosophy, theatre,

sculpture and architecture, became the culture of the Roman – or rather the

Graeco-Roman – aristocracy.

TIMELINE

776 BCE Traditional date for the first Olympic Games

480 BCE The Greeks defeat a Persian invasion after battles at Thermopylae,
Artemisium

and Salamis

432–404 BCE The Peloponnesian War ends with the defeat of Athens by Sparta

323 BCE The death of Alexander of Macedon, whose conquests spread Hellenistic

culture across the Middle East and Western Asia

146 BCE Rome completes its conquest of Greece

330 CE The foundation of Constantinople as the eastern capital of the Roman Empire

1453 The Ottoman Turkish conquest of Constantinople ends Byzantine civilization

1821–30 The Greek War of Independence from the Turks results in the establishment
of

the Kingdom of Greece

1896 The first modern Olympic Games are held in Athens

1912–13 The Balkan Wars and expansion of Greek territory

1919–22 War with Turkey, leading to an exchange of populations between Greece and

Turkey
1941–44 Greece is occupied by Germany, Italy and Bulgaria

1947–49 Civil wars between left and right

1967–74 Military rule by ‘the Colonels’ ends with the restoration of parliamentary

democracy

2004 Athens Olympic Games

2010–12 Financial crisis leads to the imposition of widespread austerity measures

The Christians adopted the Greek language and safeguarded a selection

of Greek philosophical and poetic texts, as well as writings on medicine,

mathematics and astronomy. However, they destroyed ‘visible Hellenism’ –

its schools of philosophy, statues, temples, theatres and wrestling arenas –

along with everything that involved the agora and public debate. In other

words, the Christians wrought the destruction of the Greek way of life –

which is why the words ‘Greek’ and ‘pagan’ became synonymous for

Christians. Nevertheless, Christianity might not have acquired the form by

which it is known today, had its precepts not been expressed in a Greek

conceptual language. So the question remains: was Hellenism destroyed or

did it survive?

If we consider Hellenism as the civilization of a particular era, then it

began with the Hellenic settlements in the Mediterranean in the 8th century

BCE and ended with the complete Christianization of the Roman Empire in

the 6th century CE. The prohibition of the ancient forms of worship and the

Olympic Games by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in 528, and the

conversion of the Parthenon to a Christian church, signalled its end. This is

a civilization that had lasted for twelve centuries. Certainly many of its
cultural features were passed on to the modern era: they survive in aspects

of the linguistic and conceptual background of European languages, as well

as in languages of the Eastern Mediterranean (including Coptic, Arabic,

Syrian, Armenian, Slavonic and Turkish). Modern European culture has

reassessed, reused and competed with Greek and Roman concepts and

forms. From this perspective, especially from the time of the 18th-century

Enlightenment, cultural Hellenism has emerged as a reference point in

philosophy, political theory, visual arts and architecture, and has become the

core of the canon of Western civilization.

However, Greeks today do not see Hellenism in this manner, as

essentially a level of civilization. Needless to say, they do attribute primacy

to it, regarding it as a supreme civilization and the mother of modern

civilization. Moreover, they consider Hellenism to be a manifestation of the

Greek nation’s brilliance and ingenuity. But modern Greeks believe that

Hellenism corresponds to a nation, one that lived on after the end of

antiquity in the Eastern Roman Empire. This nation in its second life was

shaped in conjunction with the Hellenized Eastern Orthodox Church (rather

than the Latinized Church of the West). Greeks believe that, despite the

Ottoman occupation of Asia Minor and the Balkans from the 12th century

CE, their nation managed to survive until its assertion of independence in the

early 19th century.

Greek scholars of the 19th century nurtured the notion of an

uninterrupted history of their nation from Greek antiquity to the Greek

kingdom in 1830. Firstly, they archaized the spoken language and

Secondly, they changed the names of towns, villages, mountains and islands

back to their ancient forms; for them archaeological sites constituted a

geographical network of historical reference points, underlining their Greek

identity. Thirdly, they adopted neoclassicism as their architectural style for

public and private buildings. The same style was used for national symbols

and monuments. But above all, Greek scholars created a powerful narrative

of a nation with a continuous history from antiquity to the present, using

supporting evidence from historiography, folklore and art history. The

Greeks convinced not only themselves with this notion of Hellenism but

also non-Greeks – both tourists and scholars of Greek culture and

civilization. Those foreigners who were mesmerized by ancient Greek

civilization assisted in the ‘rebirth’ of the Greeks. But the Greeks have paid

a heavy price for persuading themselves and others of an uninterrupted

Hellenic history: they are often perceived to fall short when compared to

their invented, but distant, ancestors.

