Abstract:

After the Treaty of Ankara, with the appointment of Ramire Vadala as the first French consul, the French government reopened the consulate in Samsun in 1925. This was the clear evidence of the great expectation of the French government from Samsun. As Vadala stated, as the most important port of the Black Sea, Samsun, which was seen as “Smyrna of the Black Sea”, had very bright future for the French. Vadala also stressed in his reports that French entrepreneurs need to draw attention to invests in Samsun like railway, ports, electricity, telephone, tram, sewage and hotel. As soon as Vadala arrived to Samsun, he began to prepare important reports on socio-economic and political structure of the city, which was one of the icon cities of the Republic. In this regard, the consul’s correspondences give the opportunity to look from a different perspective on Samsun in the first years of the Republic. The aim of this study was to evaluate the consulates of Vadala from his correspondences with the French authorities. The primary sources of the study are the documents located in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives.

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