When Ottomans were learning Greek

Another good post, Afro.

Thanks Westy.

The Greek language had been considered a distinct and prestigious characteristic for millennia before the emergence of the Modern Greek nation-state. Both the pre-Christian and Christian Greek-speaking world was proud of (not to say obsessed with) its language and the rich literature written in it. There is also general agreement among historians that the political name "Roman" eventually came to mean only the dominant Greek-speaking element of the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire. So what is accurate is that the Greek language remained an integral part of the overarching collective identity (i.e. the Greek Orthodox, Romeiki one) of the Greek-speaking people after the ancient era.

About the abandonment of the name Hellenes, I don’t see anything strange in the fact that the Christian Greeks wanted to differentiate themselves from the pagan traditions this name came to be associated with. Not even those who identified themselves as "Hellenes", among the Greek-speaking people of that era, used the word in its old sense anymore.

i admire anything from Pagan greece..i think hellenes sounds just dandy.i would also vote for the re introduction of the Mt olympus gods,they seem to suit me more these days.
love to get close with aphrodite .

As I said, I don't think that the continuity argument is wrong. For me both arguments seem reasonable, so I can't really take a side on this, and I don't have enough knowledge anyway. But even in the way you present it, it seems to me it's very much a matter of interpretation. The fact that they were calling themselves Romans shows that they were considering themselves as descendants of the Roman Empire rather than of Ancient Greece. Furthermore, at the time of the creation of the modern greek state, greek speakers who were catholic or muslim were not considered as Romioi, whereas groups of people who had different mother languages (albanian, vlach, slavic, turkish) were regarded as part of the greek nation. This shows that language may have not been a primary factor for determining the belonging to a group.

This post has been edited by Afroasiatis on November 11, 2009 12:53 pm

You said that the non-continuity argument is based on the fact that the "Greek-speaking people after some time didn't refer to themselves as Hellenes and they instead considered themselves as a part of different communities which were not based on language but on religion". I objected to this, since there is general scholarly agreement on the centrality of the Greek language to the Byzantine state, culture and identity.

After the second century all the free inhabitants of the Roman Empire were considered Roman citizens. So the Roman identity was a political one, not an ethnic one. It acquired an ethnic meaning (Romaios = Greek) after the 10th century, because the Byzantine Empire had become almost mono-ethnic by then.

It is not that simple. For example, both Greece and Turkey had doubts about how to deal with the Muslim and Christian Orthodox groups who didn't differ linguistically from their native populations. Venizelos had said about the indigenous Greek-speaking Muslims of Crete (the vast majority of the, so-called, Cretan Turks) that they had the right to be considered Greeks more than those citizens of the Greek state whose Orthodox ancestors spoke other languages than Greek. And Kemal initially intended to exclude from the population exchange the Turkish-speaking Karamanlides. So you can't say that language didn't play an important role in ethnic identification.

Also the fact that some non Greek-speaking Orthodox minorities eventually became a part of the Greek nation doesn't downplay the importance of the Greek language (i.e. the mother tongue of the big majority of the native population) as a central determinant of the Greek national identity. It is clear that if the Greek language had been extinct, no Modern Greeks would have existed today.

This post has been edited by Knemon on November 15, 2009 01:35 pm

With this sentence I meant:
1) that the groups in which the Byzantine subjects (which spoke various languages) were originally split were primarily based on religion (orthodox Christians, pagans, heretics, Jews - of course it must be noted that many of the heretic churches had also a strong ethnic or local basis). After some time of course the greek-speaking orthodox christian element prevailed completely, and it was natural that a Byzantine identity needed to be based on that in order to differentiate itself from the rest. But this doesn't prove a continuity, as I see it.
2) In the following period of Ottoman and Latin domination, the term "Romioi" used to describe only those greek-speaking people that kept the Byzantine official religion. These Greek-speakers who took the religion of their new lords (Islam or Catholicism) were not considered as belonging to the same group any more.

