Karlovo’s Merchants at the Beginning of 1860s

The town of Karlovo is one of the centers adjacent to the Balkan Mountains, which experienced rapid economic, cultural, educational and demographic development in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Rumelia. A number of circumstances determine this multifaceted development. The specific geographical and climatic conditions, as well as the fact that the Karlovo’s Non-Muslim population had almost no land, turned the city into a developed proto-industrial and craft center from the 1820s onwards. A particularly important place in the economic development of the regional center from the beginning of the 19th c. was occupied by the textile crafts, which from the 1840s would even develop into a large proto-industrial textile manufacturing in the Ottoman Balkans. Those factors were the prerequisites for the emergence of a successful small trade and entrepreneurial class in Karlovo from the early 1830s trading with those locally made textile goods. The high quality textile raw materials and finished products from Karlovo soon began to be sold very successfully in the major domestic Ottoman markets and fairs, even in Wallachia and beyond. The main goods that “come out” of Karlovo were: braids, wool, bags, yarn, baize, frieze, socks, candles, tallow, rose oil, i.e. The label “Karlovo’s products” became synonymous of high quality in the Ottoman markets, and that of Karlovo’s merchants – as one of the most honest ones. Thus, from the 1830s until the Liberation in 1878, Karlovo’s merchants developed a dense network of trade links with important economic points and cities along the Danube, throughout Rumelia, and beyond the Ottoman Empire. The present contribution focuses on several unknown Karlovo’s trade notebooks from the middle of the 19th c., found in the State Archive – Plovdiv. The notebooks of Karlovo’s merchant operating in the Ottoman capital date in the period 1862 – 1863 and illustrate a successful entrepreneurial activity of considerable capacity. The network of associates and suppliers is located mainly in Karlovo, its region and the port town of Tulcea, which increased the efficiency and frequency of the deliveries, as well as their planning. Characteristic features of the merchants are the not very large turnovers and amounts in its activity, as well as the great variety of goods transported and sold in the Ottoman capital. This showed significant flexibility, resourcefulness and quick decision-making in an uncertain market environment.