A case of urban integration: Vienna's port area and the Ottoman merchants in the eighteenth century

Abstract

Studying the Ottoman subjects in eighteenth-century Vienna helps to understand better the process of integration of the different districts of the city in a fast-changing context, especially around its Danube port area. Despite the withdrawal of the Ottoman empire from central Europe after 1683, Ottomans were fully a part of the history of Vienna and their presence has to be explored within the specific urban dynamics of a city: the reconfiguration of its economic sectors and social places, the tensions at play between the socio-economic groups by which a city was made and the evolution of its urban planning. Focusing on the Ottoman merchants operating in Vienna allows us to identify and to analyse the workings of the port area of the fourth largest city in Europe and to explore the social spaces of Viennese markets, streets, courtyards and coffeehouses.