In the modern world, the inhabitants of a country or city are usually called the name derived from the name of the area, for example, the inhabitants of Russia are Russians, the inhabitants of America are Americans. However, a few centuries ago, people approached their own definition in a completely different way, calling themselves poetic and emphasizing the peculiarities of the nation, as, for example, was customary among the Greeks.
Warrior Men
The inhabitants of Greece, the world cradle of culture and art, were not always called Greeks, but had completely different names associated, as a rule, with the place of their settlement and habitation. From time immemorial, information about the so-called Achaeans has come down, which literally translated from the beautiful language of Homer means "war men", the Danians and Argives - the inhabitants of the Danube lowlands and the city of Argos, respectively, there were also other Greek tribes, such as the Ionians, Aeolians and Dorians.
Later, the inhabitants of the largest country in terms of those times, belonging to the south of the Balkan Peninsula, called their homeland Hellas, and themselves, respectively, Hellenes after the name of their mythological progenitor Ellen, the son of Prometheus.
By Hellas, the Greeks meant the entire territory inhabited by the Hellenes: this is southern Italy and the islands located in the Aegean Sea. For the first time the word "Hellas" was mentioned in the 8th century BC, initially it was customary to mark only the inhabitants of the region of Thessaly.
The word "Greek" was used to refer to only a separate branch, a nation, whose forefather was considered the mythical son of Pandora, whose name was Greek.
It is known that the Romans called the entire population of Hellas Greeks; later this name was transferred to the Romance and other languages. During the period of the imposition of Christian culture by the Romans or Romeoellines (a name that was customary to designate only the Romans), they began to call the Greeks who had passed under the Christian banner, while the pagans were still called Hellenes. Interestingly, even today, in remote Greek settlements, old people proudly call themselves Romans.
Influence of Christianity
Along with the arrival of Christian beliefs, the inhabitants of the country began to take Roman names and often called themselves simply Christians.
In Germany, for example, the word "Greek" sounded like "grichen", this is how the Germans used to call the inhabitants of Hellas.
It is interesting that the name "Hellenes" was lost along with the disappearance of the Greek language and began to revive only from the 18th century. Then this very noble word began to be called representatives of the intelligentsia, which began with all its might to strive for self-determination and the revival of Greek self-consciousness, for which a special liberation movement was even created. In 1821, the National Assembly of Greece proclaimed the revival of the Hellenistic state, thus marking a new era in the existence of Greece.
