Encyclopedia
GreeceGreece lies at the juncture of
Europe,
Asia, and
Africa. It is heir to the heritages of
classical Greece, the
Byzantine Empire, and nearly four centuries of
Ottoman rule. Regarded as the cradle of
western civilization and being the birthplace of
democracy, Western
philosophy, the
Olympic Games, western literature, political science, major scientific principles as well as
drama including both tragedy and comedy, Greece has a particularly long and eventful history and a cultural heritage considerably influential in
Europe,
Northern Africa and the
Middle East. Today, Greece is a
developed country, member of the
European Union since 1981 and a member of the
Eurozone since 2001.
Athens,
Thessaloniki,
Piraeus and
Patras are the country's major cities.
History
- See also: Names of the Greeks, though they have been known by a number of different ...
for a different angle.
The shores of Greece's
Aegean Sea saw the emergence of the first advanced civilizations in
Europe, the
Minoan and
Mycenean civilizations. Soon, around the Greek isles and peninsula there sprouted city-states, or
poleis : each with their own distinct governmental and social infrastructure, uniting under
Athens and
Sparta to repel the 'eastern threat' of the Persians. The conditions had been created for the flowering of Athens and dawning of the Classical Era, brought to its end only by the culmination of the perennial struggle between Sparta and Athens, the
Peloponnesian war.
Within a century, the Greek tribes had been united under the rule of
Alexander the Great, seeking to defeat the Persians a second time. Alexander led the Greeks on a victorious campaign which united the Greek and Oriental worlds ; his death heralded the onset of the Hellenistic period of Greek history , itself brought only partially to a close with the annexation of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome in 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the advent of
Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence. The Greek peninsula became a province of the
Roman Empire, while Greek culture continued to dominate the eastern
Mediterranean.
See also:Ancient Greece.
When the
Roman Empire finally split in two, the
Eastern Roman Empire, known as the
Byzantine Empire and centered around
Constantinople , remained Greek in nature, encompassing Greece itself. During the Byzantine imperial period Greece experienced fluctuating fortunes, but succeeded in Hellenizing and institutionalizing most of its new invaders, and by the late 8th century Greeks from
Sicily and
Asia Minor were brought in as settlers. The 11th and 12th centuries are said to have been the Golden Age of Byzantine art in Greece, while the crusading epochs between 1204 and 1458 saw Greece hit by a series of western European armies in the name of religion. The Byzantine era persisted, nevertheless, until the Fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453, to the Ottoman Empire.
While the
Ottomans were completing the main conquest of Greek Mainland
Ottoman Greece, two Greek migrations occurred. The first saw the Greek intelligentsia migrate to
Western Europe — especially to Italy — and was a significant factor in the advent of the Renaissance. The second migration of Greeks left the plains of the Greek peninsula and resettled in the mountains, the islands and other Greek regions where the Ottomans were unable to create a permanent military and administrative presence. As a result some Greek mountain clans across the peninsula, as well as some islands, were able to maintain a status of independence. The
millet system contributed to the ethnic cohesion of Orthodox Greeks by segregating the various peoples within the
Ottoman Empire based on religion. Eventually, religion played an integral part in the formation of the Modern Greek and other post-Ottoman national identities. The Ottomans ruled Greece until the early 19th century.
On March 25, 1821 the Greeks rebelled thus declaring their strong will for independence . Their struggle ended in 1829, when the newly formed Greek state was finally created and recognized . In 1830, the Russian ex-minister of foreign affairs,
Ioannis Kapodistrias, a noble Greek from the
Ionian Islands, was chosen as the President of the new Republic. However, the
Great Powers soon dissolved that republic and installed a monarchy. The first king,
Otto, was of the Bavarian House of
Wittelsbach. The War of Independence also set in motion the establishment of major new cities and centres of trade such as Hermoupolis,
Athens and
Pireaus. In 1843, King Otto was forced, as a result of an uprising, to grant his subjects a constitution and representative assembly. He was deposed in 1863, to be replaced by a Danish Prince who took the name
George I of Greece and brought the
Ionian Islands as a coronation gift from Britain. Greece was growing economically, whilst becoming politically more liberal. In 1877, Prime Minister
Charilaos Trikoupis curbed the power of the monarchy to interfere in the Assembly.
This period was punctuated by the undertaking of one of the largest construction initiatives in Europe: the creation of the
Corinth Canal , and in 1896 the
Olympic Games were revived in Athens, judged a success. As a result of the
Balkan Wars of 1912-13,
Crete,
Chios, Samos, most of Epirus and southern Macedonia, including
Thessaloniki, were incorporated into Greece. King George was assassinated in Thessaloniki in 1913 and succeeded by his Germanophile son,
King Constantine I, whose struggle with Prime Minister
Eleftherios Venizelos resulted in Greece's joining of the
Entente against Germany and Austria, and the abdication of King Constantine in favor of his son, Alexander.
