1.
Andreas Papandreou
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Andreas Georgios Papandreou was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. The son of Georgios Papandreou, Andreas was a Harvard-trained academic and he served two terms as prime minister of Greece. His assumption of power in 1981 influenced the course of Greek political history, in a poll conducted by Kathimerini in 2007, 48% of those polled called Papandreou the most important Greek Prime Minister. In the same poll, the first four years of Papandreous government after Metapolitefsi were voted as the best government Greece ever had, Papandreou was born on the island of Chios, Greece, the son of Zofia Mineyko and the leading Greek liberal politician George Papandreou. His maternal grandfather was Polish-born public figure Zygmunt Mineyko, and his grandmother was Greek. Before university, he attended Athens College a leading school in Greece. He attended the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens from 1937 until 1938 when, during the Fascist Metaxas dictatorship, following representations by his father, he was allowed to leave for the US. In 1943, Papandreou received a PhD degree in economics from Harvard University and he returned to Harvard in 1946 and served as a lecturer and associate professor until 1947. In 1948, he entered into a relationship with University of Minnesota journalism student Margaret Chant, born in 1924, daughter of Douglas Chant and wife Hulda Pfund. After Chant obtained a divorce, and after his own divorce from Christina Rasia, his first wife, Papandreou and they had three sons and a daughter. Papandreou also had, with Swedish actress and TV presenter Ragna Nyblom, an out of wedlock, Emilia Nyblom. Papandreou returned to Greece in 1959, where he headed an economic development research program, in 1960, he was appointed chairman of the board of directors, general director of the Athens Economic Research Center, and advisor to the Bank of Greece. In 1963, his father George Papandreou, head of the Center Union, Andreas became his chief economic advisor. He renounced his American citizenship and was elected to the Greek Parliament in the Greek legislative election,1964 and he immediately became Minister to the First Ministry of State. Papandreou took publicly a neutral stand on the Cold War and wished for Greece to be independent from the United States. He also criticized the presence of American military and intelligence in Greece. Constantine II of Greece refused to endorse this move and essentially forced George Papandreous resignation, Greece entered a period of political polarisation and instability which ended with the coup détat of 21 April 1967. When the Greek colonels led by Georgios Papadopoulos seized power in April 1967, gust Avrakotos, a high- ranking CIA officer in Greece who was close to the colonels who led the coup, advised them to shoot the motherfucker because hes going to come back to haunt you
2.
Classics
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Classics or Classical Studies is the study of classical antiquity. It encompasses the study of the Graeco-Roman world, particularly of its languages, and literature but also it encompasses the study of Graeco-Roman philosophy, history, and archaeology. Traditionally in the West, the study of the Greek and Roman classics was considered one of the cornerstones of the humanities and it has been traditionally a cornerstone of a typical elite education. The word Classics is derived from the Latin adjective classicus, meaning belonging to the highest class of citizens, the word was originally used to describe the members of the highest class in ancient Rome. By the 2nd century AD the word was used in literary criticism to describe writers of the highest quality, for example, Aulus Gellius, in his Attic Nights, contrasts classicus and proletarius writers. By the 6th century AD, the word had acquired a meaning, referring to pupils at a school. Thus the two meanings of the word, referring both to literature considered to be of the highest quality, and to the standard texts used as part of a curriculum. In the Middle Ages, classics and education were tightly intertwined, according to Jan Ziolkowski, while Latin was hugely influential, however, Greek was barely studied, and Greek literature survived almost solely in Latin translation. The works of even major Greek authors such as Hesiod, whose names continued to be known by educated Europeans, were unavailable in the Middle Ages. Along with the unavailability of Greek authors, there were differences between the classical canon known today and the works valued in the Middle Ages. Catullus, for instance, was almost entirely unknown in the medieval period, the Renaissance led to the increasing study of both ancient literature and ancient history, as well as a revival of classical styles of Latin. From the 14th century, first in Italy and then increasingly across Europe, Renaissance Humanism, Humanism saw a reform in education in Europe, introducing a wider range of Latin authors as well as bringing back the study of Greek language and literature to Western Europe. This reintroduction was initiated by Petrarch and Boccaccio who commissioned a Calabrian scholar to translate the Homeric poems, the late 17th and 18th centuries are the period in Western European literary history which is most associated with the classical tradition, as writers consciously adapted classical models. Classical models were so prized that the plays of William Shakespeare were rewritten along neoclassical lines. From the beginning of the 18th century, the study of Greek became increasingly important relative to that of Latin, in this period Johann Winckelmanns claims for the superiority of the Greek visual arts influenced a shift in aesthetic judgements, while in the literary sphere, G. E. Lessing returned Homer to the centre of artistic achievement, in the United Kingdom, the study of Greek in schools began in the late 18th century. The poet Walter Savage Landor claimed to have one of the first English schoolboys to write in Greek during his time at Rugby School. The 19th century saw the influence of the world, and the value of a classical education, decline, especially in the US
3.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
4.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
5.
