Anti-Greek sentiment

Anti-Greek sentiment (also known as Hellenophobia (Greek: ελληνοφοβία, ellēnophobía),anti-Hellenism,mishellenism (Greek: μισελληνισμός, misellēnismós), or Greek-bashing) refers to negative feelings, dislike, hatred, derision and/or prejudice towards Greeks, the Hellenic Republic, and Greek culture. It is the opposite of philhellenism.

In the mid-Republican period Rome phil-Hellenic and anti-Hellenic Roman intellectuals were involved in a conflict over Greek influence. One author explains, "the relationship of Romans to Greek culture was frequently ambiguous: they admired it as superior and adopted its criteria, while they remained skeptical of some aspects; hence they adapted it selectively according to their own purposes." An anti-Hellenic movement emerged in reaction to the primacy of Greek led by the conservative and reactionary statesman Cato the Elder (234-149 BCE), who was the first to write a Roman history in Latin, and was prominent for his anti-Hellenic views. He saw Hellenism a threat to Roman culture, but did not find wide support, especially in the upper class. The prominent philosopher and politician Cicero (106–43 BCE) was "highly ambivalent" about Greeks, and practiced "anti-Greek slur". The first-second century poet Juvenal was another major anti-Hellenic figure.

In the Interwar period (1918–39), the Albanian government closed down Greek schools as part of its policies of assimilation. During the Communist rule in Albania (1944–92), the government restricted the use of Greek language and Greek names by the country's Greek minority in an attempt of forced assimilation. In post-Communist Albania, "there are no significant explicitly racist or chauvinist political parties", although, according to James Pettifer, "there are many individual politicians who adhere to very strong anti-Greek views, which in turn affects the orientation of virtually all ethnic Albanian political parties." In a 2013 poll in Albania, Greece topped the list of countries perceived to be a threat to Albania (18.5%), although the plurality of respondents (46.4%) agreed with the statement "No country is a threat to Albania".

...
Wikipedia