o_19heefouak9i9v4do11ac41pi7a.pdf

NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE PERSONAL ARCHIVE OF MIHAIL VASSILIOU
In a previous paper 10 I discussed the credit-chain set up to serve the need for
cash and credit of Elenitsa Margariti Papanikolaou –Vassiliou’s niece– on her way
to Kisnovi in Moldavia from Messolonghi to meet her husband Stefanos Papanikolaou.
Throughout her journey, which lasted more than a year, Elenitsa relied on a
network of business associates, collaborators and ‘friends’ of her uncle providing
money and protection. I also referred to the case of Alexandra D. Vella. Her correspondence
with Mihail Vassiliou had a more obvious and transactional character
and guaranteed both of them a direct return. Together with her brother Anastasios
Efstathiou, Alexandra Vella had been established provisionally in Ancona before
reaching her two sons Spiridon and Nicolas Andrea Pavlou in Kisnovi. Mihail Vassiliou
acted as intermediary so that a number of bills ordered by her sons would arrive
safely in her hands in cash. In her letters to Vassiliou, Alexandra appeared to
be the one who was responsible for all transactions, gave orders, sent receipts and
signed together with her brother, but always first. Her authority was recognized by
all those with whom she had financial dealings who, as in the case of George Betlis
from Vienna, insisted upon her signing receipts and orders or, as in the case of Mihail
Vassiliou himself, put themselves at her disposal for any other ‘service’ they
could provide for her. Finally, I referred to the women in Vassiliou’s family –his
wife and elder daughters who had a direct role in the realization of family profits,
promoting sales, investigating the market or contributing their personal property to
the family’s well-being 11 .
In all the above-mentioned cases, women’s role in the domestic and social sphere,
their awareness of the outside world and of themselves within it, their attitudes, needs
and expectations were revealed in text, between the lines of text, or in eloquent silences.
The minutiae of everyday life, the strains and joys of human relations, social events and
economic arrangements figured prominently in their correspondence with their intimates.
Occasionally they appeared to have a more direct role in the realization of profits
by participating in a credit economy, as was the case with Alexandra Vella, while in periods
of crisis they sustained the family with their ‘invisible’ riches: their dowry, real
property and family jewellery, as Smaragda Sevastopoulos did. They enhanced trust
and solidarity in business by retaining a central and active role in the domestic sphere
and hence acting as intermediaries between family enterprises; Elego Vassiliou Mela and
Efrosini Vassiliou Mavrou did so as wives of the prominent Greek merchants George
Melas and Spiros Mavrou. At the same time, through the letters exchanged, one can de-
10 The paper was presented at the workshop ‘New Research on Gender and Business History’,
organized in Athens (19-20 May 2006) by the European Business History Association in collaboration
with the Economic History Graduate Seminar of the Athens University and the Human Resource
Management MSc. Programme at the Athens University of Economics and Business.
11 It is interesting to note that they belonged to an upper middle-class environment. Vassiliou’s
wife belonged to a socially distinguished family of merchants, the Sevastopoulos. His
daughters were married to equally renowned members of the Greek diaspora, the Mela and
the Mavrou. Through marriage Vassiliou was also linked to the Stavrou, the Margariti, the
Christodoulou, and the Scanavi families.
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