Hadji Ali Haseki - Misplaced Pages

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Hadji Ali Haseki (Template:Lang-el) was an 18th-century Ottoman Turk and for twenty years (1775–1795) on-and-off ruler of Athens, where he is remembered for his cruel and tyrannical rule.

Biography

According to the memoirs of Panagiotis Skouzes, Hadji Ali was born in central Anatolia, and had entered the palace service (Enderûn) as a youth. He eventually became a personal bodyguard (haseki) to the Sultan Abdülhamid I (r. 1773–1789), as well as reputedly the lover of one of his sisters, Esma Sultan, who greatly favoured him and promoted his interests.

First tenure as voivode of Athens

In 1772, Esma Sultan acquired the malikhane of Athens at a price of 750,000 piastres, and gave it over to Haseki. The malikhane entitled its owner (malikhane sahib) to all the proceeds of the city, with the exception of the kharaj, the customs duties, and the legal duties, which went to the Janissaries, the imperial treasury, and the Seyhulislam respectively. 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, 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".

In 1775, Haseki came to Athens himself, as its voivode. The voivode was the civil governor of the city, and a representative of the malikhane sahib. Appointed for one year, he enjoyed wide police powers, and was responsible for the collection of the local taxes in a tax-farming arrangement that required the payment in advance of up to 30,000 piastres to the Ottoman treasury. He was complemented by the mufti, the local Muslim religious leader, the kadi (judge), the serdar (military governor), and the disdar (commander of the Acropolis of Athens).

At first, Haseki astutely presented himself as a protector of the local Greeks, both against the transgressions of the Turks, as well as against the interventions of the local Ottoman governor of Negroponte. He also made friends among the most important Athenian primates, so that when he began oppressing the lower classes, the primates refused to act against him. Thereupon 24 middle-ranking households and the lower classes, supported by the Metropolitan of Athens and the clergy, sent a petition (arz-i hal) denouncing Haseki to the Porte. He was recalled for a while, with a voivode from Chios appointed to govern the city in his stead.

Second tenure as voivode – Albanian incursions and fortification of Athens

In 1777, however, Haseki managed to use his connections at court to secure his reappointment as voivode, with the support this time of the powerful Athenian Turk Makfi, the Vlastos family, and of the Metropolitan Bartholomew, who hoped to use Haseki's 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, which he put at 60,000 piastres.

1778 saw devastating raids by Albanian warbands into Attica, which served to strengthen Haseki's position. In early 1778, a body of 600 Turco-Albanians under Delibashi invaded Attica from Thebes, but Haseki gathered the Athenians, both Turks and Greeks, met the Albanians at Halandri, and drove them back with heavy casualties. To secure the city of Athens against another attack, he immediately began construction of a new city wall, the "Wall of Haseki". 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.

Third tenure as voivode

Haseki returned as voivode in 1779, and exiled many of his Turkish opponents. The situation became so bad that large numbers of Athenians went to Constantinople, including a number of peasants who reportedly took their ploughshares with them and dramatically threw them down in a row before the Grand Vizier, asking the Sultan to give them another place in which to live, for Athens was unbearable. Haseki was exiled to Cyprus, but instead he returned to Athens, and carried on his machinations in Constantinople. As a result, while Haseki was allowed to remain as malikhane sahib, he was removed from the position of voivode and the day-to-day government of the city. In 1781 or 1782, another voivode was appointed over Athens.

Fourth tenure as voivode and exile in Constantinople

Once again, his removal did not last long. The Metropolitan Bartholomew died in November 1781, and his successor, Benedict, joined with Makfi and Haseki's other allies, and petitioned for his restoration. Haseki returned in late 1782, and his rule became even more tyrannical: he continued the acquisition of properties, and forced the populace to cultivate them. Eventually, Haseki turned against Makfi, his leading Turkish Athenian supporter. The latter fled to Nauplia and thence to Constantinople, but Haseki's agents secured his arrest. Brought in chains to Athens on 22 February 1785, Makfi was killed by drowning in the hold of a ship, on Haseki's orders.

