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Across The Danube Southeastern Europeans and Their Travelling Identities 17th 19th C 1st Edition Olga Katsiardi Hering Maria A Stassinopoulou
Across The Danube Southeastern Europeans and Their Travelling Identities 17th 19th C 1st Edition Olga Katsiardi Hering Maria A Stassinopoulou
Across The Danube Southeastern Europeans and Their Travelling Identities 17th 19th C 1st Edition Olga Katsiardi Hering Maria A Stassinopoulou
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Across the Danube
Studies in Global Social History
VOLUME 27
Editor
Editorial Board
VOLUME 9
Edited by
Olga Katsiardi-Hering
Maria A. Stassinopoulou
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: A pantoon bridge on the Danube in Novi Sad (Neusatz), near Belgrade.
Source: Ermini, L./Kunike, A., Donau-Ansichten, Vienna 1824, fig. 173
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1874-6705
isbn 978-90-04-33543-1 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-33544-8 (e-book)
Introduction 1
Olga Katsiardi-Hering and Maria A. Stassinopoulou
Part 1
Routes and Spaces
Part 2
Greeks in Vienna: A Close Reading
Part 3
Old Settlements, Nation States, New Networks
Illustrations
Maps
Figures
Tables
From its source in the Black Forest, the Danube flows eastwards through
mountain chains, plains, valleys, through numerous port-cities such as Regens-
burg, Vienna, Enns, and Budapest, then to the south, reaching further fluvial
ports in Bulgaria, such as Vidin, which was until the end of the 19th century
an Ottoman city. Embracing a variety of landscapes and peoples, the river has
connected capital cities of empires and kingdoms, and still forms a shared
landmark of nation states which have otherwise followed different trajectories
after 1918. It is the river celebrated by Strauss, and the Viennese and Hungar-
ian music, depicted in works of art by many painters1 and described in novels,
poems, travelogues, and films by various authors and travelers.2 It connects
and divides3 nations, societies, and micro-regions of various economic, politi-
cal, cultural, and religious orientations. At its branched estuary, at the Black
Sea Delta, the river ends after flowing through a series of fluvial ports, which
flourished from the mid-19th century and partly retain their importance.
Since the Roman and Byzantine era, the Danube constituted both a pos-
sibility of entrance and a barrier for people finding their way from Asia to
Central and Southern Europe.4 Across time it often formed the real frontier
between the states and empires around it, but it also contributed to factors
that provoked wars among the Ottoman, Habsburg, and Russian Empires dur-
ing the period under consideration in this volume.5 The immediate aim of
these antagonistic powers was to obtain crucial posts on its banks; their real
goal was to control the regular conduct of the commerce, and also of other
passages of people and articles and, in particular for the Ottomans, to sustain
the status quo, while Habsburg Austria and the other European powers strove,
especially after the end of the 18th and even more energetically in the 19th
century, to force the internationalization of the river.6 It is remarkable that
most of the treaties from the 17th to the middle of the 19th century, not only
among the Ottomans and their rivals, but also European treaties which were
the outcome of other conflicts, were signed in cities directly on or near the
Danube. Most of them were signed in the river span from Belgrade to its delta –
Sitva Torok (Zsitvatorok) 1606, Karlowitz 1699, Passarowitz 1718, Belgrade 1739,
Kucuk Kainardza 1774, Svistov 1791, and Vienna 1815 – while two were signed
in the capitals of the Danubian Principalities – Jassy 1792 and Bucharest 1812.7
From the mid-16th century, after the occupation of most of Hungary by
Suleyman the Magnificent8 and until the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699), the mid-
dle part of the Danube eastwards of Budapest belonged to the Ottomans.9
After the Treaty of Karlowitz and definitely after the Treaty of Belgrade the
river became for a long period the closely watched frontier between the
Habsburg and the Ottoman Empire.10 While the Danube from Buda to Zemun
flowed now through Habsburg territories, from Belgrade to its estuaries in the
Black Sea remained an Ottoman river. Due to the diversity of administration in
the former Ottoman Hungarian territory,11 the semi-autonomous status of the
Danubian Principalities of Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia,12 but also
because of the diversity of the productive profiles of the various districts and
of the wide spectrum of merchants’ movements and orientations, it would be
wrong to treat the region around the river as a single geopolitical and social-
economic entity.
The middle Danube and the vast area around it, which belonged after the
Treaty of Karlowitz to the Habsburg Empire, was the fruitful part of the river,
flowing more or less through fertile plains, particularly in the central Hungarian
region around the Tisza tributary of the Danube and its so-called ‘Tisza-knee’.13
The Austrian mercantilist policy in the long 18th century and more actively
after the Treaty of Passarowitz was conducive to the establishment in this last
consortium.22 These changes forced the Ottoman Empire to readjust its Black
Sea commercial policy23 and particularly the commercial routes around the
Danube estuaries, and heavily influenced the migration flows and economic
orientations of the states and merchants, resulting in the reorientation of the
most well-known and most often used commercial routes.24
The traditional commercial roads, which since the 14th century merchants
from Southeastern Europe had followed towards Central Europe,25 the Danu-
bian Principalities, and onwards to the Ukraine and Russia, were rearranged
after the Treaty of Passarowitz26 which through its privileged tariff framework
benefited particularly the Greek Orthodox merchants of the Ottoman Empire.
