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Commerce and Identity in the Greek Communities

Livorno in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Despina Vlami
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In the eighteenth century a large scale emigration of the most enterprising strata of mainly mercantile Greeks from their homelands in Asia Minor, Greece and the Balkans’ area, then under Ottoman rule, resulted in the creation of Greek merchant communities in the most important commercial and financial centers of the Mediterranean and Western Europe.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 45 , Issue 177 , March 1997 , pp. 73 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Notes

1. On the Greek merchant community in Livorno, see N. Tomadakis, "Temples and Institutions of the Greek Community in Livorno," Epetiris Eterias Vizanti non Spoudon, 1940, 16, pp. 81-127 (in greek); K.N. Triandafilou, The Kostakis family in Achaia and in Livorno, Athens, 1968; G. Panessa, Le Comunita Greche a Livorno, Livorno, 1991 (in greek); D. Vlami, International Business, Community, Identity: the Greek Merchants in Livorno (1700-1900), unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, European University Institute, Florence, March 1996.

2. See D. Vlami, (note 1 above), pp. 97-128 and 240-306.

3. Ibid., pp. 165-233.

4. See in particular B. Braude and B. Lewis (eds.), Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, New York, 1982.

5. From the Arab millah, religion, designating in Turkey a group of coreligionists.

6. The paragraphs below are based on material provided by archival research in the State Archives of Livorno and of Florence, in the National Library of Greece, Manuscript Department, in the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and post-Byzantine studies in Venice, and in the Research Institute of Medieval and Modern Greek Studies of the Academy of Athens. Research was con ducted between 1988 and 1993, see D. Vlami, (note 1 above).

7. See M.G. Biagi, "Le Comunita Eterodosse di Livorno e di Trieste nel Secolo XVIII," Quaderni Stefaniani, 1986, V, pp. 95-128 for an account and a compari son of the problems encountered by the Livornese Greeks with those of the Orthodox Greeks in Trieste.

8. The Greek Catholics or Roman Catholics of the Eastern Church, known also in the Middle East as Melchites, were Eastern Christians of the Orthodox faith as defined by the Councils of Ephesus (AD 31), and Chalcedon (AD 451). On the Greek uniats in Livorno, who celebrated the services in latin and under the protection and the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, see G. Schialhub, La Chiesa Greco-Unita di Livorno. Memorie Storiche, Livorno, 1906 and N. Ula cacci, Cenni Storici della Chiesa Nazionale Greco-Cattolica di Livorno sotto il titolo della SS. Annunziata, Livorno, 1856.

9. In 1766, according to Pardi, the Greek population in Livorno counted 63 Orthodox and only 9 Uniats, in G. Pardi, "Disegno sulla Storia Demografica di Livorno," Archivio Storico Italiano, 1918, I, p. 51.

10. M.G. Biagi, (note 7 above), pp. 119-24.

11. While this rule showed the strong interest of the Greeks in safeguarding their religious identity, it did not prevent some Greek Orthodox marriages to non-Orthodox partners, who were mostly Catholics. In fact the number of such marriages went up between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, and when the constitution of the Brotherhood was modified in 1873, one of the articles amended was that which referred to "mixed marriages."

12. On the Hellenic Enlightenment movement see in particular: K.Th. Dimaras, La Grèce au Temps des Lumières, Geneve, 1969 and by the same author The Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment, Athens, 1985 (in greek). On the ideological background of the movement see P. Kitromelidis, Tradition, Enlightenment, and Revolution. Ideological Change in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Greece, Cambridge-Massachussets, 1978. On the Hellenic concept of the Greek nation which origi nated in the Hellenic Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century, see in particular R. Demos, "The Neo-Hellenic Enlightment, 1750-1820," Journal of the History of Ideas, 1958, 19, pp. 523-541.

13. The teacher's first salary was paid by five Greek merchants, members of the Brotherhood.

14. See also P. Zerlendis, "The Greek School in Livorno 1805-1837," Parnassos, 1889, pp. 324-25 (in greek).

15. See N. Tomadakis, (note 1 above), pp. 106-07 and also K. Triandafilou, (note 1 above), p. 84.

16. P. Zerlendis, (note 14 above), p. 336.

17. Ibid., p. 323-40. In 1802, the Brotherhood corresponded with the teacher and Reverend Neofitos Kiriakidis in Naples and Messina. The Livorno school super visor Mihail Zosimas corresponded with the merchants Christodoulos Efthimiou and Ioannis Stamatakis, who were the Brotherhood's contacts in Ioannina, Epirus. Letters were also exchanged with the Balanos and the Athana sios Psalidas schools in Ioannina, asking for references on the teacher Grigorios Palioutitis (1804-1805). In 1827 the Brotherhood wrote to Neofitos Vamvas, a well-known Greek intellectual who at the time was teaching in Kephalonia, ask ing him to recommend a Greek teacher for the community's school.

18. See also G. Panessa, (note 1 above), pp. 69-71, and P. Zerlendis, (note 14 above), p. 340.

19. N. Tomadakis, (note 1 above), p. 125.

20. K. N. Triandafilou, (note 1 above), pp. 86-87.

21. In 1873 Anneta Perdikaris, daughter of the Brotherhood's psalmist, was awarded a scholarship to study at the Arsakion College in Athens. For the names and the lives of the young Greeks who studied at the University of Pisa between 1806 and 1861, often with the financial support of the Greek Orthodox Brotherhood in Livorno, see A. Sideri, Greek Students at the Univer sity of Pisa 1806-1861, Athens, 1989 (in greek).

22. See also G. Panessa, (note 1 above), pp. 64-69.

23. On the very important activities of this editor, see A. Koumarianou, L. Droulia, and E. Layton., The History of Greek Books, Athens, 1986, pp. 135-157 (in greek).

24. For the correspondence of Adamantios Korais see K. Th. Dimaras, et al. (eds.), Adamantios Korais. His Correspondence, 6 vols., Athens, 1967-1987 (in greek), which includes correspondence with members of the Greek community in Livorno such as Alexandros Patrinos and Thomas Spagniolakis.

25. A. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, London, 1986, p. 15.