Hellenism and its intended objectives in Macedonia!

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  • Dimko-piperkata
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 1876

    Hellenism and its intended objectives in Macedonia!

    Gandeto
    December 08, 2008


    Hellenism as a national policy of the Greek state, aimed at strengthening the socio- cultural ethno genesis among the Greeks, is an acceptable form of a unifying theme. As a rallying point for Greek culture, its basic premise rests on the assumption that Greeks share the same language, same religion and same traditions. Greek religion, Greek language and Greek nationality are the three fundamental fluid components whose constructs are inextricably interwoven into a single entity - the Greek ethnos. This "unifying" thought is highly promoted by the Greek government, widely practiced by the clergy, and supposedly, readily accepted by the masses.

    Based on Greek government's assertions that in Greece there are no ethnic minorities, one ought to ask the following question:

    Assuming that Greece is a homogeneous country, one populated by Greeks only, may we inquire as to how was this apparent "purity" achieved? Was this "purity" accomplished through the national policy of Hellenization? And lastly, was this process of Hellenization a voluntary one, or was it a painfully forceful one?

    Did Greeks ever ask the Macedonian population if they wanted to forgo their own traditions? To stop using their mother's tongue? Or to change their Macedonian church services with an alien Greek one? Did they ever consider if these Macedonians wanted to remain at their own cities and villages? Did they ask the poor Albanian mothers if they wanted their children to remain Albanian? Did they ask the Vlachs if they ever wanted to preserve their thousands of year old traditions and customs? Did they? Did they ask the Pontic Turks if they wanted to abandon their language and culture?

    Did they ask the mothers if they were happy with the Greek name the Greek priest assigned for their first born baby? Did he ever consider his practice of assigning Greek names to non-Greek citizens of Greece to be inhumane and that his national directives to make everyone in Greece fall within the prescribed norms of Greek-ness to be insulting to them? Do you think he ever cared for their feelings? Do you think it is proper for a school teacher of first graders to tell them that their language is not a good language and that it does not exist?



    The truth is that the process of Hellenization practiced in Aegean Macedonia, was a national Greek policy aimed at forcefully changing the Macedonian population into Greeks. It was a policy aimed at eradicating anything Macedonian. It was a policy based on racism then, and it is a policy based on racism today. Hellenism is racism, pure and simple.

    To what extent has Hellenism being carried out in Macedonia and what implications did it have on Macedonian political/religious awakening? Please read the following passage lifted from Ferdinand Scevill's book "History of the Balkans", pp. 303- 304.

    "....Another charge commonly flung at the clergy concerns the

    policy of Hellenization. The patriarch and the members of his

    immediate circles were Greeks, passionately Greek, and did not

    scruple to use their immense power to further the Greek national

    cause at the expense of their Slavic and Romanian fellow-rajahs.

    Not only were the prelacies reserved exclusively for Greeks, but

    systematic warfare was made upon all languages other than Greek

    in the hope of suppressing their use within the organization. Not

    content with gradually eliminating the Slav languages from the

    religious service, the Greek rulers persecuted Slav seminaries

    and libraries by closing the former and scattering and even ruthlessly

    applying the torch to the later."

    Until next time…
    1) Macedonians belong to the "older" Mediterranean substratum...
    2) Macedonians are not related with geographically close Greeks, who do not belong to the "older" Mediterranenan substratum...
  • Pelister
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 2742

    #2
    The lengths the New Greek clergy would go to - what were they burning?

    Looks like Macedonian Christian civilization, was systematically wiped out - erased, so to speak.

    Comment

    • Pelister
      Senior Member
      • Sep 2008
      • 2742

      #3
      One Greek historians let it slip.

      Kosmas's[1] general policy was to ask the Vlach speaking inhabitants of the Greek villages to speak only Greek amongst themselves. Conveyed to the people with the power of a religious conviction, this suggestion must have had a profound influence on those who were bilingual or who spoke exclusively a language other than Greek; and it is difficult today to estimate the impact it must have had. At all events, he (Kosmas) must have greatly exalted the status of the Greek language as the only medium through which Orthodox Christians should communicate with each other.
      [1] Kosmas was a former Greek speaking clergymen, who opened hundreds of Greek schools, in various regions of Greece, and in some parts of Macedonia in the 1760's and 1770's.

      The Greek clergy went to war to exerminate the Macedonian Christian civilization - we can see here that this author makes a point that Kosmas's intention was to make the Greek language the "only" language of Orthodox Christians. I am waiting for someone to corroborate the point that Macedonian was at this stage still the dominant language of Christianity in south east Europe.

      Comment

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