When did the Greeks stop calling themselves "Roman"?

Question

I've been reading a lot about the Byzantine Empire recently, and one of the things I see pointed out over and over again is that "Byzantine" is a term coined by historians, not by the people themselves. If you'd asked a citizen of the Byzantine Empire what he was, he would say "I am Roman." In fact, even the term "Romania," as I understand it, came from these ethnically eastern but politically Roman people.

I remember hearing in my youth that the Greeks continued calling themselves "Rhomaios" even after the Byzantine Empire fell, and that they only reclaimed their independent "Greek" identity in the 1700s, as a response to increasing interest in ancient Greece over in England and France.

Is this true? When did the Greek (and Eastern European in general) identity finally drop its association with the Roman Empire? The only article I've found (Wikipedia) only covers the earlier period, not that which followed "Rhomaios."

Answer 1

You are right, the name Hellenes means “pagans” in the New Testament, and was consequently abandoned by Greek Christians, who preferred to call themselves “Romans”. The term Hellene was revived by the Greek philosopher Giorgios Gemistos Plethon in the 15th century as part of his endeavour to replace Christianity by the “Religion of the Hellenes”. It was revived a second time by the Greek nationalist movement in the 19th century.

Answer 2

The Byzantine empire was a continuation of the older Roman empire in the East but it was gradually transformed into a different political entity. Meaning:

• The original Roman empire used Latin as an official language, as expected, while Byzantium was Greek-speaking
• They basically inherited the Roman legal system from the Roman empire.
• They considered themselves a Christian state and even the ONLY true Christian state (that's what orthodox means, "one with the right faith").

Having this in mind, the people who considered themselves Byzantines called themselves Romans, which in Greek is "Romaios" (read as Romeos) or "Romios" (read as Romios), which was a more vulgar version, that eventually dominated. In this aspect, "Romiosyni" was used in modern Greek (which is considered the Greek language after 1453) to describe the descendant of the Roman empire, but its main meaning was "all Greek people". For example, in 1945-57 the Greek poet Giannis Ritsos wrote a poem named Romiosyni which has nothing to do with the Byzantine empire (though some might argue that the people it refers to consider themselves descendants of the Byzantines).

In modern Greek though, "Romios" is not used normally and the word used in its place is "Hellinas" meaning Hellene. So, to answer the original question, they gradually stopped using this word (and I mean gradually as the example above is quite recent and it does not suggest an absolute termination) to identify themselves in the late 19th century. I guess the process continued until the 20th century.

The OP asks many secondary questions like

When did the Greek (and Eastern European in general) identity finally drop its association with the Roman Empire?

This is a different question. The association with Byzantine is quite strong even nowadays in modern Greece and most people consider themselves descendants of Byzantines while there are some that believe there is a continuous connection to the ancient Greek people, Byzantines and modern Greeks.

P.S. The Byzantine empire was a multinational empire (though it cannot be compared with modern nation-states) and there are many people in the Balkans who have some association with its inheritance. The Albanians, for instance, have a flag which is a variation of the Byzantine flag (this does not mean that they consider themselves descendants of the Byzantine empire though).

Answer 3

Simpler answer: the Roman Empire centered in Constantinople was always the Roman Empire and the Greek-speaking Roman Christians continued to refer to themselves as Romans even during Ottoman rule (and indeed the Ottomans referred to them this way as well). "Greek" was the name of the language and the name of the ancient people that the Romans conquered.

When the independence movement arose in the late 18th/early 19th century, the leaders needed support from the European Christian nations. They realized that in the bigoted rewriting of history that had occurred in Western Europe, the Western Europeans were the sole descendants of the "Roman Empire" and did not approve of the name "Roman" being applied to anyone outside Western Europe, certainly not the descendants of the "Byzantine Empire" which they had so long tried to erase from the history books.

The independence leaders formulated a new strategy billing their people as the descendants of ancient Greece, whose culture had seeded the ancient Romans, thus making them the intellectual ancestors of the Westerners. This reformulation endeared the "Greeks" to Western European intellectuals and soon "Greece" had its independence. It took some time, of course, for the Christian Romans to adjust to referring to themselves as "Greeks" instead of "Romans" but it gradually happened.

Answer 4

The Greek state aggressively promoted a Hellenic identity for Greeks since independence, but the Romaic identity, looking to Byzantium rather than Antiquity, and to Orthodox Christianity and folk culture rather than the Enlightenment and high culture, persisted, and served as a rallying point for cultural debate well into the 20th century. And Greek populations outside the cultural influence of Greece—e.g. ethnic Greeks in the Ukraine or Kemalist Turkey—kept using "Roman" for a good while longer.

