Alexandre Kostov, born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1956. Ph.D. from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia. Research Fellow at the Institute of Balkan Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia.
Mellon Fellow (1 February 2002 – 30 June 2002)
During my stay at NIAS I concentrated my efforts on collecting empiric material on the Netherlands’ economic presence in the Balkans from the 1850s to the Second World War, and in particular on the Dutch investments in South-Eastern Europe and the trade relations between the Netherlands and the Balkan States. In general I had a chance to find a lot of material in the National Archives in The Hague, were I collected a wealth of information on the trade relations between the Netherlands and the Balkan States and on the activities of the Dutch firms in the Balkans during the above-mentioned period. Very useful was also my research in other archives. I also learned more about Dutch economic history by reading the literature and published sources. Very important for me were the contact and discussions with the Dutch economic historians. During my stay at NIAS I finished a larger part of my planned work. On the basis of the collected material I intend to prepare and to publish a monograph and/or several articles on the history of Dutch-Balkan economic relations before the Second World War.