Dance of Zalongo
1803 mass suicide in Epirus, Greece / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Dance of Zalongo Greek: Χορός του Ζαλόγγου, Horos tou Zalongou) refers to the mass suicide of women and their children from Souli that occurred in the aftermath of the invasion of Ottoman troops on December 16, 1803. The event is commemorated in Greece in the context of the Greek War of Independence. About 60 women were trapped near the village of Zalongo in Epirus, now modern Greece, then the Ottoman Empire, who decided to turn towards the cliff's edge and die with their infants and children rather than to submit to the Ottoman troops chasing them. According to tradition they did this one after the other while dancing and singing.[1][2][3] The name also refers a number of Greek theatrical dramas and a song in folk style, commemorating the event, named the Dance of Zalongo.[4]
Date | 1803 |
---|---|
Location | Epirus, Greece |
Cause | Souliote War (1803) |
Casualties | |
60 dead mass suicide |
The story of the Zalongo women became so popular within the Greek community that more Greek women chose to commit suicide rather than suffer rape and lifelong torture. During the Greek War of Independence, in Naoussa, in the early 1820s, after a long siege of the city by Ottoman forces thirteen women with their children took refuge in a hill above the waterfall of the river Arapitsa, in Stoubanos. The city was burning due to a mass conquest by Ottoman forces the woman followed their sisters the Souli women of Zalongo and jumped to their deaths with their children into the Arapitsa of Naoussa. In the 1950s the city of Naoussa was awarded the official title Heroic City and a monument was erected at the site in the 1970s by Greek sculptor Katerina Halepa Katsatou in their honor.[5][6]