Greek War of Independence
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The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution, was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1832 against the Ottoman Empire. Even several decades before the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, during this time, there were several revolt attempts by Greeks to gain independence from Ottoman control. In 1814, an organization called the Filiki Eteria was founded with the aim of liberating Greece. The Filiki Eteria planned to launch revolts in the Peloponnese, the Danubian Principalities, the first of these revolts began on 6 March 1821 in the Danubian Principalities, but it was soon put down by the Ottomans. The events in the north urged the Greeks in the Peloponnese into action and on 17 March 1821 and this declaration was the start of a spring of revolutionary actions from other controlled states against the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the month, the Peloponnese was in revolt against the Turks and by October 1821. The Peloponnesian revolt was followed by revolts in Crete, Macedonia, and Central Greece. Meanwhile, the makeshift Greek navy was achieving success against the Ottoman navy in the Aegean Sea, tensions soon developed among different Greek factions, leading to two consecutive civil wars. In the meantime, the Ottoman Sultan negotiated with Mehmet Ali of Egypt, although Ibrahim was defeated in Mani, he had succeeded in suppressing most of the revolt in the Peloponnese, and Athens had been retaken. Following years of negotiation, three Great Powers—Russia, Britain and France—decided to intervene in the conflict and each sent a navy to Greece. Following news that combined Ottoman–Egyptian fleets were going to attack the Greek island of Hydra, the battle began after a tense week-long standoff, ending in the destruction of the Ottoman–Egyptian fleet. As a result of years of negotiation, Greece was finally recognized as an independent nation in the Treaty of Constantinople of May 1832, the Revolution is celebrated by the modern Greek state as a national day on 25 March. The Fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453 and the subsequent fall of the states of the Byzantine Empire marked the end of Byzantine sovereignty. After that, the Ottoman Empire ruled the Balkans and Anatolia, Orthodox Christians were granted some political rights under Ottoman rule, but they were considered inferior subjects. The majority of Greeks were called Rayah by the Turks, a name referred to the large mass of non-Muslim subjects under the Ottoman ruling class. Demetrius Chalcondyles called on Venice and all of the Latins to aid the Greeks against the abominable, monstrous, however, Greece was to remain under Ottoman rule for several more centuries. The Greek Revolution was not an event, numerous failed attempts at regaining independence took place throughout the history of the Ottoman era. Throughout the 17th century there was resistance to the Ottomans in the Morea and elsewhere
6.
