Hellenization (or Hellenisation) is a term used to describe the spread of ancient Greek culture, and to a lesser extent, language. It is mainly used to describe the spread of Hellenistic civilization during the Hellenistic period following the campaigns of Alexander the Great of Macedon. The result of Hellenization, elements of Greek origin combined in various forms and degrees with local elements, is known as Hellenism.

[edit] Historic usage

[edit] Classical period

The term is used in a number of other ancient historical contexts, starting with the Hellenization of the earliest inhabitants of Greece such as the Pelasgians, the Leleges, the Lemnians, the Eteocypriots in Cyprus, Eteocretans and Minoans in Crete (prior to Classical antiquity), as well as the Sicels, Elymians, Sicani in Sicily and the Oenotrians, Brutii, Lucani, Messapii and many others in territories constituting Magna Graecia.

[edit] Hellenistic period

Map of the Alexandrian Empire, c. 323 BC.

During the Hellenistic period, following the death of Alexander the Great, considerable numbers of Assyrians, Jews, Egyptians, Persians, Parthians, Armenians and a number of other ethnic groups along the Middle East and Central Asia were Hellenized. The Bactrians, an Iranian ethnic group who lived in Bactria (northern Afghanistan), were hellenized during the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and soon after various tribes in northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent (modern Pakistan) during the Indo-Greek Kingdom. There also was hellenization of Thracians,^[1] Dardanians, Paionians and Illyrians^[2][3][4][5] south of the Jireček Line and even of Getae.^[6]

Of course, Hellenization during the Hellenistic period had its limitations. Case in point, areas of southern Syria that were affected by Greek culture mostly entailed Seleucid urban centers where Greek was commonly spoken. The countryside, on the other hand, was largely unaffected since most of its inhabitants spoke Syriac and continued to maintain their native traditions.^[7] Moreover, Hellenization did not necessarily involve assimilation of non-Greek ethnic groups since Hellenistic Greeks in regions such as Asia Minor were conscious of their ancestral lineages.^[8]

[edit] Middle Ages

Hellenization can also refer to the medieval Byzantine Empire and Constantine's founding of Constantinople (Eastern Roman Empire that was hellenized). Moreover, it can refer to the primacy of Greek culture and the Greek language after the reign of Emperor Heraclius in the 7th century.

[edit] Ottoman rule

Hellenization is also the result of the higher status which the Greek culture and the Greek Orthodox Church has enjoyed among the Christian Orthodox population of the Balkans during the Ottoman rule.

[edit] Modern usage

A modern use is in connection with policies pursuing 'cultural harmonization and education of the linguistic minorities resident within the modern Greek state' (the Hellenic Republic), i.e. the Hellenization of minority groups in modern Greece.^[9] The word nowadays has a strong negative meaning among the native population of Greece as it means illegally giving citizenship to non-Greek immigrants. ^[10]

[edit] References