A small part of
Asia Minor, which still retained a majority Greek population and was centred around the city of
Smyrna , was awarded to Greece by the
Great Powers for having sided with the
entente powers in
World War I against the
Ottoman Empire. Very soon, however, Turkish nationalists, led by
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, denounced the Sultan's government in Istanbul and formed a new one in
Ankara, eventually defeating the Greek armies by regaining control of
Asia Minor and the destruction of Smyrna by fire. Soon afterwards, the
Treaty of Lausanne was signed, fixing the borders to this date. A population exchange was included in the agreement and immediately afterward, around five hundred thousand Muslims then living in mainland Greek territory left for Turkey in exchange for more than 1.22 million Greek residents of Asia Minor .
In 1936, General
Ioannis Metaxas established an authoritarian conservative dictatorship in Greece, known as the 4th of August Regime, and shortly before the outbreak of
World War II a disputed referendum was held, resulting in a 'yes' to restore the
monarchy under
King George II.
On October 28, 1940, the Italian dictator
Mussolini demanded that Greece allow Axis troops to enter the country and to surrender its arms ; the Greek government gave what became known as the simple negative response of “No” — thereby immediately siding with the Allies . Italian troops poured over from
Albania but were foiled by the Greeks at the Albanian front, giving the Allies their first victory against
fascism . Since
Hitler and his generals needed to secure their strategic southern flank, German forces, whose ranks included troops from
Bulgaria and
Italy, successfully invaded, and the
occupation of Greece by Nazi Germany began in April–May, 1941 . Greek partisan resistance to the occupation was fierce, often with bitter retaliation from the occupiers.
Greek Resistance however, such as that waged in
Crete, is believed to have forced a delay in German plans to initiate invasion against the Soviet Union, thereby extending the campaign into the punishing Russian winter, while the extremely heavy losses of German paratroop forces foiled a planned German campaign in the
Middle East against British-held Iraq and its oil fields. Germany retained its grip on the country until 1944 when German troops withdrew. The Jewish community of Thessaloniki suffered the heaviest toll by far and the Greek economy languished.
After liberation from Nazi Germany, Greece experienced an equally bitter
Greek Civil War between the communist-led Democratic Army and Hellenic Army lasting until 1949, when the communists were defeated in the battle of Grammos-Vitsi. During the 1950s and 1960s, Greece experienced a gradual and consistent economic growth, aided by significant grants and loans by the
United States through the
Marshall Plan. However, starting in 1965, a period of turbulence and the subsequent political uncertainty led to a coup d’etat against the elected government and
King Constantine II that took place in the dawn of April 21, 1967, and the establishment of a
military junta . In the ensuing years, a number of sympathisers of the left, as well as a number of politicians and communists, were arrested and brutally tortured by the regime. Many politicians evaded capture and found political refuge in other European countries such as
France and
Sweden, but the then-head of state, King Constantine, officially acknowledged the new regime, which was also then duly recognized by the international community, and diplomatic relations continued; he attempted a counter coup in December, 1967 which was to fail, and he went to Rome in exile.
In 1973, the junta abolished the Greek monarchy. In October, 1973, the head of the junta, Colonel
George Papadopoulos, appointed politician
Spiros Markezinis as the Prime Minister. A few weeks later, on November 14, law students decided to take control of the Athens Law School and in so doing inspired the students of the Athens Polytechnic School, who followed their lead. By November 16, however, the streets around the Polytechnic School resembled a battlefield, leaving no option in the administration's mind than to respond with the use of military force most familiar to it. In the early hours of November 17, a tank smashed the gate of the historical building of the Athens Polytechnic School with tragic loss of life. Twenty students were killed and the now famous
Athens Polytechnic Uprising marked the beginning of the end for Papadopoulos' rule. On November 25, both Papadopoulos and Markezinis were overthrown by a countercoup headed by junta hardliner Brigadier Ioannides; a new President,
Phaedon Gizikis, and a new Prime Minister, Adamantios Androutsopoulos, were appointed by the regime and soon backed a planned coup d'etat in order to overthrow the Cypriot President,
Archbishop Makarios, giving a pretext for neighbouring
Turkey to invade. Turkey invaded
Cyprus on July 20, 1974 allegedly to protect its minority residing on the island, and managed to occupy the northern part, or a third of its territory. This signalled the end for a regime that crumbled within days.
