Thanks to a collaboration with Auron Taren and Kosovar researcher Bejtullah Destani, DITA newspaper brings for the first time an important document that challenges what we have known until now about the death of Ali Pasha Tepelena.
Ali Pasha was not killed in an armed attempt, while his wife Vasiliqia is not what history has presented so far.
This document FO195 /34 preserved in the British Foreign Office Archives for 194 years sheds light on some hitherto unknown facts about the people who conspired to kill the Lion of Ioannina.
In all the works to date, the assassination of Ali is widely recognized as described by the French consul Pouqueville (Pukëvil), who speaks of a heroic battle of Ali and his guards on the steps of the house on the island of Lake Ioannina.
Thanks to this description, where there are also dialogues between the attacking and defending parties, the "last words of Ali" stand out, who demanded that his guards kill Vasiliqi, the faithful wife of the Pasha, "so that she does not fall into the hands of the Turks".
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Eyewitness letters from Janina show the last moments of Ali Pasha
Hrushid Pasha, Ali's besieger, killed himself under unclear circumstances a few months later
In the absence of witnesses or authentic documents, Ali's death is still known from this work of Pouqueville, and even nowadays in the house on the island of Janine, curious tourists are shown "the bullet holes that killed the Famous Vizier".
But the documents bring, among the authentic testimonies, a different picture of Ali's end, putting an end to the event told by Pouqueville.
It is about the discovery of a letter-evidence of February 1822 that Reis Efendi, the foreign minister of the Ottoman Empire at the time, gives to the British Ambassador Lord Strangford to the Secretary of State, Lord Castlereagh about the end of Ali.
"These testimonies are the only facts that come from Ottoman sources in real time about the end of the rebellion of the Albanian Pasha. That's why we think that their truth is very close to the real event - says Auron Tare.
From the testimony where the murder of Ali is described in detail, it appears that the grand vizier of Ioannina, an extraordinary personality of his era, died in solitude, killed by an Albanian, and that his wife Vasiliqia was a secret collaborator of the High Gate.
The evidence that Vasiliqia cooperated with the High Gate for the death of Ali is really impressive, since her figure known from a number of works of European orientalism is considered a symbol of loyalty to the old Pasha.
Portrait of Mrs. Vasiliqi. Author unknown, Sotheby's auction house.
Always treated with notes of idealism and regret for her tragic fate, Vasiliqia's role in the death of Ali, according to the Ottoman source brought by Tare-Destani, seems to have been decisive.
Another very important fact about the figure of Vasiliqia is her clear description in the Ottoman minister's report as "the daughter of a Greek priest". This evidence on her origin refutes any sporadic attempts by researchers to convert her into an "Orthodox Albanian from Chameria".
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196 years since the death of Ali Pasha Tepelena
The role of Vasiliqia in the end of the Vizier has never been illuminated by the sources of the time. Apparently, her actions in favor of the High Gate have been so secret that no one has ever suspected her treachery, even though it was known that after the fall of Ali she suddenly took possession of several important properties.
But the most interesting evidence of the British report based on the information of the Ottoman Foreign Minister is the name of the person who executed him.
Contrary to Pouqueville's colorful description of a glorious end, the British Ambassador calls Ali's death "a pure murder".
And not without reason. After leaving his fortress with his wife's insistence, Ali took refuge in a small house on the island of Ioannina, where he waited for the promised forgiveness from Istanbul.
More than a few followers, some of whom were plotting for his end, it seems that Ali was surrounded by betrayal.
Mohamed Pasha, Ali's executor
Prepared perhaps for a final battle, but lied to by all the characters who visited him from the opposing camp, Aliu waits in the audience for a very prominent but very little-known Albanian from history. Muhammad Pasha of More, also known as Dramaliu, who was Prince of the High Gate.
Apparently, the rank and Albanian status of Muhammed of More may not have aroused suspicions in Ali.
But it was exactly this Albanian, who, according to the testimony of the Ottoman Foreign Minister, stuck the dagger of the Sultan in the body of the old Vizier, ending a life full of turmoil and glory.
The same circumstances of Ali's murder as well as his wife's betrayal were published 4 years later, in 1826, in a publication still unknown to the Albanian public, authored by Robert Walsh, the former priest of the British Embassy.
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"Ali Pasha Tepelena in world art" as a portrait between mysticism and facts
The engraving that accompanies this note is by Walsh and shows the exposure of Ali's head in the niche of the High Gate.
Walsh, who personally visited the exhibition of the Pasha's head, gives a detailed description and sets the date of this exhibition as February 24, 1822.
