Chapitre 6: Greece
Territory of antique culture, archeologic proves and welcoming population, Greece is a marvelous country.
The country’s history allows us to acknolwedge and understand the Europe’s history since mythologie until now.
I – Histoire / History
There’s a lot of history BC so hang on !
– 7000BC to 4000BC/ paleolithique period: Presence of human communities living around agrigarian life, growing crops and herbing animals.
– 3000BC – 1100BC: Bronze Age where copper and tin are discovered, trades are started and will lead to an era of prosperity. Civilisations start to develop and will influence all the territory : Cycladic, Minoans and Mycenaean.
– 2000BC: Minoans civilisation rise in Crete with their archeological skills. Palaces are built (for example the Knossos), pottery-making starts and first scripts written.
– 1700 – 1550 BC: The cataclysmic volcanic eruption creates Santorini island but destroys the Minoan civilisation primarily because of a large tsunami.
– 1400 BC: The Mycenaens colonise Crete and create cities like Hania. They develop weapons manufacturing. Greek gods are worshiped compared to only one god.
– 1200 – 800 BC: The Dorian civilisation emerge to prominance for 400 years, post a period of non profitable trade, thanks to their new talent in ironwork, weaponry & architecture. They also design geometric patterns on pottery. They will colonise Crete in 1100BC and put in place a rudimentary society with classes and a political system.
– 800 BC: The very famous poete Homer will write the’Iliad’ and the ‘Odysseus’. The first greek fine art poems will inspire generations to come.
– 800 – 650 BC: The Archaic Age: independant states are created and ruled by Arictocrates if not tyrants after conflicts. The Greek adalphabet is created from Phoenician script.
– 700 – 500 BC: The Spartans, coming from the Pelopponese, play an important role in Greek history as they will domiate military and politicaly for 200 years.
– 594 BC: First steps of democracy arrive with Solon, a ruling Aristocrat. He creates human and political rights.
– 490 – 479 BC: The Persian war: Athens support the insurgengions within the Persian territory. Darius, chief of Persians is seeking revenge. He will send an army to Greece but is defeated at Marathon. His son Xeres will try again and will sack Athens from Leonidas. Eventually the Spartan leader Pausanias will lead an army to crush the Persians at the battle of Plataea.
– 477 – 421 BC: Athens want to protect its frontieres and create a political and military alliance called the Delian League. Many islands will join. Pericles, new athenian leader will shift the powers from Delos to Athens and create massive works such as the Parthenon. The Spartans don’t want to join the league and the Pelopponese will be embargoed from Athens commercial and political trades.
– 413 – 404 BC: The Spartans create a second war against Athens in Sicily which will destroy the 8 years truce. They will dominate Athens.
– 371- 362 BC: A civilisation coming from Thebes will defeat the Spartans and will dominate upon Greece for 9 years. They will be defeated by the Spartans and Athens who will create an alliance.
– 359 – 324 BC: Macedonian king Philippe II will sign an alliance with the Spartans and Athens against the Persians. His son Alexander, will go forward after his father’s death. In 9 years, Alexander the Great will defeat Thebes, Persians, Egyptians and people living in Central asia (until India). He died at the age of 39 but will always be one the finest strategic army leaders.
– 86 BC – 242 AD: The Roman Empire. They start with Macedonia and create the Pax Romana which will last 300 years. In 67 BC, romans dominate Crete and establish their capital at Gortyna. This empire will stop every internal war. Crete is united with Lybia in 27 BC which will create an ere of prosperity. Christianity will be developped in Greece after Saint Paul’s legacy. Romans will know the christianity persecution from 250 BC.
– 324 : Romans are frightened by the Goths coming from the germanic countries. They move the capital to Byzantium (which will become later Constantinople and later on Istanbul).
– 394 : Christianity is declared the official religion and worshipping Greeks, Roman or pagan gods is outlawed. Classical philosophy is taught by classical theologists.
– 395 : The Roman Empire is defeated by the Goths. Crete is ruled by Byzantium which becomes independant.
– 529 : Athens blows up after emperor Justinien outlaws Classical philosophy in favor of christian theology as the ultimate intellectuel endeavour. He builds Saint Sophie.
