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Abstract
This article is a study of merchant businesses of different ethno-religious backgrounds, especially of Greek and Jewish, involved in grain trade of the Black sea and the southern provinces of the Russian Empire and the interrelation between their business organization and practices and the integration of this region into the international economy of the 19th century. It draws upon the historical discussion on the role of merchant firms in the creation of the first global economy. I use the case of the Black Sea to emphasize on the organization and strategies of different merchant groups and the competitive patterns between them, within the geographical, institutional and technological context in the course of the 19th century, as a crucial factor in the expansion of grain trade with the Western European markets.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Espen Storli and Marten Boon, editors of this volume. I would also like to express my gratitude to Gelina Harlaftis for her insightful comments on different stages of this article and constant encouragement throughout this research and Socrates Petmezas and all those who collaborated in the construction of database used in this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This phrase is adapted by the introduction of the book of Geoffrey Jones, Entrepreneurship and Multinationals, 1–2.
2 The specific project, which lasted from 2012 to 2015, was included in the Action ‘Thales’, financed by the Greek National Strategic Reference Framework, the E.U. and the Greek Ministry of Education. The project was led by the Department of History of the Ionian University (project coordinator: Gelina Harlaftis) in collaboration with the Institute for Mediterranean Studies-FORTH, the University of Crete, the National Hellenic Research Foundation, the University of Thessaly and the University of the Aegean. It also collaborated with 23 academic institutions – Universities, Research Institutes and Archives – from the Black Sea countries, that is Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia, as well as from Moldavia, Norway, Italy, Israel and the United States. For details on the project and access to the public version of the dataset, visit the webpage www.blacksea.gr.
3 From 1812 to 1862, the volumes were titled Государственная внешняя торговля в разных ее видах [Gosudarstvennaia vneshniaia torgovlia v raznykh ee vidakh] Foreign Trade of the State in its various Regions published by the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Finances. From 1863 to 1869, it is renamed to Виды Государственной Внешней Торговли [Vidy Gosudarstvennoi Vneshnei Torgovli], Review of the Foreign Trade of the State published by the same Department renamed in 1864 as Section of Tariffs and Customs. Lastly from the year 1870 to 1917, it is renamed again to Обзор внешней торговли России [Obzor vneshnei torgovli Rossii], Review of Russian Foreign trade under the same department. This long series was supplemented by some collections of data such as Aleksandr Vesselovsky, Tableau du Commerce extérieur de la Russie du 1856 à 1871, St. Petersburg 1873 [published by the Commission Impériale Russe de l’Exposition Universelle de Vienne en 1873].
4 Peters, Russian Cereal Crops.
5 For the repeal of the Navigation Act and Corn Laws.
6 For the text included in the declarations issued by Catherine II see Bartlett, Human Capital, Appendix 1.
7 For the process of urbanization in the Black sea coast see Konstantinova, ‘Urbanization and modernization processes’.
8 Processed data from одесский вестник [Odessa Herald], 1835-1860. I have reconstructed the ethnoreligious groups through the categorization of the merchants’ names, by cross checking them through various archival sources and secondary literature.
9 On the Jewish population in the Russian Empire see Zipperstein, The Jews of Odessa; Bartal, The Jews in Eastern Europe; Kappeler, The Russian Empire.
10 For an explanation of the Russian policies towards the Jews as an expression of pragmatic considerations.
11 Data processed from одесский вестник [Odessa Herald], 1835–1859.
12 On the role of consuls in international trade see De Goey, Consuls and the Institutions.
13 Ibid. 342.
14 National Archives. Foreign Office, Russia. ‘Report of Mr. Thomas Sandwith on the Trade of the District of Odessa for the Year 1889’, No. 706 (1890), 3.
15 Data processed from одесский вестник [Odessa Herald], 1856, 1860.
16 Data processed from Список Купцов [List of Merchants], 1887.
17 Data processed from одесский вестник [Odessa Herald], 1887.
18 For a study of the maritime tradition of the Ionian Islands since the 15th and 16th century see Pagratis, Society and Economy. On the 18th century history of the Ionian shipping, see Harlaftis, Citation2013; Pagratis, Citation2013, pp. 631–650. For the transition from the Chiot to the Ionian network during the second half of the 19th century see Harlaftis, Citation1996, p. 71–106.
19 The family names of the main Ionian merchants and shipowners emerged through the comparison of the data processed from Список Купцов [List of Merchants], 1887 and Harlaftis’ study, Α Ηistory of Greek-Owned Shipping.
20 On the history of the Vagliano Bros see Harlaftis, Citation2007; On the Vaglianos’ collaboration with the Greek shipowners from the Aegean islands see Papadopoulou, Citation2010, chapter 6.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Alexandra Papadopoulou
graduated from the History Department of the Ionian University in Corfu, where she also completed her Master’s degree. She received her Doctorate in May 2010 with honors. Her thesis with the title ‘Maritime Businesses, networks and institutions in the merchant shipping of the island of Spetses, 1830–1870. Organization, management and strategy’ was supervised by Gelina Harlaftis. During the period 2005–2008, she received a three-year scholarship from the research project ‘Greek maritime centers: promotion and administration of the maritime legacy of the Ionian and Aegean seas.’ Funded by the Greek state and the EU. Until 2013, she participated in the international research project with the title ‘The Black sea and the port-cities, 1774–1914’ funded by the Greek Ministry of Education and the European Union. From 2014 till 2015, she was a post-doc researcher with a two-year grant in Bocconi University in Milan on her project ‘Russian and American grain in the era of the first global economy. Transport systems and the integration of the grain market’. She is currently a post doc researcher in the project ‘Aristoteles Onassis Business Archive’, funded by A. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation. She also teaches economic, maritime, business and global history in the post graduate programmes of the History Department of the Ionian University.