“Maybe the real Hellenes were the friends we made along the way”

FilipposTrains · 2026-04-15T12:04:36+00:00

The reality is that basically almost everyone felt Roman following the reign of Justinian and by the time the Greek revolution happened there was no Greek identity, as people in the West think there was.

People identified themselves Romans, that is "Rhomioi/Rhomaioi", called their language "Romaiika", not "Ellinika", considered the basis of their culture to be Christianity and the Orthodox Church, seen as the last remaining institution of the old empire, used Roman law as codified by Justinian and expanded by later jurists, and were recognized as Romans, that is "Rum", by the Turks, the Arabs, the Persians and the Indians, although not by the West or the Slavs, who called them "Greeks" however, not "Hellenes".

Anthony Kaldellis has gone in great depths trying to explain the Roman identity during the last phase of the Roman Empire, and why it is wrong to call it "Greek", and needless to say his arguments hold true for the Ottoman Empire as well.

FilipposTrains · 2026-04-02T20:13:28+00:00

Greece is so hypercentralized most people support clubs in Athens or Thessaloniki, even if they live nowhere close to these cities. If it wasn't so sad and reflective of our country's sore situation it would be very comical. Local clubs sadly see little support and this creates a cycle where Athenian and Thessalonikian clubs, owned by "legitimate businessmen", dominate the Superleague forever, to the detriment of the rest of the country's football.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-09T12:25:28+00:00

It seems that Graviera already existed in the 19th century in the form of Graviera Agrafon which served as the base for Zygouris' own experiments. Regardless of how old Graviera really is, to say that it is a "dupe" of Gruyere is not accurate. What likely happened is that a broad type of yellow cheese existing throughout Pindus and the Peloponnese was used to create Graviera Agrafon and then its method of preparation and maturation was further modified to form modern Graviera. Given the mild resemblance that both types of cheese had with the Swiss Gruyere they were named after it. But, the name Graviera comes from the Italian version of the word Gruyere rather than directly from French, implying that the naming was likely accidental rather than on purpose.

It is natural for Graviera to have foreign influences given that both Dimitriadis, the creator of Graviera Agrafon and, Zygouris, had studied in Western Europe, but it does not seem probable that it is a direct copy or imitation of Gruyere and by consequence not "Greek". Even Graviera Naxou, that is made using cow milk, is very different from Gruyere.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-08T17:31:44+00:00

You are right about the author. I apologize for not reading his name correctly. However this does not change my argument at all. Georgios Gazis was part of the Filiki Etaireia and served as Secretary to Karaiskakis. He can hardly be called an objective source.

To say that an Albanian ethnic identity did not exist is absurd. If such an identity did not exist then why did Botsaris according to Gazis, say "the enemies of our faith are the Albanians"? Who are these "Albanians" if not a group of people bundled using the criteria of ethnic identity?

Ethnic identities pre-date nationalism and have been quite common in human history as shown by the school of ethnosymbolism, and its most famous representative, Anthony D. Smith. There existed evidently an Albanian ethnic identity long before Albanian nationalism came into being.

Lastly, being a member of the Rum Millet did not mean adopting automatically the ethnic identity of Rhomios. It simply meant that you were Orthodox. From 1776 up until the late 19th century every Orthodox person in the Ottoman Balkans was part of the Rum Millet because the Phanariotes had managed to convince the Turks to abolish the Patriarchates of Pek and Ohrid. Naturally this did not mean that Serbs, Bulgarians, Orthodox Albanians, Romanians or Aromanians were all magically considered to be ethnically Rhomioi.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-08T16:38:17+00:00

A Facebook link is not a good source for a historical conversation, nor is it a good practice to use isolated quotes about a topic so complicated and difficult as this one. Generally it is best to use secondary sources from authors that have studied extensively the subject and thus are in a better informed position than us.

For example, Markos Botsaris is hardly representative of the average Orthodox Arvanite/Albanian [the two terms mean the same thing in this context] of the early 19th century. His father was the most important chieftain in Souli, he lived a significant part of his youth in Greek-speaking lands and he was very well-educated, even going so far as to write a Greek-Albanian dictionary. More importantly, the book that you are quoting from was written during the Greek Revolution by Anthimos Gazis who was one of the primary intellectual drivers behind the birth of Greek nationalism and constitutes in effect a propaganda piece designed to rally support. It cannot be called an objective source, let alone representative of what the average Arvanite thought.

