engleski

Jewish Presence in the Maritime Trade of Grain during the 18th Century in the Adriatic Sea from the Croatian Maritime Regesta, vols. I-III

This is the presentation of the research of the Croatian Maritime Regesta – the 18th Century as a source for Jewish History. They consist of 3 published volumes with 16.000 documents from different collections of the Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Archivio di Stato di Ancona and Archivio di Stato di Fano. They tell the story of the Venetian Republic in the 18th century Adriatic. Among different researches planned in the project, this one analyzes Jewish role in the 18th century maritime trade. Analyzing these documents, we were able to find 544 documents that mention Jews of different origin and in different roles. The real life of factual 18th century Jews emerges with their names and surnames, often also with their fathers’ names. Sometimes they are specifically Jewish, sometimes not. They are subjects of Republic of Venice, the Papal State, the Austrian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Republic of Dubrovnik. They can be merchants, agents, owners of merchandize or ships (parcenevoli and paroni), bankers, public figures (sensali), sometimes even captains. When they own ships, these ships have very recognizable names. There are several levels of analysis that we applied to this data: starting, transit and final destination ports (ex, in, and versus), types and quantities of merchandise, types of ships, names of captains, and role Jews had in these enterprises. We reconstructed specific roles Jews had in the maritime trade, trade routes, trade and family networks and connections. They travel and trade within the Adriatic itself, as well as Mediterranean and in Northern seas as far as Norway or Russia. We can see that 544 new mentions of the Jews in the Regesta, add a lot of new data, therefore this project adds to our understanding of Jewish involvement in the Maritime trade. The research question for this paper was if in the 16, 000 documents of the State archives of Venice, Ancona, and Fano from the 18th century collected in the Croatian Maritime Regesta vols. I-III, among the other Jewish trade and connections in the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas it is possible to find grain trade. In 544 documents about Jews, we found expressly 30 sources that refer to the grain trade. We analyzed dates, ports of import or export, type, size and capacity of ships, Jewish family names, their political subjection, their role in the grain trade (owners, merchants, forwarders), types of grain etc. The results of these crisscrossing analysis prove that in the 18th century grain trade wasn’t the main business Jews were involved in. The project of transcribing and editing further 80, 000 documents (15 volumes) of the Croatian Maritime Regesta will show us more complete picture of relations between two Adriatic coasts.

Economic history ; 18th century ; Grain trade, Jews

nije evidentirano