Their formative presence led Traian Stoianovich in 1960 to use the emphatic
title ‘The Conquering Orthodox Balkan Merchant’ for his article on the sub-
ject.27 The next radical reorientation of the commercial routes across the
Danube took place after the Treaty of Adrianople. The informal and formal
realignment of the borders that occurred after the Greek and Serbian revolu-
tions should also be taken into consideration. During the second half of the
19th century the Danube flowed not only through or between empires but also
through nation states, newly formed or just emerging, all of which were regu-
lated by newly formulated and applied commercial and population policies.
Southeastern Europe, particularly its northern part, was during the late
medieval time and until the mid-16th century at the center of interest of Ragu-
san, Venetian, Florentine, Viennese, Augsburg, and other European m erchant
families and networks.28 Some of them, such as the Ragusan, reached even to
the Lower Danube. After Buda was captured by the Ottomans and the great-
est part of the Hungarian lands became an Ottoman province (pashalik),
Transylvania recognized the suzerainty of the Porte and became a self-ruling
principality (1541). Therefore, Suleyman the Magnificent was the first sultan
who firmly stated landlord right over Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylva-
nia, considering the tributary principalities as parts of the “Well-protected
Dominions and their inhabitants as sultan’s subjects (re’aiya)”.29 Thus from an
administrative and commercial point of view, Ottoman Southeastern E urope
was formed, with a majority of its inhabitants being Christian Orthodox. Suc-
cessive movements of people intensified, particularly from the Epirus region,
from Western Macedonia, and from Serbia towards the Danubian principali-
ties. Their settlement in the principalities as peasants, merchants, and arti-
sans is well researched.30 These migrants formed family, commercial, and
social networks whose structures lasted for centuries. An intensifying as well
as a diversification of these migratory networks took place in the long 18th
century, due to the changes brought about by the Karlowitz and Passarowitz
treaties and the new e conomic conditions of the 19th century. These migratory
movements could be analyzed within the framework of the Ottoman Empire’s
economic crisis and the following shift from the timariot to the çiftlik sys-
tem, the steadily increasing fiscal obligations of the population – particularly
in the 18th century – and the commercialization of the peasant production
on the one hand and the way to industrialization of the Central European
area on the other.31 This latter parameter caused an increase in the export
of raw materials (such as wool, cotton, cotton yarn, etc.), so much needed in
the newly established textile industries in Austria, Bohemia, Saxony, etc. His-
torical a nthropological aspects of family formation, kinship relations, and
inheritance practices in Southeastern Europe in the longue durée under their
economic and geographical environment should also be taken into consider-
ation.32 Leslie Page Moch’s view on a non-sedentary Europe (especially in the
18th century) could be totally applicable to our Southeastern Europe as well.33
People moved for their seasonal a gricultural and livestock activities, or they
ended up becoming bandits.34 They also moved from the mountain or peasant
areas to the towns and cities, in particular those in crucial commercial cross-
roads or near the mercantile fairs. Distance and duration of the movements
could vary considerably.
In our book the Danube is the ‘bridge transporting souls and products’, the
‘border’, and the ‘space’ as perceived and settled by migrants from Southeast-
ern Europe. The Danube, regarded for centuries as the fluvial end of Europe,
served as a ‘geographical’ point of reference for the demarcation of territorial
and ‘symbolic’ borders. In the 19th century Balkans, the Danube became in
both a local and a national sense a basic component of evolving identities. It
was then that it emerged as the ‘Dunarea noastră’ of the Romanians, or the
‘Hellenic Istros’ of the Greeks. The Danube was also a ‘bridge’. Its history is
intricately connected with the complex mobility of peoples, goods, and ideas.
Because of its economic potential and despite the commanding presence
of nation states, Danube became one of the first representative examples of
international cooperation, through the Commission Européenne du Danube
whose functioning highlights the persistence of transparent borders even in
the nation-state dominated 19th century.
The European Danube Commission (Commission Européenne du Danube),
established by the 1856 Treaty of Paris, was undoubtedly one of the most
dynamic and successful European and international organizations until its
dissolution in the early post World War ii era. Its aim was to maintain the
international status of the river and promote free commercial transactions
and riverine communication. Initially it counted among its members only
the signatories of the Treaty (Habsburg Empire, Prussia, France, Great Britain,
Kingdom of Sardinia, Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire), but since the 1880s
it also included the main riparian states (Bulgaria and Romania). Its founding
was the result of nearly 80 years of systematic efforts by the major European
powers to “open” the river to navigation and commerce. While the late 18th
century endeavors of the Austrian authorities ended in failure, the 1815 Treaty
of Vienna promulgated, in theory, the international status of the Danube and
the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople stipulated the liberalization of trade and navi-
gation in the river. It allowed therefore the infiltration into the region of not
only Greek but also Italian (mainly Genovese), British, and Ionian merchants
and seafarers. These merchants succeeded in integrating the Lower Danube
into the world economy, making manifest its even greater potential for the
Western European markets. The jurisdiction and range of operations of the
European Danube Commission grew to include policing of the river, m ajor
35 For older bibliography on the international Danube agreements and the commission
see Siotto-Pintor, “Le régime international”; Krause, “Die europäische Donaukommis-
sion”; a wider perspective is in Qian, Die Donau; on recent publications see only indica
tively, Commission Européenne du Danube, La Commission Européenne du Danube;
Focas, The Lower Danube River, pp. 253–422; Ardeleanu, “The European Commission of
the Danube” The legal aspects are analyzed extensively by Stanciu, România şi Comisia
Europeană a Dunării.
