By Auron Tare
When Lord Byron and his traveling companion Hobhouse, bid farewell to the Albanian guards back in the spring of 1810, little did they know that their journey through Albania and Greece would exert an influence on a considerable number of European personalities of the 19th Century who were to follow in their footsteps?
It is true that Albanian lands were visited in those times by several Europeans, like William Martin Leake, an agent of the British Secret Service, or the Consul of France Dr. Francois Pouqueville, but, until that time, no one had ever written with such truthfulness and majesty about these harsh mountainous regions.
Lord Byron and his companion Hobhouse not only traveled rough and rugged roads and dirt tracks, frequently waylaid by bands of brigands who stripped the travelers of their belongings, but they managed to cross wild mountainous terrain and penetrate deep into Albanian lands to meet the famous Pascha of Tepelena.
Ali Pascha, a figure as controversial as he was exotic to innumerable personalities of the period, thanks also to the immortal verse of Byron, was to be transformed into a point of reference for anyone who wished to explore the lands under the power of the Albanian Pascha. Although several interesting personalities of the 19th Century visited the Court of the Albanian Pascha, very few of them have managed to record on paper, and so brilliantly, the beauty of the nature and the character of the people, and all of this accomplished with an eye so observant and a mind so critical, than Byron and Hobhouse. The publication of the first Song of ‘Childe Harolde’s Pilgrimage’ in London following Byron’s return to England, not only won great fame for the English poet, but for the first time ever, a broad public had the opportunity to read about the lands and the inhabitants of a country which previously no one knew anything about.
Albania and the Albanians, unknown up until that moment to the European public, suddenly found their own Bard, who sung their praise with so much love, hence generating a great deal of inquisitiveness and curiosity in all persons who were travel in these regions.
And little by little, in the footsteps of a poet who managed to inspire several generations on end, a number of travelers, artists, agents and adventurers began to arrive in the environs of the Court of the Pascha who had inspired the Poet of Genius, Lord Byron.
It is a recognized fact that the predominant figure of Lord Byron is at the center of the works of everyone who wrote about that period of travels by Europeans to the territories of Albania, Greece and Macedonia in the 19th Century. However, it must be pointed out that he was not the only “Levant Madman”, as he often laughingly described himself and the travelers he came across in those parts.
Although travels in Turkey and Greece were impeded for some time due to the European Wars of Napoleon, thanks to the persistence of a Society of young aristocrats known as the “Society of Dilatants,” a number of architects, archeologists, writers and adventurers traveled to these parts with the objective of studying and researching ancient monuments, peoples, the culture and traditions of these countries. A group of “Levantine Madmen” but just as enthusiastic and persistent as Byron were to follow in his footsteps through Athens, in the residence of the Macri sisters, past the ancient monuments of Nicopolis or were to try to meet the enigmatic character-Ali Pascha of Tepelena, who by this time, thanks to the Poems of Childe Harolde’s Pilgrimage (which sold 20.000 copies in one day), had become one of the most well known figures in European intellectual circles.
Although so much has been written about Lord Byron’s travels throughout Albania, to this day very little is known about his immense interest in issues related to Albania or “our dear friend,” as he wrote describing Ali Pascha, after Byron’s return to England. A series of his letters he wrote from London or Venice plainly indicate that the great poet not only continued to be deeply interested in any news about Albania, but it seems very obvious that he kept up an on-going correspondence with Ali Pascha right up to the last days of the life of the Pascha. Naturally, a far more detailed study is required to create a clearer idea about this correspondence, but from the letters made available to us recently from the personal archives of the poet’s descendants, many interesting facts surface and it is quite clear that Lord Byron and Ali Pascha regularly corresponded. This was the first time such a fact was drawn to the attention of the Albanian scholars interested in the period.
Byron’s interest in the people he met on his travels in Albania and Greece is astonishing in terms of details about them that he describes, down to most minute. Byron not o nly wants to know about the famous Pascha, but also about his personal guard Vasili and his relationship with one of the Macri sisters, Dudu Roque; the interpreter he was provided with in Yannina Andreas Zantachi, as well as another one of the Pascha’s guards – Moslem Dervish Tahiri.
“I received a letter yesterday from Ali Pascha sent with Dr. Holland,” Byron writes to his friend Thomas Moore, “who has just returned from Albania. The letter is in Latin and begins with “Excellentissime, nec non Carissime” and ends with the description of a weapon which he wants made for him. Its signed, Ali Vezir. What do you think, what did you do all this time? Holland tells me that last Spring he took the city of a foe, who forty two years earlier had shamed his mother and sister. He took the city, selected amongst the survivors, about 600 persons and he had them all slain before his eyes. However, he spared the rest and took control of himself-more than I would have done. These were the latest about our dear friend.
