Representatives of the sugar industry of the Russian Empire at the World's Fair in Paris in 1900

Abstract

Nineteenth-century world exhibitions were platforms to demonstrate technical and technological changes that witnessed the modernization and industrialization of the world. World exhibitions have contributed to the promotion of new inventions and the popularization of already known, as well as the emergence of art objects of world importance. One of the most important world events at the turn of the century was the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. Participation in the World's Fair was not the first experience of this kind of activity for sugar growers in the Russian Empire. Most of them were members of the Kyiv branch of the Russian Technical Society, which in turn took the most active part in the work of blighty and international industrial exhibitions, receiving high awards. The main sugar enterprises were concentrated on the territory of modern Ukraine in the possession of several large companies owned by Tereshchenko, Kharitonenko, Khanenko, Brodskyi, Simirenko, Yakhnenko and others. The Russian sugar industry occupied a prominent place at the World's Fair in Paris in 1900, as its share in world sugar production was 17%, and the area of beet crops, it was ahead of all other countries (in 1900 sugar beets were sown 548,796 hectares). The exposition testified to this powerful development of the industry. At the World's Fair in 1900, Russia's sugar industry was housed in the Palace of Agriculture and was represented in the pavilions by well-known sugar firms, such as the Department of Land (Timashiv Beet Sugar and Refinery), I. H. Kharitonenko and his son; brothers Lazar and Lev Izrailevich Brodskyi; O. N. Tereshchenko, heirs of F. A. Tereshchenko; the Tereshchenko brothers, the Botkin brothers (Novo-Tavolzhanskyi sugar factory); joint-stock companies of sugar and refineries: “Constance”, “Germanov”, “Gmina Lyshowiche”; E. A. Balasheva (Mariinskyi Sugar Plant of Kyiv Province), H. H. Balakhovski (Mariinskyi beet-sugar and refineries of the Kursk province). A characteristic feature of the sugar industry was that they mainly represented family businesses based on strong family ties, ethno-cultural and religious values. In addition, they intertwined the functions of owners and managers. Thus, the author tries to analyze the participation of representatives of the sugar industry in the World's Fair in 1900 and define the role of exhibitions as indicators of economic development, to show the importance and influence of private entrepreneurs, especially from Ukraine, on the sugar industry and international contacts.