Fig. 43: The Oath of Initiation into the Society (1849) by Dionysos Tsokos, depicting Theodore Kolokotronis joining the Filiki Eteria. Tsokos came from Epirus and was taught by Nikolaos Kantounis from Cephalonia, a member of the Filiki Eteria.
Christoforos Perraivos, whose name as the author of the History of Souli and Parga was written using the cryptographic alphabet, was a close friend of Rigas and was arrested with him in Trieste by the Austrians. Unlike Rigas he was released and went on to serve in the French and Russian foreign regiments on Corfu and helped with the defence of Santa Maura against Ali in 1807. With the British occupation of the islands he left for Odessa where he met the leaders of the Filiki Eteria and became an early member. In the preface to his History, Perraivos identified three Filiki Eteria and key members of Ali’s circle who fed him information through ‘allegorical signs’. Their names only became known in 1857 with the publication of the second edition of his book in Athens when there was no longer any danger or risk involved. The first edition had been published in 1815 in Venice by Nikolaos Glykys, a merchant from Ioannina, while Parga was still under threat from Ali. The key men in question were Athanasios Psalidas, whom Perraivos respectfully refers to as the teacher of Ioannina, Stephanos Doukas and Manthos Oikonomou. For Perraivos these men were members of what he termed the ‘first Etairia’, followers of Rigas, whereas he was a member of the second brotherhood from 1817, and they had kept their vow. Strangely, Oikonomou, who had initiated Kolovos, Ali’s envoy to London, into the organization, was praised by Perraivos for his dedication to Ali. He was an important advisor in his administration, but his role as a patriot is questionable. After Perraivos’ first edition was published he was Ali’s negotiator for the sale Parga and was influential in the defection of Omer Vironi and others to the Sultan’s troops during Ali’s final war. When he tried to defect himself he ended up in the wrong hands and was executed by Mahmud Pasha. Oikonomou has been seen as a benefactor, looking after the interests of his home region of Zagori, and supporter of the Filiki Eteria but also accused of being one of Ali’s unscrupulous enforcers. The intelligence Oikonomou, Psalidas and Doukas provided was used by Perraivos ‘for the benefit of the Souliotes and Pargians’ but with the outmost care not to leave any written or oral signs of their activities, as he was aware that Ali would immediately get rid of anyone who might compromise him ‘from the root’. In Perraivos’ view the three advisors had an ameliorating influence on Ali, but Archbishop Ignatios, who he knew was one of Ali’s secret advisors, he held responsible for the events at Preveza before his defection to Santa Maura.
The aristocratic Ioannis Kapodistrias, who had defied Ali on Santa Maura in 1799, was a Liberal and a Democrat who then served in the ministry of the Septinsular Republic under the Russian occupation. Through Count George Mocenigo he joined the Russian diplomatic service taking a leading role in countering the attempt at Austrian domination of Europe under the policies of Metternich. Metternich, whose driving idea was stability within the anciens régimes of Europe, had no time for Kapodistria’s progressive ideas and he kept a close eye on his movements. While he was in Russian service he had not forgotten about his native land and hoped to influence Tsar Alexander. In 1816 his secret police files record that Kapodistria was in Vienna where he was in contact with a number of Greeks, including the wealthy merchant Ioannis Stavrou, alleged to be ‘the secret correspondent in Vienna of Ali Pasha of Ioannina’. Stavrou’s son George was an old friend from his St Petersburg days. Closely involved with the Filiki Eteria, George made regular contact with leading conspirators when on commercial journeys abroad. The family were intimately connected with the Turkish chargé d’affaires in Vienna, a Phanariot, Alexander Mavrogenis, whom Kapodistria also visited. Mavrogenis was the son of a former Hospodar of Wallachia once employed by Rigas. It all amounted to a suspicious web to Metternich.
