Souliotes

Σουλιώτες
A Souliot in Corfu Nikolos Pervolis by French painter Louis Dupré (1827).
Languages
Spoken Languages: Tosk Albanian, Greek; Written Language: Greek[1]

The Souliotes (Greek: Σουλιώτες) are the bilingual Greek people of a village confederation called Souli (Greek: Σούλι).^[2][3] They lived in the mountains of Epirus in northwestern Greece.^[3] Souliotes fought in the Greek revolution of 1821 against the Ottoman Empire and its allies.^[4]

The origins of the name Souli are unclear.^[5]

Souliotes spoke Greek and a southern dialect of Albanian called Tosk.^[1] They only used Greek in their writings.^[1]

Ottoman oppression forced Greek herders in Epirus to flee to the mountains during the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century.^[6] There, they built a confederation of villages called the Tetrachori (Greek: Τετραχώρι, "Four Villages") also known as Souli.^[7] The Souliotes resisted Ottoman rule during the 18th century.^[8] They later participated in the Orlov Revolt, a failed Greek anti-Ottoman uprising that happened in the 1770s.^[8]

When the Souliotes were betrayed to the Ottomans in 1803, some abandoned Souli while others killed themselves.^[9] Among those who killed themselves were the women of Souli who threw themselves and their children off a cliff called Zaloggo in an event called the Dance of Zaloggo (Greek: Χορός του Ζαλόγγου).^[9][10] During the Greek revolution of 1821, the Souliotes defeated the Ottomans at the battle of the Five Wells in September of 1821.^[11]

• 
  Flag of Greek leader Markos Botsaris raised in Souli in October 1820. The flag shows Saint George and in Greek says: "Freedom", "Fatherland", "Religion".
• 
  Two studies of Souliote costumes by Eugène Delacroix (1822).
• 
  Souli, view of the village and the castle of Kiaffa by Dominique Papety (1846).

• International Folk Music Council (1954). Journal of the International Folk Music Council, Volumes 6-10. Cambridge: Published for the International Folk Music Council by W. Heffer & Sons.
• Karastathis, Kostas V. (2014). Έλληνες απο το Αρβανόν [Greeks from Arvanon] (in Greek). Athens: Athos. ISBN 9789604951420.
• Papaspyrou-Karadēmētriou, Euthymia; Lada-Minōtou, Maria; Ethniko Historiko Mouseio (Greece) (1994). The National Historical Museum. Athens, Greece: Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece. ISBN 960-85573-0-5.
• Pappas, Nicholas (1991). Greeks in Russian Military Service in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries. Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies.
• Pritchett, William Kendrick (1996). Greek Archives, Cults, and Topography. Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben. ISBN 90-5063-147-9.
• Protopsaltē, E. G. (1983). ΣΟΥΛΙ - ΣΟΥΛΙΩΤΑΙ [SOULI - SOULIOTES] (in Greek). Athens: Library of the Epirotic Company of Athens.
• Royal Society of Canada (1943). Mémoires de la Société Royale du Canada. Ottawa: Royal Society of Canada.