Pitcher, seraphim, glaze and porter are just some of the professions that existed in Thessaloniki at the end of the 19th century and either disappeared forever or changed form. Images of that time include the exhibition “Old Professions – Images from the daily life of another Thessaloniki”, which is presented at the History Center of Thessaloniki (KITH), from Thursday, February 3 to April 20, 2022.
The photographic material with images from the markets of the city and from characteristic objects used by the professionals of the time, is accompanied by the text of the curator Nikos Marantzidis, as well as excerpts from texts by writers and architects about the professional landscape of the city.
“In the popular professions of the first half of the 19th century in Thessaloniki we could include the manual ones: the construction workers, servants, neroulades, cooper wells, conductors, porters, carriages, horsemen (mainly of Slavic origin) and masons”, Nikos Marantzidis, who categorizes the professions according to the ethnicities.
He also notes that some professions were practiced only by Muslims, by others by Christians and by others by Jews. “The basket makers were gypsies, the ones who sold chickens and the horsemen were Bulgarians, while the horse traders were mainly Albanians. Jews, Greeks, Turks and Arvanites were professionally engaged in fishing and selling meat. Muslims were mainly the cooks, the stranglers, the halvats and the sellers of a refreshing drink, the boza. “Greeks and Turks were the yoghurt makers and the sellers-gyrologists of patties, fruits and barley”, points out Mr. Marantzidis, adding that the horsemen who also had inns were Turks or Albanians, while the kalaitzides were also Muslims.
The tinsmiths, the locksmiths and the blacksmiths were Jews, while the Greeks were the kazantzides (the makers of copper plates, pans and other utensils), the painters, the greengrocers and the candle makers. The Jews were the only seraphim, the junkies, the shopkeepers-gyrologists, the glassmakers, the sellers of tobacco and matches and the makers of soaps, while the Turks were the baths and the coffee-makers of the city.
“Thessaloniki at the end of the 19th century. with its slow rhythms, limited productive and commercial movement, it was a classic Ottoman city distinguished by its ethno-religious panspermia (with basic components, Jews, Greek Orthodox and Muslims) as well as its medieval atmosphere. “Apart from the differences and the competition of their interests, these three elements of the city, through the market and the mixing of professions, formed a social and intercultural image based on the cultural differences but also their composition”, says the curator of the report.
At the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century, Thessaloniki changes and these changes also affect the professions, some disappear, others adapt to the new conditions, while new ones develop. The guilds are declining and gradually disappearing. The market of Thessaloniki opens for the new products of industrial Europe to come to it.
The exhibition is a co-organization of the History Center of Thessaloniki and the Library – Information Center of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
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