Talk:Dance of Zalongo

message: I am correcting parts of the article that seems to have been added only for POV pushing reasons. It is a well known fact that the Catastrophe of Souli and especially the Dance of Zalongo are important events in Greek History. For decades (actually from 19th century) the dance of Zalongo is celebrated through out Greece. Every Greek school-kid have seen in his schools years at lest one performance of the dance and at list one school play dramatizing the mass suicide. Obviously it is a well known event of modern Greek history.
Since when it became "important part of Albanian history"? Since when the Albanians celebrate the Zalongo Dance? I imagine that through out the Schools of Albania, school kids celebrate the heroic fight of the Souliot women against the Albanian forces of (another Albanian)Ali Pasha. It is quite impossible to believe!
However the Albanian song is a completely different thing. I agree that a reference for it should remain in the article. Although I don't believe that it was any popular at all. Unfortunately the only reference seems to be a book from 1962. It must have some more information were it was actually sang. If it came out to be actually popular (for at list some period) then we should re-add the lyrics (the lyrics by the way seem more like a poem and less than a song.I have moved the lyrics to the source) 
Seleukosa (talk) 23:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is not a contest on songs which were more or less popular than others. The Albanian song (and dance) is part of the Albanian folklore and properly referenced. It is based on a good secondary source (Zihni Sako is a well-known folklorist) and properly reflected in the article. I take it that you speak Albanian since you think that it looks like a poem, and not a song. Can you please confirm? I myself, if I see verses wouldn't know if they can be sang or not.  --Sulmues (talk) 23:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You didn't seem to understand what the problem is. It is not if the song was popular ( obviously wasn't) but if the Dance of Zalongo has any significant importance in the Albanian history. (Obviously not.) The way the article was written, suggested that as Greeks celebrated the Souliotes the same happened in Albania in the same extent. Not at all!!As for the Albanian song the reference remained but in it proper dimension. And by the way the Souliotes considered themselves Greeks and they fought against the Ottoman Albanian forces! You migth considered them Albanians but they didn't consider themselves! It is actually surprising that a song even existed in Albania celebrating the Souliotes who were excellent in destroying the Albanian forces!!Seleukosa (talk) 23:40, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

text: I do agree that the Albanian song has an interest but yet we don't know anything about it since the source only cites a book and not the exact reference.(obviously it was not popular or even known. The same happens with many folk Greek songs who are only known to researchers). I still don't agree that the incident is part of the Albanian history in such a way that it should appear in the opening paragraph. Why it is? Because  an Albanian force took part in the Souliote wars? Or because the Souliotes are considered Albanians? Well the fact is that despite their possible initial origin the Souliotes/Arvanites thought themselves as Greeks, fought as Greeks and incorporate themselves in the Greek nation. In other articles the "self-determination" is enough even for the creation of nations but not for the Souliotes/Arvanites.)As for the paragraph that FutPer find it heavily Pov, he didn't grasp the meaning. This might be my fault. What I meant was that although the Albanian force was the one that destroyed Souli (and from them the Souliot women tried to escape) the incident had an impact on the them also. It had nothing to do with nationalities but with the fact that the (mainly)Albanian force of Ali Pasha was mortal enemy with the Souliotes. It is not common to have a song written for your enemy. To assume that that paragraph had anything to do with nationalities is frankly, naive in the extreme. To Summarise a)I agree that the song should remain. It is actually interesting although I would like to see more information about it. b) I don't agree that this incident is of any importance for the Albanian history except for the fact that the mainly Albanian force of Ali Pasha participate in the fight.I dont think that anyone can actually believe that the incident was an "Albanian tragedy"(sic) that user Sulmuel suggested above,  but since it had an impact in Albania it should be mention in the paragraph about the song.Seleukosa (talk) 10:54, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  You are still caught in the same error: "A and B were at war with each other, A belonged to nation X, therefore B cannot belong to nation X". The syllogism is wrong because it presupposes: "people of the same nation do not go to war against each other". Which is, patently, ridiculously, wrong, and in the fluid situation of Balkan ethnic identities in the early 19th century it is even more wrong than at all other times. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:18, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

