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Category: Mediaeval Greek
Why didn’t the Greeks convert to Catholicism under the Latin Empire?
InB4 Dimitris Almyrantis The good news for you, OP, is that not only have I read up a fair bit on conversions of Greeks to Catholicism or Islam, I’ve even published academically on the subject. The bad news is, I’m familiar with a number of circumstances where Greeks did or didn’t convert, but 13th century […]
How do Greeks feel about the hadith analysis by Imran Hosein that the “Al-Rum” of the end times is to be analysed as Russia?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4SzkI4H2U8 Having listened to 6 mins of Sheikh Imran N. Hosein’s lecture, and done some Googling: There is a Hadith that predicts that, in the end times, the “Rum” and Islam will form a truce to fight a common enemy, before they fight each other in Armageddon. To cite the hadith: Conquest of Constantinople You […]
The Mass of the Beardless Man
I’ve name-checked the Mass of the Beardless Man (Spanos) in Nick Nicholas’ answer to What is the dirtiest work of Modern Greek literature? I have been asked to provide a sample, and herewith I oblige. Spanos was written around 1500, in Northern Greece or Constantinople; I’ve noted the speculation by Tassos Karanastassis, that it was […]
What is the dirtiest work of Modern Greek literature?
I know of three contenders; and having rebrowsed through one, I’m eliminating it from contention. I am, by the way, extending the definition back to 1000 AD. The contender I have not read (yet) is the only contender from the past century: The Great Eastern, by Greek surrealist Andreas Embirikos. It’s an encyclopaedia of all […]
Is Greek pop culture less interested in the Middle Ages than Western pop culture?
I’m OP. I’ve asked this, because I’ve seen an erudite claim that this is the case, from the 80s, and am wondering whether it was true then, and is true now. The claim comes from the recent edition of Stephanos Sachlikis’ poetry. (You know someone’s obscure when their Latin Wikipedia entry is 5 times longer […]
Ooh! He Said ‘Fuck’! He must be a revolutionary!
I’ve been pondering taboos for quite a while now; you’ll see a recent rumination from me at Nice skewering of Humour as Virtue Signalling. In the West latterly, we exult in people breaking taboos, as if being a rebel and a taboo-breaker is its own reward. You know, Well, people tell me love is for […]
How come the Greek peninsula remained Orthodox Christian and Greek, but Anatolia and Thrace/Constantinople got ‘Islamified’ and ‘Turkified?’
Pre-1453 and Post-1453 policy. Before 1453, Christians were given the status of Christians anywhere in Islamdom as dhimmis, and were subject to missionary activity, as described in Nick Nicholas’ answer to When and how did modern Turkish become the majority in Anatolia?. Even so, intense conversion of Christians to Islam in Anatolia only happened in […]
Are patron saints the same idea as Greek gods under another pretext?
Thanks to the other respondents. Patron saints share with the Ancient Greek gods the notion of domain of influence. They also, significantly, share the notion of patronage: elements of folk religion such as Votive offerings (Greek tamata), and theological notions such as Intercession of saints, are tied up with that understanding of how the Heavens […]
How do Greeks feel about the fall of Constantinople?
I’m somewhat confused by several answers talking about the present day status of Istanbul, or Golden Dawn’s vision of retaking the City. Greeks may continue to refer to Istanbul as Constantinople (except for the Rum that actual live there), but most of them do know the difference between the Byzantine city of yore and the […]
Is it true that most of the Greeks in Anatolia and Thrace converted to Islam and became Turks during the Seljuk and Ottoman years?
The received wisdom in academia is yes, although several users here (Dimitris Almyrantis and Dimitra Triantafyllidou) have questioned how feasible this is. The argument made by Speros Vryonis Jr, and summarised in Nick Nicholas’ answer to When and how did modern Turkish become the majority in Anatolia?, is that any deurbanisation and mass migration happened […]