L’organisation de la Compagnie grecque de Braşov (1777-1850)

Abstract

There are two stages in the activities of the «compagnie grecque de Braşov» this important corporation established by merchants who traded whith the Austro-Hungarian empire. The first stage can be discerned in the end of the
XVIIth cent, up to the last decades of the XVIIIth, when it acquired its privileged status. The author discusses the statute of the «compagnie», the privileges accorded by the Habsbourg empire, and the rivalry of the Saxon traders opposing to these privileges. The «compagnie» was organized according to the statutes of the other Greek merchant corporations in the Turkish empire in a liberal and democratic way. The «compagnie» was founded mostly by Greeks and Koutsovlachs from Macedonia and was functioning according to the principles of selfadministration of the communities.According to these statutes, the «proestos», the head of the «compagnie» and the elected members of the board, the «epitrope» had the right to judge cases and punish the defectants. The «proestos» took the most important decisions and the «epitrope» were responsible for keeping the accounts and tending to the administration of the schools and the church. The second stage of the life of the «compagnie» is the main part of this paper. It is when the autonomous status of the «compagnie» was instrumental in setting the example for the roumanian merchants to struggle for rights and privileges they were deprived of previously in their transactions in the levant and in the Habsbourg empire.