Customer Reviews

The Muslim Bonaparte

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My two brief stays in Ioannina whetted my curiosity about the almost legendary figure who governed Epirus with an iron hand in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and I figured it would be great to read all about the cruel Turkish despot who had five hundred women and fifty young boys and who personally murdered his son's mistress in the middle of the lake. But, alas, Ali was not Turkish but Albanian. He was not appointed by the Sultan but just took over the government. He clearly did not regard himself as a vassal of the Sultan but, like his Egyptian counterpart, Mehmet Ali, looked more to the west for recognition and reaffirmation, playing off the French and the British against each other. This is actually a book about historiography rather than history and it deals with questions like how reliable the sources are and what kind of arguments are most productive for understanding the subject, and at times the reader gets the feeling that the author's dissertation advisor is looking over someone's shoulder. As Fleming sees it, the greatest obstacle to real understanding of Ali Pasha is the orientalizing tendency of the the primary sources, mostly British and French travel writings that tried to provide Europeans with a glimpse of what a Turkish despot was like. So, even though I was looking for lurid anecdotes, Fleming's approach to Ali and his times is more intelligent and more enlightening. In fact, this is an excellent book that should be read by anyone interested in the modern history of Greece and the Balkans. We can get our scandalous stories elsewhere.

This book is a disappointment. It is more a discourse on the cultural attitudes of western European travellers (a topic already done to death by other academics over the past twenty years) than it is an original study of Ali Pasha. It merely reformulates in academic jargon the same information on Ali that has long been available in more readable form elsewhere. No doubt this reformulation will appeal to some readers, but for many this will be a book to slog through.

Fleming needs to go back in Epirus and rewrite the book. I thought Ali Pasha was Albanian.

The book is a good reading, however Fleming puts Ali Pasha much more in a Greek context rather than in an Albanian one. It seems that the Greek factor is overly emphasized as to attract more attention to the story of Ali Pasha. My trips in the area show that Ali Pasha is much more present among Albanians than Greeks. Yet my kudos go to the author for exploring such an intriguing figure as Ali Pasha.

I was aware of Ali's image in modern Greek history and once I watched a film about kyra-Frosyni (Irene Papas main role) and I was surprised to see that it was just two adulterers (his son Muhtar and her, both married) story which ended with her drowning. So I wanted to know more about him and I got hold of this book. Let's see a few points:
1. Ali Pasha's biography - just 2 pages!
2. Her conclusions chapter justifying the title? NONE! She keeps on mumbling about Said's definition of Orientalism and how she disagrees with him, etc. Who on earth cares! If she wanted to write an essay on Said, fine - give it a different title and write it so at the back of your book. Otherwise could you stick to Ali Pasha? Please?
3. She states that the people of Souli who fought against him for years - a war-like Orthodox Greek-speaking mountainous people who also fought throughout the whole of the 7 more important later years for the Greek independence were Albanians. Some references please? None, although in her introduction accusses other authors for not providing enough references.
4. She keeps on saying Ali Pasha was pressing his subjects so hard for money that would lead them to ruin, yet she states that the economic situation due to peace and low amount of thieves made the local economy blossom.
5. She repeats herself numerous times and is out of focus consistently.
6. Does it really matter whether Ali wanted to impress Byron's friend toying with the idea of speaking once in Greek and then in Albanian? Instead what were his real intentions in general? What happened to his sons? To his court? His private secretary (a Greek who she says is not certain whether he was a member of the Filiki Etairia). That would give a lot more information about Ali's real intentions.
I find it alarming that a certain Liana Theoharatou suggests this book at the back cover (look at her title and weep).