Modern Greeks are descended mostly/entirely from Slavs

[ZhugeKongming]

Is this true? I hear this claim bandied about a lot, especially on these forums.

As far as I can tell, the idea originated with a 19th-century work by Jakob Fallmerayer, in which he lays out the evidence presumably on demographic and physiological grounds. Google seems to suggest that a) Fallmerayer is not taken seriously by modern scholars, and b) genetic research indicates evidence of some Slavic descent, but nothing like the complete annihilation of "the race of Hellenes" that Fallmerayer suggests.

 

[Thistletooth]

When does he claim this great Slavic migration occured?

 

[Sarmatia1871]

Someone like Fallmerayer is best looked upon as illustrative of certain aspects of 19th century Western European culture, in which strenuous attempts were made to claim that the contemporary Greeks were either degenerate or unrelated to the ancient Hellenes, thereby allowing the educated in other countries (particularly Britain and Germany) to claim that they were in fact "more Greek than the Greeks," and the true inheritors of Classical civilization.

 

[unmerged(59077)]

And "descending from the Slavs" is also a calculated insult since the Slavs are quite incapable of greatness, having by some fluke of history crawled out of the Pripet to overrun the post-Roman German kingdoms.

This is just 19th century historiography at its most entertaining, nothing more significant.

 

[ZhugeKongming]

Someone like Fallmerayer is best looked upon as illustrative of certain aspects of 19th century Western European culture, in which strenuous attempts were made to claim that the contemporary Greeks were either degenerate or unrelated to the ancient Hellenes, thereby allowing the educated in other countries (particularly Britain and Germany) to claim that they were in fact "more Greek than the Greeks," and the true inheritors of Classical civilization.

Maybe I should clarify that I'm not really interested in the truth of Fallmerayer per se, whose purpose was pretty much exactly as you wrote. I was just wondering if there was any modern (possibly genetic) evidence corroborating this view, or if I can start shooting it down as a myth.

When does he claim this great Slavic migration occured?

I haven't read his work or anything, but probably sometime during all the migrations of the Early Middle Ages.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Is this true? I hear this claim bandied about a lot, especially on these forums.

As far as I can tell, the idea originated with a 19th-century work by Jakob Fallmerayer, in which he lays out the evidence presumably on demographic and physiological grounds. Google seems to suggest that a) Fallmerayer is not taken seriously by modern scholars, and b) genetic research indicates evidence of some Slavic descent, but nothing like the complete annihilation of "the race of Hellenes" that Fallmerayer suggests.

His opinion is a bit extreme, but in the 7th and 8th century most of Greece was indeed overrun by Slavic tribes. Only in some cities, like Thessaloniki and Corinth did the Greeks prevail. After the Byzantines reconquered Greece, the Emperors started a massive relocation program, the Slavic people were move to Asia Minor and Greeks from Asia Minor were relocated to Greece.

The following evidence for a Slavic domination of Greece exists.

1. Toponyms
Slavic place-names are found throughout Greece, a German linguist listed 429 for the Peloponnessus alone. Some maybe open to debate but mane Slavic place-names exist.

2. Coins
Byzantine coins are common in the Peloponnessus in to the 7th century, become rare in the middle of that century and then reappear again in the 9th century

3. Written sources
There are several primary sources that contain evidence for this Slavic population of Greece.
- Isidore of Sevile states that in the 5th year of Heraclius (i.e. 615), the Slavs took Greece from the Romans
- Willibald, a pilgrim to Jerusalem states that Monemvasia (in the southern tip of the Peloponnessus) was a Slavic territory
- The abbreviator of Strabo states that the Slavs occupy all Epirus, most of Hellas, the Peloponnessus and Macedonia
- The Chronicle of Monemvasia dates the Slavic settlement of the Peloponnessus from 587
- The patriarch Nicholas III of Constantinople, writing in the late 11th century. states that for 218 (from 589 to 807) years there were no Byzantine officials in the Peloponnessus
- Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in the Thematibus writes
'And the whole country (the the Peloponnessus) was Slavonized and became barbarous when the deadly plague ravaged the universe and when Constantine [V] the one named after dung held the sceptre of the Romans'

The plague during Constantine V reign occured around 744 - 747

Since the occupation by the Slavic people laste several centuries it is evident (and later in the Middle Ages, Albanians also settled heavily in Greece) that there the likelyhood of 'pure' Greek people stil existing today is very unlikely. The population of Greece is just such an ethnic mixture as that of the other Balkan countries.

And "descending from the Slavs" is also a calculated insult since the Slavs are quite incapable of greatness, having by some fluke of history crawled out of the Pripet to overrun the post-Roman German kingdoms.

