The Historical Review/La Revue Historique

Vol. 11, 2014

Gelina Harlaftis and Katerina Papakonstantinou (eds), Ναυτιλία των Ελλήνων, 1700-1821. Ο αιώνας της ακμής πριν από την Επανάσταση [Greek shipping, 1700-1821: The heyday before the Greek Revolution]

Chatziioannou Maria Institute of Historical Christina Research / NHRF https://doi.org/10.12681/hr.336

To cite this article:

Chatziioannou, M. C. (2014). Gelina Harlaftis and Katerina Papakonstantinou (eds), Ναυτιλία των Ελλήνων, 1700-1821. Ο αιώνας της ακμής πριν από την Επανάσταση [Greek shipping, 1700-1821: The heyday before the Greek Revolution]. The Historical Review/La Revue Historique, 11, 193-196. doi:https://doi.org/10.12681/hr.336

http://epublishing.ekt.gr | e-Publisher: EKT | Downloaded at 28/09/2021 22:55:43 | Gelina Harlaftis and Katerina Papakonstantinou (eds), ΝΑΥΤΙΛΙΑ ΤΩΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΩΝ, 1700-1821. Ο ΑΙΩΝΑΣ ΤΗΣ ΑΚΜΗΣ ΠΡΙΝ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΕΠΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΗ [Greek Shipping, 1700-1821: The heyday before the Greek Revolution], Athens: Kedros and Ionian University, 2013, 887 pages.

Gelina Harlaftis has ‌undertaken, for many The volume contains 21 chapters, of years now, a laborious mission within which Harlaftis herself wrote five, as well the Greek and international research as the introduction and the conclusion. and academic community to restructure This constitutes an advantage for the Greek maritime history in a new context. volume, since, due to the overwhelming In order to succeed in this mission, she amount of material, the different essays has mobilized students and colleagues may naturally seem unequal in terms and has gone through numerous archives of methodology; however, they become and libraries. This effort has produced coherent in the book. The first part solid results so far, by studying the sea as a introduces an analysis of shipping and its means of transportation, maritime trade, institutions, the role of the Ottoman state, the ports, ships and navigation, shipping piracy, quarantine stations (lazzaretti) in activities and maritime institutions. Western Europe, maritime business and Therefore, this book, titled Ναυτιλία the sea routes in the Ionian and Aegean των Ελλήνων, 1700-1821. Ο αιώνας της seas. The second part presents the types ακμής πριν από την Επανάσταση [Greek of sailing ships, significant ports of the shipping, 1700-1821: The heyday before Mediterranean Sea from Malta, to Sicily, the Greek Revolution], which has been to Livorno, to Messolonghi, to Preveza, to co-published by the Kedros publishing the ports of the Black Sea, the networks house and Ionian University, offers us and the maritime centres of the Ionian the opportunity firstly to study, to analyse and the Aegean. Most of the studies have and to understand how she organizes her been based mainly on a complex database research. The 11 colleagues and students named Amphitrete, which contains who were part of this mission, along with processed archival sources from various the efficient co-editor of the volume, European archives. Katerina Papakonstantinou, have all From a historical and geographical been inducted into the analysis and point of view, the volume analyses the study of shipping activities in archival major areas of the Ionian and Aegean sea documentation and quantitative records. regions that were active in the shipping

The Historical Review / La Revue Historique Section of Neohellenic Research / Institute of Historical Research Volume XI (2014)

http://epublishing.ekt.gr | e-Publisher: EKT | Downloaded at 28/09/2021 22:55:43 | 194 Maria Christina Chatziioannou sector through their interconnections των Ελλήνων, the 40 maritime centres of within the Mediterranean. It is exactly Greek shipping, as arranged following this point that indicates that a novel, fresh the analysis of data in the Amphitrete reading of the archival data highlights database, owned 1000 ocean-going vessels that the fleets of Hydra, Spetses and Psara, and 2500 coastal ships on the eve of the well-known from their participation Greek Revolution. in the Greek Revolution, in fact were The islands and ports of the Greek not the fleets that gave birth to the vast lands that dominated over a long period Greek shipping business. I suggest that were focal points of the Mediterranean the belligerent events between the Greeks that connected the commercial worlds and the Ottomans in the Aegean during of East and West; deprived of other the Greek War of Independence and the sources of wealth, they participated in study of specific archives, as well as the the networks of maritime transactions spectacular representation of maritime of the Mediterranean, competing and conflicts, created an inter-mediated image cooperating with ‌people of different of such people as Andreas Miaoulis, the religions and languages. Lands with Kountourioti brothers, Konstantinos limited agricultural activities turned Kanaris and others; and thus these three towards shipping and piracy. These islands islands – the places where these figures and ports became regions of primitive ‌‌originally came from – have been featured capital accumulation, as well as areas in Greek historiography. Besides, they where valuable experience – technical constituted part of the political body of know-how for commercial transactions the first period of the Greek State, so they and for shipbuilding – was gained. They continued to be active in the formation became maritime centres, that is to say, of their public image. Therefore, it seems areas for the construction of sailing ships, that the renowned image of rebellious birthplaces of commercial ship captains Greece as presented through the heroic and locations of economic transactions events of the Aegean sea-fighters also and maritime education. prevailed over the hypothesis of the birth The mechanisms of market unification of ocean-going Greek shipping. and combined sea and land transportation The fleets of Cephalonia and Messo- are one of the new questions of economic longhi, less known in historiography, history. This volume searches within are presented in this book as important shipping and maritime activities the providers of transportation services to mechanisms of port unification with ‌‌other countries. Soon, the subject of focal points, of small or peripheral Ionian shipping will emerge further, after markets with central markets, from the the publication by the National Hellenic Western Mediterranean to the Eastern Research Foundation of the forthcoming Mediterranean and the Black Sea. book by Panayiotis Kapetanakis, Το Ιόνιο If we wish to uncover a major common κράτος, 1815-1864. Εμπόριο και ναυτιλία factor that could describe the importance υπό Βρετανική προστασία [The Ionian of each maritime centre for Greek State, 1815-1864: Shipping and trade shipping before the Greek Revolution, this under British protection]. In Ναυτιλία would be the hunger for the provision,