8 September 1813, Byron
However, in the correspondence between Byron and Ali Pascha made available to us, one exceptionally interesting fact is mentioned which testifies to the proportions the fame of Ali Pascha had assumed following the publication of Childe Harolde’s Pilgrimage. George Ticknor, an American Harvard Professor, the founder of the first Library ever in Boston, the friend of a series of American personalities, including Thomas Jefferson, who was traveling throughout Europe, asked for a private meeting with Byron during a visit to England. This meeting, according to the information we have, between Professor Ticknor and Lord Byron took place in London, in the presence of Ticknor’s companion, Edward Everett, the future President of Harvard, on the 23 June 1815 and the subject of this meeting was Ali Pascha of Tepelena and Byron’s travels throughout Albanian territories. In the manuscripts published by George Ticknor, there is also a description of his meeting with Byron, where amongst other things, he says, “He gave me endless details about the history, sentiments, thoughts, impression and difficulties under which he wrote Childe Harold.”
It appears that the Harvard Professor, inspired by Childe Harolde, intended to travel to Albania and for these reasons he not only asked Byron about Ali Pascha of Tepelena, but also for a letter of recommendation signed by Byron. It seems that Byron supported this journey, because we have in our possession a letter he wrote addressed to Ali, in which he speaks about the journey of a very rare visitor all the way from distant America, about whom we do not know whether Alia received information or not. This letter bears the date of 25 June 1815 and it was written only one week after the famous Battle of Waterloo.
“Vezir-I am greatly honored by the letter Your Highness sent with Dr. Holland. I am happy to hear of Your health and wellbeing-I hope it will continue for years to come. An American Gentleman (Mr. Ticknor) has promised he will bring a gift from me to Your Highness, a very special weapon (the use of which he will show You), which I would be deeply honored if you accepted. – I hope that one day I will be able to visit Albania again- a country- where memories of the care You show to foreigners remain most dear to me.
With the greatest respect, I remain your humble servant,
Byron
25 June 1815.
To this day, from the studies of the letters of Byron we do not have a clear idea whether or not Professor George Ticknor undertook his journey through Albanian lands. Equipped with excellent recommendations and the special gift Byron sent Ali Pascha, it seems that this would b a very probable journey for the American Professor, but so far, from the documents we have we do not sufficient facts that the Harvard Professor met the old Pascha of Yannina. The further study and research of the letters and correspondence of Professor Ticknor will produce more detailed information so that we learn how he undertook his journey through the Albanian highlands to meet the friend of Byron, the Pascha of Tepelena. But, nevertheless, we have stumbled onto the traces of an interesting fact related to the figure of this famous Albanians, who, it seems also attracted the attention of American personalities, one of whom was Professor Ticknor, Everret and Joseph Coolidge, the future son-in-law of the American President Thomas Jefferson.
So far the information we have is very scarce to clearly comprehend why the American academic of Harvard wished to meet the Albanian Pascha. Nonetheless, if we were to bear in mind that the name of Lord Byron was known in American aristocratic circles too and that his poetry was read by a substantial number of readers, we can state with some conviction, that Ali Pascha was a well known figure to American intelligentsia. Naturally, so far we don’t have the facts to back up this hypothesis, but if we recall that the subject of the meeting between the professor and Lord Byron in London was precisely Ali Pascha, then we could say that the hypothesis is not without grounds. Byron’s journey throughout Albania certainly was of tremendous importance for the time, because the publications of the English poet made this country known to foreign travelers, but also to the European public. But, it is for the first time that we learn that Albania and the name of Ali Pascha of Tepelena had traveled across the Ocean and become an object of discussion in the top literary saloons of the elite of America.
George Ticknor
The first Professor of the University of Harvard for modern languages. Writer, co-founder of the first Public Library of Boston. He studied at Dartmouth College and became an expert in Latin and Ancient Greek, where his teacher was Pastor John Gardiner of Trinity Church. After completing several classes at the University of Massachusetts for Magistrate, he decided to travel Europe to acquire a better education than what he could find in America. With the downfall of Napoleon in 1815, the European continent was once again open to those who wished to move freely through the European states. Together with his companion from Boston, who was to become one of America’s most renowned orators, Edward Everett, he registered at the University of Gottingen, where he remained for about two years. The rich library of this university and the influence of the book by Madam de Stael “l’Allemagne” on the superiority of German philosophy and literature obviously had a very important bearing on Tichnor’s decision to stay in Gottingen.
However, before Ticknor left on his European travels, he met the American President, Madison and he went to the Monticello Farm where Thomas Jefferson wrote him several letters of introduction for a number of influential European friends. Equipped with the letters of contact from these two American personalities, when Ticknor arrived in Paris, he was received as a new representative of American Republicanism by the liberal circles of Europe. Madam de Stael, although very ill, wanted to meet this young American at all costs, and she wrote about this meeting with Ticknor and the ideas he brought from across the Ocean. “You are the avant-garde of the human race; you will be the future of the world.”
For two years, Ticknor traveled throughout Europe, where he met a large number of scientists, historians, writers and other persons of influence.
During his stay in Europe, Harvard College offered him the Chair of French and Spanish Languages. Ticknor remained for a long time at the head of this Chair, and when he finally resigned in 1835, he was replaced by the famous poet, Robert Longfellow.
