this should be expanded into a whole curriculum for those of us who are coming to Greek with an open mind and no academic background to hamper our understanding of your approach, which feels natural and seems attractive to students interested in poetry, music and culture
it’s also a fun way to think about unifying a study of the Classics with developments in Hellenistic culture, such as Gnostics, Grammarians or whoever, all the way through the recent enthusiasm for revival of Orthodoxy in the West in a way that resurrects a “dead language” into a living modern tongue enriched by deep past experience
please keep me in mind when you develop curriculum for homeschooling and I’ll be a customer for life
Thank you so much for stopping by and for this comment! It is such a challenge, honestly, to consider how on earth to pack these topics into a course format. I have done a lot of teaching and course design, but so much of this hinges on lived experience; so many of the questions I found myself asking that brought me to write this material derive from my own lived experience in Greece, with just enough experience of other cultures to make me able to look at it as an outsider as well. Short of full-on cultural immersion I'm really unsure on how that could be repackaged in a way that can truly be communicated. But it's a great challenge, and one I promise I'll keep percolating in the background! I appreciate the encouragement!
my favorite instruction in French language took the form of cultural immersion, but while my real-life experiences in France were chaotic and confusing, it was so reassuring to have studied everyday situations with language that deepened my appreciation of culture and history through such simple interactions as sharing coffee or wine, and picking out the right cheese, wine and bread
I stumbled down a rabbit hole when I asked my local friends what language the musicians were singing in at this cool underground party (actually in a medieval cellar) because it sounded like French Italian or was it Catalan?
No, that’s la langue d’Oc, Provencale, and suddenly I need a lot of background on French Catholicism and Occitanian Catharism just to make out the lyrics at a show!
You could have a lot of fun with a Greek culture social media guide and language immersion series that took on the personality of a time-traveler
A lot of the nerds out here would love to know how to conduct themselves in a Byzantine court or Alexandrian library or Bactrian battleground, and the parallels to modern things might surprise us with their utility and beauty
I myself am fascinated by the period of the Roman-Jewish wars, Flavian politics and how it produced literature such as the Gospels, Gnostics, Pauline epistles and apocryphal literature in general
"In the West, many polytheist sympathisers and believers have come to dismiss Christian practices out of hand, and I know they may find this piece challenging."
Well, I'm from the "West" (I don't really like this word, by the way, I much prefer to say that I'm from a Latin, Romance-speaking country, "West" is just way too broad these days), and I also think it's an error.
Everything in the world didn't change overnight 1500 years ago when some politically powerful guys adopted Christianity as an official religion. Changes took a lot of time. This was true in Greece, it was true here too, and everything I learnt taught me that Medieval "Catholic" practices, beliefs... can be good, interesting and reliable sources about pre-Christian polytheisms. Of course, they can't be the ONLY sources, but I think dismissing them completely would be an error of the same importance, because without them we risk overlooking valuable information.
Mais ce sont generalement les anglophones (les Americains sont pire) et les europeéns du nord qui ont des idées tres peculières en ce qui concerne l’histoire et la culture de la Grèce. Je parle toujours de dogme académique et pas des peuples.
Vous voulez dire le genre d’idées comme “c’est nous les vrais héritiers des Grecs de l’Antiquité” ou “les Grecs modernes ne sont pas des vrais Grecs” ? C’est vrai qu’en France on n’entend pas trop ce genre d’idioties (heureusement !)
Il y a ça aussi, c'est assez répandu et je l'ai rencontré, pas seulement parmi les idiots, malheureusement. Il y a aussi une réelle confusion quant à savoir si nous étions vraiment Romains, l'idée qu'il y aurait des lignes de démarcation nettes après l'Antiquité classique et après la chute de Constantinople. Ces idées sont profondément ancrées, même parmi les érudits. Il en va de même pour l'idée que le grec moderne est hors de propos et corrompu. En France, au moins, les études byzantines sont très développées, mais là encore, les disciplines ne dialoguent pas suffisamment.
C'est vrai, on peut même dire que les byzantinistes et nous (les gens qui étudient les périodes antérieures) ne dialoguons même pas.
Je me souviens que beaucoup de monde était étonné quand j'avais eu l'idée bizarre de citer deux ou trois sources byzantines du XIIème siècle pendant mes recherches pour mon master de lettres classiques !