text:  I am not saying at all the above Futer! Please do not add your explanation in my words! What I said was only about making a song for your mortal enemy. Regardless nationalities! Of course people of the same nation keep going on war with each others!! Constantly. But that is not the case with the Souliote/Ali Pasha war, since the Souliotes did not consider themselves Albanians!Seleukosa (talk) 11:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correcting the Article 

message: I have also tagged the ref entry currently given as:
:"" 
When, o when, will people learn that to cite from a journal you need to cite the author, title, pages, and volume of the specific article, not just the name of the journal (and certainly not "JSTOR", which is neither an author nor even a publisher, but a mere archiving service)? When somebody has please fixed this, the related footnotes will need fixing too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:44, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Can actually anyone check this source and what it says? I tried but with no success. Other sources of the current article  such as "Folk Dancing for Students and Teachers" and "Mémoires de la Société royale du Canada" do mention only the Greek tradition.Seleukosa (talk) 11:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

text: Which source are you referring to Seleukosa? If you are referring to the Sako one, it dates 1962. Sako had studied Filology in Athens, Greece, then he taught Albanian in Moscow, USSR, after which he returned and was the head of the Folklore Institute in the Academy of Sciences of Albania. He has lots of monographies and a good article in the Albanian WP. Could you please AGF a little more?   --Sulmues (talk) 11:40, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No Sulmues, I mean the Journal of the international folk music, Volumes 6-10. I don't doubt Sako (although I would like to see more information about the song)Seleukosa (talk) 11:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

text:  Salmuel I don't think that this source is valid. It is almost impossible to verify if this has any historical value behind it. One of the sources of the article(Folk Dancing for Students and Teachers) actually names the dance as syrtos. However I don't believe that anyone actually can tell what was the dance in an almost legendary event. I think it is better to remove it all together.Seleukosa (talk) 12:25, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

text: Yep, we have contrasting sources. I saw your removal of Qilleri  . Since it's going to be again whether the Dance of Zalongo was Greek (syrtos), vs Albanian (Parga and Suli back then were inhabited by Albanians), better leave it without going deeper in the kind of dance. Fine. --Sulmues (talk) 12:33, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Parga and Souli were never "inhabitant by Albanians". Praga is a known Greek town and during the Ottoman era was mainly inhabited by Greeks. Souli was an area with Arvanite population. Arvanite/Souliotes may have been initialy of Albanian origin but they heavily intermix with local Greeks and were completely Hellenized. As we have said before, Arvanite/Souliotes self-determined as Greeks and you can not call them Albanians.Seleukosa (talk) 09:22, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: 1. Suliots was ethnic albanian Chams, not Arvanit, Arvanit means the greek-orthodox albanians in midle of grece and on the islands. 2. Isent true that the suliots was completly hellenized, watch the Albanian-Greek dictionary from Marko Boqari,3. Parga was inhabitant by albanians too, type only "parga albanians" in google/books and in 1 min. u will find the answer. The ethnical border in the history has not the same national border today.greets--80.218.232.7 (talk) 21:34, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

text:  Obviously a type error. Do not confuse the initial origin of Arvanite/Souliote with what they actually were. I suggested you start reading something more that Albanian nationalists sources.Seleukosa (talk) 09:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tagged reference 

message: The Albanian version of the song appears to be totally wp:OR. Apart from the fact that the reference is imposible to verify [], both Despo and Mosko (as the lyrics mention them) didn't die at Zalongo, thus this song can't have earned the title "Song/Dance of Zalongo".Alexikoua (talk) 14:21, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: OR