http://epublishing.ekt.gr | e-Publisher: EKT | Downloaded at 28/09/2021 22:55:43 | G. Harlaftis & K. Papakonstantinou (eds), Greek Shipping, 1700-1821 195 supply and consumption of grains in while facing multiple natural dangers the Mediterranean and in Europe. This and the endemic threat of piracy in the is the exact motive that pushed all of the Mediterranean, aiming for what we “small merchants” who were behind presume was a small profit margin. Small, the trips that are thoroughly recorded but compared to what? This is a major in this volume. Besides, we know from issue under investigation. People from Carlo Cipolla’s work about pre-industrial small natural ports of the Greek peninsula, societies that since early modern times deprived of other financial revenues, the European economy was principally embarked on dangerous maritime missions agricultural and developed depending on on the sea. The issue of national identity is international trade, textile manufacturing secondary here, in other words, I think the and building construction, in such a way answer to the question of which “nationality” that large social groups of pre-industrial were the captains, the passengers and Europe dealt precisely with the production the commercial representatives, who for and circulation of foodstuff, clothing example were registered at the quarantine and construction of public and private station on Malta, is simple; they were Greek- buildings, as well as services. Therefore, speaking captains and commercial agents Greeks of the pre-industrial era, under who originated from the Ionian Islands, the foreign Ottoman, Venetian and Genovese south-western Aegean, Hydra, Messolonghi sovereignty, by using various flags, chose and Galaxidi and who used whichever flag and specialized in services and became the was convenient to them, especially the main carriers of the Eastern Mediterranean. Greco-Ottoman, the Ottoman, the Ionian Usually, according to the sources, State and the one of Jerusalem. these were “small merchants”, ship Harlaftis is right to highlight that captains who undertook a small number Greeks from the second half of the of often-dangerous sea voyages. At this eighteenth century proved to be one of point, a statistical analysis of trips per the groups that benefitted the most from captain would be enlightening. From all the development of international trade kinds of freights, other than grains and and shipping in South-East Europe and foodstuffs, wood is of great interest; a especially in their own crucial area from detailed study of this trade, encountered the Eastern Mediterranean to the Black first with wood trade exports from Epirus Sea. This growth in Greek shipping, following the expansion of French trade in from the second decade of the eighteenth the Mediterranean, should be investigated century that reached a peak at the end further. Also, I believe that the emergence of the eighteenth century and on the eve of quarantine stations as a major source of the Greek Revolution, had a direct for shipping history is one of the most connection with international economic dynamic characteristics of this volume growth, especially from the Ionian Sea, and is revealed in a very capable way by which was under Venetian, French Papakonstantinou in the chapter “Archival and British protection and had direct Sources and Amphitrete: The Research”. geographical access to Venice, Genoa and In small- to mid-sized sailing vessels, the Naples, the blooming financial centres of ship captains crossed the Mediterranean, pre-industrial capitalism. At this point

http://epublishing.ekt.gr | e-Publisher: EKT | Downloaded at 28/09/2021 22:55:43 | 196 Maria Christina Chatziioannou

we could add that Greeks, before the in the British navy or the Continental establishment of the Greek State, within Blockade of the Napoleonic Wars at the their small local societies, functioned beginning of the nineteenth century. under a situation of “free” trade policy, On the other hand, Greeks scattered while the Dutch, French and British were around the Mediterranean, people of constrained by the public policy and Greek origin, adopted more flexible state control of their countries, especially patterns and developed patterns of local during the eighteenth century. They capitalism, in other words, the locally enjoyed the privileges of state protection, supported capitalism of the sailors of but at the same time they had to bear Chios, Cephalonia, Spetses, Andros and commitments; let us keep in mind the so many other islands and, in certain Navigation Acts of the eighteenth century cases, such as the Chiot group, made that prohibited the use of foreign crews glocal capitalism into a reality.

Maria Christina Chatziioannou Institute of Historical Research / NHRF

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