Dance of Zalongo

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The term Dance of Zalongo refers to an event in Greek history, and to a popular Greek dance song commemorating this event. During the war between the Souliotes and Ali Pasha, when the villages of Souli were being evacuated by the defeated Greeks, a group of 22 Souliot women and their children were trapped by Muslim troops in the mountains of Zalongo in Epirus, on 16 December 1803. In order to avoid capture and enslavement, they threw first their children and then themselves off a steep cliff, committing suicide. According to tradition they did this while dancing and singing, jumping down one after the other. Today, a monument on the site of the event commemorates their sacrifice. There is also a popular dance song about the event, which is known and danced throughout Greece today.

The incident became soon known in Philhellene circles in Europe. In 1827, a French artist, Ary Scheffer (1795–1858) created a Romantic picture depicting the event (The Souliot Women, now held in the Louvre in Paris). A friend of the painter described the subject matter in the following words: "a group of Souliote women watching a battle between the Greeks and the Turks from above; when they saw the defeat of their compatriots, they began to dance in a circle singing a funereal hymn. At the end of each couplet they stopped, and she who found herself at the edge of the precipice threw herself down, until in this way they had all met their death" ([1]).

[edit] Lyrics

The Greek folk song "Dance of Zalongo" has the following lyrics:

The fish cannot live on the land

Nor the flower on the sand

And the women of Souli

Cannot live without freedom

So, goodbye springs,

Valleys, mountains and hills

Goodbye springs

And you, women of Souli

The women of Souli

Have not only learnt how to survive

They also know how to die

Not to tolerate slavery

So, goodbye springs,

Valleys, mountains and hills

Goodbye springs

And you, women of Souli