The Greek business community in Marseille, 1816-1900 : individual and network strategies

Abstract

Our collective memory has not been engraved by vivid descriptions in poems and novels about the life of cosmopolitan and still nationalist Greeks1 in the city of Marseille. Nor did my ancestors live in this city but, strange as it may seem, "La Cannebiere"- the main marseillaise road leading to the port - and the world-wide soap-brand "Camay", Marseille's export product, were part of my childhood's aromas and imagined worlds: my father was a seaman and Marseille was one of his main destinations in the late 1960's. My relationship with Marseille ends here, - to this remote memory becoming a personal reference or a private joke,- exactly where my scientific interest starts. Of course, all this can also be bluntly attributed to the structure of my knowledge formed in a specific social and economic environment, (which, ironically, leads back to a father's profession and narrations); it can also be attributed, in more scholarly tone, to the influence of a specific scientific community, which leads to my deliberate choice of the Greek community in Marseille and, finally, to the Greek historiography concerning the Greek communities in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.