Why does everybody care so much about Alexander's nationality?

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2004

Answers

Good subject but no one is being nationalist here so far.We are trying to discuss some updates of the history.In Albania there is not written in historic books "Alexander (or the macedonians) was/ere of Illyrian heritage but adopted Greek culture because it fit better to them or whatever".But at least in greek Historic books that's written about Albanian Christian Heroes like Gjergj Kastriot Skenderbeu or like you adopted the name in greek language Jorgos Castriotis Scanderbegus that he was greek because he fought about CHRISTIANITY.The religion of Christianity is not Greek.Why are you so obssesed with it??In your books it's not written about the massacres of Epirus region during the whole 50 years of XX century and made the murderer of children and women a "HERO"WHY?

Why it is not written in your historic books that you were liberated by the help of the Albanians who fought for your indipendence.Why it is not written of the Albanian Heroes who fought about greek indipendece like Marko Bocari.Was he greek also?Or was also the first Premier of indipendent Greece?

All of them are considered Greeks but were not. No one is killing greek fans during a simple football match.The greeks do it.There is no racist police in the world except greeks.There is no Goverment in the World to not consider the archeological dicoveries(old writtings) as the best sources of history.The greek Goverment does because it reveals great secrets of history and is not good for the greeks.

In Albania no one hates greeks because of culture or ancient civilization.YOU ARE HATED BECAUSE OF YOUR ARROGANCE toward all the nations in the balkans macedonians included YOU ARE THE SICK NATIONALISTS AND ARROGANTS IN THIS REGION. WHO ARE AFRAID TO FACE OR DEAL WITH THE TRUTH.

I never said Alexander belongs to Albanian Culture,Heroism and whatever but I am saying that "He had Illyrian blood(and we are discussing how much) but belongs to Greek Culture.The same for Constandine the Great,Justinianin I or Diocletian who were from the Illyrian province belong to Roman Culture and History even of their different nationality with the Italic people

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2005

well said - Greeks are proud of having Alexander much more than a symbol 4 us- and may I quote,Alexander is a Greek name such as Filipos too,his grandfather Alexander the first particiated in the Olympic games while at first he was denied this honor as being valgur and Barbarian,but he proved successfully of being of Greek origin.In general,genetically we all are brothers,coming form the same initial Hindu_European Caucasian tribe that spread all over Europe thousands of years ago,so this fuss is all in vain i guess,if we believe so:I am afraid that behind all this scenery lies a hidden will of all our neighbours who claim Alexander as theirs,to descend down to Greek Macedonia and Epirus,reducing Greece to Larissa and Preveza!

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2005

Everyone wants Alexander the greatest conquerer of all time to be theirs to be proud of.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2004

Well said steffan

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2004

Alexander, or whatever you care to call him, lived in a part of the world where many different peoples have lived. We don’t know who the first inhabitants were. However, we do know that the first inhabitants of South-Eastern Europe were not Indo-European. That is, they spoke a language different to ALL of the languages now spoken in South-Eastern Europe. The only bits of their language we have left are in certain place names in South-Eastern Europe, which aren’t Indo- European.

(Modern Indo-European languages include most major European languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Albanian, Greek, all the Slavic languages like Russian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian, and some other languages too like early Persian, Armenian, and Sanskrit.)

The Indo-Europeans came from the East, like Armenia or Mesopotamia or perhaps even the Caucasus – it’s still debated. They came in bits, and obviously there were a few different sorts. In South-Eastern Europe, there were people who spoke Greek, and people who spoke Illyrian (the forerunner of modern Albanian), and Thracian, and probably other languages which we don’t know about. When they arrived, the Indo-Europeans formed only a small minority of the population. However, they had certain superior technologies, like say chariots or something like that, and so became the natural leaders in the areas where they settled. In Ancient Greek, the name for the indigenous people living in Greece was ‘Elotes’ or Helots. They also referred to the land of Greece as ‘Pelasgia’ and hence, sometimes referred to the people as ‘Pelasgians’. I don’t know what the Illyrian name for their indigenous population was, nor the Thracian name. The Indo-Europeans did not kill off the indigenous inhabitants. They lived side by side, and eventually formed homogenous populations – i.e. intermarried.

The dates of the Indo-European arrivals are debatable. However, the brackets of possibility for the arrival of the Greeks are between the end of the third millennium, and first half of the second millennium BC, i.e. 2000-1500 BC. Therefore, Greek speakers had settled in Greece by 1500 BC.

People in those days identified with those with whom they could communicate, not just purely in terms of language, but also religion. Everybody knows that the ancient religions (i.e. before Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) were all related. Everyone had a Zeus, or a Det, or Jupiter, and everyone had a Neptune or a Poseidon, and so on. All the Southern Europeans had these gods. That’s probably about as much as what culture consisted of in those ancient times.