Sure. I didn't know that, but it doesn't surprise me at all. From what I know, Kemal even encouraged the creation of a "turkish-orthodox" church later.
All this seems to me very reasonable. Both Venizelos and Kemal, like most of nationalists in general, were inspired by west european nationalism. And this was based primarily on language. So, I'm sure that the greek nation and the turkish nation which Venizelos and Ataturk were dreaming of respectively were based on common language, not religion. This must have been a sign of modernity for them. And so it's not a surprise that through their contribution finally greek and turkish nation were evolved in that way.

But the fact that, despite their wishes, at the end the population exchange was based on religion and not on language (and by the way, population exchange between Greeks and Bulgarians was also based on religion, as far as I know) shows that the religion was generally felt by the people as a stronger differentiating element.

Here I agree.

Both expressions imply something that has been made up. There can be no mistake with words such as “mythology” and “reconstruction”, so I don’t know how I could get it wrong. Maybe you should think about your wording next time so there won’t be any confusion.

Actually, this “principle” is more in line with what you’re arguing. As you posted further down:

Even moderate fyromians (whom a very few btw), dismiss the Gruevski/Stefov inventions and admit albeit begrudgingly that the ancient Macedonians may have been Hellenized. But they will still argue when the Slavs came to the region they mixed with the locals, introducing the Slavic language in the process, and therefore can claim to be the descendents of the ancient Macedonian. Even Serbian nationalists (that being the keyword btw) will claim when the Slavs arrived in the region, the mixed with the Illyrians and Moesians and whoever else. The Bulgarians aren’t too far away, using the same theory that they mixed with the ancient Thracians. They even now claim Oedipus Rex was an "ancient Bulgarian". And they use “nationalist mythology” and “reconstructions” to claim their own continuum within the region. The same applies with certain Turks in this forum and the Ionian Greeks because if you notice they tend to omit Greek when referring to the Ionians. They interpret it as the Asia Minor Greeks were actually Hellenized Anatolians who therefore should not be considered as part of the Ancient Greek world but clustered together with the Anatolian civilizations.

And that's where you contradict yourself. You ramble on trying to keep history objective but in the same breath you say it's okay to play around with it.

Kata’s full version was: “jerking off to over-hyped reconstructions”.

There was no misinterpretation. I didn’t come into this thread beating my chest or posting massive banners of the Greek flag. But he implies it in a way with such strong wording. But anyway, Kata’s always had a problem with his blinkered perception as to how Greeks view our Ottoman period. He might have rambled on about the evils of empire building, but that was simply his attempt to create a smokescreen from what really annoys him.

For example

He objects. As far as I’m concerned the above is a good example of "nationalist mythology" and "over-hyped reconstructions".

And dare I say, he isn’t the only one who “objects” as how former subjects remember the Ottoman Empire:

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/h.php?new...ooks-2008-03-12

Now you’re trying to create your own smokescreen, because you’ve being arguing the exact opposite throughout this thread ffs.

With regards to what you initially referred to “nationalist mythology”, your counter arguments actually represent the other extreme to this, that is to reconstruct Greece’s Ottoman period by omitting the negative and concentrate on the positive, that certain important subjects that directly concerned the Greeks should be censored to avoid your so-called “negative prejudices”. And even if we concentrate on the positive of the Ottoman’s empire, well, what we have is achievements and a history that is Turkish. Because as we were a part of the Ottoman Empire, we would ultimately ask what was actually going on with us. We cannot be expected to look back at that period as some kind of halcyon days.

You said –quote- which nothing important happened- unquote. So what event of historical significance happened to the Greeks where we can look back and say, “Well, what do you know!” Because nothing did happen until 1821. And a point you avoided, which I bring back to your attention, is the Greek contribution to the Italian Renaissance. They even have a commemorative plaque in Venice for the Greeks of that period. So why not argue to include that as part of our heritage.

