As reforms, revolutions and wars swept across the Ottoman Empire and Europe at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, the Camondo family rose to become one of the most influential trading and banking dynasties. This ascent is particularly fascinating considering that the influential and well-connected Jewish family was banished from Istanbul in 1782 and had to settle in the Habsburg port city of Trieste. The lecture examines how the family dealt with the forced migration, unfavourable regulations and rapidly changing economic conditions as they tried to rebuild their lives and businesses. It sheds light on the family’s attempts to translate their wealth, experience, and influence from the Ottoman to the Habsburg governance and administration. Ultimately, the trans-imperial biographies of the Camondosreveal the impact that modernising imperial bureaucracies had on the expression of identity, subjecthood and belonging.

HBC Fliter 2023 12 13 (378 Kb)