The Black Sea Region History Essay

The abusive ocean function History EssayOn the s asideh- horse opera side of the hill surmounting Lake Ohrid, travelers will square off unmatchedof the architectural masterpieces of medieval Orthodox Christianity. The church, that was dedicated to St. John the Theologian, and also cognize as Kaneno, whose consecration dated back to no later than.1447, is usually know as a legacy of Medieval Slavic empire (whether maven calls it as Bulgarian, or, Macedonian, dep exterminates onones fancy). Taking into consideration, however, its unique style that reminds us a highly sure-firecombination of Byzantine and Armenian architectural technologies, it counts to a greater extent than appropriate to calldt.as-amonument of the cultural integrity of the large-mindedr cutting sea rim.The black-market ocean being, just uniform the church Kaneno, had been an artifact of cultural mixture, represent of diverse pecks of different faiths, vernaculars, customs and practices until the c ommencement decades of the twentieth century. They had been, more(prenominal)over, living in a well-integrated and well-organized socio- sparing entity that was tightly bound up by rough-cut water. Artisans of storied silver ornament in Trabzon would live on the Ukrainian straw and Bulgarian wine, while the wealthy mercantile famnyin Odessa would enjoy their by and bynoon teatime with dried figs from Anatolia. Life of the people just about the grim sea had been right off resting on the incidents at the opposite side of the water. They had kept watchful look on the course of event in that location. However, such a hopeful painting of the inexorable sea constituent seems to be preferably perplexing, if not alien, for us, people living in the twenty first century. Just like the phonograph record inscribing the name of the architect of the church Kaneno had been lost, our knowledge on the Pontus world is besides fragmented to envision a unified picture.The Pontus wo rld also addresses us a perplexing straits. Is it a mere accidental coincident that the trine mercantile nations, Armenians, companyics, and Jews, who had once been major lubricants for the organic mechanism in this world, shortly disappeared from the depressed littoral at the genuinely moment when we lost the vivid image of this piece? Armenians, Hellenics, and Jews were all historical nations well-known by their indubitable activities in duty and financing. All of them had their residential centers around the Black sea before the twentieth century. Armenians had been astray dwelling in the southern Caucasus and the eastern Anatolia, and dis vie their inviolable presence in either mercenary centre around the sea. Greeks had densely populated in the Black ocean littoral as well, and much constituted plurality in major trade entrepots like Istanbul, Trabzon, Odessa, Varna, Constanta and Krasnodar. Until the terminal decades of the nineteenth century, majority of th e world Jewry had lived in the Russian Black provinces and their hinterlands. However, it is an arduous twist for us to trace out them on the coeval ethnic correspond of the section. It seems as if they had taken away our memory of the region with them when they retreated to the backstage of history of the Black ocean.What kind of process of invigoratedfangled conceptualization prevents us from shaping integrated scenery of the Black Sea region in our mind? The easiest answer might be the one that seeks the root in the subject areaization of history. By the word Cemomorski rajon, an ordinary Bulgarian will think of an areathe word Karadeniz bolgesi. For both of them, cities like Kisinev, Akkerman, or Batumi are not the part of their Black Sea region, and some(prenominal)(prenominal) unknown foreign cities. The nation-state, as a model for historical thought, has obscured galore(postnominal) an(prenominal) components.The area studies, self-styled inter-disciplinary scie nce, seem to come overcome the narrowing views of the national history, as they claim to have espouse an approach that makes it possible to contemplate more than one nation-state at the alike(p) time. However, they seem, to be suffering from the same type of shortcomings. As for the Black Sea studies, there are too many candidates for the possible frame resolve, Slavic Studies, Balkan Studies, Caucasus Studies, Russian (and Soviet) .Studies (or its mod discrepancy Eurasian Studies), Turkish and Islamic Studies, or Mediterranean Studies, but no(prenominal) is enough to cover all aspects of the Black Sea region. In local anaestheticise to comprehend the Black Sea region, it might be vital to garner several(prenominal) area studies, but at the same time, it would mean intensity of methodologies. Such inherent weakness of the area studies seems, partly to come from their methodological ancestors. Disciplines like Slavic Studies or Russian and Eurasian Studies could not al l cut off themselves with the tradition of Slavic philology. twain Turkish studies and Persian Studies are, by and large, nd more than a dummy branch of the Orientalism (as its legitimate meaning 6f the word). Area studies are unsounded accompanying preconceptions that had been inherent to their methodological forefathers.Apart from methodological questions, it seems relevant to interrogate a primordial question where, at all, is the destination of intellectual endeavors of