You also touted the idea of making the Ottoman Empire Greco friendly, that we should somehow consider it just as much as our Empire: quote- Another interesting fact is, it seems that over the Ottoman history there had been more Grand Viziers with a greek origin than with a turkish.- unquote

And to which I made a quirky comment, “sure that could work for me’

But Kata immediately jumped in:

But re Kata and yourself, I’m actually arguing you both on different points. Your argument is “negative prejudices” of Greek history is solely for the Ottoman period, whereas Kata uses “over-hyped reconstructions” re all of our history. You both have conflicting views and you need to address them directly with one another without pointing the finger at me.

So what do you think prompted the Greek uprising in Greece in 1821? Even better, maybe Kata should answer this is since he’s convinced Greek history books aren’t objective on the subject.

Agreed, “slaves” is a harsh word and for the sake of neutrality in a historical argument should be avoided. (even though there was slavery in the Ottoman empire, which unlike European colonial slavery didn’t discriminate by colour ). But we were still subjects and the Turks a foreigner overlord. And no, I don’t hold any grudges. The part of Greece my parents came from has been independent for almost two centuries. But when I read crap that we somehow living the “high life” or that we were actually exempted from the paidomazoma because we would have made inferior soldiers, and when I argue them I suddenly become a “nationalistic wanker”, why shouldn't I get annoyed.

Kata posted:

He’s arguing that we should look at imperial expansionism in the negative, you’re arguing it should be interpreted in the positive. Again, this is something you need to take up with him and not me.

What about the Roman period? We were under the Romans for just as long as the Turks? Mate, our cultural impact on them is immeasurable. And what about the Latin states in southern Greece, the Aegean and Crete and Cyprus during the later Middle Ages. Or the Serbs, who under Dusan controlled northern modern Greece, and even went as far as declaring himself Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks. But you’re being selective, aren’t you? Anyway, if using your argument, we study the Ottoman Empire, the Roman Empire, the Venetians, the Serbs and why not the Third Reich, there will little room to actually to teach Greek students the history of the Greeks. And that was always my initial point in my argument with you.

As for the Turkish fusion into our culture, which part of it do we deny exactly? Did 400 years of Ottoman rule rub off on us? Of course it did? Not only with the the komboloi, tavli and dolmades, but also in the language. A few Turkish words common in the modern Greek vocabulary that I can think off are: kefi, tsanta, mezes, papoutsi, tempelis, tzepi, effendi. And there’s also the expression “ah siktiri”, which comes from their “siktar”.

But there's also another contradiction in your argument. Did you know the Ottoman sultans didn’t really consider themselves as “Turks”, rather as “Muslims”, and their realm not as “Turkish Empire” but as the “Well Protected Domains” or thereabouts. Because you've actually opened up another can of worms for yourself. Using your argument further down, when you suddenly take away the Greek ethnos and begin referring to us as “Greek-speakers”, therefore shouldn’t we stop referring to the Ottomans as Turks but as "Turkish-speakers". And won’t that mean, once again using your argument, we shouldn’t even refer to the Ottoman period as “Turkish” and actually omit all references to “Turkish” when speaking of their influences on our culture. Isn’t that right, bub?

You forgot the Arabs. Poor Arabs, no one wants to associate with them . Anyway, in another thread you stated that you lean more towards Turkey than Venice. Isn’t that denying a large part of Cyprus’s heritage and culture? Again, you’re being selective, exactly what you have the audacity to accuse every Greek of doing, choosing what's good for them.

Mythology for me means selecting some true facts (and forgetting others), mixing them with your own imagination and making stories out of them. I interpreted the word reconstruction in a similar way. Perhaps this is because of my bad communication skills/ english, but this is what I meant. I hope it's clear now.

The principle is quite simple for me: the inhabitants of a country are usually the descendants of all various people that lived in it. They have the right to consider all these cultures as part of their history and their heritage, even if they don't speak the same language.

To say it like this: if a Turks says that the Ionians were not greek, he's wrong. If a Slavomacedonian (I don't use the term "Fyromian", because that includes Albanians) says that ancient Macedonians were slavic and not greek, he's wrong.

If a Turk or a Slavomacedonian considers ancient Greeks as a part of his heritage and his history, he's right. The same way, I consider Eteocyprians and Choirokoitia as a part of my heritage. And Greece has every right to consider Cycladian and Minoan culture as a part of her heritage.

