The Commercial Activities of Tsvyatko Radoslavov during the Second Half of the 1850s

The article discusses the main trends in the activities of Tsvyatko Radoslavov's trading company, established in 1855 in Svishtov till the autumn of 1859, the contacts he had with traders and companies working in the cities situated in central Bulgaria, with Istanbul, and abroad - Vienna, Bucharest, Brashov, Zimnicea, Giurgiu, Craiova, Odessa and others. Radoslavov dealt both with commission trading and proprietary trading. Within the range of his exports during that period agricultural products such as rice, aniseed, wax and works of Bulgarian crafts, especially leather and cutlery dominated; and his imports were mainly industrial products, iron, yarn and consumer goods. A balance between profits and losses from recorded transactions has been reviewed, the different commercial practices (establishment of a trade association, the way of keeping the accounts and business correspondence, payment in cash, by bills and bills of exchange) have been described. Attention has been drawn to the difficulties the company faced after the Crimean War (1853-1856) when Tsvyatko Radoslavov was forced to declare bankruptcy in July 1859. The article traces the negotiations for agreement with his creditors and the conditions under which he managed to recover and continue the activities of the company in the autumn of the same year. A conclusion has been drawn that the bankruptcy was not intentional; it was caused by unfavorable economic conjuncture and the mistakes and weaknesses of Tsvyatko Radoslavov and his associates.