"Romaic" remained in use through the 20th century, both as a homely reference and as a pejorative. For example (as I describe in Four Romaic Names for Greece) the linguist Kazazis wrote how in the 50s, it was impossible to refer to "dumb Hellenes", since Hellenes were by definition glorious; one could only refer to "dumb Romans". And the philosopher Castoriades in the 90s cited disapprovingly the traditional abdication of civic responsibility, "Am I going to be the one to fix The Romaic State?" The pop song "A Roman boy fell in love with a Roman girl" dates from 1971, although by then the reference is likely already literary.

References to Roman identity likely passed from something live and subversive to something quaint and historical when Greeks started regarding themselves as fully European, something which would not long have predated their entry into the European Common Market in 1981.

Answer 5

Although the concept of Kaldellis that puts the Byzantines as Greek-speaking Romans and simply the continuation of the Roman Empire in the east is widely accepted. This lacks historical record and tries to mold the Byzantines through a modern point of view, and not from a realist who strives to position himself in the Byzantine era and think like one of them and this is what history to achieve. a conlcussion pure and well made.

All this together with his famous book "Hellenism in Byzantium" are nothing more than the point of view of a Byzantinist who wants to talk about the Byzantines in crazy and unrealistic ways and that unfortunately the rest of the people tend to accept and embrace this concept due to its simplicity and little interest.

Now I will begin to talk about what in my institution, I and probably all the serious and famous Byzantine schools believe and I will not use information related to a single Byzantinist (Kaldellis) whose arguments are poorly elaborated.

The problem to start with is that Greek is a very context-dependent language although in some cases this makes it easier to find an explanation. But it happens that the evidence and records in which the Byzantines make it clear that they are of "Hellenic blood" from 330 to 1453 are simply abundant and it would take eternities to point them out to each one.

Let's start with the political aspect that according to Kaldellis is "the bastion of Roman culture in Byzantium" and that is that no aspect in the Byzantine empire was saved from being Hellenized, not even its laws and army (and much less the population) that are normally set as strong "characters of Roman culture in Byzantium".

Byzantine laws were not just Roman and that's it. It was a basis of Roman laws heavily influenced by Hellenistic laws and if several people said that from their inception Roman laws were based on Greek ones etc and it is true but in the Hellenistic East they survived successfully until the fall of "hellas" in 1453 due ( and possibly even today) to their extensive integration into the Byzantine political systems of which they were very aware and it was very common to hear a Byzantine consul boast and pride themselves on the Hellenistic and classical Greek political systems born in the Greek-State cities.

And yes, it is true that they were called Romans and their lands Romania or Hellas but under the Roman term there is nothing other than the Greek identity surviving successfully from 330 to our times!

There are phenomenal records of Byzantines putting the term Roman as synonymous with the term Greek and there are even occasions in which they specifically explain that when a Byzantine mentions the term "Romania", he is calling his home "The land of the Romans" but at the same time time "The land of the Greeks / Hellenes" and they specify very clearly that when they speak of the Basileus Romahion (King of the Romans). They are talking about the "King of the Greeks" and so it happens every time the term "Roman" is mentioned until the final fall of the Empire or as they would have called it "The Monarchy of the Romans" and as they would have thought "The Monarchy of the Greeks "and yes. they were just as aware that their empire was the original legacy of the Roman but this did not prevent them from identifying with an independent and phenomenally different state from the Roman in which apart from the fact that the ancient Romans were considered as "others". It was one dominated by Hellenes and Hellenized people and they liked to flaunt it by putting Alexander the Great in stone carvings on the doors of their monasteries, plates, and urging their soldiers to fight like the Macedonian phalanxes against the Turks (there was a formation very similar to the Macedonian phalanx in the empire and even King Nikephoros is aware of the similarity with these as his book attests) and putting meanders in his shields next to suns of Vergina that symbolized his Christian religion (Vrigen Maria) and his culture Greek at the same time. Or you can also find the Macedonian brigades together with the brigade of the "Companions" that were created by the Byzantines in honor of their ancient Greek history and more examples like this are attested throughout their history but I cannot mention them for their phenomenal abundance. ! it is impossible.

I heartily advise you to read "The history of the Greek nation" by Constantine Paparigopulos.

Answer 6

We Greeks are Romans, and us Romans are Greek. Till this very day all Greek folk songs of old use the term Romaios ie. Roman and not Greek, the term Greek took on a religious pagan meaning and was abandoned for over 1000 years. Ethnically we consider Old Rome as just another Greek city state.

You will find detailed explanations and history in this site.