Andrea Umberto Gritti
Balkanologie, vol. 17, n° 2 (2022)
Type: Articles in scientific journals

 

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explain how the boom in demand for raw material from European silk factories, which pebrine disease provoked in the mid-nineteenth century, increased the importance of sericulture for the rural economy of the Ottoman Balkans. Consular registers, commercial correspondence and documentation from the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul are cross-referenced to retrace the initiatives of French and Italian merchants who created and consolidated export chains. The rapid growth of the raw silk trade and the suspension of pre-existing connections challenged the fiscal prerogatives of Ottoman authorities, who reacted by attempting to increase the entrenchment of their administrative action. To show how the operations of foreign merchants and this tendency to place state power on a territorial basis left a lasting mark on the economy of Rumelia, three issues are examined with particular attention: variations in the regional geography of sericulture, spatial deployment of economic knowledge, and the effects of different land tenure regimes on forms of access to market profits.

The article belongs to the Special Issue "Entrepreneurs et mutations économiques dans les Balkans, XIX^e-XXI^e siècle, Balkanologie, vol. 17, n° 2 (2022).

Open access: https://doi.org/10.4000/balkanologie.4191