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of them died of malaria. Those who survived moved to the mountains of Pogon, after
Ali died. In order to keep the memories on the old village of Dhrimade they named the
new settlement by the same name. In October 1822 there lived around 700 people of
whom there were 180 women (Bixhili 2004: 84, translated by Juliana Vera).
In the tourist guide of Himarë/Himara area (www.himara.eu) the systematic resettlement is
only briefly mentioned:
Ali Pasha tried with all means at his disposal to conquer Himara, drawing a noose ever
tighter around the region, taking and destroying the villages of Himara, exiling their
inhabitants to Salaora, near Arta, building the castle Panormos, on the ruins of an older
castle and a monastery to control the Himariotes.
The content of this section reveals various people’s resettlements that were undertaken by the
Ottoman administration in the 18 th century. In contrast to the authors defending the pro-
Albanian position, those defending the local one note the Pasha’s resettlement of the local
people to Salahora.
2.4.8. “Western” Visitors
The first chapter – The Village and its People – already mentioned some of the first travellers
through this area, such as the Romantic poet Byron, English writer Leake and painter Lear,
who passed through Epirus between 1809 and 1810. According to Todorova (1997: 62-63) the
travel literature was one of the sources that often constructed prejudices, extreme views,
generalizations and shaped the public opinion about the different and the Other amongst the
Western readers.
The writings of the British travellers Lear (1988 [1851]) and Leake (1967) too, could be
viewed from her viewpoint as those upon which their “Western readers” could construct
prejudices about the “Himariot Other”. But in spite of that these works are often quoted and
variously interpreted by different contemporary scholars in Albania. Before I focus on their
interpretations, let me pause by Lear’s and Leake’s passages cited by contemporary authors.
In order to understand their meaning I will set them in a slightly broader context:
All this domestic crowd, joined to a great variety of nephews and cousins, were
waiting to receive us as we entered a courtyard, from whence we ascended to a
spacious kitchen, where the females of the family saluted me with an air of timidity
natural to person who live in such Oriental seclusion (Lear 1988:136).
It would be most interesting for a person well versed in Romaic (which nearly all here
speak, or at least understand) to travel through Khimára and by remaining there for
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