With the induction of Kira Vassiliki into the society in 1818 by Skoufas it is hardly surprising that in November, Ali informed the dragoman of the Russian consulate in Patras, Ioannis Paparrhigopoulos, that he knew of the existence of the Filiki Eteria and was conversant with their secret signs. In 1819 the Filiki Eteria had intensified its attempts for Russian support and Ali, through Paparrhigopoulos, began pressing for his own plans for a Russian-backed insurrection against the Sultan. At the same time he had opened up communication with his old enemy Kapodistria, and Paparrhigopoulos, who travelled regularly from Patras to Ioannina and from there on to Corfu, carried secret messages between them. It is suggested that Kapodistria had now come to the opinion that he could use Ali by encouraging him to rebel against the Sultan. Kapodistria was not beyond intrigue of his own. He passed on this information to Baron GA Stroganov at Constantinople, along with news that he had been forced to intervene to release the two sisters of Dimitrios Mostras, secretary to Bishop Ignatios, kidnapped by Ali. From Stroganov the message was sent to the Tsar, probably through the hands of Strogonov’s secretary, Gabrial Katakaziz, who was also a member of the Filiki Eteria. By now Maitland, who was proving to be an unpopular governor on Corfu, was keeping tabs on Kapodistria. After a mishandled trip by Kapodistria to London to gain British support, Maitland was of the view he was a subversive and set his agents to intercept his messages. On one occasion Paparrhigopoulos was forced to play cat and mouse with a British ship sent to intercept him when he was crossing back to the mainland. He visited Ioannina again before returning to Patras to pass on an oral message from Kapodistria to Ali advising him to be loyal to the Sultan but act with humanity towards his subjects. This conciliatory tone was in effect encouragement to rebel because with the goodwill of his subjects he was increasing his chances of gaining independence. Kapodistrias was cautious, rightly wary of Ali’s approaches to the Greeks, and reluctant to let the klepht captains become too closely drawn into Ali’s web. After his round trip Paparrhigopoulos returned to Patras where he told his fellow conspirators, Consul Vlasopolos and Bishop Germanos, that Ali was primed and ready. The complexity of the relationships is summed up by the fact that Ali was back in correspondence with his old ally Bishop Ignatios who had left the Septinsular Republic in haste with the Russophile Count Mocenigo for St Petersburg. Appointed Bishop of Moldavia and Wallachia (Ungrovlachia) he was forced to leave Bucharest when the Danubian Principalities reverted back to the Ottoman Empire, to eventually find exile in Pisa from where he acted as a coordinator of the European philhellenic movement.
Kapodistrias’ caution was proved correct as Ali vacillated between seeking British help in promoting an uprising against the Turks only then to say he wanted reconciliation with the Porte and its protection, while all the while making offers to Russia through Paparrhigopoulos. During the summer of 1820 Paparrhigopoulos was busy once more travelling from Patras to Constantinople, to visit the Filiki Eteria there, then to St Petersburg, where Kapodistrias had travelled. Ali’s new tack was to own up to the Tsar to being a member the Filiki Eteria, having been initiated by Oikonomou. Paparrhigopoulos was dubious about this claim and on questioning denied the existence of the brotherhood. He knew that Greeks in Ali’s service, the secretaries, Manthos and Alexis Noutsos, the physician Ioannis Kolettis and several klephts and armatoli had been enlisted but the organization had refrained from recruiting Albanians. It was Alexis Noutsos who was keeping Alexandros Ypsilantis informed of events in Epirus as he made preparations for the uprising before openly declaring himself for the Greek cause in Missolonghi in 1821.
Fig. 44: Germanos, Archbishop of Old Patras by Adam Friedel.
In the end Ali ran out of friends. So accustomed to the practice of flattery and deceit, blackmail and extortion he was unable to develop the sophisticated tools to match his ambition. His diplomacy was so based on fickle alliances, double-dealing and hollow promises for the furtherance of his own ends that he was unable to keep the support of any of his major sponsors or the loyalty of the local beys and chieftains. The Porte was wise to many of his dealings with the foreign powers, playing one off against the o
ther, and through its endeavours to keep a check on them inhibited his success in acting as an independent ruler. By never fully committing to breaking from the Ottoman sphere neither France nor Britain saw any long-term gain in continuing to support him. After pandering to the Sultan by informing on French clandestine activity in the Morea, his final bid to ally himself to the Filiki Eteria was a desperate last ploy. He had run out of options.
