Comment by tpoacher
10 hours ago
Nice name, "Akrites".
Probably not as impressive to a non-Greek, but to a Greek person it creates very strong imagery.
10 hours ago
Nice name, "Akrites".
Probably not as impressive to a non-Greek, but to a Greek person it creates very strong imagery.
To save others a search:
> The akritai (singular akrites) is a term used in the Byzantine Empire in the 9th–11th centuries to denote the frontier soldiers guarding the Empire's eastern border, facing the Muslim states of the Middle East. (Wikipedia)
Akron means edge or border, so "frontiersman" or "those of the border".
EDIT: Commenters seem upset about the Muslim part, I didn’t mean to imply anything, you cannot just copy-paste contemporary disputes and prejudices a thousand years ago. In the historical context it’s just like most borders between different civilizations. The point is that they were a collective organization getting together to defend their land.
Then it's perhaps not the best name, given what happened in the end to the empire's eastern border.
Sigh
This is a very simplified and uninformed view of what the Akritai were. The name choice is so wrong, it cannot even be called out as cultural appropriation, because it is far worse than that. LF just stick with languages you understand.
I would be glad to learn if you are willing to explain, this what I found from trusted sources, but it would be great to know if there’s additional nuance.
3 replies →
> facing the Muslim states of the Middle East.
if true, then choosing this name was a very bad decision.
Imagine how Muslims would feel, demonizing them even more, before they were terrorists, now they are attacking open source and hence some organizations need akrites to defend from them.
I really wish such organizations which try to demonize anyone, to fail miserably
To be fair, the Akritai was the Byzantine Empire's effort to use the local population to defend the land, instead of having to deploy regular Army or mercenaries. It happened to be Muslim states that was the border. It bears no anti-muslim connotations as a word in Greek. In fact the epic of Digenes Akritas, speaks of Basil, an Akritas of a Greek mother and an Arab father (hence the name Digenes, of two descents).
But still, the name is a bad, uninformed choice.
Α better translation is "defender of the borders" or "Knights of the borders". Form "Akri" = edge, border.
It's not Muslim related even at the time they exists.
That's who they had the border with, dude.
I wish malicious interpretations like yours would fail miserably. The word for the soldiers is about them, not who they fought.
Apache is doing pretty well despite them being deathly foes to the Comanche and Texans but I doubt either Texans or Comanches object to the name because of something that happened hundreds of years ago.
I mean I guess we have stop calling things the Great Wall because it repelled incursions from the Manchurians and maybe those people who live in their ancestral lands who were defeated and incorporated into modern Chinese society might feel a tinge of anger…
A more recent example would be Mark Carney's Davos speech [1], specifically "middle powers must act together because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Carney%27s_Davos_speech
To UK oldies it probably reminds them of the sitcom Open All Hours with Ronnie Barker.