Art and Albers

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The wooden department store 1876
The new building from 1907
The former Kunst & Albers department store under a new name (lettering "ГУМ" on red squares above the entrance) (1992)
The company's advertising in the ROPiT travel guide , 1902 edition (130 × 230 mm)

Kunst und Albers (also Kunst & Albers ) was a German trading company in Russia. It operated the first department store founded by the businessman Gustav Kunst and the seaman Gustav Albers in Vladivostok . At times it developed into a regional trading empire and was the largest trading house in the Russian Far East .

history

In 1864, there were 44 wooden houses in Vladivostok. On September 16, 1864, Gustav Albers (1838–1911), a seaman and son of a jeweler from Hamburg, arrived there with the schooner brig "Meta". Shortly before, he met the Hamburg merchant Gustav Kunst (1836–1905) in Shanghai . Albers brought long-life food and building materials off board. Albers and Kunst decided to do business together.

In 1865 the first wooden house was built as a commercial building. In 1875 Adolph Dattan (1854-1924), who came from Rudersdorf in Thuringia and had worked as an accountant for Albers' brother in Hamburg, joined the company. In 1884 the first stone department store was built. All building materials except the bricks had been brought from Hamburg by ship. The department store had 18 sales departments.

In 1891 the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway to the west began in Vladivostok , which resulted in an economic boom for the city and the department store. Gustav Kunst left the company in 1898 and then lived in Hawaii and Samoa . Dattan became a partner and in 1914 was raised to the Russian nobility for his services to the development of the Primorye region . The company also had a bank account. Customers could also transfer funds to Japan and China by means of checks (see ad).

As part of his business activities, Dattan also went on numerous trips, during which, among other things, he collected exhibits that he then donated to various European museums. A large ethnological collection is located in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna , a zoological collection has been donated to the Natural History Museum in Braunschweig . His travels and foundations earned him the reputation of an explorer. (→ list of discoverers )

In 1907 the German architect Georg Junghändel, who also planned the Pauluskirche in Vladivostok, built a new department store in the Art Nouveau style in Svetlanskaya Ulitsa. It is considered the most beautiful building in the city and still serves as the GUM department store in Vladivostok. Junghändel built an elegant city villa opposite the department store for Adolph Dattan.

In 1914, Kunst und Albers had 32 branches, including in Port Arthur (today: Lüshunkou ), Charbin and Nagasaki .

During the First World War, the import of goods from Germany dried up. The company has been accused of operating a German espionage network in many publications. The journalist Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski was in charge . George F. Kennan wrote about it in the 1950s: "It is questionable whether the history of journalism knows any other example of a personal campaign of revenge that would have been more brutal and long-term than this." Adolph Dattan was exiled to Siberia in 1915; he did not return to Vladivostok until 1919/20 at the age of 65. Alfred Albers (1877–1960), the son of Gustav Albers and junior boss of the company, was drafted into the tsarist military.

The branches were partly destroyed and partly expropriated. The company was eventually completely expropriated under the Bolsheviks . In 1924, Alfred Albers effectively gave up the company in Vladivostok and shifted its focus to China. Adolph Dattan died in Naumburg that same year .

In 1930 the trading house in Vladivostok had to close due to excessive tax demands by the Soviet authorities, and the shipping office also closed a year later. In China, the company under the management of Georg von Dattan was primarily active in the wholesale trade and as a general agency for German companies. Over time, ten branches were established between Amur and Hong Kong. With the beginning of the Second World War , this business came to a standstill. After the war, Alfred Albers ran foreign trade businesses from Hamburg under the well-known company name. The company's history ends with his death in 1960.

  • The company management 1880: sitting at the table Gustav Albers, Gustav Kunst and Adolph Dattan (from left to right)

  • Gustav Albers (1838–1911) came to Vladivostok as a seaman

  • Gustav Kunst (1836–1905) was a merchant from Hamburg

  • Customers from the Nanai people in front of the company's branch in Khabarovsk, around 1900

  • The branch of Kunst & Albers in Blagoveshchensk, 1911

literature

  • Lothar Deeg : Art & Albers Vladivostok. A German trading company on the other side of Siberia (1864–1924) . BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2020, ISBN 978-3-7504-2588-0 .
  • Lothar Deeg : Art & Albers. The department store kings of Vladivostok. The rise and fall of a German trading company on the other side of Siberia . Klartext, Essen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8375-0764-5 .
  • Lothar Deeg : Art & Albers Vladivostok. The story of a German trading company in the Russian Far East (1864–1924) . Klartext, Essen 1996, ISBN 3-88474-514-X .
  • Ludmila Thomas : The trading house art and Albers in the Russian Far East until 1917. On the problem of German capital in Russia . In: Yearbook for the history of the socialist countries of Europe . Volume 28, Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1984, ISSN  0075-2657 .

Web links

Commons : Art and Albers  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Russia Current: Art and Albers, German department store kings in Vladivostok
  2. ↑ The economic and political development of Northeast Asia and the Tumen River Area up to 1990 , p. 60
  3. ^ Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden (Netherlands); Adolph Traugott (Vassilivich) Dattan  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.rmv.nl  
  4. ↑ Russia Today: Twelve Germans who made careers in Russia ( Memento of the original from January 5, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / russland-heute.de
  5. ↑ a b Exhibit of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna procured by Dattan ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bilddatenbank.khm.at
  6. ↑ Dietrich Bernecker: Adolph Wassilewitsch Dattan on the occasion of his 150th birthday, in: Saale-Unstrut-Jahrbuch, 10th year, Naumburg, 2005, p. 50.
  7. ↑ Kerstin Holm: Russia's Dream of Asia In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung online from December 9, 2011.
  8. ↑ Russia Current: From 1914: Allegations of espionage against Kunst and Albers (II)
  9. ↑ Biographical information

Coordinates: 43 ° 6 ′ 56 "  N , 131 ° 53 ′ 16.5"  E