36 From the rich literature on the extensive discussion about migration see Cohen, The
Cambridge Survey of World Migration; Hoerder and Page Moch, European Migrants;
Lucassen, J. and Lucassen, L., Migration, Migration History; Bade, Europa in Bewegung.
8 Katsiardi-Hering and Stassinopoulou
We see the texts in this volume as being embedded in this framework and
offering both an empirical backbone and perspectives towards a further re-
finement of models of migration and of social interaction created through
migratory movements.
Southeastern Europe offers a paradigmatic case study for larger questions
debated in global migration history. Located between Ottoman, Habsburg,
and Russian empires the region constitutes historically a borderland per se.38
In Ottoman Southeastern Europe trade led to the mobilization of human
resources, as well as to the configuration of a unified zone of transactions.
From the 17th to the 19th century Greeks, Serbs, Albanians, Vlachs (Aroma-
nians), Romanians and Bulgarians, mostly Christians and Jews, participated in
commercial and intellectual networks and played a leading role in the percep-
tion of trans-imperial and later the formation of nation-state borders. Borders
constitute ongoing complex processes, not to be defined as mere demarca-
tion lines in space, but rather as socially dynamic spaces.39 The interaction of
people outside the institutional and official channels of life works against the
notion of the border as a boundary of demarcation.
Our interest focuses on the fields of migration, population movement, and
formation of networks in the context of the ‘Danubian’ border, a ‘fluid’ border
that contributed to the formation of complex identities40 and conceptions,
in particular among the immigrants. It also aims to study the ways in which
migration affects the social relationships of the migrants and through them the
socio-cultural systems in the areas of origin and destination. The cross-cultural
migration movements with which we are dealing in this volume can prove the
suggestion of J. Lucassen and L. Lucassen that “small groups of merchants,
scholars, or technicians may have had a large and lasting influence on receiv-
ing societies”,41 rather than migration movements due to colonization policy.
In our case we are in front of “migrations that cross cultural space” and of
The discussion regarding the role played by geographical factors in the for-
mation of state entities in Southeastern Europe has been largely transformed
since the mid-1970s.43 It was also significantly enriched by the modern and
post-modern discourse on the interplay of the notions of identity and borders,
be that political, natural (rivers, mountains, seas, etc.), or symbolic. In this
context mobility is seen as contributing to the formation of a differentiated,
flexible, but also complex, plural identity. In the host countries, this identity
was strengthened and also simultaneously diversified by the official censuses44
and the bestowing of commercial and settlement privileges by the authorities
to the newcomers. It is important to mention that tolerance45 from the part of
the Habsburg authorities gave the immigrants from the South the chance to
establish communities and organize their educational and cultural-religious
life, aiding the creation both of networks of intellectuals and scholars and
also helping the creation of a proto-public sphere for the emerging/changing
Balkan nations.46
Finally, it is necessary to add that the phenomena of migration, settlement,
and formation of communities, especially those by the Greek Orthodox immi-
grants in the Habsburg Monarchy, have been extensively studied, mostly in
Central European and Greek historiography. In the majority of the cases the
approach is in one direction, namely on the ways in which the immigrants
constituted communal institutions and commercial networks, and how they
interacted with the imperial authorities in order to obtain privileges. What is
still lacking is the exploration of the mental/psychological dimension of this
‘travel’, of this passage from one Empire, the Ottoman one, from its institu-
tions, legal system, and cultural values, to another, the Habsburg, to a sig-
nificantly different set of rules, laws, and concepts. This ‘passage’ entailed a
complex process for the immigrants and demanded the articulation of old-
established cultural practices and to a certain degree the formation of a new
identity. Recent and current research focuses for example on donations and
endowments as an instrument both of remaining connected with the home-
lands and integrating in the host societies.47 It also changed the host societies,
in particular in the territories, which were colonized after peace treaties. The
integration of this Ottoman and multi-confessional dimension into the study
of the migrants’ new homelands can contribute to a wider perspective and
more nuanced framework for the history of Central and Eastern Europe; for
example, the meeting of Orthodox Christians with Catholics and Protestants,
or of Sephardic Jews migrating to the Northeast via the Balkan routes.
For the purposes of this volume we divide the Danube,48 in its flow east of
Vienna, into three sections in relation to the transporting routes and the estab-
lishment of several colonies (communities) of immigrants in the lands in its
northern area (Map 0.1).
The first section includes the area between Vienna and Zemun (Semlin),
both on the Danube, and the complex and dispersed Orthodox diasporas in
Hungarian lands, especially in the so-called ‘Danube knee’. The second, the
‘middle’ Danube of our book, follows the river from Semlin to the Iron Gates,
a borderline between two empires (Habsburg and Ottoman) that until the
mid-19th century constituted the most vital part of the economy and the tran-
sit of people and articles. In the Hungarian plains, a great number of Orthodox
companies and merchant communities were established (Kécskemet, Pest,
Miskolc, Szentendre, Gyöngyös, etc. Map 0.2). It is in this vast area that a great
part of the Austrian Military Borders Region (Militärgrenzgebiet) was devel-
oped, receiving numerous Serbian families according to Habsburg coloniza-
tion policy. From the frontier island of Orsova, products were transported to
Transylvania, and through it, to Ukraine and Russia. Thus the third part of our
Danubian travel consists of the so-called Lower or Maritime Danube, most of
it flowing through the Danubian Principalities. It is here that port cities on the
banks of the river, such as Braila/Galatz, Giurgiu, and Constanza in the Black
Sea, with a host of others flourished especially after the 1829 Treaty of Adriano-
ple, when old commercial and migration traditions and routes merged with
the acceleration of new products and movement in the 19th century, while at
the same time the emergence of new borders created the necessity of new
communication and network systems. (Maps 0.2, 1.1)
The products which had moved through the Danube river ended in Leipzig,
Frankfurt, Ukraine, and Russia. Leipzig, with its international market f unction,
as a terminus and meeting point for merchants from the north and the south
of Europe was also the urban space of business competition and even rivalry.
