Where Did The Name "Greece" Come From?

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Where Did The Name "Greece" Come From?
Where Did The Name "Greece" Come From?

Video: Where Did The Name "Greece" Come From?

Video: Where Did The Name "Greece" Come From?
Video: Why Is Hellas/Ellada Called Greece In English? 2024, March
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Greece is a country with a pleasant climate, one of the tourist centers in Europe. The oldest history of this country is full of interesting facts. One of the fascinating stories that guides tell during excursions to Greek sights is the appearance of the name of the state - Greece.

Where does the name come from
Where does the name come from

Ancient Greece

The history of the appearance of the name "Greece" is long and confusing, and it begins in the second millennium BC. At that time, the Achaeans, Ionians, and Dorians lived on the territory of the Balkan Peninsula, the islands of the Aegean Sea and nearby territories. Some scholars argue that even before our era such a people as Griiks lived in the same territory, but this is still being debated.

Until now, there is no single approach to the history of the appearance of the name of the Greek state.

Italian researchers allegedly found a mention of this people in Roman manuscripts. It was then, according to scientists, that the Romans began to call this state Greece. The peoples spoke their own language, far from modern Greek, and lived not in states, but in city-states. In general, the history of the origin of both the Greek language and its native speakers is still poorly understood. According to the conclusions of some studies of recent years, it turns out that the Greeks generally did not originally live even on this continent.

A city-policy is a state that includes only the population of one city. It was found precisely on the territory of modern Greece, where each owner of a land plot took part in a national assembly.

For many years Greece was not a separate state with its own ruler: throughout history the country was part of the Roman Empire, and then the Byzantine Empire, after which Constantinople was captured by the Ottomans, and Hellas became part of the Ottoman Empire. All this time, the state was divided into regions or cities, pashalyks, counties and kingdoms.

Only in 1821, when the European countries helped the Greeks to carry out an uprising against the Turks who ruled over them, the Greeks got the opportunity to free themselves. After Turkey's defeat in the Russian-Turkish war in 1829, one of the points of the Adrianople peace treaty was the recognition of the independence of the Hellenes. So a new state appeared on the maps of the world - Greece.

The Hellenes are one of the indigenous peoples of Greece, after meeting with whom Alexander the Great began to call the whole country Hellas, and all inhabitants - Hellenes.

Modern theory of the origin of the term

The inhabitants of the country themselves still call their homeland Hellas, some European states - the Hellenic Republic. However, on all maps, this country is signed as "Greece". The word itself is etymologically derived from the Latin language and does not exist in Greek. According to many sources, it first appeared in the 18th century and means something alien to the religious world, according to scientists, something alien to the Jewish religious world.

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