Ex Premier
Constantine Karamanlis was invited back on July 23, 1974 from Paris, where he had found political refuge. Marking the beiginning of the
Metapolitefsi era of Greek history, the plane carrying Constantine Karamanlis landed in Athens amidst massive celebrations and enormous crowds in
Syntagma Square; Karamanlis was immediately appointed interim prime minister under President Gizikis, and founded the conservative New Democracy party, going on to win the ensuing elections by a large margin. Democracy was finally restored and a democratic republican constitution came into force in 1975. The monarchy was abolished by a referendum held that same year, denying King Constantine II and his family any access to the country until 2004. Meanwhile, another prominent figure of the past, politician
Andreas Papandreou, had also returned from the United States, and founded the Panhellenic Socialist Party, or
PASOK.
Karamanlis won the 1977 parliamentary elections, but resigned in 1980 giving way to George Rallis; Papandreou, however, won the elections held on October 18, 1981 by a landslide and formed the first
socialist government in Greece's history. Papandreou dominated the Greek political stage for almost 15 years until his death in June 23, 1996, by which time
Kostas Simitis, another prominent political figure of PASOK, had already succeded him as Prime Minister. Simitis remained in office until March 7, 2004, when Kostas Karamanlis of the conservative New Democracy party won elections.
Greece became the tenth member of the
European Union on January 1, 1981 and ever since the nation has experienced remarkable and sustained economic growth. Widespread investments in industrial enterprises and heavy infrastructure as well as funds from the European Union and growing revenues from tourism, shipping and a fast growing service sector have raised the country's standard of living to unprecedented levels. The country adopted the
Euro in 2001 and successfuly organised the
2004 Olympic Games in
Athens.
Politics
The 1975
Constitution, describes Greece as a "presidential parliamentary republic”, grants extensive specific guarantees of
civil liberties and vests the powers of the
head of state in a President elected by
parliament for a 5 year term.
The Greek governmental structure is similar to that found in many Western democracies, and has been described as a compromise between the French and German models. The
Prime Minister and cabinet play the central role in the political process, while the President performs some executive and legislative functions in addition to ceremonial duties.
The Prime Minister of Greece is the head of government, and Executive power is exercised by that government.
Legislative power is vested in both the government and the
Hellenic Parliament. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature and comprises three Supreme Courts: the Court of Cassation , the Council of State and the Chamber of Accounts . The Judiciary system is also comprised of civil courts, which judge civil and penal cases and administrative courts, which judge administrative cases, namely disputes between the citizens and the State.
Greece elects a
legislature by universal suffrage of all citizens over the age of 18. The
Hellenic Parliament has 300 members, elected for a four-year term. Since the restoration of democracy the party system is dominated by the liberal-conservative New Democracy and the socialist PASOK, or
Panhellenic Socialist Movement . Non-negligible parties include the
Communist Party of Greece and the
Coalition of the Radical Left.
On March 7, 2004, Kostas Karamanlis, president of the New Democracy party and nephew of the late
Constantine Karamanlis, was elected as the new Prime Minister of Greece, thus marking his party's first electoral victory in nearly 11 years. Karamanlis took over Government from
Kostas Simitis of PASOK, who had been in office since January 1996.
Administrative divisions
Peripheries: Greece consists of 13 administrative regions known as peripheries, which subdivide further into the 54
prefectures . For more detailed maps of the peripheries and/or prefectures, see the
Peripheries of Greece or
Prefectures of Greece articles.
Autonomous region:Greece has one autonomous region,
Mount Athos in Macedonia.
Geography
Greece consists of a mountainous and craggy mainland jutting out into the sea at the southern end of the
Balkans; though small, it has the 9th longest coastline in the world. The
Peloponnesus peninsula ; and numerous islands , including
Crete,
Rhodes,
Kos,
Euboea, the Dodecanese and the
Cycladic groups of the
Aegean Sea as well as the
Ionian Sea islands. Greece has the 7th or 8th longest coastline in the world with more than 15,000 kilometres of coastline; its land boundary is 1,160 kilometres . Almost no one lives further than 50 km from the sea.
Four fifths of Greece consist of mountains or hills, making the country one of the most mountainous in
Europe.
Western Greece contains a number of lakes and wetlands and it is dominated by the
Pindus mountain range. Pindus has a maximum elevation of 2,636 metres and it is essentially a prolongation of the
Dinaric Alps.
The range continues through the western Peloponnese, crosses the islands of
Kythera and Antikythera and find its way into southwestern Aegean, in the island of
Crete where it eventually ends. . Pindus is characterized by its high, steep peaks, often dissected by numerous canyons and a variety of other karstic landscapes. Most notably, the impressive
Meteora formation consisting of high, steep boulders provides a breathtaking experience for the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit the area each year. Special lifts transfer visitors to the scenic monasteries that lye on top of those rocks. Meteora are situated in the