Les choses commencent à changer, très lentement, car les études de réception gagnent en popularité. Alors, bien sûr, on cite des sources byzantines pour montrer comment un élément de l'Antiquité est parvenu jusqu'à nous. Ou comme témoignage. Mais il reste encore beaucoup à faire !
Hi and thanks for your remarks. I’m a little confused through; what am I “dismissing completely” in your view?
As to “everything didn’t suddenly change overnight,” i wrote precisely this above ☺️
As I note in many posts, and I’m happy to provide further examples, I am drawing attention to the Western reception of Greek material.
By “Western” I mean the Latin West historically, from the sixth century onward, after which Greek was largely lost from roughly the Western Balkans and Westwards. That is the historical West as defined by linguists.
Perhaps I should have specified that, but it is also true for the modern “West” in terms of how Greece and Greek material is perceived, talked about, and used, in both scholarly and other sources.
The Roman Catholic world evolved a bit differently than the south-eastern Mediterranean, because of cultural and linguistic (and eventually political) differences.
The Eastern empire became a foreign country. And the historically Western reception of Greek culture altered the ways it was understood. That’s how reception works.
Nobody is saying that Latin/Catholic cultures have nothing of value , but I’m coming at this material from a particular angle.
The paragraph you have picked out is for my many polytheist readers who may have felt uncomfortable suddenly being presented with practices they would recognise as magical with an Orthodox veneer. So I’m really not sure what the objection is. I don’t write about Catholic folk religion except when relevant… I write about Orthodox folk magic, the living traditions and where they derive from, and how they’re often (mis)understood.
I was precisely talking about the contemporary polytheists or sympathisers who don't want to think about Christianity preserving ancient practices, not about you. I was actually trying to say that I absolutely agree with everything you said, sorry for being confusing (I guess that's because I read a lot in English but don't write very often in it, my English must be full of barbarisms !)
I'm French ! As for my Greek, I fear it is quite a bit restricted to Classical Attic... precisely because of the problem of reception of Greek culture in Western minds that sometimes seem to think that Modern Greek doesn't exist...
Alors on peut parler Français si ce strait plus facile - et ce serait moi qui va faire des “barbarismes” 🤣 But your English really is excellent, it’s just this format isn’t always the easiest to get things across in brief comments. And I must say, French scholarship (and Italian) of Greek material is much, much, much better than anglophone scholarship. Many of these problems have been avoided.
Alors ce sont peut-être les Anglais qui doivent être vraiment mauvais (là on voit que je suis un vrai Français : je profite de la moindre occasion pour critiquer les Anglais ! 😂), mais nous sommes loin d'être parfaits : j'ai étudié 6 ans les "Classics" à l'université (ici on dit "Lettres Classiques", en Grèce est-ce qu'on dit "Philologie" ?), j'ai fait beaucoup de grec, mais jamais de grec moderne ! Je crois n'avoir étudié aucun texte grec qui soit plus récent que le début de l'Empire romain pendant toutes mes années d'études. Ce que je peux connaître sur l'Antiquité tardive par exemple, c'est largement plus grâce à ma curiosité personnelle que grâce à l'université !
Hello, dear Sasha. Impressive. I realize how much your voice has been missing from the academic debate and you are now spreading your wings in such a brilliant way ! I like the 'respectfully skarky tone' at times with our western failures. Your offerings are timely information to help fight some with religious and political agendas. Thank you, also for referencing the Dupuis article. Blessings.
Thanks Nicolas, I really appreciate it. Particularly as I have also been taken to task for the snark- but frankly, this is as nice as I’m going to get on these matters 🤣 The Dupuis piece was perfect for what I needed, finally I’m managing to give back just a little!!