– 960 : Crete becomes greek again
– 1204 – 1209: Constantinople is saked by the crusaders. Geoffrey becomes prince of Morea (Pelopponese).
– 1453 – 1829 : The Ottoman empire will occupy Greece starting from Constantinople, marking the end of the byzantine empire. Turks and Venitians will fight the Morea people for hundreds of years. The Venetians will go as far as Athens in 1687. Help will come from Russia to dislocate the Turks around the black sea, with Catherine the Great. She will financialy help the cities there to recreate itself. In 1821, a march towards independance is created. After 7 years of wars and with the help of French, British and Russian against the Turkish- Egyptian fleet during the battle of Navarino in 1827, the Ottoman empire will capitulate.
– In 1863: The Entente put the Prince Otto of Bavaria to be the first monarch of Greece who will be deposed in a bloodless coup. British give back the Ionian Islands to Greece. They will help Danish Prince William known as King George Ist to rule the country.
– 1896 : First Olympic games created
– 1912: The Balkans war start. Greece is with Serbia and Bulgaria who side against The Turkish over Macedonia.
– 1929-1923: The Asia Minor catastrophe. Greece wants to unifie the Hellenic regions which fail and will lead to a transfer of population between Greece and Turkey.
– 1935: King George II comes back on the throne after 10 years of abscence, with a greek dictator as his prime minister.
– 1941-1944: Germany occupies Greece to prevent Italian forces crossing the country. Monarchists, republicans and communists create resistance groups that will resist Germany for 3 years.
– 1945-1949: After the WWII, internal conflicts will begin between communists and monarchists. This latter will win out, but a lot of Greek will emigrate.
– 1967-1974: Coup d’etat from the army generals who will create a junta. They impose martial law. They will only loose after the invasion of Cyprus by Turkish army.
Parliament democracy is established.
– 1981: Greece joins EU. A socialist government will be in power for 9 years increasing economy and stability.
– 1999: Greece and Turkey will join hands to pledge for help facing a dramatic earthquake.
– 2004: Greece hosts the 28th Olympic Games
– 2007: A devastating bush fire will ruin half of the pelopponese territory. It is Greece’s worst ecological disaster in decades.
– 2010-2011: Greece receives the most dramatic financial bailout in the history with the EU committing 110 billion euros. Austerity measures are implemented as a condition of the bailout. Civil protests, recession and riots follow in athens.
II- Greece nowadays
– Crisis
We have heard a lot about Greece in the past two years but not in a positive way. The crisis the country were facing, put in trouble all Europe. I am not going to go further on the economic issues but I will go further on the social aspect. We gave Greeks a reputation of lazy, reckless, free-spending and corrupt. Some of them are very true but while we point out the corruption, we don’t talk about the hard working families struggling to make ends meet. Because of the crisis and its consequences which are the rising incomes and living costs, many shops are closing. Greeks like their government, live beyond their means. They face an uncertain future.
– Social & Family
Greeks enjoy a rich communal life, eating out regularly (everyday at least drinking coffee on terraces). The vibrant street life is positively noticed by the traveler. Children take care of their elderly parents and grand-parents. They are very proud of the region where they come from. They are very welcoming people, free and honest talker, loving gossip and current affairs, open but also nationalistic and at the same time, they will have little sense of collective responsibility.
Education is also very important hence the high number of children going to after-school tutoring schools (governmental education being inadequate) in order to learn languages and university entrance subjects.
It is a matriarchal society where women run the business at work and at home. They do find their pride in their culinary skills.
With the rise of unemployment, the country is facing social problems such as homelessness and once-rare violent crime.
We call the « 700 euro generation », the middle-class youth generation. They are overeducated and face less jobs, lower pay and declining living standards. The unemployment rate in April 2011 was close to 40% for the 16 to 24-year olds and 22.3% for 25 to 34 year-olds. More and more young go abroad to study and increase the brain drain rate.
– A land of migrants and immigrants
More than 5 million people live abroad in 140 countries, including 3 million in the US and Canada. Melbourne in Australia is the third largest city of Greeks (300 000).