The character of an annual market presence was predominant, while a more
permanent establishment of merchant communities from Southeastern
Europe in Saxony took place only in Leipzig.49 But even there, the presence
49 Suppé, “In Sachsen auf Heimatboden. Zur Geschichte der griechischen Gemeinde in
Leipzig”.
Introduction 13
of orthodox merchants from the European South did not achieve the continu-
ity of the communities of Central Europe, discussed in this volume. One of
the main reasons for this was the strong competition by merchants importing
colonial products, such as cotton and raw materials for textile coloring, via the
port of Hamburg and delivering them from there to the Leipzig fare.
The migrant settlements in both emerging modern and old medieval cit-
ies contributed to the joint molding of new urban spaces and new forms of
investment and profit. Changes in the cities were co-determined by the vibrant
migrant merchant minorities. Vienna is discussed here as a case study. As the
imperial capital which had functioned as the stockyard and pivotal emporium
between Central and Southeastern Europe, Vienna was the center of attrac-
tion for numerous migrant, often non-Catholic, populations. The protagonists
in commerce were mostly migrants, often Protestants from several countries
and Orthodox from the Ottoman Empire, while the 19th century saw the rise
of Jewish commerce in Vienna. Here we focus on the rise, integration and/or
fall of companies of Greek Orthodox and Ottoman merchant origin and the
corresponding community structures, as they struggled to survive through the
19th century. While Ransmayr addresses the communal structures developed
by the migrants from the early 18th to the early 20th century and the traces
left through investment in buildings during the heyday of Greek presence,
Seirinidou shows that commerce included risks and downfalls. We also follow
the memorial practices as they are reflected in urban space through endow-
ments and donations until the end of the Habsburg Empire in 1918 through a
case study, the Panadi building.
Previously, in earlier research, we defined the desideratum of joint per-
spectives on the commercial activities and migrant settlements of Ottoman
Sephardic Jewry and Greek Orthodox settlers in the Habsburg Empire.50
Despite different timelines, competitive roles, and divergent economic tradi-
tions, there seem to be parallels and connecting points in the development
of family/enterprise networks on the way from the Ottoman to the Habsburg
Empire and moments of connectivity among the diaspora communities.51
ecause of the Habsburg constraints until the late 18th century on the arrival
B
of Jewish families to the imperial territories, and also due to the divergent
orientation of the Jewish mercantile diaspora in the continental trade in South-
eastern Europe, the Sephardic migration from the Ottoman to the Habsburg
Empire remained fairly limited until the early 19th century.52
Extending our perspective to include the emergence of nation states we
enter the complex nexus of tactics of feudal rule in the Danubian Principali-
ties of Moldavia and Wallachia, vassal to the Ottoman Empire and the semi-
autonomous crossroads of Transylvania. The dynamics of local politics are
also reflected in the changes in the migration paths (by land and water), in the
inconsistency of attitudes towards immigrants during the centuries discussed,
and in the formation of the nation state. This process leading from territories
in the divided and shared space between two empires to the Romanian nation
state is analyzed in the context of migration, which formed a central element
of social construction.
As will hopefully have become clear, this book addresses the Danube in its
function of creating through the movement of migrants, goods, and ideas, an
interconnected larger region, encompassing territories in two empires from
the late seventeenth to the nineteenth century. It connects this region with
a larger region surrounding it, reaching to the Mediterranean and the Black
Sea and to the Russian Empire. The orientation of Southeastern Europe
towards the West is inconceivable without the constant dialog throughout the
centuries b etween the areas shaped by the Danube and the Mediterranean.53
Furthermore, the economic fate of migrants discussed in this book intercon-
nects them with global spaces such as the ‘Empire of Cotton’,54 as many of them
are involved in the production, commerce, and finance of textiles. Finally, their
orthodox confession sets them, in an era of secularization and tolerance poli-
cies, in an exposed position in the large context of the re-arrangement of the
co-existence of confessions.
The book includes an introduction and ten chapters divided into three parts.
The first part, “Routes and Spaces”, offers a general perspective on the routes
and spaces of migrations and focuses on the role of the host authorities and
Endowment History from 1750 to 1918” (Vienna 16–18 November 2016) (to be published);
https://wienergriechen.univie.ac.at/workshop-2016/ (accessed 1 June 2016).
52 Katsiardi-Hering, “Christian and Jewish Ottoman Subjects”, pp. 424–25; Panova, Die Juden
zwischen Toleranz und Völkerrecht im Osmanischen Reich.