However, as language started to be written down, different peoples of the area started further developing their culture. As any egotistical Greek will tell you ;-) the earliest recorded examples of European literature are the works of Homer. Homer was a bard, i.e. he came from a long tradition of people who sang the stories of their people, which is the type of history most pre-literate civilizations have. However, Homer was unique, in that he wrote down the version which he sang. It’s arguable how historically accurate his works are, but they have found Troy, and specifically the Troy he was talking about. Homer was the beginnings of Greek culture. Greek culture then became expanded around 800 BC, when they started having the Olympic Games. Then, around 500 BC, they started inventing democracy, and writing plays which are still staged in today’s theatres, and their architecture and sculpture which was more advanced than anything which had come before it.

Thus, for the person living in Athens around 500 BC, he had a lot to hinge his Greek identity on, i.e. not just his language. He would’ve gone to school and learnt Greek, and about Homer, and he would’ve gone to see Greek plays. Say he meets an Illyrian woman on a military campaign, and takes her back with him to Greece and marries her, the child would be brought up Greek. Say, on the other hand, this Greek guy’s a callous fuckhead and rapes some poor Illyrian young woman as he kills her father, then the child that she bears and brings up would be brought up Illyrian, i.e. speaking Illyrian.

However, a person brought up Greek would’ve had a stronger sense of identity than an Illyrian person, as they’d have more to hinge their identity on. More importantly, the significant element of their national identity would be the language they speak, and the culture in which they live. Genetically, sure, everyone would have some indigenous South-Eastern European blood, ‘Pelasgian’ blood, and they might have a bit of Greek, a bit of Illyrian, a bit of Thracian or whatever. However, if they spoke Illyrian, they’d be Illyrian. If they spoke Greek, they’d be Greek. And if they spoke Greek, they’d have a lot more to identify as ‘Greek’ than an Illyrian person would have to identify as ‘Illyrian’.

When Rome took over the whole shit, similar stuff happened. There were Roman emperors and senators of many different backgrounds – Italian, Greek, Sicilian, Illyrian, and so on. The only thing one could hold on to was the cultural ideals they valued, and had been brought up on. Even if they could trace their birth back a certain distance, how far back could you go anyway? There would be no way of knowing whether you were of purely Indo-European blood, or purely Greek blood, or purely Pelasgian or Illyrian blood, or whatever. What we do know is that those people who were Roman citizens valued Roman ideals, like virtue and courage and so on.

Similarly, the ideals that were valued around 400 BC, at the height of the Athenian Empire, were those embodied by all the Greek literature. Socrates, Plato, Sophocles, Aristophanes, and so on. Similarly, the ideals valued around 300 BC, at the height of the Macedonian Empire, were those embodied by the accumulated body of Greek culture, epitomised by the Great Library of Alexandria (in the city which Alexander the Great named after himself). All the people who contributed to Greek culture wrote in Greek, and had Greek names. Their ethnic origin was irrelevant. The fact is, they claimed to be the inheritors of the cultural glory which began with democracy, philosophy, literature and sculpture, in Athens, around 500 BC.

In Roman times it was a bit different, because the Romans acknowledged that their culture was different from the Greek. The consciously acknowledged when they were borrowing Greek culture, and when they were sticking to their own, and when they were combining the two. They also had their own written language. However, in the lands formerly conquered by Alexander, the lingua franca continued to be Greek, as did the culture of Alexandria, where the Great Library was.

Since the end of Roman times, lots of things have happened in South- Eastern Europe.

1. There was the Byzantine Empire, which was also Greek speaking, but the inhabitants of which were all mixed. There were Byzantine Emperors of Greek, Illyrian, and Thracian origin. However, the were all Christian, and they all read the bible in its original language, Greek.

2. The Slavs arrived in Eastern Europe and the northern Balkans, intermarrying with the populations already living there. The Cyrillic script was invented.

3. The Western Europeans came rampaging through the Byzantine Empire, on their crusade to ‘free’ the holy land, and sacked Constantinople, which was the capital of Greek civilization at the time, on their way to Palestine and on their way back from Palestine.

4. This led to the collapse of the Byzantine Empire under the pressure of the Turks, who then continued to occupy much of South- Eastern Europe until the 19th Century AD, and who now call modern Turkey, ancient Asia Minor, which was once a bastion of Greek civilization, their homeland, but only having expelled all Greek- speaking people from there.

5. Russia occupied much of South-Eastern Europe, under the disguise of the ‘Soviet Union’, effecting massive movements of populations around the place.

Which brings us to the Twenty-First Century. The people who now live in South-Eastern Europe and Asia Minor, and their descendants who live in other parts of the western world, are an interesting bunch of people, both genetically and culturally.