1 Ali’s secretary, see Chapter 6, p. 7.
Chapter 6
Life under Ali Pasha
I have never followed any road previously travelled by Ali Pasha without seeing some newly filled up grave, or some wretches hanging on trees. His footsteps are stained with blood.
Richard Davenport
When Thomas Hughes stepped ashore at Preveza the town presented an oriental prospect ‘with its gorgeously painted seraglio, forts, and minarets’. At Konitsa, north of Lake Ioannina, where there was an ancient fortress, a more peaceful aspect greeted them. Here, where Ali had a serai, they found one of the ‘best specimens of an Albanian city that we saw’:
its houses stand for the most part separate, and the courts being planted with trees, a very pretty effect is thus given to its external aspect. It contains 5,000 inhabitants, about two-thirds of which are Mahometans. It is a bishopric. The bazaar is particularly neat, and the habitations in general extremely good, being built of stone, with handsome shelving roofs. We rode at once up to the grand serai of the vizir, and paid our respects to its Albanian governor… the intimate and confidential friend of Ali.
The governor was at dinner ‘with a Turkish dervish and six other Albanian friends, clothed in their sheep-skins, and eating a thick rice soup with wooden spoons’. Hughes and his companions were invited to join them; ‘common politeness forced us to gulp down a few spoonfuls of this horrid pottage’. Every whim of the European guests was catered for. Desirous of seeing the ancient ruin the aga supplied a body of men to escort them. To add to this picture of contentment, by the side of the road to Ioannina there was ‘a beautiful fountain beneath a neat cupola, which contains seats for the accommodation of travellers’ where one could take ‘an excellent breakfast’, and a new khan nearby and ferry station on the lake. For a moment everything seems peace and tranquility in Ali’s kingdom.
The Western narratives lurch from Oriental fantasy to harsh reality. Behind Preveza’a picturesque facade were the ‘miserable huts of the town… concealed by these edifices’. In the imagination the people of Epirus may have been inhabiting a land plucked from the Arabian Nights, but beneath the extremes and caricatures that the travellers found so fascinating a state had to function. Ali’s overblown persona, with its ambiguities and contradictions, played into this dream but it also reflected the real-life uncertainties of his regime, poised as it was between the old and the new; a land facing a world of possibilities waiting to be embraced, yet caught in a medieval time warp of tribal loyalties. For a moment in time Epirus appeared as if it might forge a new path, creating a new dynamic synthesis between two worlds where progressive ideas could even flourish. Given the condition of the floundering Ottoman Empire, Ali’s autocracy was viewed by some as a lesser evil. Like any totalitarian regime it was selective in those whom it favoured, and for the fortunate there were opportunities within the semblance of security Ali provided, but at a price. He was running what amounted to a police state on a constant war footing, and as ever, it was the poor that felt the brunt of a rule that was based on expediency rather than justice.
Fig. 45: Ali Pasha hunting on the lake of Butrinto after a print by Louis Dupré from Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople (1825).
In bare terms, Epirus, the heart of Ali’s regime, was summed up by The British and Foreign State Papers for 1823–24 as having an estimated population of ‘375,000 souls’ who had suffered ‘in the midst of the chaos of the administration’ of the ‘most monstrous’ tyrant, Ali Pasha.1 In continental Greece the Papers reckoned the ratio of Christian to Muslim to be around five to one. In Epirus the numbers of Muslims generally increased progressively northwards and in Albania proper the mix would have been much more even. From the population of Epirus alone, not including his takings from Thessaly, Macedonia (with a larger population) and Acarnania, Ali extracted a tribute of two million piastres to hand over to the central government at Constantinople, and a further ten million which he kept for himself plus the exactions and revenues of his relatives. His personal income from Epirus was approximately equivalent to the total export value of all its seaports along the whole coast from Preveza as far north as Durazzo. At the time of writing after Ali’s fall, the Papers described the Province as containing ‘only ruins and solitude’ and ‘a feeble commerce with the Ionian Islands and the Ambracian or Artan Gulf’. Although it is evident Ali was regarded as a rapacious despot, the implication is that the quality of life had been reduced after his death. The stark contrast between Ali in his pomp and the condition of Epirus after his eclipse gives an indication of his impact on the region.
