Europe and the Black Sea Region. A History of Early Knowledge Exchange (1750-1850)

When the scientific study of the Black Sea Region began in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, initially commissioned by adjacent powers such as the Habsburg and the Russian empires, this terra incognita was not yet considered part of Europe. The eighteen chapters of this volume show a broad range of thematic foci and theoretical approaches - the result of the enormous richness of the European macrocosm and the BSR. The microcosms of the many different case studies under scrutiny, however, demonstrate the historical dimension of exchange between the allegedly opposite poles of `East' and `West' and underscore the importance of mutual influences in the development of Europe and the BSR. Cover CONTENTS Karl Kaser and Dominik Gutmeyr - Introduction: Europe and the Black Sea Region I. KNOWLEDGE IN MOTION Michaela Wolf - A Voyage into Cultural Translation Zaur Hasanov - The Prehistory of Knowledge Exchange between the Caucasus, the BSR and Central Europe Andreas Golob - Itinerant Informants and Circulating Information Vladimir Janev - The Role of Trade in Macedonian Towns up to 1850 Biljana Ristovska-Josifovska - The Macedonian Traditional Knowledge System at the Crossroads of Imperial Influences II. MATERIALISED KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE Dominik Gutmeyr - Decentring Innovation: Circulation of Knowledge and Early (Russian) Photography Wojciech Sajkowski - The Depiction of the Western Black Sea Region in French Military Documents from the Napoleonic Era Dragi Gjorgiev - Knowledge Transfer among Muslim Communities in Ottoman Balkan Society Gor Yeranyan - Armenian Printing as a Means of Mastering European Thought and Knowledge III. COMMUNITIES IN EXCHANGE Ioannis N. Grigoriadis - Minority Debates on the Future of the Ottoman Empire: Greek and Armenian Nationalist Thought Greta Nikoghosyan - The Activities of the Mekhitarist Congregation in Venice and their Literary Translations from French to Armenian Yana Volkova - The Role of Diasporic Communities in the Development of the Odessa Region Svetlana V. Koch - The National Self-Determination Projects of Greece and Bulgaria: The Role of Ethnic Bessarabian Diasporas IV. INSTITUTIONALIZING EXCHANGE Stavris Parastatov and Alla Kondrasheva - Academic Studies of the Black Sea Region and the Northwest Caucasus Anastasiya Pashova and Petar Vodenicharov - ‘The Russian Saint-Cyr’ and the Beginning of Female Education in Russia Mariyana Piskova - The Birth of the Archive in Bulgarian Society in the Framework of the Ottoman Empire Harald Heppner - The Habsburgs and the Black Sea Region: A Continental Approach Gayane Ayvazyan - The Adaptation and Localization of Modern Intellectual Experience by the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople CONTRIBUTORS