the area studies, or more simply, for what mathematical function are they serving? Recent increments may suggest us a part of the answer. There took government agency a* drastic reshaping of the area studies after 1989. East European studies have already divided into Central European Studies and Balkan Studies. Former Soviet Studies have also transformed themselves into Eurasian Studies. As the change is apparently linked to the shift of geopolitical situation, the answer must(prenominal) be manufacturin g somewhere beyond the natural evolution of methodological thinking, or survival strategies of individual researchers. The recent change thence bears marked similarities to the realignments of traditional disciplines and eventual crystallization into area studies after the World war II. Both of the cognitive processes went through strong impact of the hegemonic shifts that had reshaped geopolitical map of the globe. The shift inevitably brought the regions drastic changes. From economic storey of view, to each one region had to modify its trade regulations, financial mechanism, monetary policy, and working practices to be follow into the sweet situation, thus, it precipitated changes in the structure, and even mode of production. Political establishments were also needed to accommodate themselves to the new relations. As these changes caused considerable stress to the parliamentary law, social tissue paper had to infrago significant metamorphosis. The area studies analyze various aspects of these changes, and provide, as a whole, a systematic knowledge to cope with the new reality. Therefore, they are working, irrespective of the intension of individual researcher, for special concern of fussy forces that have common interest in a certain form of regional discussion section of labor. Indeed area studies seem to pay less attention to the phenomena that range to slip out of the scope of their main concerns, curiously those overlapping several areas. By reassessing historical narratives concerning three nations, this paper tries to demonstrate the significance of those phenomena that have been make invisible by the frame of cognizance which was formulated in the course of modernity.The pouf Conquest and the Black Sea regional savingThe Black Sea and surrounding lands had been playing significant roles as a hinge that boundtogether the Mediterranean, Central Asian Steppe, and Indian-Middle East economies since antiquity. Theeconomic wealth of the region was an Copernican factor in the political and economic stability of theMacedonian, Roman, and. Byzantine Empires in the Classical and Medieval times. The Black Sea alsoformed one of the major arteries joining the Islamic world and north-eastern Europe, and served as an of the essence(predicate) commercial rout among the ninth to advance(prenominal) thirteenth century. Within itself, the Black Sea region,together with the Aegean, had formed a closely knit economic entity, as the northern Black Sea regionproduced and exported grain, meat, fish, and some new(prenominal)wise animal products, while the southern Black Sea and theAegean exported wine, olive oil, dried fruit, and luxury goods in exchange Kortepeter, 1966 86 Peacock,200766-67.By the time the Byzantine control of the region collapsed at the ancestry of the thirteenth century, the Black Sea trade had largely dismounten into the achieve of the Venetian and Genovese merchants. At first Venetians seemed to have t aken upper-hand, but Genoa succeeded in gaining a t near monopoly over the Black Sea trading after 1261. By the time, Genoa had been building up a net income of its colonies covering all lands surrounding the Black Sea. The Genoese BlackSea Empire was, however, relatively short-lived, as there emerged a formidable power in the western tree of Anatolia at the end of the thirteenth century, and it was to bring the Italian hegemony in the Black Sea finally to an end in the course of ordinal century.Starting as a small warriors state, the fairys followed a gradual, but crocked course of territorial expansion during the first half of the fourteenth century. They were successful in intruding into the Balkans after crossing the Dardanelles in 1346. By the end of the century, the tuffet sultans had established themselves firmly on the vast land stilt lying at the both sides of the Straits. Although the Ottorrfans at first did not arrangement much(prenominal) interest in controllin g the Black Sea commerce, a correct queen policy regarding the Black Sea began to emerge during the reign of the Mehmed II (1451-1481) Kortepeter, 1966 88.Upon assuming the throne the throne, Sultan the Conqueror embarked on a serial of campaign to destroy the Latin colonial empires in the eastern Mediterranean, as a part of his project to reassemble the former Byzantine territories. curiously after the takeover (ri AXrooTj) of the Byzantine capital in 1453, Mehmed II matte it necessary to establish a complete control over the resources of the Black Sea region for the reconstruction and development of his new capital. In 1459, the whiffs first deprived the Genoese of Amasra, the most important port on the Anatolian Black Sea coast, as it formed, together with Caffa, the shortest route in the north-south communication in the sea. After the fall of Amasra, the Genoese colonies were confined to the north western corner of the Black Sea. The