MODERN GREEK MYTHS - Omitting the Albanians, Vlachs & Macedonians.
Greek Independence Day - 25 March. The modern Greek state has, in essence, nothing to do with antiquity other than a romantic Western obsession and geo-strategic interests.
Comment by Sasha Uzunov, Editor of Alternate Comms
The Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) is often framed as the triumphant reawakening of an ancient nation. Yet the social and ethnic landscape of early nineteenth‑century Ottoman Greece was far more complex than the later national narrative suggests. The region was a mosaic of peoples—Greek‑speaking Orthodox Christians, Albanian‑speaking Christians and Muslims, Vlachs (Aromanians), Slavs (euphemism for Macedonians), Jews, and Turks. Among these groups, Albanians played a decisive military and political role in the struggle for independence.
At the same time, many Western observers of the 1820s and 1830s openly questioned whether the populations living in Greece bore any meaningful continuity with the ancient Greeks. Their accounts, combined with the later nation‑building policies of the Greek state, reveal a story of identity formation that is far more layered than the simplified myth of uninterrupted Hellenic descent. But in the end it was the intervention of the great European powers British Empire, France, the German States, and Tsarist Russia that swung the war in favour of the Greek rebels against the Turkish Ottoman Empire, which had ruled what is now modern Greece for over four centuries.
Albanians and the Military Core of the Revolution
The Albanian contribution to the Greek Revolution was profound. The Souliotes—Orthodox Albanian highlanders from Epirus—formed some of the most effective fighting units in the early stages of the war. Leaders such as Markos Botsaris, Kitsos Tzavelas, and Odysseas Androutsos were renowned for their tactical skill and long-standing resistance to Ottoman authority (Clogg 1992). Their home language was Albanian, yet their religious affiliation and regional alliances placed them firmly within the revolutionary movement.
Arvanites, Albanian-speaking Orthodox communities settled in Attica, Boeotia, and the Peloponnese, also played a central role. Many revolutionary militias and naval crews were composed largely of Arvanites, and their presence was so significant that early revolutionary proclamations were sometimes issued in both Greek and Albanian. Figures such as Laskarina Bouboulina, whose family background was Arvanite, became iconic symbols of the struggle.
These contributions were not incidental. In the Ottoman Balkans, identity was shaped more by religion, local loyalties, and clan structures than by modern ethnic nationalism. Albanian-speaking Christians often fought alongside Greek-speaking Christians because they shared grievances, faith, and regional interests—not because they saw themselves as part of a unified “Greek nation” in the modern sense.
Western Observers and the Challenge to Greek Continuity
When Western Philhellenes, diplomats, and scholars arrived in Greece during the 1820s, many were struck by the linguistic and ethnic diversity of the population. Their writings frequently describe regions where Albanian, Vlach, or Slavic (in this instance, Macedonian) languages dominated daily life, and where Greek was often limited to church liturgy or administrative contexts.
These observers often expressed skepticism about the idea that the people they encountered were direct descendants of the ancient Greeks. Many noted that the physical appearance, customs, and languages of the inhabitants differed markedly from the classical ideal celebrated in European imagination. This skepticism reached its most forceful expression in the work of Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer, who argued that the ancient Hellenes had been largely replaced by Slavic and Albanian populations during the medieval period (Fallmerayer 1830). His thesis, though controversial, reflected a broader pattern of Western commentary that questioned the ethnic continuity of the Greek people.
A spate of DNA studies proving links to antiquity remain controversial, as these studies can be open to manipulation. They are best avoided or taken with a grain of salt.
Nation‑Building and the Assimilation of Diverse Populations
After independence, the new Greek state embarked on a project of nation‑building that sought to unify its diverse populations under a single national identity. This identity was constructed around three pillars: the Greek language, Orthodox Christianity, and the legacy of ancient Greece. Over the course of the nineteenth century, many Albanian-speaking Orthodox communities gradually adopted a Greek national consciousness. This shift was facilitated by state education, military service, intermarriage, and the social advantages associated with identifying as Greek (Herzfeld 1987).
This process reflected the broader European trend of transforming multi‑ethnic populations into linguistically and culturally unified nation‑states. By the early twentieth century, Arvanites and other non‑Greek-speaking groups had become fully integrated into the Greek nation, even while preserving elements of their heritage. Macedonia, after 500 years of Turkish Ottoman Rule, in 1912 was partitioned between Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria. All three states began a campaign of brutal assimilation of the native indigenous Macedonian population.
The largest slice of Macedonia became one of the last acquisitions of the modern Greek state. What followed was deliberate ethnic cleansing and forced assimilation of the native Macedonians into a Greek identity.
HISTORY BY POLITICAL BULLYING AND TREATY?
When the Republic of Macedonia broke away from the crumbling Yugoslavia in 1991, Greece went to extreme lengths to strangle the state to death through economic and political blockades. This ultimately culminated in the infamous 2018 Prespa Agreement signed by Greece and Macedonia, in which Macedonia would change its name to adding the prefix “north,” relinquish any link to Ancient Macedonia and deny the existence of a Macedonian minority living in Greece. This was done at the behest of the United States, which since the end of WWII has been Greece’s patron. It took over the role from the British Empire. Greece’s position on the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and its naval ports are strategic golden real estate for the West, especially for the NATO military alliance formed in 1949 as the Cold War began between Capitalism versus Communism.
Macedonians are portrayed as “evil Slavs” who arrived in the Balkans in the 6 AD from somewhere over the Carpathian Mountains, now present day Ukraine, as interlopers and therefore Greece was justified in exterminating them. That’s how Greek nationalists portray things. But the Slav Migration Theory is just a theory. Academics such as Dr Florin Curta even dispute that there was ever a Slavic migration to the Balkans. Basing ethnic cleaning against a people - Macedonians -who have been in a particular place for 100 years or 1,000 years or 2,500 years over the Slavic Migration Theory is absurd as well as a crime against humanity. Moreover, it is predicated on the assumption that modern Greece has an unbroken and racially pure link to Antiquity, which it does not.
In Ancient times, there was no concept of a Greek nationality or Greek nation-state. This is a 19th century concept, a by product of the Western enlightenment and romantic notions of antiquity.
The Greek War of Independence was not the achievement of a single ethnic group but a collective uprising shaped by the diverse peoples of the region. Albanians—especially Souliotes and Arvanites—were central to the revolution’s success. At the same time, many Western observers of the 1820s and 1830s openly questioned the continuity between ancient and modern Greeks, noting the multi‑ethnic character of the population. The later assimilation of these groups into a unified Greek identity reflects the broader nineteenth‑century European pattern of nation‑building, in which modern nations were constructed from diverse historical populations rather than inherited intact from antiquity.
Modern day Greece has a right to its identity but denying others, in particular Macedonians by using antiquity as an excuse is absurd and hypocritical. Moreover, erasing large, huge, massive Albanian foundations of modern Greek identity is Orwellian to say the least.