List of historical Greek countries and regions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a list of Greek countries and regions throughout history. It includes empires, countries, states, regions and territories that have or had in the past one of the following characteristics:

Antiquity (to 330 AD)[edit]

Bronze Age[edit]

During the Bronze Age a number of entities were formed in Mycenean Greece (1600-1100 BC), each of them was ruled by a Wanax,[citation needed] including:

Knossos, a Minoan palace centre, was later occupied by the Mycenaeans [1]

City states[edit]

During the history of Ancient Greece a total of 1,500 to 2,000[2] city-states were established. These included:

Kingdoms, Empires and countries[edit]

Middle Ages (330–1453)[edit]

The Greek Middle Ages are coterminous with the duration of the Byzantine Empire (330–1453).[citation needed]

After 395 the Roman Empire split in two. In the East, Greeks were the predominant national group and their language was the lingua franca of the region. Christianity was the official religion of this new Empire, spread through the region by the Greek language, the language in which the first gospels were written. The language of the aristocracy however remained Latin, until gradually replaced by Greek by 7th century. The East Roman Empire retained its status as the power at least in the Mediterranean world until the 12th century. Amongst its impacts was the spread of Christianity to Eastern Europe and the Slavs, the halting of the Persian, Slavic and Arab expansions towards Europe and the preservation of a significant body of the cultural heritage of Greek-Roman Antiquity. In 1204, after a civil struggleover the succession of throne among the members of ruling Angelid(Angeloi), the Fourth Crusade conquered the capital, Constantinople. The Empire was subject to partitions and crises from which it never recovered.

Byzantine Greek successor states[edit]

Crusader states[edit]

Other states[edit]

Modern era (after 1453)[edit]

Independent states[edit]

  • Septinsular Republic (1799–1815), independent under nominal Russian and Ottoman sovereignty. The Ionian Islands were under Venetian Sovereignty from 1386-1797. During this time, the main administrative body of the islands was the General Council of Corfu which was made up of aristocratic families, both Orthodox and Catholic. This led to the islands being ruled as a kind of oligarchic proto-republic until the formal establishment of the Septinsular Republic in 1799.
  • Greece/Greece Greece (1822–present)
  • Cyprus Cyprus (1960–present)

Autonomous, secessionist or unrecognised entities[edit]

  • Autonomous Monastic State of the Holy Mountain: autonomous region of Greece since 1913. Autonomy dated at least to 943.
  • Himara (15th century - 1912): autonomous region located in modern-day southern Albania.
  • Cycladic islands (1537-1828): most of the Cycladic islands in the Aegean Sea retained their distinct local governments and charters, being ruled by locally elected representatives or dukes.
  • Koinon of the Zagorisians (1431/1670–1868): the Zagori village mountains formed league of important villages in Epirus governed by a council of elders, located in the modern-day Zagori municipality of Greece.
  • Phanariote period in Wallachia & Moldavia (1560/1711–1822): autonomous principalities ruled by the Phanariotes. Greeks had been established as rulers in Wallachia as early as the 16th century. From 1701-1822 AD, the country was controlled exclusively by Greek Phanariotes appointed by Constantinople.
  • Mani (1461 – 1833): sovereign region in the Peloponnese. The first post-Byzantine lord of Mani is considered to be Michael Rallis, after his death in 1466 Krokodeilos Kladas succeeded him. From the 16th-18th centuries Mani was a heavily decentralised region ruled by local Orthodox Christian Captains. After 1776, the lordship of Mani was formally recognised by the Ottomans, and the local ruler was called a bey. Mani was famous for being a Christian stronghold and a trustworthy ally for the Holy League during their wars with the Ottoman Empire. By the late 1700s the Maniots controlled large swathes of land in the southern Peloponnese, and the area became a refuge for many Greeks who were fleeing from Albanian raiders in the aftermath of the Orlov Revolt. During the late 1600s, Limberakis Gerakaris was the most powerful Captain of Mani and was recognised as Bey by the Ottomans, he was famous for his numerous slave raids on Ottoman and Venetian ships. Tzanetos Grigorakis, who ruled Mani from 1782-1798 was famous for his attempts to centralise the region and his reign was romanticised by the poet Nikitas Niphakos who stayed at his court. Mani was governed according to a mixture of local oral law and Orthodox Church canon law. The first region in which the Greek Revolution began in 1821 was in Mani and it was orchestrated by Petrobey Mavromichalis. After 1833, Mani was integrated into the Kingdom of Greece.
  • United States of the Ionian Islands (1815–1864): amical protectorate of the United Kingdom.
  • Regional administrations during the Greek War of Independence (March 1821 – c. 1825):

References[edit]

  1. ^ Bury, J. B.; Meiggs, Russell (1975). A History of Greece (Fourth ed.). London: MacMillan Press. p. 19. ISBN 0-333-15492-4.
  2. ^ Rural Greece Under the Democracy, Victor Davis Hanson, Times Literary Supplement, 2004
  3. ^ The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus, by B. C. McGing, page 11
  4. ^ Children of Achilles: The Greeks in Asia Minor Since the Days of Troy, by John Freely, page 69-70
  5. ^ Strabo of Amasia: A Greek Man of Letters in Augustan Rome, by Daniela Dueck, page 3
  6. ^ Children of Achilles: The Greeks in Asia Minor Since the Days of Troy, by John Freely, page 69-70
  7. ^ The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus, by B. C. McGing, page 11
  8. ^ Weiskopf, Michael (1990). "CAPPADOCIA". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 7-8. pp. 780–786. (...) Hellenistic-era Iranian kingdom (...) But all in all, Cappadocia remained an Iranian kingdom, one which developed from an Achaemenid satrapy.
  9. ^ McGing, Brian (1986). "Eupator in Asia before the first war with Rome". The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus. BRILL. p. 72. ISBN 978-9004075917. As in Pontus the ruling family was of Iranian descent.
  10. ^ http://www.da.mod.uk/colleges/csrc/document-listings/balkan/G97. Retrieved 2008-02-22. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)," In May 1914, the Great Powers signed the Protocol of Corfu, which recognised the area as Greek."
  11. ^ Republic of Pontus (Greece, 1917-1922), Flags of the World
  12. ^ Gross, Andreas. "Gökçeada (Imbros) and Bozcaada (Tenedos): preserving the bicultural character of the two Turkish islands as a model for co-operation between Turkey and Greece in the interest of the people concerned". Council of Europe. Retrieved 4 September 2012.