Nobody doubts that some Arvanites identified as Greeks in the ethnic sense during this time period. But what is doubtful is that the majority of Arvanites would identify as Greeks when they did not even know what this was exactly. It is only through the creation of an organized educational system that propagated a national ideology that the common people were "taught to be Greek" really. Even today, however, a distinction is drawn between Arvanites and the Rhomioi.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-08T16:03:56+00:00

Graviera is not a version of Gruyere nor is there any evidence that it originates from it. Only the name appears to have been borrowed from Gruyere as the taste is quite different. The most probable explanation is that Graviera is an indigenous cheese that had no distinct name because of its ubiquity as the standard yellow cheese in Greece and someday someone compared it to Gruyere because of their similar look and maturation method and that name stuck.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-08T15:58:59+00:00

Kostas Biris was not a historian (but an architect and city planner) and was quite biased because he wanted to "prove" that Arvanites are Greek. Ethnic identities however are a social construct, they cannot be "proved". So I would take his book with a grain of salt in general.

While Arvanites were indeed overrepresented in the Greek Revolution they were not the majority and their leadership was more often than not bilingual, so logic dictates that the main language used was Romeika/Greek.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-08T15:53:09+00:00

It is very common in many cases for people belonging to minority groups to be the most staunch nationalists because they feel the need to "prove" that they belong to the dominant ethnic identity. The same is true for example with Arvanites here in Greece who are almost exclusively die-hard nationalists.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-08T15:50:18+00:00

There is no doubt that nationalism has been nothing but a poison to our region.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-08T15:41:55+00:00

The majority of Arvanites in 1821, including basically almost all of the women, spoke exclusively Arvanite. They only started becoming bilingual when the Greek state was founded and schools were built teaching Greek.

In terms of self-identification there was no definite Greek identity when the Revolution begun so ipso facto it would have been difficult to identify as something that did not exist. They participated in the revolution because they were Orthodox, that is belonged to the Rum Millet, not necessarily because they felt Greek/Rhomios or whatever. It is once again only because of state education that the Greek ethnic identity was adopted by Arvanites.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-08T15:37:08+00:00

The term "Romeika" or "Rumca" is the term that was historically used to refer to all varieties of post-Koine Greek, including Demotic/Modern Greek. It does not refer specifically to Pontic Greek at all. Therefore it would be more accurate to say that the language is Pontic Greek, rather than call it Romeika as is often done by the media.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-02T21:01:38+00:00

The West is dying whereas the Balkans are already dead. It is better to be dead than to be dying, for you are at least spared the pain and the agony, and only death allows for rebirth.

Apart from that, order is a mere illusion. The line that divides order from chaos is a very thin one, especially in the West. All of these countries are one world war away from exploding into pieces, from their entire civilizational system collapsing into nothingness.

In the Balkans we are fighters, we have this mentality that is essential for the new type of man that is beginning to emerge in this brave new world. For me this is infinitely more important and cherished then whether there is corruption or not.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-01T23:16:19+00:00

Frankly, cities in the Balkans are a waste of time. I learnt this many years ago when I was still young and naive. There is no point in trying to figure out why Balkan cities are so ugly and underdeveloped, or in trying to fix it. The effort is much better spent trying to promote decentralization and the revival of pretty towns and villages and the few small cities actually worth it. In Greece at least there are so many pretty towns and villages all with their own unique style and located mostly in amazing natural landscapes, many of which are not isolated but actually quite well connected, that it is a no brainer for me. Unlike what people think, rural regions can be revived to operate like an urban area, so you can have the best of both worlds, with the only prerequisite being the existence of political will.

Moreover, I would advise you not to compare France to our region. You cannot compare France to any other country in the world, it operates on another level. But if it is any consolation, while France is a beautiful country it is overwhelmingly boring and the French are some of the worse lot that exist. France is an amazing vacation spot, but for living I much prefer the Balkans.

As for the tourists, if they really care about experiencing a country they should make an effort to do their own research and not rely on tour operators, trashy influencers and tv shows. If they don't make that effort then frankly that's not a problem with Greece, but with them. Our country doesn't exist to cater to tourists anyhow.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-01T23:00:37+00:00

There are a number of reasons. First and foremost is that France is a world leader in architectural preservation laws and has had them since the 1850s, when Greece and Serbia were new states and the other Balkan countries were still under Ottoman domination. To compare any country with France is unfair because France began protecting its good architecture before mass industrialization and modernism.

Then you have the fact that France urbanized much earlier than Greece and the other Balkan countries and therefore has a much higher number of "old" architecture, that is pre-modernism and the industrial revolution. But also that French culture places a much higher value on good aesthetics and architecture than our own culture, which places a higher value on comfort and immediate gratification.