This statement exposes your ignorance in more ways than one. Think about what's wrong with it.

You admit you really don't have an idea on history but it doesn't stop you from posting line after line on it as per your blinkered interpretation of it.

The Byzantine Emperors claimed descent from the Roman Empire. It was a claim to an historic crown rather than an ethnicity.

But I can provide non-Greek sources that contradict your assertion that the Byzantines considered themselves descendants of the Roman Empire rather than ancient Greece:

Britanica Encyclopedia







Byzantium, Judith Herrin



Re the ethnos of the Byzantines re historians, who refer to "Greeks" and not "Greek-speakers"

Britanica Encyclopedia





Byzantium, Judith Herrin



The Times World History





That you admit that you're not very savvy when it comes to history, there were actually two Roman crowns in Medieval Europe, that of the Byzantines and that of the Germans. The west referred to German crown as "Imperium Romanum" and the Byzantine as "Regnum Graecorum":



And why do you think the Russian emperors referred to themselves as Tzars and the German as Kaiser? As a continuation of the Roman crown.

And it wasn't only the west that viewed the Byzantines as "Greeks"

"The Chronicle of the priest of Duklja"- Serbian 12th century:

Re the term "Greek" aka "Ellines", okay, at one point of that implied a "pagan". But it wasn't always the case for most of Byzantine. Please refer to excellent examples provided by razordur, which shows the term "Greek" used to distingish it as specific ethnos within a "Roman" empire.

http://greekturkish.18.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=4257

Also, Fall of Constantinople, Steven Runciman



Further reading, The Last Byzantine Renaissance, , Steven Runciman
http://books.google.com/books?hl=el&...AAIAAJ&pg=PA20


The sources available are immense. Try reading some of them.

This post has been edited by optimaton on November 20, 2009 05:06 pm

I can't speak in Kata's place, but let just say that I interpreted what he said in a completely different way than you, and I still think my interpretation was correct. I still can't see a contradiction between my posts and his.

Show me where I said that we should view Ottoman Empire in a positive way.

Opti, I never said that we should omit the negative and care only about positive, I'm getting tired to repeat this in thread after thread. Let's say it like that: the official version of the history of our region should be written without having negative or positive prejudices specifically against the Ottoman Empire.

Both Ottoman and Byzantine period were generally not periods of great progress, contrary to the ancient Greek period and the time of the modern Greek state. But this doesn't mean that everything remained the same, there were developments during these periods too (positive or negative), even if at slow rates.

Why shouldn't we?

What I said about nationalist mythology goes of course for our whole history (nationalist mythology defined like in my post above). And the same goes of course for turkish history.

That's a very big discussion. There were sure a lot of reasons. We can discuss this in a separate thread if you want (although my knowledge on this is probably less than yours).

I'll answer to the rest of your points later.

Not the Turks, the Ottomans were an overlord, who sometimes was not so foreign, as a lot of the members of the ruling class were Greeks converted to Islam. The greatest part of the Turks were subjects like the Greeks, with the difference that Muslims had many privileges regarding taxation, justice, right to carry weapons etc.

I don't know what you mean, but I never said that we were living the "high life" or that we were exempted from paidomazwma. The upper classes of the Greeks lived a generally good life, while lower classes, the big masses of the Greeks, had it difficult, as it is in all societies separated by classes. The Christian lower classes had the additional disadvantage that their religion was different from the state religion, so they suffered extra oppression. If you read my posts in this and other threads, you'll see that this is what I'm always saying.

How could I argue that imperial expansionism should be interpreted in the positive? I'm an anti-imperialist myself.

I spoke about the Ottoman period because it's related to the subject of the thread. Of course the same goes for the Roman period.

With the Latins and the Serbs is a little different, because they never dominated the whole Greek-speaking space (Ottomans almost did). They sure influenced the greek culture, but this influence was different from region to region. For example, the cypriot culture has definitely a great latin influence, I'd say as much as ottoman, but it has almost no slavic influence.

