Another unknown poem from 1785 dedicated to Ali Pasha

By: Irakli Koçollari

The beginnings of radical changes in Ali Pasha's pashalik

Nearly thirty years ago, when I was reading the work of the Scottish historian Finlay on the history of Greece, some of his statements, related to the climate that Ali Pasha created for the development of culture, education, and literary creativity, seemed somewhat exaggerated to me, not to mention almost unbelievable at the time.

This was natural to happen because forty or thirty years ago, his profound and courageous reforms in these areas had not yet become present and we did not know concretely, we did not know the ranks of enlightened intellectuals that he supported and who made special contributions to education, culture, literature and the spread of knowledge in general. Of course, at that time we did not yet know the endless documents of the “Ali Pasha Archive”, nor many of the complete works in prose and poetry written by important Albanian authors who were little known or unknown, and why not anonymous until then.

Research in recent decades has brought to light a very important and prosperous cultural product, creations with unique values by Albanian authors of that time, unique works in prose and poetry (poems), which will have to change the assessments and standards known so far of the history of our literature, the authors and creativity as a whole.

But, what is even more impressive is the fact that we still continue to come across new and valuable discoveries in the field of letters in general and poetic creation in particular from those decades.

Deep, transformative reforms

Speaking about the Greek revolution for independence and the important role that the Albanians and Ali Pasha played in it, Finlay stated: “The Greek Revolution for independence could not be understood without the important role of the Albanians in it. That revolution is closely linked to the Albanians and Ali Pasha himself.”

And going further about the Pasha of Ioannina, his life, career and contributions to the important transformations that he brought to the lives of Albanians, Greeks and the region as a whole, diplomats and politicians, journalists and military personnel, painters and writers describe in detail the important reforms that he undertook in the field of: - institutional transformations; - in domestic and foreign policy; - the intensive and multifaceted diplomatic contacts and relations that he established with the greatest powers of Europe, etc. The archival documentation that Tepelenasi recorded and archived also informs us about the profound reforms in the justice system. Along with them, another of his courageous and important undertakings was the establishment and expansion of his military power; - the introduction of new technology and weapons of war; - the organization of a previously unknown war fleet.

Under the goals of secession and independence, he built an entire system of fortifications, forts and castles, such as those of Tepelena, Porto Palermo, Butrint; of Litharica in Ioannina; of Preveza, the expansion and consolidation of the castle of Gjirokastra, etc., which even today are among the few valuable objects of our Cultural Heritage. He paid special attention to the expansion of urban lines and under these visions opened new roads, built bridges that even today withstand the erosion of time, built drainage systems to dry swamps, etc.

Aliu attracted and included under regular legal contracts about 30 foreign engineers, masons and architects, Milanese, Neapolitan, Viennese, Bavarian, British, French, etc., to carry out important urban transformations. Religious buildings, mosques, churches, monasteries were built with his subsidies. Saraje (palaces) and residential centers were built under contemporary projects and studies.

“Under his administration, Ioannina had developed tremendously and had established relations with the most important commercial centers of Italy - Milan, Trieste, Ancona, Naples and Genoa; of Germany - Leipzig; of Russia - Moscow, Odessa; with Bucharest, Sofia, Vienna, etc.

Investments in knowledge, culture and education

But, in addition to courageous undertakings and reforms of a political, administrative, military, police, institutional, urban, etc. nature, Ali Pasha created conditions and supported people of knowledge to pave the way for education and culture and welcome the storms of enlightenment that had conquered almost the entire European continent.

"He had created and supported in Ioannina a wealthy class which had made this city a true center of Hellenic culture. He opened schools full of flourishing and vitality, one of which was run by Psalidha, while the other by the Zosime family ... Doctors from these parts, who had studied abroad, shone among the merchants and intellectuals, who knew Italian, German, English and French literature very well ...".

Among them can be listed J. Saqelariu, J. Koleti (future Prime Minister of Greece), J. Villarai, A. Psalidha, Ll. Vaja, V. Meksi, J. Vithkuqari, S. Postenani, K. Duka, etc.

From this layer of intellectuals and others, a number of secular and religious textbooks were written, such as the first textbooks on physics, mathematics, astronomy, geography, literature, etc. The first bilingual dictionaries were written: Greek-Albanian, French-Greek, Italian-Greek, Latin-Greek, Vlach-Bulgarian-Albanian, etc.