Church of Greece
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The Church of Greece, part of the wider Greek Orthodox Church, is one of the autocephalous churches which make up the communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. However, most of its dioceses are de facto administered as part of the Church of Greece for practical reasons, the primate of the Church of Greece is the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece. Mainstream Orthodox clergys salaries and pensions are paid for by the State at rates comparable to those of teachers, the Church had previously compensated the State by a tax of 35% on ordinary revenues of the Church, but Law 3220/2004 in 2004 abolished this tax. By virtue of its status as the religion, the canon law of the Church is recognized by the Greek government in matters pertaining to church administration. This is governed by the Constitution of the Church of Greece, Religious marriages and baptisms are legally equivalent to their civil counterparts and the relevant certificates are issued by officiating clergy. All Greek Orthodox students in primary and secondary schools in Greece attend religious instruction, liaisons between church and state are handled by the Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs. Supreme authority is vested in the synod of all the bishops who have metropolitan status under the de jure presidency of the Archbishop of Athens. This synod deals with general church questions, the Standing Synod is under the same presidency, and consists of the Primate and 12 bishops, each serving for one term on a rotating basis and deals with details of administration. They are called the New Lands as they part of the modern Greek state only after the Balkan Wars. A bishop elected to one of the Sees of the New Lands has to be confirmed by the Patriarch of Constantinople before assuming his duties and these dioceses are administered by the Church of Greece in stewardship and their bishops retain their right of appeal to the Patriarch. As in other Eastern Orthodox Churches, male graduates of seminaries run by the church, may be ordained as deacons and they are allowed to marry before their ordination as deacons, but not afterwards. The vast majority of clergy in Greece are married. Alternatively, they may enter monasteries and/or take monastic vows, monastics who are ordained as priests, and possess a university degree in theology, are eligible as candidates for the episcopate. Women may also take vows and become nuns, but they are not ordained. Monasteries are either affiliated to their diocese, or directly to one of the Orthodox Patriarchates. Those who refused to adopt this change are known as Old Calendarists and they themselves have suffered several schisms, and not all Old Calendarists comprise one Church. They refer to themselves as Genuine Orthodox Christians, and the largest group associating itself with the Old Calendarists is the Synod of Archbishop Chrysostomos II Kioussis. This Synod has obtained government recognition as a valid Orthodox Church, Greece was an early center of Christianity
7.
Greek Orthodox Church
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Historically, the term Greek Orthodox has also been used to describe all Eastern Orthodox Churches in general, since Greek in Greek Orthodox can refer to the heritage of the Byzantine Empire. Over time, most parts of the liturgy, traditions, and practices of the church of Constantinople were adopted by all, thus, the Eastern Church came to be called Greek Orthodox in the same way that the Western Church is called Roman Catholic. Orthodox Churches, unlike the Catholic Church, have no Bishopric head, such as a Pope, however, they are each governed by a committee of Bishops, called the Holy Synod, with one central Bishop holding the honorary title of first among equals. Greek Orthodox Churches are united in communion with other, as well as with the other Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Eastern Orthodox hold a doctrine and a common form of worship. The most commonly used Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church was written by Saint John Chrysostom, others, are attributed to St. Basil the Great, St. James, the Brother of God and St. The majority of Greek Orthodox Christians live within Greece and elsewhere in the southern Balkans, but also in Lebanon, Cyprus, Anatolia, European Turkey, and the South Caucasus. In addition, due to the large Greek diaspora, there are many Greek Orthodox Christians who live in North America, Orthodox Christians in Finland, who compose about 1% of the population, are also under the jurisdiction of a Greek Orthodox Church. Thus, they may attend services held in Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic, the Church conducts its liturgy in Koine Greek in the areas of Albania populated by the ethnic Greek minority, alongside the use of Albanian throughout the country. The Greek and Eastern Churches online Constantelos, Demetrios J. Understanding the Greek Orthodox church, its faith, history, the Orthodox Eastern Church Hussey, Joan Mervyn. The orthodox church in the Byzantine empire online Kephala, Euphrosyne, the Church of the Greek People Past and Present Latourette, Kenneth Scott. Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, II, The Nineteenth Century in Europe, The Protestant,2, 479-484, Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, IV, The Twentieth Century in Europe, The Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Churches McGuckin, John Anthony. The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, media related to Greek Orthodox Church at Wikimedia Commons
8.
