Hadjikyriacou | 249the Muslims and non-Muslims of Cyprus continued paying the debts incurred by
the late dragoman long after his execution.
Relevant documentation leaves little doubt about the detrimental effect of
this controversy on local finances. The partial collection of the amount at dif-
ferent points before the eventual resolution of the issue exacerbated the already-
acute financial pressures on the Cypriot economy. It was not until 1816 that the
Ottoman state recognized that the people of Cyprus were not liable for Hadji-
yorgakis’s debt. This decision was taken in view of what was tantamount to a
complete breakdown of the financial system of the island; in effect, a declaration
of bankruptcy.
***Commenting on the escapades and punishments of certain peers of Hadjiyor-
gakis from the seventeenth century, Marios Hadjianastasis has summed up the
process as “crossing the line in the sand.” One wonders where exactly this line
lies and how clear or fuzzy it is. As far as Hadjiyorgakis is concerned, the emerg-
ing picture portrays a man who transcended conventional boundaries in his
economic, social, and political advancement as a non-Muslim official. His expe-
rience echoes that of the Greek Orthodox elite of Istanbul known as the Phanari-
ots, and he is in some ways reminiscent of the dragoman of the Imperial Fleet
Nikolas Mavroyeni in particular. Yet the issues of scale, breadth of authority,
collective as opposed to personal action, or even projections of aristocratic lin-
eages should prevent a too-enthusiastic comparison. Far from unique, the case
of Hadjiyorgakis reveals the complex and multilayered relations of power and
means of devolution of authority that were typical in the turn-of-the-nineteenth
century Ottoman Empire.
Hadjiyorgakis is certainly one of the most emblematic and controversial fig-
ures of Ottoman Cyprus. Focusing on such a historical actor lends great insights
into the functioning of the economic, social, and political structures of the is-
land, the possible ways opportunities were taken advantage of, and the effect of
processes of wealth accumulation on the island’s population. The famine and
grain affair of 1802–1804 was an instance of total manipulation of an essential-
commodity market that relied on a far-reaching commercial and information
network stretching from Cyprus to Spain. The financial breakdown caused by
the 1.27 million kuruş debt contracted by Hadjiyorgakis for the “affairs of the
country,” and for which the Cypriots were originally held accountable, is a clear
manifestation of the blurred lines between quasi-institutional functions, corpo-
rate responsibility, communal leadership, and personal enterprise.
That Hadjiyorgakis was able to exert such a degree of control over the local
economy is only part of the story. In many ways, he is just another manifesta-
tion of the eighteenth- to early-nineteenth-century Ottoman milieu, whereby