Internationaler Workshop
MWS Büro Georgien, Aleksanteri Institut an der Universität Helsinki, Max Weber Netzwerk Osteuropa
Datum: 30. November – 3. Dezember 2025
Ort: MWS Büro Georgien
Bewerbungsschluss: 5. Mai 2025
The Georgian Branch of the Max Weber Foundation in Tbilisi, the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, and the Max Weber Network Eastern Europe invite submissions for the International Workshop “The Foreign Expatriates at the South Caucasus. The case of international family enterprises in Azerbaijan and Georgia 1850–1925th”.
The New Industrial Revolution in the middle of 19th century and its modern industry began to exploit many natural and synthetic resources, such as oil, gas, kerosene, or paraffin. The oil fields in the Absheron Peninsula and near Baku in Azerbaijan made this region very important for the growing industry since the middle of the 1860th. The Russian Empire was one of the most important markets for German, Finnish, and Swedish industries also as well as one of most important suppliers of raw materials for these nations. Finnish, Swedish, and German engineers, traders, businessmen, companies, and agencies had their activities in Russia. Dozen foreign firms turned their attention to this oil region. The largest foreign companies in the South Caucasus were the Nobel Brothers involved in the oil business and the Siemens & Halske AG and later the Simens Brothers with copper mines. Finns and Swedes (citizens of Finland and Sweden) were the largest foreign diaspora in Baku. The third group were Germans. It was a unique expats’ community with their own culture, its own church, its own schools, its own cemeteries.
This workshop addresses several different aspects of the history of international community and family business in Georgia and Azerbaijan: the specifics of a non-regional family business in the periphery of the Russian Empire, the cultural history of business-expats in Caucasian cities, merchant communities, in expat-communities (including roles as ethnic/religious minority) and their role in Caucasian-European contacts. The task of the workshop is to discuss the everyday life and fates of Germans, Finns, and Swedes who moved to Azerbaijan and Georgia for various reasons and the role of archives and museums in preservation of the history of migration.
We will accept paper proposals until the 5th of May 2025. The proposals must be in English and include a title, abstract of the theme/subject of the presentation (max. 300 words), and keywords plus a short author bio (max. 100 words), and contact information.
Please submit your proposal in one PDF-document via e-mail to the Organizers:
info(at)mws-osteuropa.org.
Questions related to the workshop topic can be directed to prof. Dmitri Frolov: dmitri.d.frolov(at)gmail.com.
The acceptance of proposals will be announced by 5th of June 2025.
For submissions and general inquiries regarding the conference, please contact:
info(at)mws-osteuropa.org