A week in Greece

 Let's dive into some history(which I'm interested) about Greece. 

                

Greece is one of the Southeastern Europe countries. Other Southeaster countries & its capitals are:

1. Slovenia (Ljubljana)

2. Croatia (Zagreb)

3. Bosnia & Herzegovina (Sarajevo)

4. Montenegro (Podgorica)

5. Albania (Tirana)

6. Greece (Athens)

7. Serbia (Belgrade)

8. Kosovo (Pristina)

9. North Macedonia (Skopje)

10. Romania (Bucharest)

11. Bulgaria (Sofia)

11. Turkey (Ankara)

The Balkans

Southeastern parts of Europe(Balkan Peninsula) were administered by the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. These Ottoman possessions are geopolitically classified as "the Balkans". - that's why these countries are called Balkan countries.

This peninsula is overwhelmingly Christian with the exception of Bosniaks, Kosovars, Turkish and Albanians,  who are mostly Muslim. All other 8 countries follow Christianity. Croats and Slovenes are Roman Catholics and other 6 Balkans (including Greek) are adherents of Eastern Orthodox churches.

Greeks - westerners

Greece is considered the cradle of Western civilization, being the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature, historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, theatre and the Olympic Games. 

Though Greece is the root of western civilization, I found a few similarities of Eastern culture. 

✦ In Greece, family ties are relatively strong like the eastern world. All the gatherings have larger kin groups. But, in the western world, individual values have priority over everything else.  

✦ Westerners are majorly casual(unorthodox) but most Greeks are orthodox. 

IMHO, Greeks are falling in between ancient western and modern western culture at the moment. This ideology is purely based on my living and traveling experiences in the western countries and the articles I read across the Internet.

Birthplace of democracy 

The first known democracy in the world was in Athens. Athenian democracy developed around the fifth century B.C.E. The Greek idea of democracy was different from present-day democracy because, in Athens, all adult citizens were required to take an active part in the government.

Greek Mythologies

The Ancient Greeks held their religion and mythology in high regard and loyalty. Although the Ancient Greek Gods are currently viewed as a man-made explanation for natural forces and the world around us, there has been abundant evidence both for and against the contention that these Gods were real.

         

According to me, the Greek mythology characters(or Greek humans) must have been real and lived as there is so much archeological evidences. But, the names like Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, etc., must have been man-made or taken from other religion scripts(Rigveda). Since our ancestors want to connect with the  evidences they created fictional stories -

1) two parties mightiest Olympians and Titans(elder gods), 

2) to develop emotional bonds with the characters, people made 12 Olympians as Gods(because of the powerful statues and temples found from excavations). 

3) Though Acropolis are dated 5th century BC, who could prove by DNA test that they were Gods or humans when there were no remains found.

When most people are nowadays expecting proof to believe the Gods, they cease to believe when they are identified as fictional. Hellenism, the worship of the ancient Greek Gods, is recognized by the Greek government as an official religion. The westerners mostly stopped residing in the 3rd century's beliefs once they evolved in science.

Note: This post is just an educative purpose so it would have bored you. It will be updated every now and then.  These are from the Unprecendented information available from the internet, so this may go wrong.