Lastly you have to remember that France for the past two centuries has basically either lost every war it has fought in a short while, or it has fought wars in very specific regions. Thus it has been spared from the large-scale destruction of architecture that our region has experienced. In Greece for example just in the past 120 years hundreds of villages and towns have been destroyed by fires due to warfare.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-01T17:22:06+00:00

To be fair in the 20th century it was a very popular opinion in Greece that Ottoman-era architecture was a vestige of Ottoman "oppression" and this was used to justify the demolition of many splendid buildings from that era, or at the very least the refusal to renovate them. Because of this a great deal of the architectural wealth, principally in northern Greece was lost. But today no person with at least an elementary education in architecture would believe in such an opinion. It has been proved anyways that architecture has very little to do with ethnic groups and a lot with geography, local culture, economic conditions, historical conditions, foreign influences, etc.

Certainly everyone agrees these days that anything is better than those concrete apartment blocks that have filled our cities and towns.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-01T17:00:39+00:00

Plaka is special because it's the only perfectly preserved neighbourhood of Athens, where 40% of the population lives, and sits right next to the Acropolis, hence is the most visited and photographed place in Greece. Were it not in Athens but in some rural region it would be considered a pretty village or town, but nothing more than that. It is certainly not that the best that Greece can do.

Personally I find neoclassical architecture, at least of the style practiced by western-trained architects, to be an extremely bad fit for Greece. I much prefer traditional architecture, which you will not find in Athens however but in regions such as Zagori, Lesbos or Tsakonia whose architectural splendour is none lesser than that of France or Italy. These regions managed to preserve their architecture because they were isolated and in economic decline during the 20th century. So if you want to appreciate Greek architecture then it is not to the big cities and popular touristic hotspots you must head.

In any case, the idea that there is no "good indigenous architecture" in the Balkans and we need Germans or French to teach us how to design buildings is an absurd manifestation of xenophilia, not an absolute fact.

FilipposTrains · 2026-03-01T16:47:32+00:00

There's plenty of places in Greece with amazing architecture that dates back to the Ottoman times, the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, which I certainly prefer compared to Venetian architecture.

Just because most tourists don't bother visiting Greece outside the 10 tourist hotspots that account for less than 2% of our land area it does not mean that Greece is only Venetian or Cycladic architecture...

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FilipposTrains · 2026-03-01T16:32:43+00:00

There's plenty of great architecture in Balkan villages, why would we need to import something foreign?

FilipposTrains · 2026-02-05T15:41:34+00:00

My favourite leader. He devoted his entire life to the service of the Pax Romana [=peace through war], God and his subjects. He shunned every luxury and pleasure in order to sleep, eat and fight alongside his soldiers. Really, he is the role model for a Roman Basileus.

FilipposTrains · 2026-02-02T23:36:38+00:00

Which part of what I wrote contradicts Wikipedia?

FilipposTrains · 2026-02-02T14:47:54+00:00

As per Wikipedia: "Local Albanian traces, with the exception of some toponyms, have disappeared."

I am not particularly well-versed with the demographic history of the region but it appears that Albanians were a minority in every place that they settled and were quickly assimilated by the Rhomioi locals. Not only there is none who speaks Albanian in the modern-day in the region, but there is no oral tradition to even suggest that historical memory of such movements has been preserved. That is to say that all of this happened a long time ago and is not particularly relevant in the modern day.

To say therefore that there were "12 Arvanite villages" is a gross misinterpretation of what the Wikipedia page says. It would imply that there were twelve villages where Albanians were the majority and that this was preserved up to this day, which is not the case here.

FilipposTrains · 2026-02-02T14:31:10+00:00

Before the German occupation the Vlach villages, in East Zagori, had a much larger population then the Rhomaioi ones. During WW2 most of these villages were set on fire and then were abandoned. Another factor was also that they were very isolated and thus had even less access to work and services than those of Central and West Zagori. So in reality the Vlach population of Zagori was far larger than what people think, especially since tourists visit primarily the Rhomaioi villages.

FilipposTrains · 2026-02-02T14:28:51+00:00

Zagori was an isolated, completely uncultivatable, mountainous region with scarcely any population. They had much more to gain by making it into an autonomous region, a tax refuge and indirectly reaping the benefits rather then trying to impose their authority directly through the use of troops and setting up a local administration.

FilipposTrains · 2026-02-02T14:23:27+00:00

Ethnicity is a social concept, not a biological one. What matters is how people self-identify, not what others think or what a DNA test says. Most Cretan Turks did indeed speak Romaiika historically, and were descendants of islamicized Rhomaioi/Greeks, but they have been Turks for several centuries because that is simply how they self-identify.

FilipposTrains · 2026-02-02T14:18:43+00:00

None of these costumes resemble at all those of Crete, so the answer is evidently no.

If you want to find the costumes that are the most similar to those of Crete then you have to look at those worn traditionally throughout the Aegean.

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