His exactions managed to unite Greeks and Turks against him; including the powerful Turks Osman Bey, Balitizikos, and Bekir, as well as the Metropolitan Benedict. His crimes were again denounced to the Porte. Some sixty notables, including the Metropolitan, were called to Constantinople to testify. Powerful officials, including the Grand Vizier Koca Yusuf Pasha, the Kapudan Pasha Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasha, the Grand Dragoman of the Ottoman Fleet Nicholas Mavrogenes, and the defterdar, turned against Haseki, and his return as voivode was forbidden. Encouraged by this, the Athenians rose up against Haseki and his henchmen: the liberal-minded Turks killed Baptista Vretos, while the Christians burned down four homes belonging to Haseki's partisans, three Christians and one Turk. The populace gathered at the Church of St. Demetrios Tziritis, near the gate of the Holy Apostles and publicly anathematized the Christian primates who were his supporters—Spyros Logothetis, Nikolas Patousas, Dimitrios Kalogeras, Hadji Pantazis, Konstantakis Yannoulis, Dimitrios Astrakaris, Theodoros Kantzilieris, Stavros Vrondogounis Tomaras and Hadji Salonitis—and then convened an assembly that deposed them from the city council, electing others in their stead, including Bellos, who had been a prominent popular leader against Haseki, and Petros Pittakis. The oligarchic system was condemned, and a resolution passed that the primates were to be chosen through elections, rather than through heredity. One of the leading Turks was even chosen as one of the two epitropoi, the agents of the Christian community of the city.

Faced with an array of powerful officials, and the growing power of his enemies in Athens, for the next two years (1786–1788), while Haseki remained safely ensconced in the palace of Esma Sultan. During this time, both sides fought a war of bribery and intrigue in the Porte. In Athens, two local leaders, Bellos and Bekir, had emerged, and had through force of arms managed to prevent Haseki's emissary from even entering the city and installing his own voivode. Haseki for a time managed to obtain the removal of Metropolitan Benedict, but the Athenians sought the help of the British consul, Prokopios Menas. Benedict also bribed the dragoman of the British ambassador to Constantinople, who then secured Benedict's restoration. The Athenians even managed to secure the annulment of Haseki's grant of the malikhane, and its bestowal on the darphane emini (the imperial mint-master); the silahdar (aide-de-camp) of the Kapudan Pasha Cezayirli Hasan, who was considered as friendly disposed, was appointed as voivode.

Fifth tenure as voivode and final downfall

Haseki's fortunes took a new blow in 1788, when Esma Sultan died, but he soon managed to turn the situation around through judicious bribery of Cezayirli Hasan Pasha, so that the malikhane was restored to him. As soon as the news reached Athens, the oligarchic party seized control. Bellos and Bekir were thrown into prison, and the Metropolitan himself placed under house arrest.

Haseki returned on 14 February 1789, not only with his malikhane and the voivodeship restored, but also as temporary military governor of the city. His authority was absolute, and a veritable reign of terror began. Bellos, Nikolas Barbanos and his brother Sotirios, Petros Pittakis, Osman Bey, Balitzikos, and Bekir, were all hanged, while Avram and Mitros Kechagias were drowned later. One of his leading Turkish opponents was left to hang from the Frankish Tower of the Acropolis. The 24 mid-ranking notables were brought before a row of stakes and threatened with immediate impalement unless they could ransom themselves, and the entire Christian populace was forced to sign a collective promissory note for 400,000 piastres in money and olive oil. Although the day of payment was fixed for six months after, Haseki began to collect the dues immediately, demanding five to 25 pounds (c. 500 piastres) from every citizen, payable in eight days. This proved particularly onerous, forcing many of the poorer citizens to sell their houses and olive yards to provide the money. Some found refuge in flight, but then his share burdened his fellow parishioners who remained behind. According to the contemporary accounts of Ioannis Benizelos and Skouzes, the voivode "kept for himself all the huge income from the last oil vintage", and demanded from the public twice or thrice his expenses, and his collectors did not hesitate to beat and even kill those who could not pay. Even women were not exempt, and suffered the same as the men, so that the prisons were full. According to Skouzes, who as a boy spent eight days in the prison as a surety for his father's taxes, there were always 150–250 men in the prison, as well as 25–50 women. The men were so tightly packed that there was no room to sit or relieve themselves, and Skouzes describes a smoke "like a black cloud" that went out of the window, from the stink of the place.

