o_19heefouak9i9v4do11ac41pi7a.pdf

THE COMPLEX NATURE OF AN OTTOMAN COMMERCIAL NETWORK
subject of the Armenian presence in Manchester over the course of a century, 1835
to 1935, it is quite biased in terms of explaining the reasons for this presence. Starting
with its title, Merchants in Exile, the work is based on the assumption that the
Armenian presence in Manchester followed on the ‘spasmodic massacres, religious
persecution, extortion and famine’ that drove Ottoman Armenians to the ports and
commercial centres of Constantinople and Smyrna and it was this ‘…move [that] facilitated
their trade and encouraged their migration to Manchester’ 31 . The possibility
of economic motives is disregarded, and the migration of Armenian subjects who
ended up in nineteenth-century commercial centres both within and outside the
boundaries of the Ottoman Empire is attributed to either political or natural forces.
The main requirement for mobility between commercial centres, the accumulation
and transfer of social and material capital, is completely neglected in this argument.
It is not surprising that Cemil’s immediate business environment consists of some
former contacts, as integration into a new business environment requires the exploitation
of already established ones and hence, the transfer of the already accumulated
social and material capital. The collection provides the names of Cemil’s Armenian
commercial contacts in Manchester: Alyanakyan, Seferyan and Kamberyan 32 . Alyanakyan,
being the most cited Armenian contact in Manchester, is referred to as a
privileged merchant with the history and experience of manufacturing textiles under
his own name in Manchester. During the early months covered by the collection under
scrutiny, he appears to have been the person consulted by Cemil when in need of
guidance and credit and hence, the most trusted party.
Among the Muslim contacts, Refik and Receb from their family home town, Rize,
are mentioned as established merchants in Manchester who could afford to have textiles
manufactured for Istanbul and ‘similar locations’. Their names are also cited in
Cemil’s search for credit in Manchester. Another contact was an employee of a
prominent merchant from Thessaloniki based in Istanbul, Mustafazâde Ahmed Bey.
When Ahmed Bey’s work went bad financially, his employee, İhsan, was called back
to Istanbul. The fact that these contacts were also well known to İlyas testifies to their
connection with the Ottoman cotton market which appeared to be Armeniandominated
in the provincial and Istanbul branches according to the analyses above.
(Princeton and London: Gomidas Institute, 2002); Chatziioannou, ‘Greek Merchants in
Victorian England'; Bedross Der Matossian, ‘The Armenian Commercial Houses and
Merchant Networks in the 19th Century Ottoman Empire', Turcica, no. 39 (2007).
31 George, Merchants in Exile, prologue.
32 Names are kept the way they were spelt in the correspondence. None of these names
appeared in Pamukciyan’s biographical work on Armenians. Kevork Pamukciyan, Biyografileriyle
Ermeniler, Ermeni Kaynaklarından Tarihe Katkılar (Istanbul: Aras Yayıncılık, 2003).
Alyanakian, K. & Co. (shipping merchants), Alyanakian, M. (merchant), Kamberian, H. & Co.
(merchants) are listed among Armenian residents of Manchester, a list compiled from Slater’s
Directories of Manchester, Salford & Suburbs, 1901, 1902 & 1903. George, Merchants in Exile, pp.
235-6. Kamberian, H. also appears within the list of the Manchester donors to the Armenian
refugees’ (orphans’) fund in 1916 in addition to Seferian, A. H. and Saferian, K. Ibid., 239-40.
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