Aspects of urban and rural areas in the Ionian Islands (mid 19th-early 20th century)

Project Manager: Katerina Bregianni 

Within the chronological horizon of this project the national market took shape: the banking system, financial practices, the application of exchange rates and monetary policy, the transition to a new rural property status under Roman law, are just some of the aspects of the financial system of the Greek Kingdom. In this context, on the one hand the union of the Ionian Islands with Greece, and of Thessaly on the other, constitute a geographically defined "field of research" in the transition from the economic institutions of domination to the national market. This very rough outline is further elaborated by the social "treatment" of economic instruments. Social attitudes towards economic phenomena, their representations, but also the perception of economic activity re reflected through evidence that could be described as experiential: therefore, memoirs, literary production, biography, are a source of study of how people take on the economic phenomena, rather than a source of study of economic mechanism. On the other hand, the social impact of economic transition, during the period under review, and the different aspects of attempted modernization are diffused in political speech, and in the speech of leading elites., Thus, the dynamics of intervention, and the scientific / ideological background of the reform rifts are recorded. 
The existence if a general research framework, covering the entire state, does not exclude focusing on a specific geographic region. Specifically, the case of the Ionian Islands is of special interest to research and historiography, as a field of osmosis, both social and cultural. The administrative and economic institutions during the British rule and the assimilation of the Ionian Islands after the Union are also an interesting field of observation for the historian. In particular, the reflection on the question of rural property in the Ionian Islands, and how it is linked to the wider debate on the Greek agricultural issue is a major research subject which has not yet been incorporated in Greek historical studies. On the other hand, the formation of the Ionian social fabric, offspring of many western rules, records not only the social stratification as a result of economic transformation, but also the creation of a network of interchange of cultural goods. 
In conclusion, the study poses the historiographical requirement of seeking to combine the factual material with the tools of intellectual history.