Before Albania was a nation, four Albanian pashas ruled over the Western Balkans and Egypt, commanding their own armies, running their own treasuries, and negotiating with European powers almost as equals of the Sultan himself.
This video explores how the Ottomans sought to preserve the Empire by actively decentralizing the administration and tax collection to regional partners.
In the 18th century, as Ottoman central authority weakened, the empire struck a bargain with local notables called ayans who would collect taxes and provide troops in exchange for near-total autonomy over their territories.
Kara Mahmud Pasha Bushati built a personal power base in Shkodra strong enough to defy the Sultan directly. Ahmet Kurt Pasha concentrated his power from  Berat, and Ali Pasha of Tepelenë, ruling from Janina for more than three decades, became one of the most powerful men in the entire Ottoman Empire at the dawn of the 19th Century.
Finally, there was Muhammad Ali, whose family came from Korce, who led an Albanian Ottoman army into Egypt, and survived to found a dynasty that ruled into the 20th century.
Why did the empire allow this, and why did it later move to crush it? And how did the collapse of this system of regional power connect to the national awakenings that followed, in Albania and Greece?
This video explores the age of the Albanian Pashas, and the cracks in the Ottoman empire that helped give birth to modern national movements across the Balkans.
Part of the Balkan Histories series, exploring the people and events that shaped the region's path to nationhood.
This video draws on information from the following sources:
Yaycıoğlu, Ali. Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016. xii + 347 pp.