Misthi, Cappadocia
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Misthi or Misti, was a Greek city in the region of Cappadocia, in what is now Turkey. «’Απ’ Μιστί ’μι, νά πάμ’ σ’ Μιστί» There exist multiple explanations as to the origins, a group of Greek soldiers was given the order to search for food and water. Some of them found an area and settled down. Allegedly, they built a city there that became Misthi and this version of the city’s creation, although interesting, has not yet become scientifically verified. Another version is that of Anastasiades who argues that the city was built by Greek mercenaries that were part of Alexander the Great’s army, kimisoglou also provides an explanation as to the etymology of the citys name. The ancient Greek word for mercenary is Μίσθιος and in plural Μίσθιοι, thus the name of the city he argues was a reflection of the inhabitants original occupation. However, this is also a non-verified explanation, as it happens, the connotation of the word ‘Misthii’, although originally meaning mercenary, transformed during Byzantine times to denote labour-work, i. e. paid labour. Thus some authors have been inclined to suggest that the name refers to the skilled church builders of the city who travelled far. The city was inhabited purely by Greeks practicing the orthodox religion, misthiotica is a unique dialect linguistically belonging to the Greek Cappadocian group of languages. Misthiotica was a consequence of the isolation the inhabitants suffered from that of other Greek cities and villages, misthiotica was, however, also spoken by inhabitants of the nearby villages of Tsaricli, Dila, Tseltek and Cavaclou because these villages were founded by Misthiotes. However, when Turkish authority officials entered the village and forced them to leave they had no choice and they went by foot to the seaport of Mersina and embarked on the dangerous journey by sea to the port of Piraeus, Athens, Greece. They left Turkey as Greeks and were received in Greece as Turks, the Mistiotes were among the last identified Greeks to leave Turkey, their exodus ended permanently a period of over 2500 consecutive years of Hellenic presence in Asia Minor. This name is in turn derived from Gordiana, the form of the Latin Gordianus. ³ The name Tomai applied by the Misthiotes on current Mandra seems most likely to be derived from the Serbian and Bulgarian form of the name Thomas, as with the original name on Xerochori, if true it may indicate the ethnicity of the villages previous inhabitants. The city of Misthi is today inhabited by about 4000 Turkish citizens originating from the exchange of 1924 between Greece and Turkey. The inhabitants are descendants of Turks born in Thessaloniki, Greece. Descendants of the current inhabitants of the city came to Misthi while the Misthiotes had not yet left the city, when the Greeks population left the city the name changed from Misthi to Misly. Today, the city is known as Konaklı and these meetings have since then been arranged at different locations in Greece where Misthiotes settled down
9.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
10.
University of Montpellier
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The University of Montpellier is a French public research university in Montpellier in south-east of France. Established in 1289 the University of Montpellier is one of the oldest of the world, the university is considerably older than its formal founding date, associated with a papal bill issued by Pope Nicholas IV in 1289, combining all the centuries-old schools into a university. The school of law was founded by Placentinus, from the school of law at Bologna, the faculty of law has had a long career. The faculty of law was reorganized in 1998 and it is the worlds oldest medical school still in operation. The school was famous for arguing in the century that the Black Death was caused by a miasma entering the opening of the bodys pores. Doctors educated at Montpellier advocated against bathing because they claimed bathing opened the bodys pores, in 1529, after some years as an apothecary, Nostradamus entered the University of Montpellier to study for a doctorate in medicine. He was expelled shortly afterwards when it was discovered that he had been an apothecary, the expulsion document still exists in the faculty library. Rabelais took his degree at Montpellier, and his portrait hangs among the gallery of professors. The Jardin des plantes de Montpellier, founded in 1593, is the oldest botanical garden in France and it was in this school that the biological theory of vitalism, elaborated by Barthez, had its origin. The French Revolution did not interrupt the existence of the faculty of medicine, the Benedictine monastery that had been converted into the bishops palace, was given to house the medical school in 1795. A gallery devoted to the portraits of professors since 1239 contains one of Rabelais, the school of theology had its origins in lectures in the convents, St. Anthony of Padua, Raymundus Lullus, and the Dominican Bernard de la Treille all lectured. Two letters of King John II prove that a faculty of theology existed at Montpellier independently of the convents, by a Bull of 17 December 1421, Pope Martin V granted canonical institution to this faculty and united it closely with the faculty of law. Like all other universities of France, that of Montpellier was suppressed at the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1793. The faculties of science and of letters were re-established in 1810, the university of Montpellier was officially re-organised in 1969, on the aftermath of May 1968 and the students revolt all over the country. It was split into its successor institutions the University of Montpellier 1, University of Montpellier 2, on 1 January 2015, the University of Montpellier 1 and the University of Montpellier 2 merged to form the newly recreated University of Montpellier. Meanwhile, the Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3, now only Paul Valéry, law University of Montpellier undergraduate law program is ranked 6th of France by Eduniversal, with 3 stars
11.
Greek diacritics
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Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The complex polytonic orthography notates Ancient Greek phonology, the simple monotonic orthography, introduced in 1982, corresponds to Modern Greek phonology, and requires only two diacritics. Polytonic orthography is the system for Ancient Greek and Medieval Greek. The acute accent, the accent, and the circumflex indicate different kinds of pitch accent. The rough breathing indicates the presence of the /h/ sound before a letter, monotonic orthography is the standard system for Modern Greek. A tonos and a diaeresis can be combined on a vowel to indicate a stressed vowel after a hiatus. Although it is not a diacritic, the hypodiastole has in a way the function of a sound-changing diacritic in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό. The original Greek alphabet did not have any diacritics, the Greek alphabet is attested since the 8th century BC. Until 403 BC, variations of the Greek alphabet—which exclusively used what is now known as capitals —were used in different cities, from 403 on, the Athenians decided to employ a version of the Ionian alphabet. With the spread of Koine Greek, a continuation of the Attic dialect, the Ionian alphabet, however, was also made up only of capitals. During the Hellenistic period, Aristophanes of Byzantium introduced the breathings—marks of aspiration and it was not until the 2nd century AD that the accents and breathings appeared sporadically in the papyri. The need for the diacritics arose from the divergence between spelling and pronunciation. The majuscule, i. e. a system where text is entirely in capital letters, was used until the 8th century. By the Byzantine period, the rule which turns an acute accent on the last syllable into a grave accent —except before a punctuation sign or an enclitic—had been firmly established. Certain authors have argued that the grave originally denoted the absence of accent, the rule is, in their view. Originally certain proclitic words lost their accent before another word and received the grave, others, drawing e. g. on evidence from Ancient Greek music, consider that the grave was linguistically real and expressed a word-final modification of the acute pitch. In the later development of the language, the ancient pitch accent was replaced by an intensity or stress accent, making the three types of accent identical, and the /h/ sound became silent. At the beginning of the 20th century, the grave was replaced by the acute, and the iota subscript and the breathings on the rho were abolished, except in printed texts
12.
Adamantios Korais
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Adamantios Korais or Koraïs was a Greek humanist scholar credited with laying the foundations of Modern Greek literature and a major figure in the Greek Enlightenment. His activities paved the way for the Greek War of Independence, encyclopædia Britannica asserts that his influence on the modern Greek language and culture has been compared to that of Dante on Italian and Martin Luther on German. Korais was born in Smyrna, in 1748 and he was exceptionally passionate about philosophy, literacy and linguistics and studied greatly throughout his youth. He initially studied in his place, where he graduated from the Evangelical Greek School. As an adult Korais traveled to Paris where he would continue his enthusiasm for knowledge and he translated ancient Greek authors and produced thirty volumes of those translations. Korais studied at the school of medicine of the University of Montpellier from 1782 to 1787 and his 1786 diploma thesis was entitled Pyretologiae Synopsis, while his 1787 doctoral thesis was entitled Medicus Hippocraticus. After 1788 he was to spend most of his life as an expatriate in Paris, while in Paris, he was witness to the French Revolution. He was influenced by the revolutionary and liberal sentiments of his age and he admired Thomas Jefferson, and exchanged political and philosophical thoughts with the American statesman. A typical man of the Enlightenment, Korais encouraged wealthy Greeks to open new libraries, Korais believed that education would ensure not only the achievement of independence but also the establishment of a proper constitution for the new liberated Greek state. He envisioned a democratic Greece, recapturing the glory of the Golden Age of Pericles, Korais died in Paris aged 84 soon after publishing the first volume of his autobiography. In 1877, his remains were sent to Greece, to be buried there, koraiss most lasting contributions were literary. Those who were instrumental in publishing, and presenting his work to the public were merchants from Chios and he felt eternally grateful to these merchants, since without them, it would have been financially impossible for him to publish his works. Earlier he had attacked with his Adelphiki Didaskalia the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem for urging the Sultans Christian subjects to him in the war against the atheistic French. In What should we Greeks do in the Present Circumstances, a work of 1805, he tried to win his compatriots over to Napoleon and away from the cause of their Russian co-religionists. In later years, though, his enthusiasm for the French Emperor diminished, over the following twenty years many others appeared, with lengthy prefaces by Korais entitled Impromptu Reflections, with his views on political, educational and linguistic matters. Korais was a Greek Orthodox but also a critic of many practices of the Orthodox church and he was a fierce critic of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, considering it as a useful tool in the hands of the Ottomans against the Greek independence. So, later, he was one of the supporters of the new established Church of Greece and he was also critic of the monasticism, the ignorance of the clergy, and practices like that of the Holy Fire. He was a supporter of freedom, empiricism, rationalism
