4 - The Russian Government v. Mari Vagliano, 1881–1887

Summary

This chapter indicates the problems the Vagliano brothers encountered in Russia as foreign trading companies. Their businesses could be described as a kind of proto-multinational that carried out international accounting. Their cosmopolitanism affected the hinterland of Imperial Russia’s South, and the story of the confrontation of Mari Vagliano with Russia indicates the populist and nationalist reaction to perceived foreign economic influence. Vagliano’s trial, which shook all of Russia for several months, has been described as the biggest trial in the legal history of Russia. This chapter examines the relationship of Mari Vagliano with Russian businessmen, government, and intelligentsia. As with Onassis’s legal battle with American authorities decades later, Mari Vagliano faced down highly public accusations of fraud and tax evasion, emerging from the confrontation unscathed. Vagliano and Onassis were prime paradigms for the survival of Greek firms involved in the international shipping business. Powerful governments have attacked entrepreneurial elites of foreign origin during periods of increasing nationalism and xenophobia.