Diaspora entrepreneurial networks in the Black Sea and Greece, 1870-1917

This study follows the socio-economic aspects of the Greek entrepreneurial network in southern Russia in 1870-1917 using largely new material from Russian archives. The multi-dimensional character of Greek merchants (often being industrialists and landowners) and the close links established between the Greek trade, banking and shipping networks are confirmed. Their contribution to the Greek economy via foreign government loans raised in the international capital market is enquired. Finally, the decline of the diaspora is found to be a long drawn-out process which began in Odessa in the 1870s and spread to the eastern ports of the Black Sea prior to the Balkan Wars and World War I, thus predating the October revolution of 1917.