Tobacco Aroma. Multimedia eBook

Multimedia book for iOS/ANDROID operating systems funded by the Municipality of Drama under the project "Upgrading the cultural experience in the urban fabric of Drama" 2020EΠ03110040 MIS Code: 5067267. TOBACCO AROMA is a cultural route of Drama, dedicated to the golden age of tobacco over a period of one century, from 1840 to 1940. Ten monuments from the cultural heritage of the tobacco era reveal their stories to us and introduce us to the protagonists. This cultural route tells the story of Drama as a key city of the tobacco economy and a production centre of the famous Oriental tobacco. In fact, it takes us through the entire cycle of the transformation of Drama from the Ottoman Empire to liberated Greece, from the rise of the wealthy bourgeoisie and the Europeanization of the city to the tobacco movement and the destruction of the tobacco economy by Nazi Germany. Three historical periods are covered: the late Ottoman period, the Balkan Wars, the First World War and the Greek-Turkish War, and the Second World War. Finally, the rise and fall of the production and marketing of oriental tobacco in Europe and America, the globalisation of the smoking habit, the economic and social changes brought about by the tobacco trade in the production and marketing of tobacco, the monopolies and the tobacco workers' movement are presented. Eastern tobacco was cultivated in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace as early as the mid-18th century and then spread to the rest of the country. Indeed, it is said that the cigarette was invented by Ibrahim Pasha's soldiers during the siege of Accra in Syria in 1840: due to the lack of hookahs, they wrapped tobacco from Kavala in the paper with which they wrapped the powder of their guns. In liberated Greece, cigarette papers made their appearance around the mid-1860s and evolved into objects of high aesthetics of the time, with elegant lithographs on the covers of their packaging and themes inspired by Greek history. Charilaos Trikoupis's attempt to end the illegal distribution of loose tobacco in 1883 also set the first restrictions on the circulation of cigarette paper and highlighted its economic value. In 1886, the Greek government took out a loan of 19 million francs with four major banks of the time in exchange for a monopoly on cigarette paper. With the flourishing of the tobacco trade worldwide, especially after 1870, a stratification of society was created in the processing centres of eastern tobacco. The ruling class was made up of Turkish officials and wealthy tobacco merchants, who in many cases also held the office of vice-consul of the countries whose monopolies they represented. The middle class was made up of the smaller tobacco merchants and middlemen. The more numerous working class was socially and politically very well organized and its members enjoyed high wages compared to other professions. The production of eastern tobacco is linked to the annexation of Thessaly in 1881, the liberation of Macedonia and parts of Thrace and the Aegean islands in 1913, and the liberation of Xanthi in 1920. The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the increase in refugees in 1922, the bloody tobacco workers' strike in 1936, World War II and Nazi Germany, as the last major buyer and victim of the Greek tobacco economy, complete the cycle. After the Second World War, production gradually increased, while since the mid-1980s it has been falling rapidly, reaching today the levels of 1914.