From the 90’s, Greece face an increasing number of immigrants. We can count one million migrants legal, illegal and indeterminate status from Albania, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. They mostly live in Athens. It also became the main illegal gateway to Europe with people coming over the Turkish border. The immigration system is highly criticised internationally. Many mixed marriages exist nowadays especially in the countryside where women moved massively in to towns.
The only ethnic minority recognised is the muslims which we can count 300 000 in western Thrase, coming mainly from Turkey after 1923.
– Faith
97% of the population belong to the Greek Orthodox Church.
Religion help to maintain a sense of unity and this, through many centuries of occupation. But it also can create exclusion as the church has a lot of influence in the social, political and economy system. A non-orthodox greek can have hard time to join the civil service or military. They do not have the same legal status.
III – Art and Architecture
Greece architecture:
One of the most important periods for architecture is the classical age between 5th and 4th centuries BC, which influenced many cultures for years to come.
It is characterized by its columns which can be classified in 3 different models: the doric, ionic and corynthian style. The most classical one is the doric that we can find on the parthenon followed by the ionic styles which are found on the nike goddess temple on the acropolis. The corynthian style is more complex and is found predominately in churches.
Other significant architecture movements include both the Byzantine movements (700 AD) and the Ottoman styles (16th to 19th centuries). The later has very few instance remaining in Greece but is prevalent in Turkey (I will cover more in the Turkey blog entry)
Greek cuisine is about seeking its ‘freshness’ in its sauces, including the basic but famous olive oil, to more complex examples including lemon lemon sauce, dill and parsley, cinnamon or yogurt.
Meat used to be reserved for special events but is nowadays very common. Grilled meat would be still the thing to eat during celebration and favoured when eating out. Its everywhere. We ate a lot of it.
Seafood is of course one of their main dishes. Fish comes from mediterranean sea or the aegean islands are extremely tasty. Fresh local fish has become more and more expensive since the high demand in the summer and overfishing.
The most famous greek painter is El Greco, a renaissance painter born in Crete. His style comes from the traditional late- byzantine fresco which has been heavily an influenced by ottoman styles. El Greco studied in Italy and in Spain, and lived in Toledo until his death in 1614. His main masterpieces are ‘Concert of Angels’, the ‘Burial of Christ’ and ‘St Peter’.
Sculptures:
Sculpture in Greece began as a way to represent gods and goddesses however by 5th evolved into an art form representing many different aspects of greek life. Basic young male sculptures called the Kouroi were eventually replaced by more complex forms involving complex shapes and details expressions. Sculptures were then used to show particular part of history or to sculpt some rich men.
In ancient greece, they worshiped 12 god or goddess. Every state or city has its own god to worship. The mains gods were:
– Zeus (Jupiter): Master of the sky. Emblems are: gold, eagle.
– Hera (Juno): Queen of the sky, protector of women and families. Wife of Zeus
– Hades (Pluto): God of death
– Athena (Minerva): Goddess of wisdom, war, science and Guardian of Athens.
– Aphrodite (Venus): Goddess of Love and beauty
– Apollo: God of music, arts and fortune-telling. God of life and expert with a bow and arrow. He found the weakness point of Achill, his heel.
– Ares (Mars) : God of War. Least favorite of Zeus.
– Hermes (Mercury): Messenger of the gods, patron saints for travelers. Son of Zeus.
– Hephaestus (Vulcan) : God of craftmanship, metallurgy and fire. Other son of Zeus.
– Hestia (Vesta) : Goddess of the hearthHere are the 5 most famous myths of the mythology:
– Herculus: After mistakenly killing his family, he is sent to achieve 12 labors of penitence by Hera.
– Theseus: Volunteered himself to be one of the 7 sacrifices to the Minotaur (half beast half human who resides in the labyrinth at the Knossos). Where previously no human has escaped alive from the Labyrinth, with the help of the process Ariadne, Theseus successfully kills the minotaur and escapes.
Philosophy started in Greece with Socrate in the early 4th century BC. Forced to drink poison by the ruling majority for not believing in the gods, his legacy and manuscripts are left to the the famous philosopher to Plato. Socrate proposed a way of thinking where by rationality and logic are important opposed to myths and is still studied today.
Tour Du Monde 