TITLE:
Tobacco Cultivation and Trade in Kavalla and the Ottoman Financial Policy: A Case of Financial Growth in the Late Ottoman Empire
AUTHORS:
Dimitrios Stergiopoulos
KEYWORDS:
Tobacco, Kavalla, Macedonia, Ottoman Empire, 19th Century, Modernizing Reforms
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Historical Studies,
Vol.5 No.2,
April
15,
2016
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this paper is to relate the growth of Kavalla as a region of tobacco cultivation and
as an exporting port with the structural reforms in the economy and other fields of social life in
the Ottoman Empire. These undertaken reforms are necessitated by empire’s weakness to compete
with the increasingly dominant European states and by the spread of nationalism’s destabilizing
influence in the Balkans. In this context, I show that the regional growth of Kavalla in 19th
century is linked with Ottoman Empire’s incorporation into the global economy of expanding capitalism
as a supplier of raw materials for the European industries. The effects of these reforms in
the social reality of this provincial city are approached through the changes that occurred in the
sphere of economic activities and state policies, the improvement of the transportation network,
taxation and landownership and the social structure through the rise of new strata.