Money, Power, and Influence in Eighteenth-Century Lithuania by Adam Teller

Author:Adam Teller [Teller, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Jewish
ISBN: 9780804799874
Google: h43UDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2016-09-21T22:24:26+00:00

SOURCE: AR XX, 52

NOTE: An unusually large consignment of flour belonging to merchants from Moscow shipped on the 1760 flotilla, which caused a 20 percent reduction in the proportions of the normal staples of trade.

Table 6.5. The Four Major Types of Freight Shipped out of Königsberg (as a percentage of all the freight trade from Königsberg to Lithuania)

SOURCE: AR XX, 19

The Merchants

At the start of each year those members of the Radziwiłł family who were planning to organize a flotilla of rafts published an announcement that it would sail to Königsberg in the spring, along with the shipping rates.208 The announcement was likely distributed in the towns of the estate, especially those near the Niemen (the Radziwiłłs’ main port was at Nowy Świerżeń).209

Merchants from outside the latifundium also came to ship their goods. The lists of shippers did not usually indicate where they came from, making identification, particularly of one-time shippers, almost impossible. Merchants whose place of residence can be identified typically came from the towns on the latifundium that were close to the port: Nowy Świerżeń, Nieśwież, Mir, Słuck, and Kopyl. Others came from small towns near the river, such as Korelicze, Delaticze, Niehniewicze, and Jeremicze (Yaremichy, Belarus).210 Still others came from more distant towns on the estate, such as Kiejdany (Kėdainiai, Belarus), Kopyś, and Romanów.

It was also possible to join the flotilla in the large towns such as Kowno and Grodno through which the rafts passed, though most traders, including those from the major towns of Belarus—Mińsk, Mohilew, and Nowogródek—came to its port on the Niemen. Having said all that, the vast majority of the merchants who shipped freight on the Radziwiłł flotilla lived near Nowy Świerżeń.211

Who were the shippers? A total of 245 merchants can be identified in the full and partial lists for 1738, 1746, 1747, 1748, 1754, 1760, and 1761, including 115 Christians (47 percent) and 130 Jews (53 percent). Only 38 of these (16 percent) were listed in more than one year, and only twelve (5 percent) in more than two years. Noblemen were prominent among the non-Jews, accounting for some 60 percent of all non-Jewish shippers. Christian townspeople accounted for another 25 percent and clerics for 7 percent.212 The status of the remaining 8 percent cannot be determined.213

The noblemen were presumably acting in the same way as the Radziwiłłs. They shipped produce from their estates for sale in Königsberg, and used the money they received for purchasing various necessities and luxury items to send back home. The small number of Christian urban merchants presumably reflects the weakness of the group in estate society.

Clearly, the majority of the professional merchants (that is, those who made their living from trade) who shipped freight on the Radziwiłł family flotilla were Jews.214 The freight trade brought them two major benefits: it gave them relatively easy access to the international market, and it meant that they were automatically covered by the Radizwiłłs’ exemption from Commonwealth taxes and customs, leaving them to pay only the Prussian duties.215 The Jewish merchants’ role in the freight trade is illustrated in Table 6.

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