In France, François Pouqueville (François Charles Henry Louis Pouqueville), a French physician, naturalist, diplomat, historian, and archaeologist, passed away. He was born in France in 1770. He served as the general consul of the Ottoman Empire and later of the French Kingdom in Ioannina and Patras. He closely followed the political activities of Ali Pasha Tepelena. He is known as the most important historian of the first quarter of the 19th century for the Ioannina pashalik. He also visited a large part of Albania, traveling from Ioannina to Shkodra. In his works, especially in “Voyage de la Grèce” (“Journey through Greece,” Paris, 1820) and “Histoire de la regénération de la Grèce” (“History of the Regeneration of Greece”), he provides valuable information about the place, people, and social strata of Southern Albania. Although a political adversary of the vizier of Ioannina, he best illustrated Ali’s aspirations for detachment from the Ottoman Empire. His assessments, which highlight the true personality of Ali PashaTepelena, have not been subject to contemporary criticism or that of later periods. (In the photo: François Pouqueville)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 3 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2009, page 2124.
Photo: © https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/000PE008168
Graphic processing: AHCF
