by Preveza Abrashi
Abstract
The Dance of Zalongo tells the story of the Souliot women and children who chose death over capture during the 1803 conflict with the Ottoman Empire. Trapped on Mount Zalongo, they are said to have sung and danced before throwing their children and themselves from the cliffs. The event became a powerful symbol of resistance, freedom, and sacrifice in Balkan memory. Artists such as Ary Scheffer later depicted the tragedy, while songs, monuments, and traditions kept the story alive in Greek culture and regional history to this day as a legend of defiance and dignity remembered across generations and borders.
Ary Scheffer writes:
“The self-sacrifice of the women and children of the Suliot Tribe from Mount Zalongo in 1803 during the war with the Ottoman army. Legend has it that the women, singing and dancing, first threw their children and then threw themselves off the rocks.
Translated:
“Farewell, poor Sul, for we are parting for life.
Farewell, poor Sul, for we will flee for life.
We are dying for freedom, for we do not want slavery.
Farewell, you mountains and fields,
Pilo Gusha worked for us,
The treacherous black-faced,
he had no shame, nor any god.
Farewell, fields and mountains,
we die without fear at all.
We are Albanians,
we die dancing.
Farewell, O desolate Sul,
goodbye’ for life.
Dance Of Zalongo – The Souliote War of 1803 was a battle between the Souli and the Ottoman army. After it became obvious that defeat was unavoidable, the Souli began to evacuate Souliote—but a small group of Souliot women and their children were pinned down in the mountain of Zalongo.
In an act which has become known as the Dance of Zalongo, the women threw their children off the cliff first and then followed shortly after. The legend says that they jumped off the cliff singing and dancing. Many works of art have been based on the event.
French artist Ary Scheffer created two paintings, and a monument has stood on the site of Mount Zalongo since 1950 to commemorate the sacrifice. The Dance of Zalongo is also a popular folk song and dance practiced throughout Greece to this day.
Sources
Finlay, George. History of the Greek Revolution. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1861.
Fleming, Katherine Elizabeth. Greece—A Jewish History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Pappas, Nicholas Charles. Greeks in Russian Military Service in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1991.
Scheffer, Ary. The Women of Souli. Painting, 1827. Louvre-related collections and reproductions.
Vacalopoulos, Apostolos E. The Greek Nation, 1453–1669. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1976.
