Title: Transnational Trajectories: From Chios to London Through Alexandria, a Family Story
Abstract: This is in part a personal account—the story of my family—and in part an analysis of the broader historical reality represented through the almost inevitable experience that my family’s multiple relocations resulted in. In researching the topic, I discovered that my family’s story is fairly representative of migratory patterns that were recorded from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century amongst Greeks originating from Ottoman lands and/or the newly-formed Greek state. Relocating primarily (but not exclusively) within the Mediterranean and almost invariably to port cities, their patterns of migration were geographically global as were indeed the economic networks that made them possible (On the establishment and functioning of commercial networks, see e.g., Kévonian K (1975) Marchands Arméniens au XVIIe siècle. A propos d’un livre Arménien publié à Amsterdam en 1699. Cah Monde Russe Soviétique 16(2):199–244; Frangakis-Syrett E (2002) Networks of friendship, networks of kinship: eighteenth-century Levant merchants. Eurasian Stud 1(2):189–202; Buti G (2003) Cabotage et caboteurs de la France méditerranéenne (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles). Rives Nord – Méditerranéennes 13:75–92; Henneton L (2012) Le moment Atlantique de la dynastie des Winthrop au XVIIe siècle. Les Cahiers de Framespa 9. Online. http://www.framespa.revues.org/979 (accessed 10 November 2014)). Such networks were in turn underpinned by market forces that ‘saw’ no borders (In the nineteenth century onward, as banking networks became just as prevalent as commercial networks, they also literally ‘saw no borders’, e.g., Exertzoglou H (1989) Προσαρμοστικóτητα και πολιτική ομογενειακών κεφαλαίων: Το κατάστημα Ζαρίφης Ζaφειρόπουλος, 1871–1881. Commercial Bank of Greece Research Foundation, Athens; Şeni N, Le Tarnec S (1997) Les Camondo. Actes Sud, Paris; Hulkiender M (2003) Bir Galata Bankalerinin Portresi: George Zarifi, 1806–1884. Osmanlı Bankası Arşiv ve Araştırma Merkezi, Istanbul; Frangakis-Syrett E (2009) Banking in Izmir in the early twentieth century. Mediterr Hist Rev 24(2):115–31). In the few cases where their relocations were not in port cities, they were in cities and/or towns that were situated near navigable waters. Important for the benefits it afforded to the international economy, from the cost-effective transportation of people and goods to the flow of information and capital, water has been an important element in economically driven migration, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Equally important has been the urban element: relocating to a city or even a smaller town was a sine qua non in such migratory patterns.
Publication Year: 2023
Publication Date: 2023-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot