Why not Hellas?

the word Hellas or Hellines sounds better than the word Greece

Hi, I'm new here. Just read the topic.

Yes, Hellenes/Hellenas/Hellens came from a person named Hellen in Greek Myth.

But that was not Hellen of Troy.

According to Greek Myth, that was Hellen I, son of Deucalion I, who in turn was the son of Prometheus the Titan. The Greeks considered themselves the descendants of Hellen I.

After the Great Flood at the end of the Third Age, only 2 human beings survived, Deucalion I and his wife, Pyrrha, who found refuge on the Parnassus mountain. After the Jupiter commanded the Flood to cease, the couple came to a temple and received an oracle "Depart from the temple with head veiled and garments unbound, and cast behind you the bones of your mother" Since the human race was created by Prometheus from Earth, so the Earth is the Mother of all (Hence Mother Earth). They casted the stones over their shoulders. The stones began to grow soft and assume shape of humans. Thus came the human race renewed.

You can refer to Thomas Buffinch's Mythology

The use of the name 'Hellas' is a relatively new phenomena even compared to the use of name "Greece' in todays modern Greece. The original word for 'Greek' by todays modern Greeks was 'Romiosini' reflecting the multi-cultural background (Albanian, Vlach, Gypsie, Turkish etc) of the majority of the population of modern Greece.

'Romiosini' was simply the Ottoman term for a Christian in the Balkan region and the terms 'Greece' and 'Hellas' were only adopted after the creation of the modern Greek state as part of the nation building process. The adoption of the modern Greek langauge (a langauge at that stage confined mostly to eastern Orthodox Church litergy until then) and the introduction of the continuity myth (the myth of direct descent from the ancient Hellenes) were to become the most important factors in the creation of modern Greece.

So successful were the above efforts in the creation of modern Greek national identity that many modern Greeks today forget (or simply don't want to remember) that their grandparents or great grandparents were Albanians, Turks, Vlachs, Gypsies etc. The whole issue is a very controversial topic for modern Greeks, who when reminded of these facts, predictably react with anger and hostility.

I was born in Salonica but have grown up in melbourne, Australia.

If you don't believe in such nonsense as 'racial purity', then why are you geting so upset. The fact is that modern Greece is a relatively new state created through the assimilation of a wide variety of ethnically diverse peoples under the myth of continuity (descent from the ancient Hellenes) and the adoption of the modern Greek language.  As I said before, and you yourself have proved, this topic is a very controversial issue for modern Greeks.

Sorry Yiannis, but this rubbish. Firstly, what exactly is the "Byzantine Greek past"? The Byzantine empire was nothing more then the Eastern Roman empire. The only thing 'Greek' about it was the abandonment of Latin and the adoption of Greek as the langauge of state administration and church litergy. The reason for choosing Greek was because in the eastern Mediterranean during that period, Greek was the common language of trade, diplomacy for the all the different races in that region, and not because the empire was 'Greek'. The is the reason why the various ethnic groups in the area of todays modern Greece all referred to themselves as 'Romios' during the Ottoman period and NOT 'Greek' or 'Hellene' as they had absolutey no knowledge of what ancient Greece was or who ancient Greeks were. It was not until the Philhellenism of the English and Germans and the creation of the modern Greece state that most modern Greeks learned about the history of the ancient Hellenes.

Hi Sharrukin,

One thing you are all forgeting is that Byzantium and Constantinople were very multi-racial places. The fact that Greek was already used in everday life (although largely confined to educated persons etc), as a common langauge of communication for all the various ethnic groups, is the main reason why Latin was abandoned.

There is a big distinction between being a 'Greek speaker' and actually being 'Greek', showing the continuity theory to be false when considering the fact the the overwhelming majority of the population of Byzantium weren't actually 'Greek'.

The point I was trying to make in my original post was that area of Greece during the formation of the modern Greek state was a very ethnically diverse place where the various ethnic groups simply referred to themselves as 'Romios' meaning Christian and not 'Greek' or 'Hellene', as they had absolutely no knowledge of Hellenic history or what an ancient Hellene actually was. The majority of the ancestors of todays modern Greeks only became aware of Hellenic history after learning about it from their English, French and German sponsors during the creation of the modern Greek state in the 1830's. The adoption of the continuity myth of direct descent from the ancient Hellenes and creation of the modern Greek langauge were to become the main factors in the formation of the modern Greek national identity. Thus terms such as 'Greek' or 'Hellene' are somewhat artifical today considering that less then 170 years ago the terms were largely unknown.

As for the last, through ages the identitiy of many Greeks was changed to Turk, Albanian, Slavic, Bulgaric etc.

So in fact, with the creation of modern Greece, nothing else happened but most of the greeks that had lost their identity (you loose your identity if you don't have a state), found back their identity in the new Hellas.

In fact, it can not be denied that there is always been a continuation of history and culture of 4000 years.