Ali’s Court
From the grand displays and energetic building projects that Ali undertook it is clear that he was not satisfied with being yet another petty pasha in the accepted manner. Once Ali had established himself in Ioannina, he began to acquire the trappings of a potentate and develop a state apparatus in imitation of the Sultan. Having a capital allowed him to receive deputations from his subjects and delegations from foreign powers in the style of the Sublime Porte at Constantinople. At Ioannina, 1,500 staff attended visitors from far and wide. Hughes was there at the same time as a khan of Persia was paying his respects. The centre of Ali’s administration was his court, which, like the progress of a medieval monarch, he moved around his domain from palace to palace. While the main seats of his power remained his palaces at Ioannina and Tepelene, he was said to travel throughout his fiefdom each year keeping a watchful eye on his allies and dependencies alike. For his subjects getting as close as possible to the ‘throne’ was a means to securing advantage, and gaining entry into the court circle itself was a highly prized method of social advancement. Notables from the villages of Zagori were as eager to show loyalty as the high placed citizens of Ioannina. Ioannoutsos Karamesinis, the most influential headman from Kapesovo, known as the ‘Romiopasha’, was a close ally and he entertained Ali in his mansion in the village on several occasions.
At the heart of the court was the harem, some of whose members moved with Ali from seraglio to seraglio, while others would remain in situ on a more permanent basis. At the Sultan’s court the harem included female slaves and servants, eunuchs, wives and concubines and unmarried female relatives. The Sultan’s mother played an important supervisory role within the imperial harem and when Ali took over the leadership of his clan from Hamko, she was said to have been pushed aside into the harem. Whether this was an amicable arrangement on not, she maintained her own small seraglio at Konitsa, her home village. Ali’s first marriage had been for strategic reasons, but the route to his heart came from elsewhere. The mother of Selim Bey, Ali’s youngest son, was a Circassian slave. Circassian women from the Caucasus were admired for their beauty and regarded as the pick of the concubines in the imperial harem and they were highly prized throughout the Empire. Selim’s mother retained her favoured status with a position of authority over the harem at Tepelene. Kyra Vassiliki, who entered the harem at a young age, became in his later years his favourite mistress and eventually his wife. She gained such respect that she was recognized as a person of influence in her own right. Her position was secure enough for her to intercede on behalf of her fellow Christians and Greeks, finance restoration work at the monasteries in Mount Athos and even to become a member of the Filiki Eteria. That Vassiliki was content to play along with Ali, either through genuine devotion or expediency, was to her advantage, but as the story of Euphrosyne shows, others were not so willing. In some versions, she is depicted as heroically resisting Ali’s advances and the shameful prospect of entering the harem. That suc
h a prospect was damaging depended on individual circumstances. Slaves and captives ended up there, and also volunteers who saw it as an opportunity. Slavery was not banned in the Ottoman Empire until the early twentieth century. Non-Muslim young boys as well as women could be taken as slaves and used for sexual purposes, but more commonly they were used as attractive workers in bathhouses and coffee shops. That visitors to Ali’s court were served by handsome youths was therefore not unusual in Ottoman society. It is well-attested however that Ali’s harem included boys, called Ganymedes after the beautiful youth abducted by the god Zeus in classical myth. If there is any truth in Ali being, as Vaudoncourt euphemistically put it, ‘almost exclusively given up to the Socratic pleasures’, the name implies that many of the boys, or most of them, were abducted, and probably for more than their looks.
Ali Pasha, Lion of Ioannina Page 21