Genetically, they all have, without exception, some indigenous ‘Pelasgian’ genes. Most will have varying levels of Greek genes, Illyrian (Albanian) genes, and Thracian genes. Many will have Slavic genes. Many will have Turkish genes.

Culturally, these people will identify themselves variously as Greek, Albanian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, and Turkish. Often, they will be ignorant of their genetic makeup. They will know the birthplaces, religions, and nationalities of their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and at the very most, great-great-grandparents. Beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess what their precise genetic makeup is. Even if one can trace back the family tree to before the Turkish occupation, it’s still impossible to know about the 2000 years before that, whether one of your earliest ancestors was a young Thracian girl raped by a Roman foot soldier, or a young Illyrian girl raped by a Greek general, or whatever.

One thing that we south-eastern Europeans can say is that we do speak the language we speak, or even if we don’t speak that language, we are aware of our immediate descendants history. I know that I speak Greek, and that my family holds very dearly the values that the ancient Greeks held dear. I know that when I go to the theatre at Epidavros, near Athens, and see Sophocles’ plays performed in the original Greek, I can understand most of it. That its’ like hearing Shakespeare when you speak English. And I know that I owe a lot to Alexander the Great, whether he was of Illyrian blood or Athenian blood or Macedonian blood or whatever, because he’s responsible, in a big way, for the survival of Greek culture to the modern day. I am grateful for that legacy.

Thus, in answering your question, I say that people care about Alexander’s nationality because he was a great man, and people want the historical right to associate their culture as a continuation of his legacy. People want the historical right to believe that they are his descendants. They also tend to want to deny other people those rights.

I think it’s fair to say that the Japanese can’t lay much of a claim to Alexander the Great. He never got to Japan (though he may have got to China). In the lands that he conquered, from South-Eastern Europe, through to Egypt, through Mesopotamia to the north of India, Greek- speaking people went and settled. Wherever Alexander went, he took the culture he was brought up on – Greek culture. He spread the language, the philosophies, and the aesthetics of Greece to the lands he conquered. The Roman Empire reinforced this Greek influence. However, culture changes. Though there is still South-Eastern European blood in the populations of the Middle East and North Africa, the cultural emphasis now is on Islam, and almost everyone speaks Arabic. They have little interest in Greek culture there now.

Similarly, the Slavic tongues have been heard north of Greece and east of Albania since the sixth century AD. These people are blood brothers of both the Greeks and the Albanians. However, ethnic and religious tension means that more often than not, they are pitted against each other by the powers that be. As a result, many Slavic- speaking Macedonians are hostile toward Greek culture, including Athenian literature and philosophy, and the language and the values that were important to Alexander the Great. Yet they claim that their own culture is an extension of that of Alexander the Great. The Albanians, who speak a similar language to the ancient Illyrians, also claim Alexander as their own. Many people claim that the Greeks lie about Alexander’s nationality.

To conclude, and as I explained above, in the days of Alexander, there was little point in identifying one’s nationality, as the only people who had started along the lines of being a homogenous group were the Greeks, to the exclusion of everyone else as barbarians. Even then, they would exclude their own from their club, claiming that the Macedonians were barbarians, cause they were a bunch of pigs. Being Greek, in those days, meant speaking Greek, worshipping Greek gods, and being a follower of Greek culture (i.e. the Athenian literary, philosophical, and artistic tradition). Alexander the Great did fit that description, whatever his genetic makeup.

Today, we tend to think of genetic makeup as being relevant to nationality, when really, it cannot be. We are all such a mixed bag of genes, that all we can really cling to is our language and our parents’ language, our values, and our religion. I don’t deny any South-Eastern European’s, or for that matter any Arab’s, right to claim a blood line to Alexander the Great. However, this seems to be a pointless exercise, as sharing genes with Alexander the Great means very little. What matters is Alexanders’ cultural legacy. He named a city after himself, Alexandria, to become a centre of Greek culture rivalling Athens. He conquered the middle east, enabling not only Greek culture to spread but opening up a vast new frontier in which Hellenes could settle, and celebrate their culture alongside the existing cultures. Since then, Greeks have been a people who are very aware of their own culture, but also the culture of those around them. For this we have Alexander to thank.

Alexander means much more to Greeks than a mere historical status symbol, which is what others tend to see him as. Greeks have a lot to be proud of, including much that came before Alexander, including the glory of Athens, and much that came after, including the 1000 year Byzantine Empire. However, it would be a historical injustice to ignore Alexander’s influence. The Byzantine Empire wouldn’t have done so well without the foundation laid by Alexander and his Greek successors, including the Seleucids, and the Ptolemies. Alexandria wouldn’t have existed, nor would the Great Library. Greek culture would’ve had less chance of surviving. We have no choice but to claim Alexander, not out of pride, but out of gratitude. It’s not his nationality we care about, but his contribution to the foundation, breadth, and evolution of ours.

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2004