You’ve got more credits coming; your query about poetry a few weeks ago sent me down a rabbit hole of Byzantine poetry. I’ll have plenty more coming on that note, time allowing 😊 And the answer is that prosody never stopped. It’s in standardised Greek (the equivalent of RP) that it’s less audible. But we can still find it in the metre right through medieval times and beyond, and more pronounced in the dialects . It just softened. More on that anon but do keep the questions coming!! 😊
wow this was dense, deep and exciting
this should be expanded into a whole curriculum for those of us who are coming to Greek with an open mind and no academic background to hamper our understanding of your approach, which feels natural and seems attractive to students interested in poetry, music and culture
it’s also a fun way to think about unifying a study of the Classics with developments in Hellenistic culture, such as Gnostics, Grammarians or whoever, all the way through the recent enthusiasm for revival of Orthodoxy in the West in a way that resurrects a “dead language” into a living modern tongue enriched by deep past experience
please keep me in mind when you develop curriculum for homeschooling and I’ll be a customer for life
Thank you so much for stopping by and for this comment! It is such a challenge, honestly, to consider how on earth to pack these topics into a course format. I have done a lot of teaching and course design, but so much of this hinges on lived experience; so many of the questions I found myself asking that brought me to write this material derive from my own lived experience in Greece, with just enough experience of other cultures to make me able to look at it as an outsider as well. Short of full-on cultural immersion I'm really unsure on how that could be repackaged in a way that can truly be communicated. But it's a great challenge, and one I promise I'll keep percolating in the background! I appreciate the encouragement!
my favorite instruction in French language took the form of cultural immersion, but while my real-life experiences in France were chaotic and confusing, it was so reassuring to have studied everyday situations with language that deepened my appreciation of culture and history through such simple interactions as sharing coffee or wine, and picking out the right cheese, wine and bread
I stumbled down a rabbit hole when I asked my local friends what language the musicians were singing in at this cool underground party (actually in a medieval cellar) because it sounded like French Italian or was it Catalan?
No, that’s la langue d’Oc, Provencale, and suddenly I need a lot of background on French Catholicism and Occitanian Catharism just to make out the lyrics at a show!
You could have a lot of fun with a Greek culture social media guide and language immersion series that took on the personality of a time-traveler
A lot of the nerds out here would love to know how to conduct themselves in a Byzantine court or Alexandrian library or Bactrian battleground, and the parallels to modern things might surprise us with their utility and beauty
I myself am fascinated by the period of the Roman-Jewish wars, Flavian politics and how it produced literature such as the Gospels, Gnostics, Pauline epistles and apocryphal literature in general
This is such fascinating work, Thank You!!
Absolutely fantastic Sasha, thank you.
🥰🙏✨ Alkistis!!! I really appreciate the feedback !!!
"In the West, many polytheist sympathisers and believers have come to dismiss Christian practices out of hand, and I know they may find this piece challenging."
Well, I'm from the "West" (I don't really like this word, by the way, I much prefer to say that I'm from a Latin, Romance-speaking country, "West" is just way too broad these days), and I also think it's an error.
Everything in the world didn't change overnight 1500 years ago when some politically powerful guys adopted Christianity as an official religion. Changes took a lot of time. This was true in Greece, it was true here too, and everything I learnt taught me that Medieval "Catholic" practices, beliefs... can be good, interesting and reliable sources about pre-Christian polytheisms. Of course, they can't be the ONLY sources, but I think dismissing them completely would be an error of the same importance, because without them we risk overlooking valuable information.
Mais ce sont generalement les anglophones (les Americains sont pire) et les europeéns du nord qui ont des idées tres peculières en ce qui concerne l’histoire et la culture de la Grèce. Je parle toujours de dogme académique et pas des peuples.
Vous voulez dire le genre d’idées comme “c’est nous les vrais héritiers des Grecs de l’Antiquité” ou “les Grecs modernes ne sont pas des vrais Grecs” ? C’est vrai qu’en France on n’entend pas trop ce genre d’idioties (heureusement !)
Il y a ça aussi, c'est assez répandu et je l'ai rencontré, pas seulement parmi les idiots, malheureusement. Il y a aussi une réelle confusion quant à savoir si nous étions vraiment Romains, l'idée qu'il y aurait des lignes de démarcation nettes après l'Antiquité classique et après la chute de Constantinople. Ces idées sont profondément ancrées, même parmi les érudits. Il en va de même pour l'idée que le grec moderne est hors de propos et corrompu. En France, au moins, les études byzantines sont très développées, mais là encore, les disciplines ne dialoguent pas suffisamment.
C'est vrai, on peut même dire que les byzantinistes et nous (les gens qui étudient les périodes antérieures) ne dialoguons même pas.
Je me souviens que beaucoup de monde était étonné quand j'avais eu l'idée bizarre de citer deux ou trois sources byzantines du XIIème siècle pendant mes recherches pour mon master de lettres classiques !
