Economy and Society on both Shores of the Aegean
Creating the Ottoman-Greek Merchant (1780-1870):
Sources, Methods and Historiography

The series of monthly seminars, Economy and Society on Both Shores of the Aegean, organized by the Ottoman Bank Museum in collaboration with Alpha Bank and the History Department of Boğazici University, hosts Dr. Maria Christina Chatziioannou on Friday, April 14, with a presentation in English entitled, "Creating the Ottoman-Greek Merchant (1780-1870): Sources, Methods and Historiography." In her lecture, she discusses the contribution of private testimonies to the historiography on the Ottoman-Greek merchant.

In order to retrace the creation of the Ottoman-Greek merchant over a 90-year period, Dr. Chatziioannou examines Greek commercial archives from a largely micro history and history of enterprises standpoint. Chatziioannou believes that a comparative analysis of medium size, middlemen merchants may enrich the existing views on merchant capitalism of development models. She is convinced that a historical observation of the merchant-businessman on a micro scale, mobilizing various methodological approaches, does not imply an eclectic view of the topic but rather a complementary one.

The monthly seminar series, Economy and Society on Both Shores of the Aegean, focuses on the Greek Orthodox populations of the late Ottoman and early Republican periods. Seminar speakers provide comprehensive information on the subject and display special awareness of the delicate historical context. Admission to the seminars is free. Our next guest speaker will be Assoc. Prof. Nükhet Adıyeke from the History Department at Mersin University, with a lecture entitled, "The Last Identity Conflict in Ottoman Crete: the 1898 Kandiye Uprisings," scheduled for Friday, May 12.

Economy and Society on both Shores of the Aegean
Creating the Ottoman-Greek Merchant (1780-1870):
Sources, Methods and Historiography

Dr. Maria Christina Chatziioannou graduated from the Department of History at the University of Athens in 1978. In 1980, she completed a master's program in history at the Scuola di Perfezionamento di Storia Medioevale e Moderna, at the University of Sapienza in Rome. She obtained her Ph.D. in modern history from the University of Athens, in 1989. She has published on several historical issues of social and economic history such as, Greek merchant houses and entrepreneurs, the development of Greek cities, and Italian historiography. Chatziioannouis, who is director of studies at the National Hellenic Research Foundation, is currently engaged in a multidisciplinary and comparative study of merchant networks and business enterprises in the Eastern Mediterranean, during the 18th and 20th centuries.

Economy and Society on both Shores of the Aegean Creating the Ottoman-Greek Merchant (1780-1870): Sources, Methods and Historiography Dr. Maria Christina Chatziioannou Friday, April 14, 2006 5:00 p.m. Free admission The Ottoman Bank Museum Bankalar (Voyvoda) Caddesi 35/37 (0212) 334 22 70