ABSTRACT

The globalizing of trade, cultural transfers, and the spread of merchant networks were important features of the early modern world. This chapter examines the issue of how cultures of voting were adopted and reinterpreted by newcomers from outside Europe. It focuses on the Armenian Diaspora in the Kingdom of Poland. The study of elections within a foreign commercial community will contribute to a better understanding of how the same group of people responded to the different challenges – that is integration of Armenians within Catholic-dominated cities and participation in long-distance trade in the Ottoman Empire. It gives a unique insight on how traditional and adopted voting practices coexisted in one community. The issue of municipal self-government in medieval Armenia is highly debated because of the absence of city archives. Procedures and practices governing the election of Armenian magistrates were based on the 'German law' model, which spread in Polish cities through late medieval German colonization.