User:Doug Weller/Progonoplexia

Progonoplexia (Greek: Προγονοπληξια), roughly translated as 'ancestoritis', is a term used by George Theotokas, Richard Clogg and others to reflect an obsession that modern Greeks have with their historical heritage and cultural forebearers.

It is similar to archaeolatria, used to describe the concept of "excessive reverence of antiquity". Dennis Deletant suggested that these two traits started to gain popularity in the early nineteenth century. Norman Berdichevsky has discussed it as a "key element of Greek identity."

Christos Mylonas described it as an "inate belief of a linear descent from the classical past", giving a "precept of national distinction within a highly contested spatial and cultural constellation". Paul Stephenson suggested the fundamental importance of understanding history to "comprehend and shape the present and the future". Arguing for it's intrinsic correctness, Stephenson suggests "every generation must rewrite the past to give it meaning, and in doing so ask new questions of the evidence at hand." The tendency of some Greeks to favor katharevousa, a form of Greek more like that of the ancients than what they perceive to be more 'corrupt' modern vernacular Greek, has been described as a manifestation of progonoplexia.