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Western Businessmen in Russia: Practices and Problems*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Walther Kirchner
Walther Kirchner
Affiliation:
Professor of History, The University of Delaware
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Abstract

As a challenge for further research and analysis, Professor Kirchner suggests some of the cultural differences encountered by Western businessmen in Russia which significantly shaped their conduct of trade.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1964 , pp. 315 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1964

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References

1 Kirchner, Walther, “Über den russischen Aussenhandel zu Beginn der Neuzeit,” Viertel jahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, vol. XLII, no. 1 (1955), pp. 40–56Google Scholar; ibid., “Relations économiques entre la France et la Russie au XVIIIe siècle,” Revue d'histoire économique et sociale, vol. XXXIX, no. 2 (1961), pp. 131–48.

2 Epstein, Fritz and Kirchner, Walther (eds.), “Eine unbekannte Version der Beschreibung Nordrusslands durch Heinrich von Staden,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Ost-europas, N.F., vol. VIII (1960), p. 134.Google Scholar

3 Gerschenkron, Alexander, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), pp. 60Google Scholaret passim.

4 Redlich, Fritz, “Der fürstliche Unternehmer, eine typische Erscheinung des 16. Jahrhunderts,” Tradition, vol. III (February, 1958), pp. 17–32.Google Scholar

5 Amburger, Erik, “Zur Geschichte des Grosshandels in Russland, die gosti,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, vol. XLVI (June, 1959), pp. 248–61Google Scholar; Bakhrushin, Sergei V., “Stati po socialno-ekonomicheskoi politicheskoi istorii russkogo centralizovannogo gosudarstva XV-XVII vv.,” Nauchnye Trudy, vol. II (1954).Google Scholar

6 Re attractions of rank, cf. Bentham's, Samuel views in Kirchner, Walther, “Samuel Bentham and Siberia,” Slavonic and East European Review, vol. XXXVI (June, 1958), p. 476.Google Scholar

7 Grekov, Boris D. and Adrianova-Peretts, V. P. (eds.), Khozhenie za tri moria Afanasia Nikitina (Moscow, 1948)Google Scholar (German version ed. by Karl H. Meyer, Leipzig, 1912).

8 It may be noted that the Chinese surrounded themselves not only by a wall of stone but also by a linguistic wall. In the eighteenth century, the teaching of their language to foreign merchants was strictly prohibited. This played a role in the Russian-Chinese border trade as well as in political and trade negotiations.

9 William Ropes, Sr. and William H. Ropes to Hardy Ropes, St. Petersburg, May 25 and October 5, 1833, MSS, private collection of Mrs. Cabot Ropes, Boston, Mass., to whom I herewith extend my thanks for kind permission to use her collection.

10 Messerschmidt (d. 1735), Pallas (d. 1811), and Alexander von Humboldt (d. 1859) were among those scientists who were allowed to undertake their explorations only if they kept silence about everything the Russian government did not authorize for publication.

11 Besides numerous memoirs in French and Russian archives, cf. also Winterthur Collection of Manuscripts, Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Library, Wilmington, Delaware; Kirchner, “Relations économiques,” p. 172.

12 Kulischer, Russische Wirtschaftsgeschichte, vol. I, p. 335.

13 Amburger, Erik, Die Familie Marselis (Giessener Abhandlungen zur Agrar- und Wirtschaftsforschung des europäischen Ostens, IV, Giessen, 1957), pp. 105 f., 124 f., passim.Google Scholar

14 Price, Jacob M., The Tobacco Adventure to Russia (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. LI, no. 1, Philadelphia, 1961), pp. 62 ff., 67.Google Scholar

15 Willan, Russia Company, p. 273; Price, Tobacco Adventure, pp. 68 ff.