By Academician EASA Alexios P.PANAGOPOULOS

(ORCID iD 0009-0008-9304-4040)

Abstract

Magna Graecia is a part of the European civilization. Magna Graecia is one of the famous lands as “Europa Nostra”. Social and geopolitical history has shown that whatever is true and has sound foundations, sooner or later becomes a powerful reality. No historical lie lasts for long, and no morbid condition endures time. The dissolution of the historical South by the application of various forms of violence against a historical people mainly since the year 1861 and the creation of a nation that had not existed in before, was a poor geopolitical experiment, for which hundreds of thousands of people paid with their lives, while millions of others were forced to leave their homes, from Magna Graecia to the ends of the Universe. At the center of the existence of peoples and nations is their culture, the social worldview that peoples shape. It is the essence of the ancient Greek people, or nation in southern Europe. The movements in Magna Graecia declare that they can all together work for the European vision. The State of the North led the European South in the last century to have all the negative records in economic and social indicators. Today, it is a scientific task to highlight this social inequality and geopolitical importance, to unite Southern Europe with the European World, where immediately the people of Magna Graecia will once again become the protagonists and will not be led by politicians and micropolitics of the North, who, as has been written in the press, find opportunities and carry out the various plundering of the European South and have been working for their own interest for so many years.

Key words: Magna Graecia, geopolitics, social significance, past, present

Prologue

Magna Graecia is an important and integral part of the European civilization, also known as “Europa Nostra”. General social and geopolitical history has proven to us that whatever is true and has sound foundations, sooner or later becomes an eternal and powerful reality that science deals with creatively and didactically. No historical lie, no utopia, and no general lie may last long, let alone forever, because no morbid condition or theory can withstand time. The disintegration of the organization of the European historical South by the application of various forms of violence against the historical people and especially since the year 1861 and the creation of the Italian nation that had not existed before, was a bad social and geopolitical experiment. For this experiment hundreds of thousands of people paid with their lives and millions of others were forced to leave their homes, from Magna Graecia to the ends of the Universe, and mainly in Latin America. At the heart of the existence of peoples and nations is the culture they create, the social worldview that peoples shape. It is the property and status of the ancient Greek people and nation that has lived in Southern Europe. Contemporary movements in Magna Graecia declare that they want and can work all together for the European vision of creative unity. The state of the North has led the European South into decline, and, ever since the last century, to have all the negative records in economic and social indicators. Today, it is a scientific task to highlight this social inequality and geopolitical importance, in order to unite Southern Europe with the European World, where the inhabitants of Magna Graecia can once again become rightful protagonists and will not be guided by wrong politicians and micropolitics. The North, which, as has been written in the international press, finds opportunities and does various sorts of plundering in the European South, working for so many years exclusively in its own interest, is something that creates social inequalities within the very Italian state.

Part A

Greater Greece has maintained the reputation of historical,
social and geopolitical importance to this day. This is keenly felt by the entire European civilization that has been based on the idea of  ”Europa Nostra”. The multi-cultural city of Naples (Greek: New City) together with the entire Magna Graecia, have shown us several times that all peoples can come together for the creative social/political will of good cooperation of all European citizens, whether they live in western, central, eastern, northern, or southern Europe.1 World social and geopolitical history has taught us that whatever is true and has a sound scientific foundation sooner or later becomes a powerful sociopolitical reality. It has been accepted in science that no historical lie could last for long. No morbid condition endures through time and eternity (Ciaceri, 1940: 175–181; Dunbabin, 1948: 68–75; Compernolle, 1981: 759–769; Graham, 1982: 163–195; Franciscis, 1972; Woodread, 1962; Freeman, 1891–1894; Finley, 1984).
The disintegration of the historic South caused by application of various forms of violence against a historic people, mainly since the year 1861, and the creation of a nation that had not existed before, was a bad geopolitical experiment, which hundreds of thousands of people paid with their lives, while millions of others were forced to leave their homes, from Magna Graecia to the ends of the Universe.
Something similar happened in our East with the terrible Asia Minor disaster in 1922, where the brutality of the genocide was manifested and hundreds of thousands of Greeks of Asia Minor were slaughtered like animals, while those saved were either enslaved, or forced to flee their homes. With the passage of time it is said that wounds are healed and perhaps today the fullness of time has come to restore the social truth, to heal the wounds and return to what is socially true, geopolitically fair and natural. Is it culturally possible today, after reunification of all European peoples, for the creation of a great European state in the center of the Mediterranean to become a reality? Is it a social duty, sacred and geopolitically maximal, to achieve this goal today? (Nakos, 1990; Pantazopoulos, 1968; Petropoulos, 1961; Triantafyllopoulos, 1968).

