This article is about an Albanian pasha. Another Ali Pasha was the Ottoman commander in the Battle of Lepanto (1571).

Portrait of Ali Pasha

Ali Pasha (1741 – January 24, 1822, Monastery of Pandelimonos (near Ioaninna)), the Lion of Janina, was born to a powerful clan from Tepelenë (in modern Albania) and spent much of his youth as a bandit. He rose to become governor of the Ottoman province of Rumelia, which included Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace, before establishing himself in Janina.

Like Kara Mahmud Bushati , Ali Pasha wanted to create an autonomous state under his rule. When Ali Pasha forged links with the Greek revolutionaries, Sultan Mahmud II decided to destroy him. The sultan first discharged the Albanian from his official posts and recalled him to Constantinople. Ali Pasha refused and put up a formidable resistance that Britain's Lord Byron immortalized in poems and letters. In January 1822, however, Ottoman agents assassinated Ali Pasha and sent his head to Constantinople.

Nevertheless, it took eight more years before the Sublime Porte would move against Mustafa Pasha Bushati . The sultan sent an Ottoman general to Bitola (then called Monastir, in Macedonia), where he invited 1,000 Muslim Albanian leaders to meet him, and in August 1830 Reshid Pasha had about 500 of the Albanian leaders killed. He then turned on Mustafa Pasha, who surrendered and spent the rest of his life as an official in Constantinople.

The story of Ali Pasha's downfall was fictionalized in The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. In this famous novel, the daughter of Ali Pasha becomes a slave of the Count and helps him take revenge on the man who betrayed her father.

Castle of Ali Pasha (Photo by Marc Morell)

See also

• History of Albania