There has always been a disjunction in how Greeks regard themselves

and how others do. Prior to mass tourism, only a few learned visitors knew

about Greece from their books. These were the people who admired ancient

Greece, but looked down on any of her other historical periods. In the 19th

century the newly independent Greeks themselves manifested a similar

contempt: for example, by ‘purifying’ the Acropolis and Athens of any

Roman or Byzantine structures. Then there was a change of course in which

they strove to display elements from all earlier periods in order to

stumbled on a great obstacle: Byzantium was missing not only from the

Greek historical canon, but also from the European. This meant that the

history of Eastern Orthodoxy was also absent. Many Western scholars of

Byzantium viewed Orthodoxy and Eastern Europe as a civilization separate

from that of Western Europe. The Greeks now tried to appropriate the

history of Byzantium for themselves and promote it as a link in their own

national history, portraying Byzantium as the conduit through which ancient

Greek literature passed to modern Europe. It is interesting, though, that just

as Western Europeans had turned their backs on the Greeks, the Greeks

themselves had turned their backs on Balkan and Middle Eastern peoples.

Greek historical encounters with Venetians, Serbs, Albanians, Bulgarians,

Arabs and Turks were not ignored, but they were interpreted within a

framework of national antagonisms.

A reference to the Balkans often brings to mind issues such as ethnic

conflict, war and even ethnic cleansing: this is considered to be a region

where everyone fights against everyone else. However, there is hardly

anything exceptional about the Balkans; no more blood has been shed in

this region than in any other part of the world. The problems there stemmed

from the coexistence of different ethnic populations in the same territory. So

when individual nations began to gain political will following the decline of

the Ottoman Empire, they claimed areas that other nations were also

claiming. For example, Greece and Bulgaria both claimed Macedonia. The

former also disputed Constantinople (Istanbul) and Asia Minor with the
Turks. The years leading up to the First World War brought an explosion of

nationalistic fervour, leading to a decade of constant wars and bloody

conflicts (1912–22). In the process Greece quadrupled in size by acquiring

the largest part of Macedonia, which was Hellenized, mainly by the

transportation of refugees from Asia Minor. These wars were followed by

violent and unwilling mass expulsions or population exchanges, and in

some cases massacres. In 1922 1.5 million Christian refugees were forced

to leave Turkey for Greece. Six hundred thousand of their Muslim

counterparts left Greece to settle in Turkey. Greek populations from around

the Balkans converged within the borders of the Greek state. In the

following years the state made a huge effort to assist the refugees, who

comprised 20 per cent of the population, assimilating them into Greek life.

War changed the political scene of Greece; the army became stronger,

often resulting in coups d’état that brought crises to the country’s

parliamentary system. The 1929–32 depression resulted in social unrest.

The spectre of social revolution hovered over the country until 1936 when a

dictatorship was established, under General Ioannis Metaxas (1871–1941),

as in other European countries of this period. In fact, Greece entered the

Second World War under a dictatorship imitating fascism, but allied with

Britain.

For Nikos Svoronos, a leading 20th-century Greek historian, a key

element throughout Greek history has been the spirit of ‘resistance’.

Greeks, he claimed, were always resisting foreign invaders and internal

tyranny. This widespread attitude is the result of the fact that the modern
Greek state was a product of a revolution, which in turn created a strong

subject: ‘We, the people!’ It gave rise to a tradition of popular patriotism

and nationalism, of intense politicization and strong political parties, as well

as a relatively stable parliamentary tradition. Yet Greece won its

independence through the intervention of the major powers of that period,

in particular Britain and Russia. For most of her modern history Greece has

been dependent, first on Britain, then on the United States. Consequently

both powers have often had a say in domestic policy. Greece, in other

words, was something between an independent state and a colony, without

having ever actually turned into a colony. At the same time, Greece

maintained an ambivalent stance towards Europe and the West, although

Western powers were needed when it was lined up against Turkey or any

other Balkan neighbour. Interestingly, though, Greece held on to an antiimperialist

spirit, risking being regarded as the naughty child of the West.