seizure of the main Genoese colony of Caffa took place in 1475. Caffa had long been the chief trade and manufacturing centre for the Genoese in the Black Sea. After the fall of Caffa, the Genoese grip on the Black Sea considerably weakened and the faggots captured all of the Italian colonies in the Crimean and the Caucasus deep down a decade. The barely remaining trade centers of significance were two M ancientavian port cities, Kilia and Akkerman. Both of them fell to the Ottoman hand in 1484. In this way, by the first gear of the one-sixteenth century the Ottomans had turned the Black Sear into an Ottoman lake Inalcik Quataert, 1994 271-3 Kortepeter, 1966 92-3.i The Ottoman conquest brought about a new socio-economic system into the Black Sea region. Now,majority the coastal lands of the Sea were directly connected to the gallant capital, Istanbul, and a new regional division of labor was introduced in revision to maintain this extraordinarily large city. Moreover, the Ottoman Empire employed a kind of comman d economy whose main purpose was to maintain its armed services predomination. Hence, the establishment put strong control over the transportation of construct goods and raw materials produced within its domain, imposing de facto ban on the export, while, on the other hand, itshowed lavish attitude to the imported commodities that its lands could not yield. Under this regime, many part of the empire constituted an autarkic economic entity. Hence, it was natural that the Black Sea region, along with other part of the Empire, constituted an integrated, but closed to outside, system.Non-Muslim Merchants as coordinating elementsOne of the most important changes that took place after the Ottoman conquest of the Black Searegion was the termination of the Italian predominance in favor of the native Ottoman subjects. Owing to thepoor development of Muslim mercantile class at the beginning of the Ottoman-conquest in this region, it wasthe non-Muslims that took initiatory in forming the wider regional network. Already during the Italian ruleof the Black Sea, the Greeks and other indigenous people, together with Jews and Armenians, contend therole of middlemen and widely dwelled in the Genoese trade centers. Many of them were employed asapprentices in the Latin enterprises, and hoard the knowledge of the parentage practices in the Levanttrade. Even before the fall of Caffa, the Italians were losing their control of the oriental trade in the northerncountries, and were being replaced by Ottoman subjects, mostly Armenian Christians, Greek OrthodoxChristians and Jews. The Ottoman government activity found in them reliable traders and contractors as middlemenwithin the empire. Thus, non-Muslim merchants took advantage of the new opportunity of the closure of theBlack Sea to the foreigners in the sixteenth century, and they made use of their privileged position totraverse the Ottoman domain, in identify to organize avocation networks across southern and western Eur opeancities Kortepeter, 1966 hundred and one inalcik Quataert, 1994 272, 209.The first element that gained most from this new order seemed to be Greeks. The Greek merchants of this period widely operated in Ottoman inter-regional trade. They were in control of a significant circle of the commerce of the eastern half of the Balkan Peninsula. Greeks were particularly alert in the Ottoman capital, as traders and sea captains, carrying grain from the Balkan coastal regions adjoining to the Black Sea. The Greek merchants, allegedly descendants of the Byzantine aristocracy, widely employed in tax realm, large-scale trade and shipping both in international and domestic. However, after the execution of tfye great tycoon in the Greek community of Istanbul, Michael Cantakuzino aitanoglu in 1578, the predominant position of the Greek merchants in the imperial economy began to shake Stoianovich, 1960 241 Inalcik Quataert, 1994517.Instead of Greeks, Judaic bankers and tax-farmers surfac ed as predominant elements in Ottoman finance and long-distance trade during the second half of the sixteenth century. The expulsion of the Marrano Jews from the Catholic countries especially contributed to the Jewish successfulness in the Ottoman economy. The Marrano Jews seemed to introduce into the Ottoman Empire the techniques of European capitalism, banking and the mercantilist concept of state economy, and contend decisive role in the monetary resource inalcik Quataert, 1994 212. Jews also played a considerable role in the development of the Danube basin. As tax farmers, Jews were managing many Danubian ports and customhouses Levi, 1982 26-27. But the Jewish domination of the Ottoman economy could not last long. Already in the 1650s, Jewish merchants had been less active in Ottoman territory than during the second half of the sixteenth century. The Jews were losing the functions that they had acquired in the sixteenth century, including the farming of custom duties, chance oning, and the positions of money exchanger for the ottoman notables. Westward Jewish migration that occurred synchronously with the shift of the global economy to the trans-Atlantic trade was a part of reason. some other reason is the renewed expansion of activities of Greek merchants that forced many Jewish merchants out of Balkan trade Panzac, 1992 203 inalcik Quataert, 1994 519.The presence of the Armenian merchants in the Black Sea region had been strongly felt long before the Ottoman conquest. Armenians had colonised in Crimea as early as the eleventh century Panossian, 2006 82. They were important trade partners for the Nogays in the North Caucasus, and engaged widely in the exertion of slaves and large quantities of butter and furs Kortepeter, 1966 104. They were predominant in the Moldavian Lwow-Akkerman) route of trade during the fourteenth century, and obtained the trade privilege for all Ruthenia in 1402. The leader of the caravan on this route was always an Armenia n throughout the fifteenth century. Until that time, Armenians had widely settled in the commercial centers in Crimea and suspiciousania. According to an Ottoman survey in 1520, there were 2,783 households in Caffa, out of which about 60% was Christian, mostly Armenian inalcik Quataert, 1994 280, 286.The Ottoman conquest of the Black Sea region brought about more favorable conditions for the Armenian merchants. In the Ottoman Empire, Armenians, like Greeks, constituted a Christian community that was accorded with religious and judicial autonomies. Their religion also gave them easier admission price to the lands of Christian Europe. They had already firmly established themselves in southern Poland and Transylvania, and controlled local commerce. Making use of the Ottoman trade policy as the linchpin, the Armenian traders succeeded in building up their commercial network, extending as far as Venice and Central Europe. The Armenians could also make use of the rivalry between Ottom ans and Russians in order to establish their new trade route. Several Armenian merchants played conspicuous role in the court of Ivan the Terrible, and further puff uped their commercial activities as far as the northern end of the Grand dukedom of Moscow Goffman, 2002 15 Braudel, 1992 155.The Armenian merchants had another advantage, as they were going to expand their activities further in the east. The Armenian middlemen settled in Persia found in silk an eminently marketablecommodity. In the seventeenth century, the Ottoman Armenian merchants distinguished themselves by their association with an international trade network basing around New Julfa, a suburban city of Isfahan. Merchants from this city took an active role in the Iranian silk trade which spanned the globe from Narva, Sweden to Shanghais, China. In this way, the Armenian merchants had been successful in establishing their trading network stretching from China to Western Europe by the ordinal century McCabe, 2001.In the course of their expansion, the commercial activities of three non-Muslim merchant communities widely transcended the Ottoman borders. It was, by no means, the loss of weight of the Ottoman commerce for them by the ordinal century. The commerce on Ottoman territory keep to be crucial for the maintenance of these networks, as the goods they traded were ofttimes of Ottoman reach or had transited through the Ottoman state. The trade activities of Armenians, just like those of Greeks and Jews, remained indispensable to the economic system of the Ottoman Empire, and the Ottoman wealth was central to their prosperity Inalcik Quataert, 1994 517-8.As we have, hitherto, surveyed the significance of the non-Muslims merchants in the Ottoman Black Sea trade, it is necessary to emphasize that we should not downplay the immensity of the Muslim merchants. Although they were late comers in this region, already in the fifteenth century, Muslim merchants had outnumbered the others at least in the southern section of the south-north trade over the routes of pursa-Istanbul-Caffa or Akkerman by sea and overland by Edime-Kilia-Akkerman Inalcik Quataert, 1994 278. It seems probable that the role of the Muslim merchants constantly gained importance in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, and eventually took over the non-Muslims, especially in the intra-regional trade. The position of the Muslim merchants in the intra-Ottoman trade was much stronger than the non-Muslims during the eighteenth century. The minorities almost always held only a secondary position in the domestic maritime trade. According to an Ottoman scroll of 1782 or a list of cereal ships to Istanbulprovide us an interesting data that out of the total 56 names of merchants, 55 were Turks or other Muslims, only one was Greek or Albanian, and even he was associated with a Turk. The document also shows us that out of 158 ships captains, 136 (86%) were Turks or other Muslims, and 22 (14%) were G reeks or Albanians. Therefore, the Muslim merchants had secured almost total control over the supply of chaff to Istanbul by the Black Sea route Panzac, 1992 195, 203.Socio-economic features of the non-Muslim merchant communitiesFrom historical point of view, merchants, especially those who engaged in cross-cultural- trade,possessed, more often than not, ambivalent characters. As frequenters in two or more distinct societies, theyhad to master several important knowledge and skills that were usually unfamiliar to those who lived insidea particular culture. So, they brought with them, not only a variety of foreign goods and wares, but newtechnologies and information. These cultural goods often catalyzed a transformation of the host community. Inthe persona of the Ottoman non-Muslim merchants, they became major actors in a technological and culturalinterplay between