Cristian Luca, born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1974. Ph.D. from the University of Bucharest. Lecturer in Late Medieval and Early Modern History of South-Eastern Europe at Dunărea de Jos University of Galaţi.
Mellon Fellow (1 September 2008 – 31 January 2009)
MERCHANTS OF THE MINORITIES: GREEK, MACEDO-ROMANIAN AND ARMENIAN MERCHANTS AND THE DYNAMICS OF WORLD ECONOMICS IN EASTERN EUROPE (1550-1750)
The research focuses on the role played by the merchants belonging to religious and ethnic minorities – Greeks, Macedoromanians (Aromanians), Armenians – from Eastern and South Eastern Europe who, by the dynamism of their economic activities, in family companies or in associations based on ethnic affinities and common geographical origin, contributed decisively to the development of the commercial exchanges between the Eastern and Western regions of the continent. The research also examines their implicit contribution to the economic, social and cultural progress of the states in which they lived and invested their profits. On the basis of contemporary sources (travel journals, diplomatic despatches, consular correspondence, correspondence of Catholic missionaries, private and business letters of different merchants and their agents) and the specialised bibliography analysed during my fellowship at NIAS, I will be able to give a much clearer representation than has been done to date. I intend to produce a volume that will critically examine all these sources and unpublished documents in Italian archives, to assess the contribution of the merchants from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe during the development of the capitalist economy and the modernisation of society.