ANAMED Library Talks : Agricultural, Commercial, and Maritime Change in the Southeastern Black Sea Region: Production, Ecology, and Institutions (1830s—1910s)

Speaker: Ekin Mahmuzlu
Moderator: Neslişah Başaran Lotz
Date & Time: 10 February 2026, Tuesday, 18:00

ANAMED Library Talks continue on February 10 with Ekin Mahmuzlu and Neslişah Başaran Lotz. The title of the talk is "Agricultural, Commercial, and Maritime Change in the Southeastern Black Sea Region: Production, Ecology, and Institutions (1830s—1910s)."

The book Agricultural, Commercial, and Maritime Change in the Southeastern Black Sea Region: Production, Ecology, and Institutions (1830s—1910s) scrutinizes agricultural, commercial, and maritime change in the southeastern Black Sea region at the micro-level from 1829—1908, when Anatolian agriculture was integrating into long-distance markets. Unlike previous academic literature, which has examined the impact of the emergence of Western capitalism and global markets on the Ottoman economy at the macro-level, this work focuses on the micro-economic effects of the integration on local agricultural markets, production, and shipping. To understand how agricultural production and markets changed at the micro-level and to observe what happened at the level of a single farmer, farm, or commercial house, this work focuses on agrarian and commercial change in a limited geography—the southeastern Black Sea region from 1829—1908. Therefore, it deals with the questions of how agricultural production and markets changed and what the factors were behind these changes. To answer these questions, it argues that institutional change in finance and commerce, innovation in transportation and information technologies, and change in agro-industry determined local agrarian change under the constraints of local ecological and climatic features. This talk will focus only on changes in agricultural production and commerce in four separate periods (1823—1853, 1856—1865, 1865—1881, and 1881—1908) using new primary evidence and statistics.

Neslişah Başaran Lotz will be the moderator of the talk. This month's talk will be online.