Michal Wanner
Michal Wanner, Ph. D (1968) graduated in 1992 from the Charles University in Prague with the MA thesis topic „The East India Company in Warren Hastings Era “. In 1998, he completed his PhD at the same institution with the topic „The East India Company and the British State 1766-1774“(published in Czech 2003). He worked as archivist at the Military Historical Archives, Prague from 1992 to 1994. Since 1994 until the present day he has been working in the Department of the Archives Administration and Records Management, the Ministry of the Interior, Prague (now as Supreme Ministerial Councilor). He dealt with a number of topics in the field of archiving. As editor he published 11 volumes of the List of Vedutas in Czech Archives. At the same time, he occasionally externally cooperated with the Institute of World History of Charles University. His main interest is the history of Eurasian economic, diplomatic and cultural relations in the 17th and 18th centuries. His historical monographs include "The Seven Years' War in the Orient" (2001) and, together with Karel Staněk, the monograph "The Imperial Eagle and Attraction to the Orient: The Habsburg Monarchy Trade Expansion to overseas" (1715-1789) (2021).
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This presentation was given at the international conference "Dispersed Heritage: Displacement and Recoveries of Archives in Europe after the 1st World War" held in Kraków on 22-23 June 2022 (First of a series of conferences European Colloquia on Archives).
Papers by Michal Wanner
The article tries to remedy partially at least the mentioned imperfection, it points out the importance of single factors leading to suspending the Company, and some of neglected factors in the sphere of diplomacy, and tries to show that process from the positions of the imperial side. The author states that the Company’s fate was not predetermined. Its suspension and the consequent termination were an issue of a gradual development, during which all the participated sides were considering their priorities. What he sees as the main cause is the Emperor’s unsuccessful foreign policy in Italy, the Empire, but mostly in the relation to the maritime powers.
He assumes that the key element is entering treaties with Spain in April and May 1725 (First Treaty of Vienna) that infringed the European power balance. Only then did the Ostend Company suppression become the central point of the Dutch and British foreign policy (although the influence of the GIC’s competition over their East India Companies cannot be clearly proved). The Emperor assisted by Russia and Prussia managed to put together a coalition directed against enemies united in the so-called Hanoverian Alliance, however, it was too weak and most of its members were not willing to shed their blood for the sake of the Ostend Company.
Author reconstructs the development of Kolkata (Calcutta) in the period after the Battle of Plassey (1757), when the city became the center of Bengal and when it underwent a major transformation corresponding to the new role of the English East India Company as the de facto ruler of the vast region in the Northeast of India. It succeeded in establishing urban planning principles that made the European districts of Kolkata (Calcutta) a modern city. Initially, forts, docks, warehouses, administrative buildings, and private residences were constructed, later followed by churches, schools, theatres, and scientific institutions. The building typology reflected the city diverse ethnic and confessional composition, but houses and edifices were built uniformly in the style of Northern European Neoclassicism.