I have been reflecting on some words written by the great Ion Dragoumis many years ago. Observe the way he describes the political systems of Nations :
“Nations do not die because of one political system. In Greece, the politics of the Mycenaean times passed, the politics of the Hellenic times, the Byzantine, and now ours is passing. The people live and change political form. The political form is shaped, it grows, it blossoms, it declines, and it dies, and from its civilization, the character (the outline) of the Man, of the people, is shaped. The people gave birth to their political form, but that form too, once born, carved some important lines into the people.”
Today we have a tendency to associate a Nation just with its political system. We see the law code and contemporary boundaries of the State as THE defining characteristic of the Nation. Yet what does Dragoumis say? The Mycenaean, Hellenistic, Byzantine, and his contemporary times passed. Yet Hellas, the Nation, remained. Of course, Dragoumis considered (as do we) all those wars he lists as being a part of Hellenic history.
The political form is grown, is blossomed, out from a people who have already been born. But that political form has an effect on that people too. They influence one another. Every people has a political form, but that political form need not remain the same eternally. A people’s political form can change, and they still remain the same people.
“Giannopoulos told me one day in Athens : “The Hellenes are a natural phenomenon in this land, they had to be born here and if you suppose that all of us died, even now, in this very land, Hellenes would be born again.” Even if only one Hellene remained and all the others perished, and if Swedes or Irishmen or Egyptians came to inhabit Greece, its islands, and the Aegean basin, they would become Hellenes. That one living Hellene would teach them the language, and his Hellenism would be shared with them, it would pour over them, and they would slowly absorb it, just as the earth drinks water or paper absorbs ink. And yet, even the soil and the stones bring forth spirits, and once you settle in a Hellenic place, you cannot live in peace from the spirits unless you become a Hellene.”
Dragoumis speaks on how powerful our Hellenic Spirit is. It would be an error to have a “civic nationalist” reading of these lines. His point is not to say “the people don’t matter, Hellenic Civilization is all just a vague set of ‘ideas’”. What Dragoumis is saying here is that the Hellenic Spirit is so powerful and so connected to the soil and the rocks, that even if all Hellenes were to be wiped out except for one, the the spirit inside that one Hellene would be so great that he would re-Hellenize the entire land on his own!