Only the three Greek primates, and their followers, who supported Haseki, were exempted from his oppression, and even benefited from it, by buying up the properties of their less fortunate fellow citizens, as did speculators from other parts of the empire. Haseki himself sought to seize property wherever he could. He would either send his own assessors to give a very low estimate of the property's value, or, if the owner were a Christian, simply confiscate it in return for a receipt that he had paid his share of the public promissory note. The Kaisariani Monastery saved itself from expropriation only by arranging to be sold to the Metropolitan of Athens, while the Monastery of the Angels resorted to becoming a vakıf, a protected property of a mosque. He amassed a considerable estate, comprising much of the present-day Botanical Gardens, as well as over 12,000 olive trees, according to Skouzes. He built a large country mansion at the beginning of the Sacred Way, called "Tower of Haseki", and kept a large harem of women. The contemporary accounts report of his attempt to include in it the beautiful Ergena, who was forced to flee to Livadeia disguised as a Turk, while her husband, Stamatis Sarris, was beaten so brutally that he remained crippled thereafter.

Apart from Haseki's tyranny, in 1789 Athens was visited, for the first time in living memory, by the plague, which carried off 1,200 Christians and 500 Muslims, and was followed by a famine. Haseki simply withdrew from the plague to the monastery of St. John on Mount Hymettus, and from there continued to send his agents to summon the citizens to him or collect debts. Haseki was able to profit both from the Porte's preoccupation with the ongoing war with Russia, as well as the support of the primates, who dismissed the complaints lodged against him in Constantinople as "the malicious gossip of mischief-makers". It so happened, however, that Cezayirli Hasan Pasha's silahdar, whom Haseki had displaced, was appointed as the new governor of Negroponte. The holders of that office had always endeavoured to interfere in the affairs of Athens, and the new governor already had reasons to resent Haseki. Thus, when the Athenians petitioned for his aid in recovering money owed, he intervened. The resulting armed clash between two Ottoman governors irked the Sultan, who in 1792 banished both from their provinces. Nevertheless, Haseki remained malikhane sahib, and his agent (kethüda) continued to extract revenue from Athens and send it to him in Constantinople.

His downfall came about because of his intrigues in the Sultan's court, where he tried unsuccessfully to undermine the position of the head of the imperial bodyguard, leading to a banishment to Chios. He returned briefly to Athens, but his position was weakened, and in 1795 the Athenians living in the Ottoman capital encouraged their compatriots to send another deputation to the Porte. This was headed by the notable Petrakis, and by the abbot of the Monastery of the Angels. An attempt was made to assassinate the latter by poisoning his coffee, but failed. The three elders of that year were summoned to Constantinople, but although they tried to defend Haseki, judicious bribes to high Ottoman officials inclined them to the side of the plaintiffs. Haseki was finally banished to Kos, his fortune confiscated by the Sultan, and his properties put up for auction—the Athenians acquired his mansion for use as the governor's residence. Soon after he was executed on the Sultan's orders, and his head sent to be publicly displayed in front of the Topkapi Palace in Constantinople.

References

^ Sicilianos 1960, p. 135.
^ Miller 1921, p. 31.
^ Artan 1996, p. 41.
^ Freely 2004, p. 23.
Miller 1921, p. 9.
Miller 1921, pp. 9, 23–25.
^ Sicilianos 1960, p. 134.
Miller 1921, pp. 31–32.
Sicilianos 1960, pp. 134, 137.
Miller 1921, p. 32.
^ Sicilianos 1960, p. 137.
Miller 1921, pp. 32–34.
Sicilianos 1960, pp. 137–138.
Miller 1921, pp. 34–35.
Sicilianos 1960, p. 138.
Sicilianos 1960, p. 139.
Miller 1921, p. 35.
Sicilianos 1960, pp. 139–140, 354.
Miller 1921, pp. 35–36.
Sicilianos 1960, pp. 140, 354–355.
Sicilianos 1960, p. 355.
Miller 1921, p. 36.
Miller 1921, pp. 36–37.
^ Miller 1921, p. 37.
^ Sicilianos 1960, p. 141.
^ Miller 1921, p. 38.
^ Sicilianos 1960, p. 142.
Sicilianos 1960, pp. 141–142.
Miller 1921, pp. 37–38.
^ Sicilianos 1960, p. 143.
^ Miller 1921, p. 39.
Miller 1921, pp. 39–40.
Miller 1921, p. 40.
Freely 2004, p. 24.

Sources

Artan, Tülay (1996). "Periods and problems of Ottoman (women's) patronage on the Via Egnatia". In Zachariadou, Elizabeth (ed.). The Via Egnatia Under Ottoman Rule (1380–1699). Halcyon Days in Crete, II: A Symposium Held in Rethymnon 1994. Rethymnon: Crete University Press. pp. 19–43. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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)
Sicilianos, Demetrios (1960). Old and new Athens (Abridged ed.). Putnam. {{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. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

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