message: In the article there is an albanian song, supported by the source "Mero Rrapaj, Fatos (1983)". Firstly, this albanian source mistakes the date. It happened in 1803, not in 1804. Second, there are not other sources claiming that the Souliote women were singing this song. It is clear that is based on the greek song, which is not traditional but a synthesis of early 20th century. The albanian song was probably invented during the Enver Hoxha totalitarian nationalist regime, and although this cannot be claimed in the article, at least we can point to the date of first publication (1961). If this Fatos says where he found this song, please add it in the article. The source does not say that this is traditional.--Skylax30 (talk) 18:57, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Souliote women were not singing any song mentioned on this article. The songs of this article are part of local traditions that celebrate the "heroic" act. Since the area in that time had a mixed identity and was bilingual, there are Greek and Cham traditions concerning what happened. Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:16, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, why you delete the date of first publication? The source doesn't say anything about "local tradition", and it couldn't be because a) Albanian Chams were muslims and b) Albanian Chams did not claim that they are "Albanians" before instructed so by Mussolini. --Skylax30 (talk) 19:23, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to admit that something is really weird about this: according to a previous version [] there was a supposed Albanian version of this song, however it described a different event (the suicide of Moscho Botsari in Riniasa). Resnjari removed this song and presented another one which appears to be somewhat in accordance with the the events in Zallongo. What's weird is that this song is recorded by one and only author, lacks wp:VERIFY (gbooks doesn't confirm that it's recorded in this work) so I've asked Resnjari to scan the specific part due to the inaccuracies in general (the author also claims that the event occured in 1804 which is wrong, but that's not a serious error). If we accept that this song existed and refers to the specific event it's definitely not so popular in Albanian folklore events (zero google hit).Alexikoua (talk) 12:56, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:   -- aside from it likely being very easy to demonstrate how wrong this is, I see literally no reason for saying this aside from provocation. Generally not ideal if you're here to build an encyclopedia... (additionally if you knew anything about Cham history you'd know that the Islamization of Chameria peaked in teh 19th century -- after the event)--Calthinus (talk) 16:16, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

text: Do you know any pre-1920's sources where Chams declare that they are Albanians?
Firstly, Calthinus, this is a discussion page and not an article, and there is more freedom of speak, provided that a crime is not committed. Secondly, I claim that I know some things that you don't, unless you can read greek or turkish sources. In 1922-1924 a sizeble part of muslim Chams chosed to move to Turkey, exactly because they were feeling that they belong there. When Italy realized that she loses some "friends" in the Balkans, intervened (Albania was not officially represented in the Com. of Nations) to stop them leaving. This is written in Greek and other "obscure" sources. Hardly 20 years later, Italy used the Chams in a way that is well demonstrated in the relevant articles. If you are not Albanian, as you said, and you are only learning the language, feel free to ask things that you will not be told at school.--Skylax30 (talk) 09:26, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

text: There are plenty of people I like to ask things, but seeing as your past posts have included random speculation on Gjon Kastrioti's "true" name (but being unable to decide between Jovan and Ivan?), calling TU-nor a pro-Albanian propagandist (classic personal attack, against a user who ironically has done a lot in the past to contain Albanian nationalist attempts to distort facts on this project), similar defamation against other users, WP:SYNTHESIS with unreliable WP:PRIMARY 19th century sources by Western travelers, using new page creation to circumvent an overwhelming WP:CONSENSUS, asserting a Greek origin for the Muzakas solely because their name sounds like Moussaka (really, a ten year old would come up with that one...), and other gems, really, I'll pass. I am familiar enough with the Balkans on Wikipedia to know when I see it -- poster case WP:TE. One thing I was not taught in school is whether you will learn to be something even resembling a constructive editor, or will end up WP:BANned. That is the one question I have. I guess I should get the popcorn. --Calthinus (talk) 14:30, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

text: Dear Calthinus, you can always ask me for checking greek sources. But I have to say, very few things worth knowing can be found in Greek exclusively. If something is important, an English source can be found most of the times.Τζερόνυμο (talk) 08:57, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreliable source based on nothing 

message: I reverted an IP a while back, but something just didn't work out for me. And I did some research in bibliography. Greek and Albanian editors have had many disputes about the "original" version of the song, but did the event happen?
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--Maleschreiber (talk) 19:04, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Did it happen?