I do hope that you are being sarcastic about this, if not that I would strongly advise you to stop making such posts

 

[unmerged(59077)]

Since the occupation by the Slavic people laste several centuries it is evident (and later in the Middle Ages, Albanians also settled heavily in Greece) that there the likelyhood of 'pure' Greek people stil existing today is very unlikely. The population of Greece is just such an ethnic mixture as that of the other Balkan countries.

Much more likely it's largely been that way for a longish time. Genetics and language (especially a literary prestige language like Greek) are not indicative of each other's presense or absense. The "original" Hellenes were probably hopelessly mixed with surrounding populations even before the Romans conquered them and though the Slavic invasion moved one population into another's territory it probably didn't shake up the genetics all that much, just briefly subsittuted one dominant language for another.

I do hope that you are being sarcastic about this, if not that I would stronly advise you to stop making such posts

Now that one I didn't expect. Of course I'm being sarcastic, expecially since that'd be my hypothetical ancestors that crawled out of the Pripet.

Granted, German 19th century historiography is by no means alone in the sheer amusement potential, but we ARE talking about that here, aren't we?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Now that one I didn't expect. Of course I'm being sarcastic, expecially since that'd be my hypothetical ancestors that crawled out of the Pripet.

Granted, German 19th century historiography is by no means alone in the sheer amusement potential, but we ARE talking about that here, aren't we?

Well sorry that I didn't get that 'joke' and I really can't check everybodies ethnical background My apologies.

This discussions can be very sensitive, so I better not take any chances.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

My history atlas also shows slavic migrations taking place across the entire Balkans peninsula, including modern day Greece. It says that many Byzantines fled onto the islands of the Aegeis. But it doesn't say anything about whether there was a wholesale replacement of the Greek speaking population...

How much is known about the social and economic structures in 7th/8th century Greece? Are there any sources at all?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

My history atlas also shows slavic migrations taking place across the entire Balkans peninsula, including modern day Greece. It says that many Byzantines fled onto the islands of the Aegeis. But it doesn't say anything about whether there was a wholesale replacement of the Greek speaking population...

How much is known about the social and economic structures in 7th/8th century Greece? Are there any sources at all?

I listed a couple of primary sources in my post

 

[Kaiser Franz]

lol...i hate slavs nationalists who say Alexander the Great was a Slav and not a Greek......bah.....silly so and so's! o

 

[Dysken]

I heard by word of mouth that a percentage of the classical greeks had blonde hair. It sounds hard to believe but, is there any historical truth in this or is it just a myth perpetuated by stupid Scandinavians?

 

[Divi]

lol...i hate slavs nationalists who say Alexander the Great was a Slav and not a Greek......bah.....silly so and so's! o

Potentially, there's a chance he wasn't greek either, tough luck for modern nationalists on both sides, I guess (and no, he wasn't Albanian or Armenian either) - Macedonian is at best doric-ish, and was possibly not even hellenic at all (although in that case, part of the same ancient Balkans/Aegean sprachbund). He himself claimed a greek pedigree, though.

 

[unmerged(9310)]

Potentially, there's a chance he wasn't greek either, tough luck for modern nationalists on both sides, I guess (and no, he wasn't Albanian or Armenian either) - Macedonian is at best doric-ish, and was possibly not even hellenic at all (although in that case, part of the same ancient Balkans/Aegean sprachbund). He himself claimed a greek pedigree, though.

And on the other side of that argument is the extremenist Greek argument, that Dorians and Ionians were not even different people at all, and that the Greek DNA has been the same for 2,500 years.

I believe the Greeks did not consider the Macedonians fully Greek - but when the Persians came sure as hell they considered them part of Greece before A lot of this anti macedonian sentiment was probably due to political jealously after the Pelleponesian Wars methinks.

 

[Plushie]

It all depends on what you mean. Ethnically? As in, from a genetic point of view? Yes, modern Greeks are largely the same as classical Greeks. I know wiki is generally a pretty bad source on these sort of things, but the 'Greeks' article, specifically the 'Modern and Ancient Greeks' bit, is very well sourced and supports the position that Greeks of both time periods are largely of the same ethnic lines.

Honestly, France is mostly ethnically Gallic, Italy still has large Etruscan ethnic populations, etc etc. 'Invasions' are rarely so in that they they rarely actively eliminate entire ethnic groups and supplant them with another. What actually usually happens is a period of political and linguistic dominance. Sometimes this is permanent (Egypt, North Africa, Finland), sometimes the original language re-asserts itself (Greece itself, Spain after the Visigoths, etc), sometimes you have a fascinating synthesis (France, post-Norman England, post-Muslim Spain), but mostly the actual genetic pool of the area experiences little more than an infusion of new genes. After the establishment of civilization in an area, it actually becomes really hard for even a politically dominant ethnicity to assert itself successfully over an extant sub-polity.

