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Category: Modern Greek
Would Greek Cypriots accept the return of the north of Cyprus if the Turkish Cypriots were expelled?
I’ll second Spyros Theodoritsis. Yes, Greek Cypriots killed Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus in intercommunity violence. Yes, there was de facto partition of the island since 1963. Yes, if you talk to at least some Greek Cypriots for long enough (as I did with my uncle there), you’ll work out that despite their professed desire for […]
Was Greece created by Germany?
Minority view here, and I’m astonished noone’s picked up on it. The Modern Greek state was established in 1829; and while Greeks like to think they won the Greek state with their sword, the Greek War of Independence had pretty much been quelled by 1827. It was the Great Powers’ intervention at the Battle of […]
What are the differences between standard modern Greek and the Griko dialect?
I am delighted to be A2A’d this question. There has been long-running, nationalistically driven, and tedious argument about how old the Greek dialects spoken in Southern Italy are, with to and fro from Italian linguists and Greek linguists, and with the great Romanist Gerhard Rohlfs kinda weighing in on the Greek side. There is a […]
If a Turkish Cypriot is a Christian, does that make them a Greek Cypriot?
Under the millet system, which is still recent memory in former Ottoman countries, creed was the determinant of identity. If you were Orthodox you were Rum/Romios, if you were Muslim you were a Turk—no matter what your ethnicity, and what your main language was. So a Greek Cypriot that converted to Islam 200 years ago […]
Why does the Greek Orthodox Church have religious hegemony in Greece?
Start with Byzantium: Orthodox Christianity was the state religion, and heterodoxy was deemed treason. Jews and Muslims were tolerated in Byzantine Law as second class citizens; heretical Christians got the sword. In the Ottoman Empire, that continued with the Rum millet: Greek Orthodoxy defined the nation of Romans, which was considered to include Greeks. Catholicism […]
Was Napoleon Greek?
http://www.mani.org.gr/en/history/napoleon.htm Andrew Baird’s block on me means I cannot reply to commenters to his answer, either. So, Bill Killernic: Laure Junot, Duchess of Abrantes was the person who circulated the notion that Napoleon was Greek. She claimed that Napoleon had proposed to her mother, Panoria Stephanopoli, a Corsican Greek. Her claims are often repeated by […]
What does your hometown look like?
Which hometown, Launceston in Tasmania, where I was born; Sitia in Crete, where I grew up; Melbourne in Victoria where I live? Melbourne feels most like home, but there will be others to do a photo essay. So I’ll do Sitia. I’ve already posted a bit about it at Nick Nicholas’ answer to What is […]
What is your country’s fireworks day?
Greece: Easter. The tradition involves celebratory gunfire in the churchyard at Easter Midnight Mass. The modern manifestation of that is fireworks being let off in the packed churchyard at Easter Midnight Mass. Both in Greece/Cyprus, and in the diaspora. The news each year reports people being injured (or killed) as a result; my sister has […]
What are some really nice songs, music, from your country?
I am unable to shut up about the songs I love from Greece. There was a while last month when that was all I could write about. Nick Nicholas’ answer to What’s the most recent song you’ve cried to? Nick Nicholas’ answer to What are your favourite lyrics? Nick Nicholas’ answer to What is that […]
What is the history of Greek punctuation?
I have written some pointers about the history of Greek punctuation on my Greek Unicode Issues website: Punctuation. To summarise: The basics of punctuation as we know it in both Latin in Greek were in place by around the 10th century, including commas, periods, and interrogatives. They appear to have developed independently, although they had […]