o_19heefouak9i9v4do11ac41pi7a.pdf

DESPINA VLAMI
Haido Vassiliou’s case proves how on some occasions diaspora agitated the social
and economic position of the women that stayed back in the merchants’ original social
and economic environment. It also shows how distance from the male members
of the family created a new kind of solidarity and unity between those members of
the household that were left behind, mostly women and children. Economic necessity
and social survival led some of these women to address financial issues and
play a central role within family and community. Haido was just such a case. Migration
and economy came to influence her life in unexpected ways. Distance from
powerful members of the family imposed upon her a sudden and abrupt entrance
into a masculine world of business transactions. She did so with an eagerness to
succeed, minimal qualifications and sometimes with the ingenuity of an amateur: in
April 1824 she wrote to her brother: ‘I received through Stavros Koumbatis the 50
thalers together with a letter from our Vasilakis and then I replied to Vasilakis and
you and I am surprised that you haven’t received my letter yet....I don’t remember
the date I sent it and all my notes have been dispersed here and there from the inlaws
that we accommodated in our house after the death of our poor cousin from
plague...’ 47 .
47 ΓΑΚ, 197, p. 164, 28 April 1824.
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