That's, to mention, why modern genocide is so disgusting. No matter how many people tell you about how common genocide was in the past, it actually wasn't. Yeah, the Romans would kill all the men of a city and sell the women and children into slavery; yeah, Assyrians would kill a whole lot of people at random to spread fear; but ultimately concerted efforts by a government or state-like organization to completely eliminate another ethnicity are surprisingly rare in history.

I guess the point I need to make is that the Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire which 'Teutonized' Romania generally involved tribal groups numbering in the low thousands, rarely above a dozen or two thousand, invading an area populated by tens or hundred of thousands, or even millions of people. Slavic tribal invasions into the Eastern Roman Empire tended to involve similar numbers. The 'hinterlands' the Slavs eventually came to dominate in the Balkan peninsula remained, before and after, the invasions as low-population intensity areas.

Linguistically? There have been changes, of course, but they're largely similar in the sense that there are clear lines of descent within the Greek language sub-family.

Arguments like Fallmerayer's are examples of the 19th century's extreme obsession with race and racial characteristics. They believed that, had the 'modern' Hellenes of their time not been direct descendants of the ancient ones, they could not achieve the same level of civilization. It's all really nonsense with no place in the modern mindset.

 

[unmerged(8399)]

It all depends on what you mean. Ethnically? As in, from a genetic point of view? Yes, modern Greeks are largely the same as classical Greeks. I know wiki is generally a pretty bad source on these sort of things, but the 'Greeks' article, specifically the 'Modern and Ancient Greeks' bit, is very well sourced and supports the position that Greeks of both time periods are largely of the same ethnic lines.

I have to disagree, the sources cited in the Wiki article are outdated, analysis from the 90s still using Mitochondrial DNA.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Honestly, France is mostly ethnically Gallic, Italy still has large Etruscan ethnic populations, etc etc. 'Invasions' are rarely so in that they they rarely actively eliminate entire ethnic groups and supplant them with another. What actually usually happens is a period of political and linguistic dominance. Sometimes this is permanent (Egypt, North Africa, Finland), sometimes the original language re-asserts itself (Greece itself, Spain after the Visigoths, etc), sometimes you have a fascinating synthesis (France, post-Norman England, post-Muslim Spain), but mostly the actual genetic pool of the area experiences little more than an infusion of new genes. After the establishment of civilization in an area, it actually becomes really hard for even a politically dominant ethnicity to assert itself successfully over an extant sub-polity.

That's, to mention, why modern genocide is so disgusting. No matter how many people tell you about how common genocide was in the past, it actually wasn't. Yeah, the Romans would kill all the men of a city and sell the women and children into slavery; yeah, Assyrians would kill a whole lot of people at random to spread fear; but ultimately concerted efforts by a government or state-like organization to completely eliminate another ethnicity are surprisingly rare in history.

Concerted efforts rare? Maybe, but north America and large parts of south America didn't become a "white" continent through folk dances and cultural assimilation, it did so through direct and indirect genocide.

When similar civilizations clashed, it might have been common that the defeated people would submit to the new rulers and adopt their culture, but there were enough cases in history where vastly different cultures clashed (hunter-gatherers vs sedentary peoples, most of the time) and one of them would be wiped out. The pygmies in Africa were decimated long before Africa made it into white people's history books, the Volga Khazars were wiped out by turkic and mongol invaders, and I doubt the demise of the Neanderthal man at the hands of the Homo Sapiens was a peaceful phenomenon...

Not all places kept their inhabitants when they changed owners.

 

[Kaiser Franz]

Potentially, there's a chance he wasn't greek either, tough luck for modern nationalists on both sides, I guess (and no, he wasn't Albanian or Armenian either) - Macedonian is at best doric-ish, and was possibly not even hellenic at all (although in that case, part of the same ancient Balkans/Aegean sprachbund). He himself claimed a greek pedigree, though.

oh i wouldnt mind that at all, just not silly nationalists on all sides claiming him when he wasnt even a Slav at all....i geuss the same could be said for ol' Pyrrhus of Epirus

 

[unmerged(45482)]

Is this true? I hear this claim bandied about a lot, especially on these forums.

If the Greeks are descened from Slavs, then the original Slavic population must have mutated or something, 'cause lots of them have blond hair, whereas the Greeks are overwhelmingly brunettes.

Irony aside, it should be obvious the Greeks are not descendents of Belarussians.

 

[motiv-8]

If the Greeks are descened from Slavs, then the original Slavic population must have mutated or something, 'cause lots of them have blond hair, whereas the Greeks are overwhelmingly brunettes.

Irony aside, it should be obvious the Greeks are not descendents of Belarussians.

Makes sense considering 'Belarussians' didn't exist until after the Migration Period.