Pashalik of Yanina in the context of "Veli Pasha"

Tepelenë (Albanian definite form: Tepelena) is a city and a municipality in Gjirokastër County, in the south of Albania. The town is on the left bank of the Vjosa River, about three kilometres downstream from its union with the Drino.

Until the abolition of Districts in 2000, Tepelenë was the seat of the Tepelenë District. Its location is strategically important and there is a ruined citadel occupying a point 300 metres above the river. Ali Pasha of Yanina was born at the nearby village of Beçisht, and Tepelena along with Ioannina were Ali's headquarters. In 1847, the British writer Edward Lear visited the town and noted the devastated buildings.

The Vilayet of Janina, Yanya or Ioannina (Ottoman Turkish: ولايت يانیه, romanized: Vilâyet-i Yanya) was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire, established in 1867. In the late 19th century, it reportedly had an area of 18,320 square kilometres (7,070 sq mi). It was created by merging the Pashalik of Yanina and the Pashalik of Berat with the sanjaks of Janina, Berat, Ergiri, Preveze, Tırhala and Kesriye. Kesriye was later demoted to kaza and bounded to Monastir Vilayet and Tırhala was given to Greece in 1881. With the end of the Ottoman rule, the southern area of the vilayed became part of Greece and its northern area became part of Albania.

Ali Pasha (1740 – 24 January 1822), commonly known as Ali Pasha of Yanina or Ali Pasha of Tepelena, was an Albanian ruler who served as Ottoman pasha of the Pashalik of Yanina, a large part of western Rumelia. Under his rule, it acquired a high degree of autonomy and even managed to stay de facto independent. The capital of the Pashalik was Ioannina, which, along with Tepelena, was Ali's headquarters.

Conceiving his territory in increasingly independent terms, Ali Pasha's correspondence and foreign Western correspondence frequently refer to the territories under Ali's control as "Albania." This, by Ali's definition, included central and southern Albania, and parts of mainland Greece; in particular, most of the district of Epirus and the western parts of Thessaly and Macedonia. He managed to stretch his control over the sanjaks of Yanina, Delvina, Vlora and Berat, Elbasan, Ohrid and Monastir, Görice, and Tirhala. Ali was granted the Sanjak of Tirhala in 1787, and he delegated its government in 1788 to his second-born Veli Pasha, who also became Pasha of the Morea Eyalet in 1807. Ali's eldest son, Muhtar Pasha, was granted the Sanjak of Karli-Eli and the Sanjak of Eğriboz in 1792, stretching for the first time Ali's control down to Livadia and the Gulf of Corinth, except Attica. Muhtar Pasha also became governor of the Sanjak of Ohrid in 1796–7 and of the Sanjak of Vlora and Berat in 1810.

The Souliotes were an Orthodox Christian Albanian tribal community in the area of Souli in Epirus from the 16th century to the beginning of the 19th century, who via their participation in the Greek War of Independence came to identify with the Greek nation.

They originated from Albanian clans that settled in the highlands of Thesprotia in the Late Middle Ages and established an autonomous confederation dominating a large number of neighbouring villages in the mountainous areas of Epirus, where they successfully resisted Ottoman rule for many years. At the height of its power, in the second half of the 18th century, the Souliote confederacy is estimated to have consisted of up to 4,500 inhabitants. After the revolution, they migrated to and settled in newly independent Greece, and assimilated into the Greek people. The Souliotes were followers of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. They spoke the Souliotic dialect of Albanian and learnt Greek through their interaction with Greek-speakers. They are known for their military prowess, their initial resistance to the Ottoman Albanian ruler Ali Pasha and final trusted alliance with him when he rebelled against the Ottoman Porte in the failed attempt to create an independent state, and later for their contribution to the Greek cause in the revolutionary war against the Ottoman Empire under leaders such as Markos Botsaris and Kitsos Tzavelas.