Abstract
The contribution of the amira or merchant elites of the Ottoman Empire to the empire’s development was highly contested in the decades around 1900. Ottoman Armenian amiras dominated imperial finance and international trade, as well as coordinating the introduction of new crops and industrial technologies. Integrating the Empire in a globalized world, however, led to accusations by non-Armenians that the amiras were guilty of condemning that same Empire to a subservient state of clientage, while fellow Ottoman Armenians increasingly viewed the amiras as unpatriotic collaborators. Drawing on a wealth of new archival material from one leading amira clan, this article attempts to move beyond nationalist narratives, revealing the amiras’ multiple identities as the vanguard of a globalizing world.
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