In the two gymnasiums that were opened with the support of Ali Pasha in Ioannina, Bolono and Zosime, the first generations of young people were raised and educated, who paved the way for cultural development and prosperity.

"You can see the children of Muslim Albanians, Finlay informs us, in the same hallway reading the Quran with an educated Ottoman, while in the next room you can see a Christian boy of the same age learning Greek script with a Greek priest."

Colleges, libraries and schools received a boost and flourishing previously unknown. They were financially supported by Ali Pasha and were independent. In the schools of Ioannina not only theology was taught but also physics, chemistry, mathematics…”

For the first time in the years of Ali Pasha's rule, it became possible to translate holy books, such as the "New Testament" into Albanian by Vangjel Meksi. Under his investments, the Madrasa was built in the city of Ioannina, the Officers' School and the large cavalry training hall, which are still in that city today. He built the first library with about 3,000 copies of books, inside the Ioannina castle. He established a zoo with animals brought from Africa; antelopes, zebras, lions, etc.

Prosperous literary creativity

Of course, all that infrastructure, financial and political support gave great courage and impetus to culture as a whole, throughout the Pasha's area, as Europeans rightly estimated at that time that "Under the rule of Ali Pasha, Ioannina had become the cultural capital of the entire Greek and Albanian nation."

So significant were the transformations he undertook that even Ali Pasha's sworn enemy, the French consul, François Pouqueville, was forced to assert that: "Ali Pasha's activity was civilizing. He brought changes to the economy, justice, the agricultural system, opened new roads, carried out transformations... and I must say that he never appeared or was a demagogue."

In this climate, a large number of creators were born and flourished among the Albanians, who brought a rich inventory of literary creations. Finlay notes that at that time “a large number of poetic creations were written, by many Albanian authors, which circulated from hand to hand, in the Greek language or in Albanian with the Greek alphabet …”

Of course, in the early 85s when I read these statements by the famous Scotsman, his words were unbelievable to me! But, when, through intensive and persistent research, in the archives, we found the manuscripts of Haxhi Shehreti's poem "Alipashaida" and when, piece by piece, their number increased to almost ten thousand verses, my disbelief began to waver and completely crumble.

A place that gives birth to poets and poetry

Meanwhile, other valuable finds began to add to the inventory of Albanian creators and hitherto unknown creations, year after year. In the “Archive of Ali Pasha” we found parts of an unknown poem written by an anonymous Albanian, from Vunoi. The few verses found of this poem inform us about the identification and punishment of a Greek priest, who had written a poem entitled “Cyclops”, which ironized and mocked Ali Pasha.

Another long fragment of a poem, written by Ali Pasha's third son, (Sali Pasha) is found in the French edition of 1824, under the title "Popular Songs of Modern Greece". The poem was written in 1820 and offers events of historical interest for Ali Pasha and the most important events of the pashadom of Ioannina. "This poem," writes the famous French scholar and folklorist Fauriel, of the 19th century, "constitutes a very curious historical event, since it was written by one of Ali Pasha's sons, - Sali Pasha".

In the personal notes of the English Consul, to the pasha of Ioannina, William Martin Leak, who stayed in these parts from 1805 to 1810, we found an interesting notice which tells us "about an Albanian from Parga, who has written a book (1808) on the history of the province of Chameria and Sul..." This very interesting book, having been found, is in the process of being prepared for publication.

In this case, we will not dwell on the very rich popular creativity, folklore, which took on quite intense dimensions in relation to all previous periods, in the era of Ali Pasha. We will not even talk about other talented creators of this time, such as Hasan Zyko Kamberi, etc. We will not be able to stop talking about the wealth of the “Albanian Divan” about which the late Genciana Egro wrote with such competence and skill. Of course, we will find another time to talk about many valuable new things about the above subjects.

An unknown poem dedicated to Ali Pasha written in 1795!

Referring to the central subject of this article, we would like to inform you that - a few days ago, in a meeting with my friend and colleague, academician Pëllumb Xhufi, after we exchanged with each other, some works that we still have in our hands, he generously gave me, a bunch of photocopies, of a poem written in medieval Greek. Initially, at first glance, the thought arose that it could be a fragment or chapter from the poem "Alipashaida" by Haxhi Shehreti. We say this because we have found fragments of his countless writings from time to time.

