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Hadji Ali Haseki (Template:Lang-el) was an 18th-century Ottoman Turk and for twenty years (1772–1792) on-and-off ruler of Athens, where he is remembered for his cruel and tyrannical rule.
Biography
Hadji Ali was born in Anatolia, and became a personal bodyguard (haseki) to the Sultan Abdülhamid I (r. 1773–1789), as well as the lover of one of his sisters. In 1772, with her aid, he acquired the malikhane of Athens. Athens had been a malikhane—a special landed estate that belonged to the Sultan but was rented to high officials as a usufruct estate, usually for life—since 1760, but while the first owner (malikhane sahib), Ismail Agha, a local Turk from Livadeia, had been humane and popular, Haseki was cruel and tyrannical, and his rule represented "the worst years in the history of Athens under Ottoman rule".
At first, Haseki astutely presented himself as a protector of the local Greeks, both against the Turks, as well as against the interventions of the local Ottoman governor of Negroponte. He also made friends among the most important Athenian archons, so that when he began oppressing the lower classes, the archons refused to act against him. Thereupon the middle and lower classes, supported by the Metropolitan of Athens and the clergy, denounced Haseki to the Porte, and he was recalled for a while, with a voevoda from Chios appointed to govern the city in his stead. Haseki managed to use his connections at court to secure his return in 1777, with the support this time of the Athenian Vlastos family, and of the Metropolitan, who hoped to use his influence with the Sultan to be elected Patriarch of Constantinople. On his return, he forced the Athenians to recompense him for the financial losses incurred due to his temporary removal.
The same period saw devastating raids by Albanian warbands into Attica. In 1778, Haseki defeated the first invasion at Chalandri, and killed some 600 Albanians. To secure the city, he immediately began construction of a new city wall, the "Wall of Haseki", around the city. Work had not progressed far when a second and far larger force of 6,000 Albanians approached, on their way to the Morea. The Turks then abandoned the city and found refuge in the Acropolis of Athens, while Haseki allowed the Greeks to move to Salamis Island for safety. There they remained for 13 days, until the Albanians departed after receiving a substantial sum as a "reward" for their services. Construction on the wall resumed with increased vigour: Haseki not only enlisted the entire population of the city without distinction, but himself participated in the work, so that the 10 km long wall was completed in 108 days, or, according to other reports, in only 70 days. Many ancient and medieval monuments were demolished and reused as building material in the process. Haseki then promptly presented the Athenians with a bill for 42,500 piastres, ostensibly for the supervisors he had brought from outside. Not only that, but he placed guards at the gates, so that the wall served to virtually imprison the population in their own city.
References
- ^ Freely 2004, p. 23.
- ^ Miller 1921, p. 31.
- Miller 1921, p. 9.
- Miller 1921, pp. 9, 23–25.
- Miller 1921, pp. 31–32.
- Miller 1921, p. 32.
- Miller 1921, pp. 32–34.
- Miller 1921, pp. 34–35.
Sources
- Freely, John (2004). Strolling through Athens: Fourteen Unforgettable Walks through Europe's Oldest City. Tauris Parke Paperbacks. ISBN 978-1-85043-595-2.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Miller, William (1921). The Turkish restoration in Greece, 1718-1797. London and New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, The Macmillan Company.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Skouzes, Panagiotis (1948). Georgios Valetas (ed.). Χρονικό της σκλαβωμένης Αθήνας στα χρόνια της τυρανίας του Χατζαλή, γραμμένο στα 1841 από τον αγωνιστή Παναγή Σκουζέ [Chronicle of enslaved Athens in the years of Hadj-Ali's tyranny, written in 1841 by the fighter Panagis Skouzes] (in Greek). Athens: Α. Κολολού.
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