53 Katsiardi-Hering, “L’area balcanica”, p. 615.
54 Beckert, Empire of Cotton.
Introduction 15
55 Katsiardi-Hering, Η ελληνική παροικία της Τεργέστης; Seirinidou, Έλληνες στη Βιέννη; Pešalj,
“The Mobility Control of the Ottoman Migrants”; Pešalj, “Habsburg Policy towards
Ottoman Foreigners”.
56 Sessions “The Danube as ‘Bridge’ and migration frontier” (Katsiardi-Hering organizer)
and “Confession, Ethnicity, and Integration in a Local Economy” (Stassinopoulou orga-
nizer), https://esshc.socialhistory.org/esshc-user/programme/2014 (accessed 8 November
2015). Olga Katsiardi-Hering would like to thank the Special Account for Research Grants
of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens for supporting this research.
16 Katsiardi-Hering and Stassinopoulou
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Part 1
Routes and Spaces
⸪
chapter 1
Ikaros Mantouvalos
“Go, my dear child, with God’s blessing. I embrace you one last time as your
mother, because I have a feeling I’ll never see you again”. These were the last
words that twelve-year-old Panagiotis Naoum remembered his mother utter-
ing in 1822 when he left his homeland Kastoria behind to follow the road to
Central Europe.1 The sentence is taken from the autobiography of this Kasto-
rian émigré. It was written around 1871 and reflects one aspect of migration
from the Ottoman-ruled Balkans to Central Europe.
Owing to their rarity, autobiographical texts such as this one are normally
used on the periphery of empirical research to examine various aspects of
the migratory phenomenon, since their protagonists were the social subjects
themselves, the migrants. The shift in viewpoint from social structures to the
strategies of groups and individuals – from a simple explanatory approach
in accordance with the model of push-pull factors, to concepts such as chain
migration, relying on relatives, friends and social networks, information and
solidarity links, i.e. non-financial factors – reveals aspects of geographical
mobility and especially the daily experience of migration. For the peoples of
Southeastern Europe, the experience of migration from the 15th to the early
19th century was part of their daily lives,2 a fact generally applicable to Euro-
pean societies of the early modern period, which were much less static than
some people have imagined them. It is worth noting that according to Charles
Tilly, as a result of a process of proletarianization in North Western Europe, cap-
italist societies emerged with a free labor market and geographical mobility.3
The intense population movements that took place within the Ottoman
Empire4 during the early centuries of Ottoman rule were supplemented by
migratory outflows, initially westward and then, a little later, toward Central
Europe.5 The lack of security and stability created by the expansion of the
Ottomans into the Balkans in the 16th century, in addition to specific migra-
tions (e.g. the exodus of Greek scholars and artists heading for the intellectual
centers of the Western world), also caused the major migratory wave of the
Serbs (1537) toward the territories of Croatia; their permanent settlement there
was associated with the defense policy of Vienna.6 At the same time, the grad-
ual incorporation of the Ottoman market into the world’s capitalist economy,
through the penetration of European capital into the Eastern Mediterranean
and the stable orientation of Ottoman trade in the direction of European
demand, created new financial conditions and opportunities for Ottoman
subjects, especially Orthodox merchants, and contributed decisively to
expanding their trade networks. This period of economic acceleration was
decisive in their decision to move out of the Ottoman Empire.
Regarding the historiography of the Greek Diaspora, it is well known that
the geographical mobility of Orthodox Christians and of Jews and Armenians
from Southeastern to Central Europe (16th–17th century), with a view to orga-
nizing and extending their mercantile activities northward – initially (16th cen-
tury) toward the territories of Transylvania and later (17th century) toward the
Hungarian Kingdom – was associated with the incorporation of these Central
European regions into the Ottoman state between 1526 and 1699. After the bat-
tle of Mohács (1526) and especially after 1541 when Hungary was split into three
political units,7 the economy of Transylvania – until its incorporation into the
Habsburg Monarchy (1699) – became interwoven with the economic relations
and commercial transactions of the Ottoman Empire with Central, Northern,
and Western Europe. Even though commercial relations between Hungary and
the Sublime Porte already existed before the political change in the Hungarian
Kingdom, the expansion of the Ottomans into Central and Eastern Europe and
4 Vakalopoulos, Ιστορία της Μακεδονίας 1354–1833, pp. 139–43 and Mintsis, Εθνολογική σύνθεση,
pp. 189–202.
5 Vakalopoulos, Οι Δυτικομακεδόνες απόδημοι, p. 7.
6 Kaser, Freier Bauer und Soldat.
7 Its central section was annexed to the Ottoman Empire, the northern and western scet-
ions constituted the main body of the Hungarian Kingdom, under the Habsburgs, and
Transylvania functioned as a semi-autonomous principality, tributary to the Sultan. See
Sugar “The Principality of Transylvania”. About the history of Transylvania, see also Barta,
et al., Kurze Geschichte Siebenbürgens.
Greek Immigrants in Central Europe 27
8 Levantine fabrics, wood, and silk were already being imported to the Kingdom of Hungary
even before the battle of Mohács, through the customs stations of Transylvanian Braşov
(Brassó and Kronstadt) and Sibiu (Nagyszeben and Hermannstadt) as well as through the
customs services of the cities of Nádorfehervár (Beograd) and Temesvár (Timișoara). See
Pach, Hungary and the European Economy, p. 241.