So, the history that you teach to the Greek students should have some differences from place to place, having in mind the specific regional heritage.

Actually, the partial cleansing of the official greek language from turkish words (originally there were much more than the ones you mention, and in the cyrpiot dialect there are still) is a good example of the denial of this turkish fusion. Of course, today the great turkish/ottoman influence on the modern greek culture is accepted by the big majority of Greeks (although many of them regard it as something generally negative). But still, there are people who don't like it if they hear that something considered typical greek has a turkish or ottoman origin. The point is, in the official version of greek history this must be seen in an objective and neutral way.

In my opinion saying that the Ottoman Empire was clearly turkish is a mistake. The Ottoman Empire was multi-ethnic, ruled by a dynasty of turkish origin and with an official language which was a mixture of turkish, arabic and persian (if I'm not mistaken, if someone knows better please correct me). The ruling class was made up from people with all different ethnic backgrounds. Of course, this doesn't mean that the turkish element was not a very strong one in the Ottoman culture. And through this, we can say that the Ottoman influence in our culture is to a big part a turkish influence. But not completely. So you're right, Ottoman is not equal turkish.

I use the term "Greek-speakers" when I refer to all to all people in Ottoman Empire whose mother language was greek, including Muslims and Catholics, not only Romioi. In the same way, when I say "Turkish-speakers" or "Turkophones", I refer to all people whose mother language was turkish, including Christians, but excluding e.g. Cretan Muslims or Vallaades.

I have no problem to associate with Arabs, there is no doubt that Cypriot culture is influenced by arabic (a small example in language, we use the word "pattiha" instead of the turkish-originated word "karpouzi"), I had mentioned just some examples (I also omitted Egyptians or Assyrians).

I'm not sure what do you mean. Perhaps you speak about a thread in which the question was posed, if Ottoman or Latin conquest would have been better for Greeks in the long term. If I remember well, I showed a preference to Ottomans. But this was not meant so seriously, as I thought it was made clear by the justification I used (I said something about anti-western reflexes, didn't I?) and by the fact, that I added right away that objectively you can't say which of both would have been better.

Anyway, the point is, every individual has the right to have his preferences and associate more with one part of our history than the other. But if you teach in a school e.g. about Cypriot culture, you certainly can't deny the Latin or the Ottoman heritage in it.

[QUOTE=optimaton,November 20, 2009 03:28 pm] [QUOTE=Afroasiatis,November 16, 2009 12:10 am)
(and by the way, population exchange between Greeks and Bulgarians was also based on religion, as far as I know) shows that the religion was generally felt by the people as a stronger differentiating element.[/QUOTE]

This statement exposes your ignorance in more ways than one. Think about what's wrong with it. [/QUOTE]

I'm thinking, but I can't find the mistake. As far as I know there were about 200,000 Slavophones in Greece. Only half of them were considered as Bulgarians and were included in the population exchange, and these were the ones that followed the Bulgarian Church. The rest of them who didn't follow the Bulgarian Church were considered as Greek and were allowed to stay. At least, this what I've read, I may remember it wrongly. So, the criterion was not language but religion.

[QUOTE]
You admit you really don't have an idea on history but it doesn't stop you from posting line after line on it as per your blinkered interpretation of it.
[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't go as far to say I have no idea on history, I'm simply not an expert. I studied physical geography, not history. Everything I know is from some books I've read, and from what other people have told me. So, I'd say I have some idea on history, and based on it I have some opinions, but I still have many gaps.

BUT: this doesn't mean that I'm going to accept the opinion of every person who has more knowledge than me as correct. Knowledge is not enough, there must be also logical reasoning. If someone exposes a lot of knowledge but his arguments are not well reasoned, I won't accept them.

Now, I may not be an expert on Byzantine history, but I'm also not a complete ignorant, so you really didn't need to cite so many different sources. I know:

- That West always regarded Byzantine Empire as Greek. Byzantines were not the only ones claiming to be the heirs of the Roman Empire, and Westerners needed to differentiate. However, I never heard that the Byzantines called their Empire "the Roman Empire of the Greek nation", similar as "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" . Britannica may just use this term to make a comparison.