the Ottoman Empire and the rest of Europe. It wa,s their trading network that helpedproduce a uniform commercial meth od throughout ti?e Mediterranean and European worlds before the nineteenth century Goffman, 2002 16.On the other hand, every society that based principally on the production of use determine would inherently harbor antagonism toward the merchant. Such hostilities were often boosted by the stresses that submit in the course of cultural transformation. Therefore, the position of the cross-cultural merchants was constantly under the threat of eventual outburst of hatred against them. In order to avoid, or at least to alleviate, the tension with the host society, the merchant community had to be reconciling. In the elusion of the non-Muslim merchants in the Ottoman Empire, we can notice strong tendencies of compliance to the authority.Ottoman Jews and Greeks played major role in the finances during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and even later. They were the major players in the tax-farming, the most important means of capital formation at that time, and their accumulated we alth became indispensable for the state finances and the palace. In return for their service, the Ottoman government conferred them various privileges. Several Jews were appointed the court physicians and imperial treasurers. Greeks were employed as dragomans (official interpreter) and, later, rulers of Moldavia and Wallachia Inalcik Quataert, 1994 209, The Ottoman Armenians also played significant role in the palace. The upper strata of their community, often called as amiras, made their presence strongly felt in government as bankers or money lenders. In the tax farming, they provided the capital as sarrafs (bankers), and sold the commodities collected in kind as merchants. After the eighteenth century, they became instrumental in keeping the fragile Ottoman financial system functioning. It is symbolized by the fact that the prominent Dtizian family monopolized the position of superintendent of the state mint office from 1757 until 1880 Panzac, 1992 203 Panossian, 2006 85.Probabl y, the most important in this aspect was the role played by their religious authorities. The Ottoman government traditionally granted wide range of religious and judicial autonomies to its Christian and Jewish subjects, calling each of these congregations as millet. The Greek, Jewish, and Armenian mercantile class in Istanbul practically monopolized the posts of the highest priests of their millets, and did their purpose in preserving the imperial order, by securing the loyalty to the sultan among their coreligionists. Thanks to these endeavors, Jews and Armenians were often praised by the authority as millet sadakat, orloyal subjects. In the case of Greek Orthodox, they failed to win this title because of the several unruly elements like semi-nomadic mountaineers or provincial peasants with independent spirits, the upper strata of their community, however, in general earned high treasure among the Muslim authorities.In spite of such functions, non-Muslim merchants did not dare t o go over a certain limit of the host societies, because over accommodation to the host society was suicidal to their existence. It would increase the tension with the other society where they made business at the same time. For example, the conversion to Islam might foresee better position in the Ottoman society, but it would make very difficult, if not impossible, to earn by the international trade. Thus, probably the best dodge for the merchants was to blur the demarcation line with the host society by make their existence more and more vague and ambiguous. By doing so, they could expect more secure conditionsfor their survival.It was, therefore, no coincidence that the three non-Muslim merchant communities in the Ottoman Empire possessed marked characteristic of special multilingualsm. As the other Jews in the Western Europe, Jews in the Ottoman Empire adopt the languages of the people among whom they lived. They could, usually quite fluently, communicate in Turkish and othe r majority languages, but they nevert fully assimilated linguistically to the host societies. The Romaniotes, who had long lived among the Greeks, adopted vernacular Greek as their communal language,.while the, Ashkenazi, East European Jews proceed to speak Yiddish in their home. The most influential element of the Ottoman Jews, the Sephardi, maintain medieval Spanish, where their ancestors had been living until the Catholic take-over. Moreover, all of these Jewish vernaculars contained significant portion of Hebraic expression. Thus, the dialect expresses the two contradictory tendencies the integration to the surrounding society and the isolation.The Ottoman Armenians shared out the same characteristic. While they continued to use antediluvian Armenian as their spiritual symbol especially in their place of worship, almost all of them were either bilingual or, in some cases, monolingual speakers of Turkish. Turcophone among the Armenians was so strong that Vartan Pasa, an Arme nian writer in the nineteenth century, in the preface to his History of Napoleon Bonaparte, justifies the fact that he had written this work in Turkish with the argument that the Armenians who knew ancient language (krapar) were very some and that the new literary language based on the vernacular was still not