This ambivalence was reinforced after the Second World War, and has had a

profound impact on contemporary Greece.

In 1940–42 the Greeks repelled the Italian invasion, but were then

themselves defeated by the Germans. From April 1941 to October 1944

Greece endured a tripartite German, Italian and Bulgarian occupation.

During this period the entire state mechanism collapsed. Famine hit the

urban population and the currency was devalued in uncontrolled inflation.

The people had to organize their own survival, and this, together with a

resistance movement against the occupiers, resulted in the merging of

patriotic spirit and social revolt. Liberal and conservative political parties
were inactive, so the National Liberation Front, a coalition of leftist parties,

took up leadership of city and village resistance groups. Its military branch

was a guerrilla army known as ELAS (the Greek Resistance Army). Despite

the leadership’s cautious declarations that Greek resistance was on the side

of the Allies and against the Axis, the movement acquired the

characteristics of an undeclared social revolution. Furthermore, ELAS

attempted, sometimes bloodily, to dominate other political or armed groups.

As a revolution often brings a counter-revolution, so this was the case in

occupied Greece. With the cooperation of the occupying forces, rival armed

groups evolved and were to lead the country into a bloody civil war. This

did not come to an end after Greece’s liberation from the Germans in

October 1944, but escalated in December 1944 and then again in 1947–49,

when it turned into a full-blown war.

The Greek Civil War was one of the first episodes of the Cold War: the

British and the Americans responded with immediate interference. It ended

with a crushing defeat for the Communists; a large number were either

executed or exiled to barren islands of the Aegean, or fled to Eastern Bloc

countries. Until 1967 the country was governed by a very weak democracy.

Greece had now ceased to be an agricultural society, most of its population

having moved into the cities. The economy was not strong enough to

support its people and a large wave of emigrants left for Western Europe.

However, Europe’s post-war prosperity also impacted on Greece. Steadily

the country’s living standards began to move closer to those of other

European countries, even though, together with Spain, Portugal and

interrupted by the military junta that ruled for seven years from 1967,

bringing significant disaster to Greece as well as to Cyprus, where it

dismantled the legitimate government and triggered a Turkish invasion that

has become permanent. The military junta was the final stage in a period of

wars and fierce political unrest that had begun in the early 20th century. Yet

the last quarter of the 20th century saw a period in which the country’s

democratic institutions were consolidated. Moreover, thanks to tourism, the

standard of living improved, and in 1981 Greece became the tenth member

of the European Union. The accession into the European club proved highly

beneficial, especially for the country’s economy and institutions, both of

which were modernized.

During the second half of the 20th century the vast majority of tourists

who visited Greece had not read any of the ancient Greek writers, but they

might have seen the films Zorba the Greek (1964), starring Anthony Quinn,

and Never on Sunday (1960), starring Melina Mercouri. Post-war cinema

manifested a fresh, unconventional and jovial Greek identity. Although

many Greeks, especially males, adopted this identity, the truth is that

Greeks today have both an optimistic and pessimistic view of their history

and identity. Furthermore, the collapse of the socialist regimes in Eastern

Europe in 1989 and consequent globalization have had tremendous

consequences for Greece: a constant influx of new migrants from Albania,

Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa has reached the most remote parts, and

they now make up 10 per cent of the population. There are neighbourhoods
and schools in Athens and Thessaloniki where migrants outnumber locals.

Xenophobic outbursts that the Hellenic identity is in danger from

immigration are frequent – ironic in a land in which people regard

hospitality as an ancestral trait. Meanwhile, the 21st century found Greece

celebrating her entry into the euro and hosting the 2004 Olympic Games in

Athens. Yet there was a huge bill to pay that was exacerbated by a worldwide

economic crisis and the unexpectedly high cost of having joined the

euro. Enormous government debt and loss of confidence by the

international financial markets forced a series of severe austerity measures

from 2010, resulting in widespread public anger towards the government.

Newspaper headlines proclaimed that the very fabric of the Eurozone was

under threat, should Greece default. Even as the crisis was impoverishing

Greek society, it was making European economic integration obligatory.