Connecting the British, Russian and German Empires: Th e Family of British Vice-consul John Greaves at the Forefront of Modernization in South Ukraine

Abstract

John Greaves, a British subject, was an important actor of modernization in the Russian Empire. He arrived at the port of Berdyansk as a representative of the British company Clayton & Shuttleworth, and he established a plant of agricultural machinery there, which became the largest plant of this kind in Europe. In 1877 Greaves offered himself for the position of German vice- consul in Berdyansk. In 1907 he became a vice-consul of the British Empire, and kept this post until 1918. Greaves and his family became an example of a new vector of actors’ mobility and new practices of socialization, formed under the influence of modernization. These stimulated the emergence of new forms of loyalty, as well as the combination of economics and politics. Special attention is paid to the Greaves’ family and business ties with the Germans, as well as on his personal experience of contacts with the German authorities, which is particularly interesting in the context of the competitive struggle between the British, Russian and German empires.