Book Review

Is Greek Aristocracy a product of Asia Minor?

By Bob Nicolaides

 

Fearful History

Demetrius Horologas-Giannakopoulos

Periplous Publications-25pp.

 

“Although most of modern habitants of Greece are far from being Greeks,” writes Horologas in his e-book “civilizations of the past, like colonies of antiquity, the Hellenistic realms and the Byzantine Empire, were an acquisition of the supposedly history of a small Balkan country, for the well-being of which they shed their blood even Greeks of Asia Minor, without their off-springs having recorded it in their own collective memory. The usual suspect is present here too! The prime movers of the so-called Revival of 1821, which had to do with the revolt of Slavic and Albanian peasants of Peloponnese and Roumeli against the Ottoman Empire, are Greeks of Asia Minor, of aristocratic lineage, with roots to the Byzantine period. The Ypsilanti of Trebizond, the Mavrokordati of Phanar and even thousands of soldiers who fought in Greece and elsewhere, the members of the famous Ionian Phalanx and the Sacred Batallion (Hieros Lochos), rendered invaluable services to the revolted Arvanitovlachs. Even the theoretic moving spirit of ethnic Hellenization of False-Greeks, the great scholar of Modern Greek Enlightenment, Adamantios Korais, who laid the intellectual foundations for the Greek struggle for independence, originated from Smyrna.”

The paragraph above can be found in the final chapter of Demetrius Horologas-Giannakopoulos’ e-book called Fearful History, a 25-page dissertation on civilization which thrived in what is today the Turkish peninsula and all the races which have settled or invaded its numerous and vastly diverse  regions from the 11^th Century BC to modern day. An activist on Greek and Anatolian causes who lives in Armania with his native wife, accompanies the e-book with an extensive bibliography pointing the source of Mr. Horologas’ information, information which is both interesting and intriguing.

For instance, how many of us knew that between 11.000 BC and 7.000 BC we have the first permanent settlements of humans cultivating the land. “Thus” writes Horologas, “the so-called “Culture of the hills” emerged in Anatolia, as these first farmers began to build settlements on the lower hills for apparently defensive reasons. From the west coast of today’s Turkey to the inland of Asia Minor we come across remains of prehistoric dwellings and primitive rural settlements. Quite recently the archaeological shovel discovered accidentally, near Bayrakli, suburb of Smyrna, a village of wooden huts, dating from the 7th millennium B.C. Traces of wood and reed, which abounded in the swamps of the coast line of that period, reveal a small Neolithic settlement which is quite unimportant.”

Chronologically, the book recounts the emergence of great cities around 3500 BC in the Neolithic era, dubbed Çatal Höyük in the Turkish language, which along with the pre-biblical Jericho in Palestine claim to be the most ancient cities in the world’s history.

Eventually the book descends from the ancient kingdoms of Phrygia, Lydia, the kingdom of the Hittites, Urartu (modern Armenia) and Catpaduha which is identified to later Cappadocia, to the Minoan civilization and subsequently that Achaeans as the first Hellenes to colonize the shores of Asia Minor. “In the rest of the peninsula,” Horologas is quoted, “nations like Pisidae, Pamphylii, Lycaones, Isauri, Doliones, Carians, Phrygians, Thracians and Lycians give an image of panspermia in archaic Anatolia, mingling with aboriginals. 

Horologas in a colorful way describes the transition from that archaic period into the Hellenistic, then Roman and subsequently Byzantine periods. He mentions the Greek dynasties of the period such as Komninos and Paleologos, the last emperor of which, Constantine the Exadactylos defended Constantinople during the siege that had the city fallen to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet the Conquror. It continues on to the Greek Uprising, the Vlachs, the Arvanites and all the races that intermingled and are making up today’s Balkans.

Fearful History makes for good reading and I recommend it strongly for all buffs of genealogy and history.