Could it be possible in the first phase to create a confederation of European populations from the states of the Mediterranean with the ultimate goal of then creating a Mediterranean European ideal, consisting of Sardinia, Sicily, Greece and even Cyprus? The cultural capital of this geographically and geopolitically vast maritime Mediterranean European ideal could be Syracuse, which was the largest ancient Greek city in the classical era as well. Is it time to realize today the dream of Count Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of the New Hellenic State (1828–1831), whose family originated from Istria and the coastal city of Koper, who dreamt of creating such a Mediterranean European Association that would include Sicily, Lower Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and even Sardinia. Magna Graecia today has twice the population of Mother Greece. The same was in ancient times, when the cities of Magna Graecia were more populous than the cities of Mother Greece. A great result of this Pan-European Union could be a social and cultural union including all the millions of ancient Greek Mediterranean diaspora populations. I should specifically mention that only in the country of Argentina live approximately 20 million people who come from Magna Graecia. Socially and geopolitically, the effort could be made for a strong state organization, or a confederation to incorporate approximately 120 million people living all over planet Earth, who are of ancient Greek origin, even if they do not speak the same language today.
This social reality, when it becomes a geopolitical event, may allow it to play a new, very important geopolitical and geostrategic role in the enlarged Europe of cultures and peoples. Admittedly, in the center of the existence of peoples and nations is their culture, and the social worldview that the peoples form. The new geopolitical and geoeconomic role of Magna Graecia is to more closely connect economically and culturally the Mediterranean peoples, but it is also proof of the survival and existence of the ancient Greek people or nation in southern Europe today. The inhabitants of Greater Greece would also face different issues related to reunification, such as respecting traditions and some rules, given that different religions meet there, for example, Orthodox or Catholic. They would also encounter various issues of secular law, for example the rules of life on Mount Athos and its specific canons (Panagopoulos, 2010a).

In recent years, a social struggle has emerged for the promotion and cultural independence of Greater Greece, and strengthening of the spiritual and cultural union with ancient Greece and Cyprus. The intellectual and political forces that support this view wish to engage in creating a new geopolitical order and social values, which will culturally govern their geographical boundaries. They advocate for the new geopolitical order based on the ethics of and love for ancient
Hellenism, which inspires their social ideals with the ancient southern European culture and historical values, the ideals of the ancient Greek virtue, chosen by the hero Hercules known to all of us, rather than the path of evil. These movements declare that they should completely leave the framework of the various Nightmares (Nightmare in the Greek language is synonymous with the Greek word Ephialtes, this is the Spartan who betrayed King Leonidas during the Battle of Thermopylae, Ephialtes is the name of a Greek god, one of Poseidon’s sons, after whom the Spartan was named) that betrayed Leonidas and every leader, all those who acted as enemies of ancient Hellenism, considered to have simply served foreign interests, mainly of the Italian North, by betraying their country. It is also emphasized that conditions need to be created for strengthened social and active participation of citizens in the commons, by returning them to the legal institutions from the system of the ancient Greek organization of the city-states’ Direct Democracy. They believe that in this way people will once again become free existences and free political beings, according to Aristotle, so the ancient Greek ideals would once again become politically and spiritually what they once were in order to enlighten and save the new European world again (Aristotle, 1999).

A key element of the Mediterranean European unification will be, as the followers of this view claim, that the prevalence of the spirit of European unity, fraternity, honesty and truth, among them, where the whole will be much more important than its parts. They would be able to socially belong to the European ancient Greece, and this would be much stronger than the feeling of belonging to a city-state or a modern European region.
The ancient Greek world has always been a healthy and stabilizing element for humanity and Europe. They state that in the times of the Inquisition in Western Europe, hundreds of people lost their lives or suffered from Western European religious fanaticism, while at the same time in Magna Graecia and Mother Greece a corresponding practice was considered foreign to Greek morals and customs and was not significantly present in the society (Cantarella, 1981: 29; History,
1926: 355; Triantafyllopoulos, 1968: 37; Lacey, 1968; Hugh, 1911: 948; Aristotle, 1999: 7; Diodorus Siculus, 1933; Wauters & Benito, 2017). 

Although in the southern parts of the Mediterranean, the last millennium witnessed occurrence of Islamic fundamentalism and obscurantism, the ancient Greek world was always a world of social prudence and humanity, a bright, creative world of measure and harmony, among the worlds that had lost the measure as they reached the far East, through extreme practices and inhuman violence and barbarities at the expense of their fellow human beings.
The movements in the Magna Graecia state can all together work towards a cultural ancient Greek movement, or as some call it Insorgenza Ellenica. In fact, they have been proponents of this social idea for a long time, with some notable people from the modern philhellenic society and coming from different social and geopolitical spaces, have been inspired by patriotism and love for history and the ancient Greek cultural identity. The political labels such as right, left, centrist, etc., are today without substance, and they simply divided the ancient Greek Mediterranean European peoples, without offering anything meaningful. Today these movements declare that their only essential element is the cultural and social love for the ancient Greek education, which can result in beneficial effects on the pan-European level.

Source: Panagopoulos, A. (2024). Geopolitical and Social Significance of the Magna Graecia Development – From Yesterday to Today. In: Maksimovic, M. &
Rohrbach, W. (Eds). The Geo-Economic Landscape: A Market and Social Approach, pp. 324–343. Edited Volumes. Belgrade: Institute of Social Sciences; Krems: University for Continuing Education Krems, Danube University Krems. https://doi.org/10.59954/QGRL7430-12

PANAGOPOULOS ALEXIOS, Academician EASA, Ph.D. Emeritus Professor of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Greece, and former Rector of the Athoniada Academy in Karyes, Holy Mountain Athos. Panagopolous is a doctor of political sciences, bioethics, political history and religion, and holds a post-doctorate in law. Scientific Research: University of Munich; Vienna University; Tomas College University in Warsaw, IKY scholarship in Geneva; Chambesy Center of Ecumenical Patriarchate; Interdisciplinary Hellenic Studies Program Coordinator in the Institute of Saint Gregorious Nazianzine in Central America; Faculty of Religious Law; Rector of Athoniada Ecclesiastical Academy in Karyes, Holy Mountain Athos – in 2012–2013. Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in Salzburg. Member of the International Slavic Academy of Sciences, Education, Arts & Culture, Moscow & Belgrade.