«Our bones have dried up, and our hope has perished»: local self-awareness and the image of the history of the Württemberg burgherism of the Thirty Years War

Rusakovskiy, O. V. «Issohli kosti nashi, i pogibla nadezhda nasha»: lokal’noe samosoznanie i obraz istorii vjurtembergskogo bjurgerstva jepohi Tridcatiletnej vojny [«Our bones have dried up, and our hope has perished»: local self-awareness and the image of the history of the Württemberg burgherism of the Thirty Years War], in: Proslogion: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Social History and Culture, 2019. Vol. 5 (2). P. 82–110.

Oleg Rusakovskiy, PhD, research fellow, National Research University Higher School of Economics (Pokrovskii bul’var 11, Moscow, Russia, 109028)

Language: Russian

The article deals with the perception of the Thirty Years war by the population and the political elite of the district town Bietigheim in the duchy of Wurttemberg. Based on the Bietigheim chronicles and supplementary documents, the author analyzes the townsmen’s ideas on the beginning and the end of the war, social-political and moral-religious meaning of its causes and consequences. The perception of the war is studied in the context of historical culture of the Wurttemberg urban commune and its ideas about itself. The author suggests that the local community was a key element of the self-identity of Bietigheim’s citizens whereas larger political bodies such as the Holy Roman Empire or Germany were less important. Seemingly, the confession had a lesser influence on the war experiences in the local perspective. At the same time, some religious and moral ideas were decisively important to perceive the war as God’s punishment for collective and individual sins. The developments during the Thirty Years’ war are under analysis in context of the massive elite change and its reflection in the town chronicles. The author comes to conclusion concerning the preservation of the older social-political and ethical patterns as the main goal of the greater part of the citizenship and its elite which was reflected in the local historical narrative and specific patterns of memorialization.

Key Words: The Thirty Years’ war, 17th-century Germany, Wurttemberg, town chronicles, historical culture, Lutheranism

URL: http://proslogion.ru/52-rusakovskiy/

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