- That Byzantines preserved much of the ancient greek writings and played an important role in transmitting them in Western Europe. However, this was not the case only in the greek-speaking parts of the Empire (the writings were also kept in the parts conquered by Arabs), and so it's not evidence of an ethnic identity in my opinion.

- That there were phases of revival of ancient greek culture, and even of the term "Hellenes". And that there were important Byzantine intellectualls who saw themselves as descendants of ancient Greeks (e.g. Plethon, if i'm not wrong?). But this is not an argument for continuity. Even the last source you cite, Runciman, speaks about a "fashion", and that Costantinople was in its last decades consciously a Greek city.

- That modern western historicians refer to Greeks rather than to Greek-speakers. However, this is also done for convenience obviously.

- And of course is obvious that words "Kaiser" and "Tsar" come from "Ceasar".

- One more thing is that the term "Hellas" survived continuously more than the term "Hellenes". But it was simply used to describe a geographical space: its inhabitants were called "elladikoi" no matter what their ethnicity was.

So, conclusion: there were some good arguments, but I'm still not convinced that the continuity argument is more correct than the discontinuity. It would be interesting to hear the views of someone who supports the second argument, so we can better compare.

Not that this is specifically important for me. Since I don't accept historical claims anyway, it makes no difference to me if Greeks are a 4,000-year or a 200-year old people.

This post has been edited by Afroasiatis on November 21, 2009 02:24 pm

To know what kind of people we are dealing with in these leftist saviors ardently fighting against "nationalist history", I will repost what I wrote to them in another thread:

People who do not know the elementary problems I described above of relating second-hand oral testimony and who refuse to absorb such info repeatedly should shut up and stop wasting everyone's time with stupid opinions they want to project onto history.

Marxist pseudo-ideology of the brotherhood of a universal proletariat is the ideological framework of the Greek anti-nationalists. This is a mythical and utopian construct that has never existed in the past and is impossible to develop in the future. Using such false ideology does not make one unbiased, and the lack of bias is a true impossibility. In history there are more accurate sources and more accurate or less accurate narratives constructed from such sources, there is no fundamental neutrality in posing the Ottoman Empire as some neutral Empire when it only accounted for muslim aspirations of dominance through conquest:

This post has been edited by Nikephoros on November 21, 2009 11:14 pm

This is one of the rare occasions that you may have said something correct. The lack of bias is indeed an impossibilty, since we are all human and not gods, and we are influenced by our emotions and personal backgrounds in everything we do and say.

But if we don't even try to approach objectivity and neutrality (as a society, not as individuals) when dealing with history, there is no point to consider history as a science, is it?

And having a greek/turkish nationalist ideology as background is sure not the way to approach objectivity when dealing with greek-turkish history.

Do you know a lot of empires who didn't have aspirations of dominace through conquest?

Even so, the reason they called them "Greeks" (and not "Illyrians" or "Thracians" or "Lydians" or whatever) was a fact everybody was aware of: the linguistic and cultural dominance of the Greek element in the Byzantine Empire. Let me give you an example of how another rival people, the Arabs, viewed the Byzantines:This was written in 1068 by the Arab scholar Said Al-Andalusi. At some point he says that "Many people believe that the known philosophers that we have already mentioned as Greeks [i.e. Empedocles, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle] were Romans. But they were actually Greeks as we stated." Why this confusion? "Because of the proximity of these two nations and the transfer of power from one to the other, the two countries became one and the two kingdoms became one, and the two peoples were diffused so that it became difficult for many to distinguish between their philosophers and to discern the history of their scholars". These two nations, according to the author, were the Greeks and the Latins. But, after a certain point, "the kingdom of the Latins became different from that of the Greeks, whose western borders were pushed close to Constantinople". So, what this Arab scholar says is that the East Roman (Byzantine) empire was actually the kingdom of the Greeks.

"A 200-year-old people" in what sense?