Proposal for the 3Rd MMHN Conference Cristian Luca, Lower
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Proposal for the 3rd MMHN Conference Cristian Luca, Lower Danube University of Galaţi The Emergence and Development of the Greek ‘Conquering Merchants’ In The Trade Between The Eastern Mediterranean And The Romanian Principalities (16th–17th Centuries) The suitable definition by which Trajan Stoianovich described, in his classic essay1 published almost half a century ago, the significant role played by the Balkan merchants, mainly Greeks, in the development of the capitalist economy in South– Eastern and Central Europe was entirely supported by the conclusion of the emblematic work in which Immanuel Wallerstein expounded the evolution of the Modern European World–Economy2. The dynamics of trade in this semi-periphery and periphery of the European World–Economy was greatly influenced by the Greek merchants and ship- owners‟ massive involvement in trading South-Eastern European raw materials and Venetian merchandises. The complementariness between the Venetian Republic‟s capitalist economy and the agro-pastoral economic structure of the South–Eastern European states favoured the development of significant commercial transactions with specific merchandises. Using their mercantile experience, their resources of capital and the facilities in shipping – as owners of commercial ships and experienced seafarers – and in caravan transports, the Greeks took over the Romanian Principalities‟ foreign trade; thus, they exported on the Venetian market large quantities of wax, hides, wool, salted fish and caviar, and imported luxury articles, textiles, glassware, paper, products of the Italian pharmacopoeia etc. The Greek merchants and ship-owners, subjects of the Serenissima (residents of the Orthodox colony from Venice – members of the St. George Confraternity) or inhabitants in the Ionian Islands, but also Ottoman subjects from insular and continental Greece, especially in Epirus, became the main protagonists of the medium and long distance trade, on the maritime and land routes, in the Balkans and the Romanian Principalities, conducting their business either by accepting the intermediation of the large Constantinopolitan market or by trading directly with the destination markets of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania. On the basis of unpublished or insufficiently used Venetian documentary sources from the 16th–17th centuries, this paper stresses the decisive contribution of the Greek merchants and ship-owners, enjoying the protection of Venice‟s Stato da Mar or Ottoman subjects, to the development of the trade between the Serenissima and South– Eastern and Central Europe. A special stress will be devoted to the three autonomous 1 Trajan Stoianovich, „The Conquering Balkan Orthodox Merchant‟, The Journal of Economic History, XX, no. 2 (1960), p. 234–313. 2 Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World–System, vol. I, Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World–Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York and London, 1974); and especially id., The Modern World– System, vol. II, Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World–Economy, 1600-1750 (New York, 1980); id., The Modern World–System, vol. III, The Second Great Expansion of the Capitalist World–Economy, 1730-1840’s (San Diego, 1989). states of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, buffer zones between the Ottoman Empire and Respublica Christiana, principalities whose role on the map of the European World–Economy has been ignored or superficially evaluated in the Italian and, generally speaking, Western historiography. By their mercantile activity, the Greeks, as well as other Balkan tradesmen, proved to be important vectors of the capitalist economy in the semi-periphery and periphery of the European World–Economy, with an enormous contribution to the economic and social progress and thus to the relative decrease of the considerable gap in development between South–Eastern Europe and the Western capitalist economies. CV Last Name: LUCA First Name: CRISTIAN Current position: Assistant Professor Office Address: “Lower Danube” University Faculty of History and Philosophy Department of History 111th Domnească Street RO–800201 GALATI ROMANIA Telephone: (00 40) 236 41 56 41 int. 69 (Office) Fax: (00 40) 236 47 21 01 (Office) E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Education: 2006 Ph.D. in History (magna cum laude) University of Bucharest 2001 MA in Eastern European Medieval and Early Modern History University of Bucharest 1999 BA in History University of Bucharest Professional Affiliation: “Sever Zotta” Romanian Institute for Genealogy and Heraldic Studies – Iasi (Romania) Society of Mediterranean Maritime History – La Valletta (Malta) Associazione Nazionale Archivistica Italiana – Rome (Italy) Romanian Academy Commission for the History of the Cities of Romania – Sibiu (Romania) Romanian Historical Association – Bucharest (Romania) American Historical Association – Washington (USA) Economic History Association – London (Great Britain) Interdepartmentally Center for Balcanic Studies at Ca‟ Foscari Venice University – Venice (Italy) Commission of History of International Relations – Milan (Italy) Research Interests: Political, Commercial and Cultural Relations between Venice, the Romanian Principalities and the Eastern European Area during the 16th and the 17th Centuries The Relations of Venetian Bailo in Constantinople with the Romanians Rulers The Levantine Trade during the Seicento Recent Publications: L‟Europa Centro–Orientale e la Penisola italiana: quattro secoli di rapporti e influssi intercorsi tra Stati e civiltà (1300-1700), edited by Cristian Luca and Gianluca Masi, Istros Publishing House of the Braila‟s Museum, Braila–Venice, 2007, 335 pp. Dacoromano–Italica. Studi e ricerche sui rapporti italo-romeni nei secoli XVI-XVIII, The Publishing House of the Centre for Transylvanian Studies of the Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cluj-Napoca, 2008, 266 pp.+9 fig. Miscellanea Historica et Archaeologica in Honorem Professoris Ionel Candea, edited by Valeriu Sirbu and Cristian Luca, Istros Publishing House of the Braila‟s Museum, Braila, 2009, 607 pp. Webpage: www.cristiluca.blogspot.com .