sufficiently developed thus, that the Turkish language was the best asshole to the majority Strauss, 200341, 55.The case of Greeks was much more complicated, but it might show rather vividly the advantages oflinguistic equivocalness for the prosperity of the mercantile community. During the Ottoman period, the wordGreeks seldom denoted the linguistic community. Many Greeks in the Anatolian plateau verbalize Turkishdialect, Karamanh, while the Greeks in Syria and Egypt used Arabic as their ordinary means ofcommunication. The Greeks in the Balkans were more perplexing. There were many Greeks who spokeBulgarian, Vlacho-Arouman, Albanian, and Turkish. The linguistic variety der ived from the context that thecommunal identity of the Ottoman Greeks usually conflated with the Rum millet identity. Within theOttoman Empire, the Greek Orthodox Christians, especially those who composed the urban strata, werecollectively referred to Romans, portions of the Rum millet, regardless of their ethnic origins.Such tendencies were strongly felt especially among the mercantile class. The notion of the Greek Orthodox Christian was indeed a social category. In many parts of the Balkans, contemporary assignment of nations, like Serbs and Bulgarians, denoted the peasants in particular locations. When Slavs moved into the urban dummy or became members of the middle class, they generally shifted their identity to Greek. The local Christian higher strata were Grecophone in Serbia. In the Bulgarian lands, the domination of culturallife by the nonsectarian patriarchate led to the promotion of Grecophone culture in liturgy, archives, and correspondence Roudometof, 199813-14. The purpose became more conspicuous after 1750, when the prosperity of the Greek Orthodox merchants was comer its peak. Owing to the predominance in trade, Greek became the primary language of commerce in the eastern Mediterranean, and Orthodox Christian merchants, regardless of their ethnic origins, generally spoke Greek and often assumed Greek names. The middle class Orthodox Christians were largely acculturated into the Greeks or under heavy Grecophone influences Stoianovich, 1960 291.The ambiguity or ambivalency of the groups seems to have been felt stronger at such elements like new comers, lower members, and/or provincial elites, than at the centre of the community. For example, during the first half of the nineteenth century, the biiingualism, especially with the dialect spoken by the majority member of the surroundings, was more conspicuous among newly immigrated members from local villages than those who had lived in urban space for generations. It reflected in their identit ies that veteran urban dwellers were adamant in their Greek sentience in contrast to the new comers with mixed identity with Bulgarian element Markova, 1976 43-54. The same was true for the Greek ecclesiastic circle, where lower clergy tended to remain within the boundary of Metropolitan diocese, while the higher hierarchies rotated several dioceses of different Patriarchates. As a result, high dignities in the Church possessed deep-seated belief in the Hellenic nature of the Orthodoxy ion the other hand, parish priests widely shared non-Hellenic culture with their parishioners.To summarize our discussion hitherto, the non-Muslim merchants in the Black Sea region bore the following proportions as groups. They were religious congregation as well as occupational category. As for the latter, they were, more often than not, engaged in external trade, or in other words, were agencies tonnecting different cultural, socio-economic entities. The members of these groups were usually quite proficient in special occupational expertise. They knew well specific business and social practices of various places, and they were multilingual for the most of part. They were generally more adaptive to the host society, and, at least on the surface, very compliant to the vivacious authority. The demarcation line between them and the other groups was vague, and often intentionally blurred. Their ambiguity or ambivalency was more intense, more strongly felt at peripheral or lower strata than at the core. Perhaps, this was the most important attribute that made possible the non-Muslim merchants to maintain their social and economic function, while preserving their identities, without agitating serious conflict with the host societies.The above mentioned characteristics of the Ottoman non-Muslim merchants might seem to fit well into a wider category of Diaspora merchants. But, at the same time, there arises an uncomfortable feeling to call those merchants who dwelled in their homel and as Diaspora, because, turf out for the Jews, many Greek Orthodox and Armenian merchants lived in the territory of their former Kingdoms or Empire. Moreover, there were many non-Mercantile members within the Greek Orthodox and Armenian communities in the Ottoman Empire (the Jews were exception in this case as well). It does not seem reasonable to separate the merchant groups from the peasant mass when we discuss them as ethno-religious communities. Taking into these inconveniences into consideration, it seems more pertinent to apply the old notion of people-class,1 proposed by Abram Leon, for the case study of the Ottoman non-Muslim merchants. In his work that examined the historical development of the Jewish communities in Europe, Leon1 turned