The Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule

by Paris Papamichos Chronakis

The Business of Transition examines how the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie of the Eastern Mediterranean navigated the transition from empire to nation-state in the early twentieth century. In this social and cultural history, Paris Papamichos Chronakis shows how the Jewish and Greek merchants of Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki) skillfully managed the tumultuous shift from Ottoman to Greek rule amidst revolution and war, rising ethnic tensions, and heightened class conflict. Bringing their once powerful voices back into the historical narrative, he traces their entangled trajectories as businessmen, community members, and civic leaders to illustrate how the self-reinvention of a Jewish-led bourgeoisie made a city Greek.



Papamichos Chronakis draws on previously untapped local archival material to weave a rich narrative of individual portraits, introducing us to revered philanthropists and committed patriots as well as vilified profiteers and victimized Salonicans. Offering a kaleidoscopic view of a city in transition, this book reveals how the collapse of empire shook all the constitutive elements of Jewish and Greek identities, and how Jews and Greeks reinvented themselves amidst these larger political and economic disruptions.

Genres: History

416 pages, Hardcover

Published October 22, 2024

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Business of Transition is an original scholarly study of the transition from empire to nation-state. By focusing on a small group of Greek and Jewish merchants in Salonica (current day Thessaloniki) from the Late Ottoman period to World War II, Chronakis challenges current interpretations that examine only ethnoreligious identity and/ or focus solely on external factors. He demonstrates that a more complex analysis of identity, including class and local identity, is needed to examine the tacit negotiations between groups that led to the Hellenization of commerce in Greece and transitional processes elsewhere.

This dense, challenging academic study is ultimately a rewarding read. It made me think hard about analytic categories often used as givens.