Calouste Gulbenkian: Refugee, Oil Man or “Citizen of Nowhere”?

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25.03 | 17.00 | A TSN Spring Series lecture by Jonathan Conlin

By the time of his death in Lisbon in 1955 Calouste Gulbenkian was the world’s richest man, widely known as “Mr Five Per Cent” on account of his personal holding of 5% of Middle East oil production. How did this Ottoman Armenian not only survive the collapse of the Ottoman Empire into genocidal violence, but establish himself as a key middle-man in the emergence of a modern cartelized oil industry, helping to create the giants we know as Royal Dutch-Shell and Total? This talk traces Gulbenkian’s career as “oil man”, art collector and philanthropist, and reflects on his multiple loyalties as refugee, diplomat and rootless “nowhere man”.

Dr Jonathan Conlin teaches history at the University of Southampton. His biography of Gulbenkian was published in English in 2019. The book won the 2020 BAC Wadsworth Prize for Business History and has been translated into four foreign languages.