9 About the Saxons in Transylvania, see Makkai, “Herausbildung der städtischen Gesell-
schaft (1172–1526)”, Barta, “Die Anfänge des Fürstentums und erste Krisen (1526–1606)”,
and Péter, “Die Blütezeit des Fürstentums (1606–1660)”.
10 Regarding the role of Transylvanian cities in the long-distance trade between Western
Europe and the Levant in the 16th century, see Pakucs-Willcocks, Sibiu – Hermannstadt,
pp. 59–139.
11 Bur, “Das Raumergreifen balkanischer Kaufleute”, p. 25.
12 Ibid.
28 Mantouvalos
its interior, to impose price controls and to prevent the export of gold coins.13
However, in the first third of the 17th century, the need to secure additional
resources for the principality’s treasury helped change the stance of the central
authority, which until the early decades of the 17th century was hostile to the
conduct by ‘foreigners’ of commercial activity and to their settlement there. By
means of a privilege issued in 1636, the prince of Transylvania, György Rákóczi i,
permitted Greek tradesmen to become incorporated as the ‘Greek Company’.14
Based on this decision, merchant companies were established in Sibiu and
Braşov in 1636 and 1678, respectively. Their members originated mainly from
the region of Macedonia.15 In his study “Pages from the History of the Macedo-
nian Greeks in Hungary and Austria” in the journal Neos Ellinomnemon, Spyri-
don Lampros stressed, among other things, a significant aspect of the reasons
why Balkan Orthodox subjects settled on the soil of Transylvania: the shortage
of agricultural workers for the prince’s farms, which resulted in the resettle-
ment of peasants from the broader Macedonian region.16
Also of exceptional interest is the fact that with Rákóczi’s privilege of 1636
“the general concept of the Greek merchant and the uncertain status of travel-
ling Greek salesmen became crystallized in the concept of a community (com
munitas) with a financial character, i.e. the incorporation of those engaged in
commerce”.17 The limitation of their financial obligations to the payment of
an annual amount and of customs duties at the points of entrance to and exit
from the country, as well as the right to self-administration and to the exer-
cise of religious duties, were derived from this privileged status and special
legal framework regarding the prerequisites for engaging in commerce and the
administrative and judicial independence of company members.18
The formation of a collective financial organization (company/compagnia),
which functioned as a kind of merchant guild, with binding administrative,
judicial, and auditing provisions, regulated the business organization of its
23 The word Görögök did not refer solely to those who belonged to the group of ethnic
Greeks, but also described all Balkan peoples who were members of the Eastern Ortho-
dox Church and used Greek as their main language of communication. It also designated
the merchant. Füves, Οι Έλληνες της Ουγγαρίας, pp. 7–8.
24 Regarding Greek commercial establishments in Hungary, see indicatively Füves,
Οι Έλληνες της Ουγγαρίας; Bur, “Handelsgesellschaften – Organisationen der Kaufleute”;
Bácskai, “Gesellschaftliche Veränderungen in den Städten Mittel-und Osteuropas”; Bur,
“The Greek Company in Hungary”.
25 The Aromanians (Vlachs) are a Latin-speaking ethnic group native to the southern
Balkans. Regarding the Vlachs of Macedonia and Epirus, see indicatively Koukoudis, Οι Μη
τροπόλεις και η Διασπορά των Βλάχων, as well as Weigand, Die Aromunen.
26 Füves, Οι Έλληνες της Ουγγαρίας, pp. 22–25.
27 Bácskai, “Gesellschaftliche Veränderungen in den Städten Mittel-und Osteuropas”; Bur
“The Greek Company in Hungary”.
28 Füves, “Görögök Pesten”; Katsiardi-Hering, “Aδελφότητα, Koμπανία, Koινότητα”; Mantou-
valos, “Mεταναστευτικές διαδρoμές”.
Church Brassó, Kronstadt (Brașov)
Eger, Erlau
Chapel Gyulafehérvár, Karlsburg (Alba Iulia)
Company Nagyszeben, Hermannstadt (Sibiu)
Bártfa Nagyvárad, Großwardein (Oradea)
School Orsova, Orschowa (Orșova)
Kisszeben
Greek Orthodox Community Pozsony, Preßburg (Bratislava)
Eperjes Sopron, Ödenburg
Temesvár, Temeswar (Timișoara)
Kassa Ungvár
Besztercebánya Ujvidék, Neusatz (Novi Sad)
Jászó
Radvány Ungvár, Ungwar (Uzhhorod)
Rozsnyó Sátoraljaujhely Munkács
Vajdahunyad, Eisenmarkt (Hunedoara)
Rimaszombat Tállya
Losonc Zimoni, Semlin (Zemun)
Sajó
Sárospatak
Nagyszombat
ly
Fülek Tarcal
Ipo
Léva Szikszó Tokaj
Pozsony Balassagyarmat Miskolc Nagykálló
Fehértó Sz. Németi
Vác Dásztó Eger
Du H.Hadház
Moson Szentendre
na Komárom Esztergom Gyöngyös H.Böszörmény
Acs a
Pomaz Hatvan sz Debrecen
Sopron Ti
Szamos
Győr Tata Nagykáta H. Szoboszló Székelyhid
Pest Dés
Buda Kaba Diószeg Bészterce
Irsa Szolnok
ba Tétény Soroksár Karcag Nagyvárad Szamosujvár
Rá Cegléd
Sári
Székesfehérvár Antonyráckeve Szászrégen
Tass Nagykőrös Kolozsvár Kolozs
Szarvas Nagyszalonta
Dömsód Kecskemét Békés
Csongrad Torda Marosvásárhely
t on Dunaföldvár Solt Kunszentmárton Belényes
l a Szentes Gyula
Ba Dunapataj Erzsébetváros
Olt
Karlopago
31
alkan merchants endeavored to fill the gap created by the lack of a dynamic
B
Hungarian business class. As middlemen in the commercial transactions
between the hereditary lands of the Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire, the
Görögök became significant factors in the Hungarian economy, regulators of
the transit trade, and protagonists in the wholesale and retail commerce. It is,
nevertheless, worth noting that the most common type of Greek merchant in
the Hungarian hinterlands in the first half of the 18th century was a retailer.29
The forms of commerce they selected were mainly dependent on the spe-
cific conditions prevailing in the sectors of trade and commercial milieux.
