Yes, Greece is Western too: The reasons
Geographically,
Greece is anything but western, as it lies approximately between latitudes 34°
and 42° N, and longitudes 19° and 30° E
However,
for historical reasons, Greece, especially during the last millennium,
interacted mostly with the west, as a result, most of bibliography today,
includes it in the Western Europe
The westernization process in Greece:
The main reason that Greece is considered a western country, is that it gave birth to modern western civilization", as Greek and Roman culture were the main contributors and affected European culture and mentality during the age of enlightenment, more than anything else. However, the following article will focus in other and more unknown facts about Greece as part of the western world:
As early as
12-15th centuries, most of Greece was under Venetian, Frankish and
Catalan dominance,
The impact
of these years is reflected in many aspects of its culture, such as is
architecture (with the exception of particular parts of northern Greece), much of its folk music
etc:
For some reason, not even one of these pictures resembling traditional Greek architecture and monuments, would resemble any other part of Europe than Mediterranean Southern Europe, which is obviously part of the West
As
late as 1832, Greece turned to a Bavarian ruled kingdom, something that lasted
for almost 150 years, until 1974, when Greece turned to a republic. For all
these years, Greece interacted almost exclusively with the west, being one of
the earliest members of the EU, and a traditional ally of the US.
Also,
Greeks, in contrast to neighboring eastern European countries (like Balkans
etc.) have a naval-colonial history (even in America), and participated in
United states’ history since first colonies were established there
Today, in
spite of its common borders with eastern Europe, most of Europeans, along with most of Bibliography, would
associate it with Mediterranean European countries, all of them being part of
the west
This doesn't mean zero similarities with the east. Actually the opposite, there are similarities with both east and west
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