This week, our senior assistant Dr Maja Perić, completed her series of archive visits as part of her research for our project. After Antwerp, Brussels, and Vienna, this may well be the most important final stop in the story of the Privileged Company and the sugar factory: Rijeka. The documentation in the State archive in Rijeka related to the Privileged Company is unfortunately not organized in the same way as it was in Antwerp and Vienna. The reference numbers come from an inventory that is a hundred years old, and the numbers do not correspond to what is listed in the online catalogue. This caused some puzzling work for Maja, but she still managed to find some useful documents. Most of these are written in German and Italian.
After visiting the archive in Rijeka, it became clear that the largest amount of source material for her research is preserved in Vienna. Maja also visited the permanent exhibition about the sugar factory and the Company, which is still located in the building that once housed the sugar refinery. Through the interactive exhibition, everything she had read about in the literature and gathered from the sources during her previous archive visits came to life. The building is called a palace for a reason—it is an imposing structure that inspires awe both inside and out. In the coming months, Maja will delve deeper into the wealth of sources she has gathered over the past six months. We look forward to her first findings!
We find it appropriate […] to promote the establishment of a Trading Company, which, by uniting its strength, knowledge, and care, will strive […] to develop the various branches of a necessary and profitable commerce.