According to Füves, in the Hungarian Kingdom three basic types of Greek
merchants were active: peddlers or itinerant salesmen who covered the con-
sumer and productive needs of the agrarian population, those established in
the country who opened shops to sell their merchandise, and those who trans-
ported goods.30
People active in long-distance trade were frequently organized into mer-
chant companies, a fact that allowed them to increase the amount of capi-
tal available to them and to limit market hazards. Usually two to four people
comprised the corporate core of the enterprise, by laying down capital in the
form of merchandise, credit, real estate (shops, vineyards), and cash. Within
the extensive commercial and financial network that extended from South-
eastern Europe to the markets of the Kingdom of Hungary, family members
were active either as partners and commercial agents or as middlemen in dif-
ferent regions, depending on the goods they were selling each time. The com-
mercial enterprises of Pondikas,31 Sideris, Kyranis, and Tournas are just some
of the Greek companies based in Pest that were organized around a family
nucleus in the second half of the 18th century.32 The family structure of the
corporate organization, which had been the predominant model of corporate
activity in Western Europe since the early stages of its industrialization, pro-
vided stable and secure conditions for planning and conducting mercantile
businesses. The relations of trust among the partners were frequently built
on marital or other relations, for instance. god-parenthood, between power-
ful merchant families. They allowed commercial practice and information to
retain bonds with local or foreign markets. There is no doubt that formaliza-
tion, ritualization, and publicity of ties were used by entrepreneurs in Early
Modern Europe to establish trust with their business associates, for example
when information was asymmetric or when institutions were perceived as
inefficient in guaranteeing mutual good behavior.33 The logic of financial alli-
ances included the marriage of Konstantinos Pop, member of the Sibiu com-
pany, to the daughter of Haji Petros Loukas, which contributed to expanding
the horizons of his father-in-law’s business (whose main field was the cattle
trade) in the direction of general long-distance trade, and a little later, toward
a type of banking activity.34 The same motives can be discerned in the mar-
riages of Zoe Dimtsa from Miskolc to Ioannis Haji Spyros from Vienna, that of
Maria Haji Georgiou from Pest to Georgios Leporas from Bratislava (Preßburg/
Pozsony), of Anastasios Pamperis from Warsaw to the daughter of Georgios
Gergas from Miskolc and that of Katerina Kousorintsa from Eger to Georgios
Lazarou from Miskolc. Their commercial interests were basically determined
by the geographical breadth of their marriage strategy, which expanded into
significant key points of the transit trade in central and northern Europe, such
as Pest, Vienna, Miskolc, Tokaj, Eger, Bratislava, Warsaw, etc.35
Common origin in terms of place and culture ensured the same advantages
as family bonds. Rallying together members of an ethnic group can be found
in the merchant activity of the Macedonian Vlachs in the urban centers of the
Habsburg Empire (Budapest, Vienna).36 Their marked numerical and finan-
cial presence, as well as their linguistic and progressively ethnic differentiation
from the Greeks, may have contributed to the organization of the land trade
on ethnic criteria, such as we see in the case of the merchant house of Manos
in Pest,37 or in corporate collaborations in Miskolc (the brothers Antonios and
Naum Bougias with Ladislao Demtsos, and of Konstantinos Semsis and the
latter with the brothers Georgios and Naum Rozas in the merchant company
Rozas and Co).38
The majority of the Greek and Macedonian Vlach merchants in Hungary
could be found in provinces east and northeast of the Danube, between it
and the river Tisza (Theiß) where they settled in communities with elemen-
tary market structures and local products suitable for commercial trade. Olga
migrants moved and settled in a city based on the criterion of local production
and functioned as attraction for further migrants from their place of origin.
In 1762 the merchant companies in Tokaj had 598 members, the majority of
whom originated from Kozani.46 The increased presence of salesmen from
Kozani and Ioannina in the merchant companies of Sibiu and Braşov, the large
number of people from Kozani in Hódmezővásárhely and Szentes, cities near
Kecskemét and Pest,47 and the origin of the majority of Greeks in Kecskemét48
and in the region of Jászkunsag (Central Hungary) who were from Siatista and
Kozani49 reflected both the mechanisms by which the family functioned as
well as the role of the geographical factor, ethnic and cultural origin, and social
networks in the subjects’ movements. This becomes even more visible after
the two sackings of Moschopolis (1769, 1788),50 which reinforced numerically
the numbers of Aromanians already settled in Greek companies in Hungary,
such as the company of Miskolc, lending it a strong local ethnic and cultural
character. Similar changes took place in the composition of the population of
Zemun,51 as shown in Figure 1.1.
