Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2De Quincey, Thomas
History
Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays -- 19th century
I. _The Greek People_.--It is with a view to the Greeks personally,
the men, women, and children, who in one sense at least, viz., as
occupants of the Greek soil, represent the ancient classical Greeks,
that the traveller will undertake this labor. Representatives in one
sense! Why, how now? are they not such in all senses? Do they not trace
their descent from the classical Greeks?' We are sorry to say _not_;
or in so doubtful a way, that the interest derived from that source
is too languid to sustain itself against the opposing considerations.
Some authors have peremptorily denied that one drop of genuine Grecian
blood, transmitted from the countrymen of Pericles, now flows in the
veins of any Greek subject. Falmereyer, the German, is at the head (we
believe) of those who take that view. And many who think Falmereyer
in excess, make these unpleasant concessions; viz., 1st, that in Athens
and throughout Attica, where, by special preference, one would wish
to see the Grecian cast of face predominating, _there_, to a single
family almost, you may affirm all to be Albanian. Well; but what is
Albanian? For the Albanian race, as having its headquarters in regions
once undoubtedly occupied by a Greek race. Epirus, for instance,
Acarnania, &c., may still be Grecian by descent: but unfortunately it
is not so. The Albanians are no more Grecian, and notoriously no more
represent the old legitimate Greeks, who thumped the Persians and whom
the Romans thumped, than the modern English represent the Britons, or
the modern Lowland Scotch represent the Scoti, of the centuries
immediately following the Christian era. Both English and Lowland
Scotch, for the first five centuries after the Christian era, were
ranging the forests of north Germany or of southern Sweden. The men
who fought with Caesar, if now represented at all, are so in Wales,
in Cornwall, or other western recesses of the island. And the Albanians
are held to be a Sclavonic race--such at least is the accredited theory;
so that modern Greece is connected with Russia not merely by the bond
of a common church, but also by blood, since the Russian people is the
supreme branch of the Sclavonic race. This is the first concession
made which limits any remnant of the true Greek blood to parts of the
ancient Hellas not foremost in general interest, nor most likely to
be visited.
A second is, that if any claim to a true Grecian descent does exist
extensively, it must be looked for amongst Mahometan clans, descended
from renegades of former days, now confounded with our Mussulmans
ejected from Greece, and living in Thrace, or other regions under the
Sultan's sceptre. But even here the purity of the descent is in the
last degree uncertain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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