Presentation and discussion of the book "Les Suisses de la mer Noire" by Elena Simonato

Elena Simonato will give a book talk on Les Suisses de la mer Noire: histoire d’une diaspora oubliée. The talk offers a concise yet rigorously documented narrative of the Swiss settler communities on the Black Sea coast of the Russian Empire and the agricultural colonies that emerged there in the nineteenth century. Simonato reconstructs the colonies’ trajectories - from initial hesitation and difficult choices to years of struggle and the first successes - and shows how viticulture, quality agriculture and cheesemaking developed as local industries. Drawing on sources collected in her research projects, the book restores a disappearing world.