On the death of a hero and negligence of servants: Duke Magnus of Württemberg in the mirror of a posthumous investigation (1622)

Prokopiev, A. Yu., Lurie, Z. A., O gibeli geroya i neradivosti slug: Gertsog Magnus Vyurtembergskiy v zerkale posmertnogo rassledovaniya (1622 g.) [On the death of a hero and negligence of servants: Duke Magnus of Württemberg in the mirror of a posthumous investigation (1622)], in: Proslogion: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Social History and Culture, 2019. Vol. 5 (1). P. 3671.

Andrey Yur’evich Prokopiev, doctor of History, professor, Saint-Petersburg State University (199034, Rossiya, Sankt-Peterburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7/9)

Zinaida Andreevna Lurie, doctor of History, assistant lecturer, Faculty of foreign languages, Saint-Petersburg State University (199034, Rossiya, Sankt-Peterburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7/9)

Language: Russian

The article focuses on the phenomenon of the birth of a «hero» and «heroic myth» analyzing the example of the Duke Magnus of Württemberg (1594–1622). The younger brother of the ruling Duke of Württemberg Magnus died in the battle of Wimpfen on May 6, 1622, fighting on the side of the Protestant forces against the army of the Catholic League. The circumstances of his death prompted an investigation into the circle of the duke’s closest servants. From the results of this investigation, as well as from the reviews of contemporaries, the image of the sovereign martyr, one of the first in Protestant Germany during the Thirty Years War arose. What was the component of this myth? What were the main accents? What was the strategy of dynastic legitimation of the ruling House of Württemberg? How typical was the portrait of the hero in comparison with subsequent cults, especially the Swedish king Gustav Adolf, who died near Lutzen in 1632? To answer these questions the fund of unpublished documents from the main state archive of Stuttgart was used.
The article was written as part of the RFBR project «Europe in the era of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation: diplomatic correspondence of European courts of the 16th – first half of the 17th centuries» (17-01-00121-OGN).

Key Words: Württemberg, Thirty Years War, Magnus of Württemberg, nobility, Holy Roman Empire, Germany

URL: http://proslogion.ru/51-prokopiev/

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