45 Kosani
40
Kastoria
35
30 Melenico
25 Veroia
20 Servia
15
Moschopolis
10
5 Katranitsa
0 Blatsi
Tokaj (1762) Zemun (1770) Miskolc (1770)
Siatista
Kleisoura
Figure 1.1 The geographical origins of Greeks in the cities of Zemun (Semlin),
Tokaj and Miskolc
Source: Papadrianos, Οι Έλληνες πάροικοι του Σεμλίνου, p. 53;
H ering, “Die griechische Handelsgesellschaft in Tokaj”, p. 271;
Mantouvalos, “Μεταναστευτικές διαδρομές”, pp. 228–30.
For the inhabitants of Western Macedonia, the course of the Aliakmon R iver
created a long narrow basin that became the natural path of their communica-
tion with the Balkan countries to the North and Central Europe.52 Also, three
land arteries started out from Thessaloniki: the first through Sofia and Nissa
(Niš), reached Zemun through Belgrade,53 the former being the southernmost
frontier post on Habsburg territory, then entered its Hungarian section. The
second passed through Serres, Meleniko, Sofia, and Vidin and ended in Orsova,
another important post on the Habsburg border. And finally the third road,
through Sarajevo, led to the territories of the Kingdom of Hungary.54
Securing the necessary documents – travel permit, passport, certificate
of health – allowed the migrants to move legally among these territories. In
a number of treaties and trade agreements (e.g. the previously mentioned
Sened of 1784) between the Court in Vienna and the Sublime Porte, the frame-
work was created for the free movement of Habsburg and Ottoman subjects
between the two neighboring states. The increasing control applied by the
Habsburgs in the last quarter of the 18th century, both for movements within
their territory and at the frontiers of the Kingdom of Hungary with the Otto-
man Empire, was associated on the one hand with state security and public
health, and on the other with the country’s economic interests and balance of
trade. Information about the effective surveillance of Orthodox Balkan mer-
chants of Ottoman origin and the legality of their residence in the Hungarian
hinterlands is provided by the census data compiled by the authorities for the
purpose of political and health inspection.55
Crossing borders was decisive on the material and symbolic level alike. Very
early in their journeys, migrants began to experience the consequences of dis-
crimination, discovering what it meant to be a ‘foreigner’56 in a country with
a different religious environment (Catholic and Protestant), submitting them-
selves to the social and cultural codes of the ‘Other’. Nevertheless, by trans-
forming the temporary into the permanent, the subjects created a new basis
52 Vakalopoulos, Ιστορία της Μακεδονίας, p. 349; Chatziioannou, Η ιστορική εξέλιξη των οικισμών
στην περιοχή του Αλιάκμονα, pp. 13–46.
53 Regarding the significance of Zemun as an intermediary station of Greek migrants, see
Papadrianos, Οι Έλληνες πάροικοι του Σεμλίνου, p. 52.
54 Mehlan, Οι εμπορικοί δρόμοι στα Βαλκάνια, p. 376.
55 See Katsiardi-Hering, “Grenz-, Staats-und Gemeindekonskriptionen in der Habsburger-
monarchie”, p, 237; Mantouvalos, “Conscriptiones Graecorum in Eighteenth-Century
Central Europe”.
56 Regarding the term “foreigner”, interwoven with the Orthodox Balkan migrants in
Habsburg territories, see Katsiardi-Hering, “Migration von Bevölkerungsgruppen”,
pp. 132–33.
Greek Immigrants in Central Europe 37
for their gradual incorporation into the host society and their financial stabi-
lization there. The differentiation based on the subjects’ transience or perma-
nency of residence depended on a set of parameters, such as family status, age
and stage in the family life cycle at the moment of migration.
By the end of the 1760s, the majority of those who had left their towns
in Macedonia with Hungary as their destination, whether permanently or
temporarily, were men of whom most were unmarried.57 Some left their wives
and children behind in Ottoman-held homelands, while not a few remarried
where they had settled.58 After 1769 and especially after 1774, this picture grad-
ually began to change. On the basis of the decree by Maria Theresa (5 April
1769), full freedom of trade for Ottoman subjects was directly linked to their
permanent settlement, moving their families to Hungary and swearing the
oath of allegiance, which meant that they also became subject to the Hungar-
ian Crown.59 At the same time, they lost the privilege of exemption from cus-
toms duties enjoyed by Ottoman subjects that had been secured for them by
the Treaty of Passarowitz. Only under the conditions described above would
they be granted the right to pursue commercial activity and to look for a per-
manent residence.60 Ten years later, in 1784, a decree was issued on the basis
of which every ‘foreigner’ could be regarded as a semi-local, on condition that
they had lived in the Kingdom for at least ten consecutive years.61 The process
of their civic incorporation undoubtedly reflected the Viennese government’s
deeper intention and priority, which was none other than redrawing the lines
between integration and exclusion of the ‘Other’.
Among migrants to the Habsburg Empire there were also adolescents and
children. For example, more than half the ‘Greeks’ living in Vienna in 1766 had
migrated there as youths or children for occupational reasons.62 These move-
ments were associated with trade and the opportunities it generated. It is also
known that, throughout modern times in Europe, child labor has been directly
related to structural mobility and migration. Children of the lower urban
and agrarian social strata, from families of merchants and artisans, moved
through the real labor market, either to learn a trade, or to join the workforce
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