THE YOUTH OF ALI PASHE TEPELENA IN THE ERA OF KLEPHTES AND ARMATOLOI

Abstract

An important issue that we will address in this study is related to the youth of the Pasha of Ioannina. The youth of Ali Pasha Tepelena is related to the era known as the era of mountain hoodlums - a period that served for the development of Ali Pasha. Greek, foreign and Albanian historiography has its own views on this issue and the treatment perspective.As part of the hoodlum or so-called klephtes era, is the inevitable war between the armatoloi and hoodlums, otherwise known as the armatoloi - klephtes issue. According to scholars of the time, this conflict was a major factor that would spur the Greek Revolution of 1821. One of the groups ready for revolutionary war would have been the klepht and also the armatoloi, who knew war as well as the Turks, and who had often cooperated with each other, managing to coordinate their potential and energies in the best possible way, in the service of a nationalist movement. The Ottoman invaders created armatoloi to maintain peace and eliminate the klephts but this very mechanism did not work because it was the klephts and armatoloi who preserved the spirit of freedom and cooperated for the good of their peoples, against the same invasion. The Ottoman Empire, in order to minimize the importance of this police called armatol, which played a significant and influential role in society, established the police office for the mountain trails.In the years when Ali Tepelena took over Pashalic, the Balkan territories in general and the Greek and Albanian in particular, were dominated by anarchy and the power of famous thieves. It is for this reason that, the second half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, are considered periods dominated no longer by law, but by lawlessness and anarchy. This reality is closely related to the activity of klephts and armatoloi .Albanians, being free peasants, brought to Greece with all their economic and cultural backwardness, very strong human virtues, such as the desire to live with honor, sincerity, love for man and mutual help, the passion to protect what they just had won. Considering their war against the Ottomans, the Albanian population was very close to the goals of the Greek population, although with different nationalities they waged a joint war against the Turks. this illegal population called klephts lived in caves and mountains, but thanks to their activity they did great damage to the Ottoman Empire, the population of these countries called them national heroes. Ali, having been a klepht himself, tried to control the robbers and klephts but more than hitting them, he used them as an instrument for his political and governing purposes, creating the institution of armatoloi, he could had anyone under surveillance but above all the latter, the gunmen brought information about the movement of the klephts from all sides where they were moving. If an analysis is made of the European provinces of Turkey, it is noticed that local authority is primary, the local leaders had no influence from the sultan, given that the influence of the Ottoman power was fading at the end of the XVIII century, it is not for be surprised that the power of these local institutions was constantly increasing. His kind of illegal institution that was created between klephts and armatoloi, marked the greatest resistance to the Ottoman invaders, the popular movement served as a spark of fire for the Greek revolution of 1821. The role of Ali Pasha, consists in supporting and strengthening their role, since in his youth he had been himself a klepht and an armatol.