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Merchant Networks in the Ottoman Balkans during the Nineteenth Century: The Case of the Gümü?gerdan Family
Abstract by Secil Uluisik On Session 103  (Networks of Merchants and Trade)

On Monday, November 19 at 8:30 am

2012 Annual Meeting

Abstract
The Gümü?gerdan Family were one of the most powerful corbaci merchant and manufacturer families in the Plovdiv region during the mid-nineteenth century in the Ottoman Empire. Although their main craft was the manufacturing and production of coarse wool cloth (aba) mainly for the Ottoman army, their activities varied from tax collection to trade and guild management. By blending trade, tax collection and industry they increased their economic and political power in various regions of Southern Bulgaria. In doing so, Gümü?gerdans held a reputation as Bulgaria’s best- known traders, landowners, commissionaires, and head of the government chancery office, manufacturers and factory owners. They established intertwined relations with the Ottoman administration as well as these powerful provincial actors. They immigrated to Greece after Bulgaria gained its independence in 1878. This paper examines the Gümü?gerdan family with a specific concentration on their intertwined relations with the state officials, local elites (corbacis), tax farmers, as well as with other traders. Through the analysis of the activities of this powerful provincial actors such as their involvement in tax farming, manufacturing and guild management by utilizing previously unexamined archival materials from the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives in Istanbul, Turkey, I aim to delineate the networks between tax collectors, merchants, guilds and provincial notables during the 19th century in the Ottoman Balkans and highlight the regional differences in terms of the state’s relations with powerful provincial actors during that period. Through such an analysis of specific cases in which various members of Gümü?gerdan family were involved, I aim to show the intertwined relationships such as alliances between money lenders, guild masters, state officials and tax collectors. Then, I further argue that these alliances between the Gümü?gerdan family and state officials, tax collectors and guild masters were not permanent. The significance of such an analysis lies on the scarcity of the studies on Balkan merchants and the networks they established with powerful provincial actors. The additional significance of this study is that it gives the opportunity to make further comparisons with other powerful merchants, tax collectors or provincial elites for future research.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Ottoman Empire
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries