Ancient history, the charms of the islands, and so much more to discover

The world’s attention has recently been drawn to Greece, as a victim of the international financial crisis and, it is true, of a notable lack of transparency and economic mismanagement. No mention has been made of the prosperity that the country has enjoyed since joining the European Union, and neither has its dynamism in certain scientific fields or in the arts, above all theatre, been recognized. And then, of course, there is the country’s modern history, at the point of friction between the Christian and Muslim worlds, which lends it a special geopolitical importance. 

Also comparatively misunderstood are people’s lives in the Greece of today, beyond the sphere of tourism. The role played by religion, for example, or the society’s view of the outside world, with the xenoi as the foreigner, and above all the guest. When a Greek approaches a foreigner, it is generally to get to know them, if not to invite them for a drink, and without any ulterior motives. 

The key to the present: three centuries under Ottoman occupation

In the wake of the first great civilization of Greece, that of the Minoans, centred on Crete and reaching its peak around 1500 BC, the Mycenaean civilization was born. Mycenae controlled territory as far as Troy in Asia Minor (now Turkey), and its king, Agamemnon, embarked on what would be a long war to return with the Trojan princess Cassandra, a story told by Homer in the Iliad. This was to be the start of the friction that still burns today. 

In 146 BC, the annexation by Rome of a number of city states weakened by a series of internal wars put an end to the Hellenic period. Greek culture, though, retained its autonomy through compromises with the occupiers, and Athens even rediscovered its former splendour under cultured emperors like Hadrian. The subdivision of the Roman empire into the western empire, centred on Rome and the eastern one, on the formerly Greek city of Byzantium, now named Constantinople (today's Istanbul), did however lead to a decline for Athens, and the symbols of Greek beliefs came under attack from cultural revisionism. 

The western Roman empire collapsed under the attack of the Goths in 476. Constantinople, on the other hand, survived until its conquest by the Crusaders in 1204, and its final loss to the Turks in 1453, though Byzantium remains alive today in the heart of the Greeks. Three years later, Athens was annexed by the Turks, and a mosque was erected in the heart of the Parthenon, something taken advantage of by the British where they acquired the Parthenon’s friezes. Turkish culture spread, particularly in the regions bordering Turkey, like Thrace, but also as far as Ioannina in Epirus and Thessaloniki. Very little of Greece escaped the occupation, which was to go on for three centuries, and the symbols of this endless occupation are still to be seen in the countless mosques of the old city of Rhodes. 

A long war of independence, supported by Europe

The beginning of the end of the colonial period began in 1770 with a strike by the Russian Orthodox Church in support of the Greek one, and this was followed by aid from revolutionary France, but without success. The death, from illness, of a Hellenist intellectual who had come to battle alongside the freedom fighters, Lord Byron, led to the mobilization of England, France and Russia, and Egypt in turn came to the aid of the Turks. The war finally came to an end in practice on 20 October 1827 with the crushing of the Turkish and Egyptian fleets and officially in 1830, after a declaration of war by the Russian empire had forced Turkey to sign the Treaty of London. 

Greece, however, had still not recovered all of its territory, in particular part of Macedonia, and this led to the Balkan Wars of 1912 -1913, with Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia also laying claim to the region. At the end of the war the Turks agreed to the return to Greece of part of Macedonia and Crete. 

At the end of the First World War, Greece managed to recover Thrace from Bulgaria and Turkey, and the islands of the Aegean Sea from the latter. However, Mustapha Kemal Atatürk, the Turkish leader, demanded an exchange of their respective emigrant populations, and the return of these emigrants to Greece led to a population increase of 25%, which in turn caused significant social problems. The Greek monarchy was abolished, as the royal family had, in contrast to the government, collaborated with Germany. During the Second World War, the country was occupied by the forces of Mussolini, though the National Liberation Front (EAM) fought courageously against them. After the war, the monarchy was restored. 

Demands for independence on the part of Cyprus, which the Greeks consider to be part of Greece, led to a further worsening of Greco-Turkish relations. In 1967 a military coup brought "the colonels" to power, and they established one of the most brutal regimes of the era. Following a provocation of the neighbouring state by the military regime, Turkey occupied the north of Cyprus, which led a mutiny on the part of the army and the return of democracy. After this, the monarchy was abolished in a referendum, and on 1 January 1981, the treaty in which Greece joined the European Community came into force. The same year saw the left-wing party PASOK come to power, with symbolic figures included in government such as Melina Mercouri, an activist actress during the dictatorship, who became minister of culture. A number of social reforms were undertaken. The current prime minister is George A. Papandreou of PASOK, which won the last general election on 4 October 2010. 

An economy recently thought to be booming

At the end of the year 20091, Greece registered the largest budget deficit in the whole of the EU. Financial ratings agencies began to downgrade the rating of the country’s sovereign debt, obliging the EU and IMF to support the government’s plan to get public finances back on an even keel, to the tune of 80 billion and 30 billion euros respectively. And now it seems to be time for a second salvage operation.

At the end of 2009, per capita income was 97.9% that of France2, a figure that had been rising continually since 1938, when it was 62%. This is a higher figure than South Korea or Israel. From the start of the 1990s up to 2008, GDP growth was higher than the European average, largely powered by services, followed by the industrial sector and, far behind, farming. Greece was classified in 22nd place in the UNDP’s 2010 Human Development Index, and in a similar position in the 2005 quality of life index published by The Economist magazine.

1 Data published at the end of 2010 - Eurostat
2 Eurostat

Hegel Goutier