Hadji Ali Haseki (, ) 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
The career of Hadji Ali Haseki is known chiefly from two sources, written by contemporaries: the journals of the Athenian scholar Ioannis Benizelos, and the memoirs of Panagiotis Skouzes. They are complemented by the reports of Western European travellers, and subsequent Greek historians.
According to Skouzes, Hadji Ali was born in central Anatolia, and had entered the palace service () as a youth. He eventually became a personal bodyguard () to Sultan Abdul Hamid I (), as well as of his sister Esma Sultan. Skouzes reports rumours that Haseki and Esma were lovers, and that she greatly favoured him and promoted his interests as a result. According to Benizelos, prior to coming to Athens, he had served as voivode (civil governor) of Durrës.
Background: Late Ottoman Athens Athens had been under Ottoman rule continuously since 1456, apart from a brief Venetian occupation in 1687–1688, during the Morean War. Under Ottoman rule, the city was denuded of any importance and is commonly dismissed as a "small country town" by modern scholars such as Franz Babinger, but this image is incorrect: the city's population grew rapidly during the 16th century, and with was for a time the fourth-largest Ottoman town in the Balkans, after the capital Constantinople, Adrianople, and Thessalonica. The Venetian occupation led to the near-abandonment of the city in fear of Ottoman reprisals, and it began to recover only slowly. By the middle of the century, the city numbered inhabitants, of whom about 4/5 were Greek Orthodox, i.e. Greeks and a few Arvanites—most of the Arvanites in the area of Attica lived in the countryside rather than in Athens itself—and the rest "Turks", i.e. Muslims regardless of ethnic origin, including Gypsies and "Aethiopians"; as well as a few Catholics (mostly Westerners resident in the city). There does not appear to have been a Jewish community in Athens during that time.
The Turkish community numbered several families established in the city since the Ottoman conquest. Their relations with their Christian neighbours were friendlier than elsewhere, as they had assimilated themselves to their Christian neighbours, even to the point of drinking wine, speaking Greek, and allowing more freedom to women. The Greeks held the city's commerce in their hands, and enjoyed a measure of self-rule, headed by a council of elders () or primates (), who assumed office every February and were selected from among the city's 15–20 aristocratic families (). The held much power, sometimes using it for the benefit of the Greek populace, but at others allying with the Ottoman authorities to preserve their privileges. Under the were the ("burghers"), numbering 24 families according to Skouzes, the , merchants and artisans, and the , the poorer farmers. The villagers of Attica, the , were ranked at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The climate was healthy, but the city relied chiefly on pasture—practiced by the Arvanites of Attica—rather than agriculture. It exported leather, soap, grain, oil, honey, wax, resin, a little silk, cheese, and valonia, chiefly to Constantinople and France. In the late 18th century, the city hosted a French and an English consul.
Although its administrative status in the early Ottoman centuries is unclear, by the 17th century Athens, though formally part of the Sanjak of Eğriboz (Negroponte, modern Chalkida) and hence ultimately under the jurisdiction of the Kapudan Pasha (the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman fleet), formed part of the of the , the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and was administered by the Kizlar Agha (the chief black eunuch of the Imperial Harem). Usually, however, its proceeds were rented out in a tax-farming arrangement to individuals, who then governed the city as its voivode. The voivode or (head of police) was appointed for an annual tenure, beginning in March of each year. The post was lucrative, and voivodes generally tried to secure the renewal of their appointment. Bribes to the central government, but also the support of the local primates, were instrumental for the purpose. The was complemented by the , the local Muslim religious leader, the (judge, head of the court), the (military governor), and the (fortress commander of the Acropolis of Athens). In 1760, Athens became a , a special landed estate that belonged to the Sultan but was given to high officials as a usufruct estate that entitled its owner () to the collection of the tithe and other tax proceeds, in theory for life, in exchange for a lump sum and an annual rent. The owner often sub-let the proceeds to one or more third persons, who then held the post of voivode. The new system was to the detriment of the city, because the voivodes had an interest to maximize their gains in their short period of office, and because abuses were harder to redress: under the Kizlar Agha, the Athenians could address their concerns to a single person, close to the Sultan, but with the new system, there were several people who held authority, and the link to the Porte was more tenuous. Furthermore, during the decades before Haseki's arrival in Athens, the was in constant conflict with the pashas of Negroponte, who constantly sought to interfere in Athenian affairs.
First tenure as voivode of Athens The exact manner and date of Haseki's arrival in Athens is unclear. Skouzes writes that in 1772, Esma Sultan acquired the of Athens at a price of 750,000 piastres—later in his account Skouzes raised the figure to 1.5 million piastres—and gave it over to Haseki. Benizelos, however, indicates that Haseki bought the of Athens when the previous owner died in 1776, after he had arrived at Athens as its voivode in 1775. Indeed, Benizelos remarks on his appointment to Athens that in 1774, a delegation of Athenians visited Constantinople to request the dismissal of the incumbent voivode, and that thereupon Haseki, using bribery, secured the office for himself. It is not until 1782 that Haseki is securely attested as the of Athens.
Whatever the true background of his appointment, when Haseki came to Athens in 1775, he initially presented himself as a protector of the local Greeks, both against the transgressions of the local Turks, as well as against the excavations of the pasha of Negroponte: he forbade the entry of the latter's officials in the city, and managed to remove the Albanian garrison that Huseyn Pasha of Negroponte had installed in the city a few years earlier. 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 the 24 burgher households and the lower classes, supported by the Metropolitan of Athens and the clergy, sent a petition () 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 Muslim Albanian warbands into Attica, which served to strengthen Haseki's position. Albanians had been brought in by the Porte to suppress the Orlov Revolt in the Morea in 1770, and remained a menace to the area for many years thereafter: taking advantage of the weakness of the Ottoman administration, many Albanians moved south in search of plunder or employment as a kind of condottieri. Before Haseki's arrival, the Albanian Yiaholiouri had held the post of , one of the heads of security in Athens, at the head of some 50 to 80 men, of whom about two thirds were themselves Albanians. Haseki dismissed him, whereupon Yiaholiouri returned to his homeland; according to Skouzes he recruited there some 750 men to support his return to Attica. Yiaholiouri was joined by more Albanians and the poor and dispossessed as he marched south; his men sacked Thebes on their way. Once they arrived at Kapandriti near Athens, the Albanians sent emissaries to the Athenians, threatening to burn the city unless they received provisions and an official document hiring them as guards of the city. Haseki gathered the Athenians, both Turks and Greeks, in council, and resolved to meet the Albanians in the field, as the city lacked fortifications. In a battle that took place near Halandri, the Athenians defeated the Albanians and drove them back to Kifissia, killing about a fourth of them in the process.
To secure the city against another attack, Haseki immediately began construction of a new city wall, which became known after him as the "Wall of Haseki". Work had not progressed far when a second and far larger force of 6,000 Albanians approached, under a certain Maksut, on their way to the Morea. The Turks then abandoned the city and found refuge in the Acropolis of Athens, while Haseki allowed the local 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 bribe. 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. The hastiness of the construction, however, resulted in a wall only about high and less than thick, rather than a proper fortification. 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. Benizelos also records that in April 1778, the plague broke out in Athens. Although only a few adults died, about 600 children fell victims to it.
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 , 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