This is a book about people caught between home and abroad crossing imperial boundaries in
southeastern Europe at the beginning of the modern age. Through a series of life stories which
the author reconstructs with the aid of many new sources readers discover how certain men and
women defined and adapted their loyalties and affiliations how they fashioned their identities
how they enrolled their linguistic political economic and social resources to build a family
and a career. Travelling between Istanbul Vienna Trieste Moscow Bucharest or Iasi
individuals of different backgrounds built their networks across borders linking people and
objects and facilitating cultural transfer and material and social change.