Les choses commencent à changer, très lentement, car les études de réception gagnent en popularité. Alors, bien sûr, on cite des sources byzantines pour montrer comment un élément de l'Antiquité est parvenu jusqu'à nous. Ou comme témoignage. Mais il reste encore beaucoup à faire !
Hi and thanks for your remarks. I’m a little confused through; what am I “dismissing completely” in your view?
As to “everything didn’t suddenly change overnight,” i wrote precisely this above ☺️
As I note in many posts, and I’m happy to provide further examples, I am drawing attention to the Western reception of Greek material.
By “Western” I mean the Latin West historically, from the sixth century onward, after which Greek was largely lost from roughly the Western Balkans and Westwards. That is the historical West as defined by linguists.
Perhaps I should have specified that, but it is also true for the modern “West” in terms of how Greece and Greek material is perceived, talked about, and used, in both scholarly and other sources.
The Roman Catholic world evolved a bit differently than the south-eastern Mediterranean, because of cultural and linguistic (and eventually political) differences.
The Eastern empire became a foreign country. And the historically Western reception of Greek culture altered the ways it was understood. That’s how reception works.
Nobody is saying that Latin/Catholic cultures have nothing of value , but I’m coming at this material from a particular angle.
The paragraph you have picked out is for my many polytheist readers who may have felt uncomfortable suddenly being presented with practices they would recognise as magical with an Orthodox veneer. So I’m really not sure what the objection is. I don’t write about Catholic folk religion except when relevant… I write about Orthodox folk magic, the living traditions and where they derive from, and how they’re often (mis)understood.
Oh, sorry, it's me who wasn't clear !
I was precisely talking about the contemporary polytheists or sympathisers who don't want to think about Christianity preserving ancient practices, not about you. I was actually trying to say that I absolutely agree with everything you said, sorry for being confusing (I guess that's because I read a lot in English but don't write very often in it, my English must be full of barbarisms !)
Oh goodness, ok, glad we cleared that up!!! Absolutely true then, we agree!
What is your language? I speak Greek and French if it helps?
I'm French ! As for my Greek, I fear it is quite a bit restricted to Classical Attic... precisely because of the problem of reception of Greek culture in Western minds that sometimes seem to think that Modern Greek doesn't exist...
Alors on peut parler Français si ce strait plus facile - et ce serait moi qui va faire des “barbarismes” 🤣 But your English really is excellent, it’s just this format isn’t always the easiest to get things across in brief comments. And I must say, French scholarship (and Italian) of Greek material is much, much, much better than anglophone scholarship. Many of these problems have been avoided.
Alors ce sont peut-être les Anglais qui doivent être vraiment mauvais (là on voit que je suis un vrai Français : je profite de la moindre occasion pour critiquer les Anglais ! 😂), mais nous sommes loin d'être parfaits : j'ai étudié 6 ans les "Classics" à l'université (ici on dit "Lettres Classiques", en Grèce est-ce qu'on dit "Philologie" ?), j'ai fait beaucoup de grec, mais jamais de grec moderne ! Je crois n'avoir étudié aucun texte grec qui soit plus récent que le début de l'Empire romain pendant toutes mes années d'études. Ce que je peux connaître sur l'Antiquité tardive par exemple, c'est largement plus grâce à ma curiosité personnelle que grâce à l'université !
Great piece! 🙏
Thank you so much!!☺️☺️
Hello, dear Sasha. Impressive. I realize how much your voice has been missing from the academic debate and you are now spreading your wings in such a brilliant way ! I like the 'respectfully skarky tone' at times with our western failures. Your offerings are timely information to help fight some with religious and political agendas. Thank you, also for referencing the Dupuis article. Blessings.
Thanks Nicolas, I really appreciate it. Particularly as I have also been taken to task for the snark- but frankly, this is as nice as I’m going to get on these matters 🤣 The Dupuis piece was perfect for what I needed, finally I’m managing to give back just a little!!
This is excellent - thank you for the credit at the start!
You’ve got more credits coming; your query about poetry a few weeks ago sent me down a rabbit hole of Byzantine poetry. I’ll have plenty more coming on that note, time allowing 😊 And the answer is that prosody never stopped. It’s in standardised Greek (the equivalent of RP) that it’s less audible. But we can still find it in the metre right through medieval times and beyond, and more pronounced in the dialects . It just softened. More on that anon but do keep the questions coming!! 😊