o_19heefouak9i9v4do11ac41pi7a.pdf

NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE PERSONAL ARCHIVE OF MIHAIL VASSILIOU
who lived in Vienna and probably died in Ancona 15 . Her brothers, nephews and
cousins and most of the male members of her husband’s family lived abroad 16 . Until
her death in 1824, she lived with, or at least close to, two of her nieces, Aikaterini
and Alexandra Margariti 17 . The migration of the male members of the Vassiliou
family had left a number of women, including Haido and her nieces, in need of financial
and social support. Their common objective united them and gave rise to a
solidarity revealed in the constant references in Haido’s correspondence to financial
problems faced by female relatives, friends and acquaintances; it is also expressed
vividly in her urging her brother to see that these problems were referred to their
male relatives abroad so that they could be taken care of 18 . Financial support and
information on the whereabouts of various intimates and relatives was therefore requested
constantly in her letters, of which she sent more than one copy for fear of
their being lost on their journey to the addressee 19 .
The credit chains
Haido’s correspondence with Mihail Vassiliou reveals the ways in which she succeeded
in obtaining cash and credit; above all it testifies to the existence of a series
of credit chains at one end of which she and at the other Mihail stood. In between,
merchants of the diaspora, associates of Vassiliou, relatives or acquaintances acted as
intermediaries, commissioners or mere transporters. These chains intertwined in an
informal network that expanded through Vienna, Trieste, Ancona, Corfu, Ioannina
and Metsovo and included, coincidentally, Moscow, Odessa, Kisnovi, Venice, Cefalonia
and Ithaca 20 . Trust, ‘friendship’, kinship, the ability and willingness to support
and protect women and children –ideals of manhood deeply embedded in the nineteenth-century
middle-class ideology– 21 but also, on some occasions, the mere pur-
Hering, Eftychia D. Liata, Anna Matthaiou, M. Sivinion, T. Stoianovich, Ελληνική Οικονομική
Ιστορία, ΙΕ΄-ΙΘ΄ αιώνας, τ. 1, pp. 118-36.
15 See L. Melas, Μία οικογένεια μία ιστορία - Ηπειρωτικές Μελέτες, Athens 1967, pp.
176-7. Also S. Kougeas, ‘Το Ηπειρωτικόν Αρχείον του Σταύρου Ιωάννου’, Ηπειρωτικά Χρονικά,
1939, ΙΔ, pp. 246, 256, 259, 270.
16 Her brother Alexander had died in 1817.
17 Alexandra and Aikaterini were sisters of Elenitsa Margariti Papanikolaou and they both
had some correspondence with their uncle Mihail Vassiliou; see Tables I and II.
18 See for example all the letters addressed by Haido Vassiliou and Elenitsa Margariti to
their brother and uncle Mihail Vassiliou.
19 Table III. See Eleni Angelomatis Tsougaraki, ‘Η διακίνηση της αλληλογραφίας στην
Ανατολική Μεσόγειο (14 ος -19 ος αιών.)’, Μεσαιωνικά και Νέα Ελληνικά, 8 (2006), pp. 339-
74.
20 Table IV. See K. Th. Diamandis, ‘Το αρχείο του Μιχαήλ Βασιλείου από το Αργυρόκαστρο
της Βορείου Ηπείρου του έτους 1822’, Άπαντα 22, Συγκέντρωση Ζ΄, Athens 1996, pp.
140-220.
21 On the emergence of friendship as an aristocratic ideal in the nineteenth century, see
Leonore Davidoff & Catherine Hall, Family fortunes. Men and women of the English middle class,
~ 381 ~