But, after carefully examining the verses of the poem, I realized that the vocabulary used in them did not belong to the linguistic fund or vocabulary of Haxhi Sehreti. So, we did not find in it the lexicon that is found in Shehreti's correspondence or poetic creations.

A second observation was that the verses of this poem did not maintain the standard in metric that Shehreti's verses have. The latter rigorously respects sixteen syllables in all his poetic creativity. While the anonymous author of the poem we have in our hands wrote his verses in the thirteen syllable metric.

Thirdly; - If we refer to a short note by the neo-Hellenist Legrand about the poem, which was written at the beginning of the poem, as well as another poem that was attached at the end of the poem, we learned that the Frenchman also maintains the same opinion about its author. Legrand stated that “the anonymous author is undoubtedly an Albanian,” and he supports the above by referring to “the Albanian words that are found, here and there, throughout the text of the verses written in Greek.”

Fourthly; - It was understandable that at the end of the century (18th), Albanian was not written, so as many researchers, historians and the documentation of the "Ali Pasha Archive" indicate, at the initiative of the Tepelenas, for the first time in the history of modern Greece, it was Ali Pasha who institutionalized Greek as the official language of the structures of his pashalik. In these circumstances, officials and many young people began to learn and write in this language. Among the enlightened of the time, there was also a significant number of Albanian intellectuals who began to write and create using Greek as a communication instrument. A typical case is the anonymous author of this poem himself.

Fifthly - Legrand himself gives us another detail, to reiterate his conviction that the author of the poem is an Albanian. Thus, he has added the last note through which he insists: "It is not excluded that the author of the poem is a verse writer (poet) ... a worthy colleague and imitator of the Albanian Haxhi Shehreti".

Two words about the poem "The Genealogy of Ali Pasha"

From the first lines of the poem, one immediately gets the impression that the author not only knows the art of verse, of poetic creation, but also has a general culture beyond the limits of the simple technique of this type of art. It is clear from what he expresses time and time again in the lines of the poem that he knows ancient history, the culture inherited from antiquity, mythology and its characters, etc. He begins his poem in this way:

O muse Calliope, goddess of verse
To Helicon, where glory dwells, you are my mother.
With all nine nymphs, come closer and show me
Please guide us to the story we will tell.
The origin of Ali, all his bravery
The journeys he traveled day and night
...

The author then begins and recounts in detail the origin of the ancestors of the Tepelena Pasha and begins this genealogy from the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-two, a time in which he claims that one of the predecessors of Ali Pasha's clan appears.

Then the Author talks about the Pasha's parents, his childhood, the circumstances that left him an orphan and the difficult and painful times that he and his mother Hankua went through. Going further into the story of Ali Pasha's genealogy, the anonymous Author talks about the youth of the Tepelena man, his later connections with Kurt Pasha of Berat, the intrigues woven to kill the Tepelena man, the circumstances that enabled his salvation, etc.

The poem's verses extend the chronology of their events to the time when Ali Pasha escaped Kurt Pasha's traps and then along the path of his rise to power.

We do not yet know, nor can we say with any certainty, whether this is the complete poem composed by the anonymous poet, or whether this is only the first chapter of a longer, more complete poem about the life and works of Ali Pasha. It is not excluded that it is the latter! However, time will confirm or refute our claim.

Given the fact that the anonymous Author speaks with respect and perhaps even a kind of awe of the Pasha of Ioannina and his family, it is implied that at the time the poem was written, the Pasha of Tepelena must have had power and authority, factors that would impose not only respect but also fear and awe of the authoritarianism of the government, among the inhabitants of the pasha, even more so among those intellectuals who dared to write about the Pasha, in a system of medieval absolute monarchies. In these circumstances, we judge that the Author wrote the "Genealogy" not before the Tepelena took power, but after he had taken the throne of the Pasha and with it the heavy and threatening halo of the eastern monarch. So he must have written it probably there, around 1785.

In any case, "Poema" is another asset that comes to the fund of the tradition of Albanian poetic creativity in a time and century when we still do not have such in the inventory of our creative assets in long poetry, the poem. /Gazeta "ExLibris"/

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Another unknown poem from 1785 dedicated to Ali Pasha

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