Good Opportunities and Barriers to the Grain Trade in the Ports of the Western Black Sea Coast in the 1840s, Presented in the Reports of the European Consuls

The article presents the good opportunities and the barriers (problems) for the grain trade in the ports of the Western Black Sea coast in the 1840s. The main historical sources of the study are the reports of the European consuls in the biggest of these cities at that time – Varna. Today, these documents are kept in the Diplomatic Archives of France in Paris and in Nantes (Archives diplomatiques du Ministere des Affaires etrangeres de la Republique francaise a Courneuve, Centre des Archives diplomatiques a Nantes), and only a small part has been used by scholars. The 1840s was an interesting time, as this decade saw the beginning of the great increase in grain exports from the Balkans (then part of the Ottoman Empire) to the markets of Western Europe. Consular reports describe this process in detail. They also present the problems that accompanied it: the poor treatment and non-acceptance of European consuls and merchants in the Ottoman Empire; the return to monopolies prohibiting grain exports, even though these monopolies were officially abolished in the Empire as early as the 1830s.; competition and mistreatment by merchants from the Greek islands, who had settled on the Western Black Sea coast at an earlier date; the different units of measurement and their incorrect use, which disadvantaged both peasant producers and European merchants; the high taxes levied on peasants in the Ottoman Empire; the non-fulfilment of sales contracts by peasants; drought and poor harvests in some years. The article enriches the theme of trade between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe in the 19th century with new data and analysis.