Today’s #handbook author is none other than our wonderful co-editor @dorotheegoetze.
Goetze is Assistant Professor at the Midsweden University in Sundsvall. If you ask her herself, she is not an historian of #emdiplomacy, but does constitutional history and early modern peace research with a special focus on the #HolyRomanEmpire and the Baltic region. Thus, she brings different perspectives into the field of #NewDiplomaticHistory.
She publishes extensively in German, Swedish and English, e.g. this #openaccess article in English on hospitality and the Riga capitulation in 1710. (2/7)
Summing up, Goetze concludes that the complexity of #emdiplomacy is reflected in the complexity of the #HRE and calls for more a more inclusive approach meaning more exchange between different research tradition, combining constitutional history, court studies and dynastic history and #NewDiplomaticHistory. (7/7)
Although it is already Friday, we do not want to conclude this week without introducing another #emdiplomacy#handbook chapter.
The next author to enter the stage is Maria Petrova who is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of World History at the Russian Academy of Sciences:
Having published broadly on Russian #diplomacy towards Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, Petrova is one of the leading experts in the field. See e.g. her study on the appearance of Russian #diplomats at the Imperial Diet in Regensburg (2/4)
1549 is considered the foundation date of the Russian foreign office, but until the 18th century Russian tsars preferred to permanent diplomatic representatives abroad. Major reforms were only introduced under the reign of Tsar Peter I.
However, a change in attitude towards foreign #diplomats already followed the dynastical change in the 1610s: restrictions were eased. Moreover, the tsar began to welcome permanent representatives from other territories and to establish permanent diplomats himself. (3/4)
By intensifying interaction with other #courts and rulers, Russian #diplomats became cultural brokers who contributed to the transfer of people, objects and ideas from Europe to Russia.
Petrova argues that the introduction of the European diplomatic rank system and ceremonial was aimed more at demonstrating the superiority of Russian rulers than at creating equal relations with other powers. (4/4)
But she is not alone! With David Gehring at University of Notthingham, who is an expert on #earlymodern#British#history, she found the perfect partner in writing. Gehring’s special interest on #Elizabethan#England's relations with the Protestant territories of the #HolyRomanEmpire and #Denmark is also reflected in his publications:
In their article, Freyer and Gehring provide us with an overview over how #English and #British#emdiplomacy developed from the 16th to the 18th century. Traditionally, research stressed #England’s diplomatic relations with #Spain and #France. With a broader understanding of English interests coming to the fore, the research focus widened accordingly.
#Scotland and England followed their own diplomatic agendas in the 16th century, exercising #diplomacy in different ways and with different partners. However, this included also each other with intensive diplomatic contacts in the 1530s and 1540s as well as the 1560s and 1570s. The #UnionoOfTheCrown in 1603 changed the preconditions for English and Scottish diplomacy according to Freyer and Gehring, as England became dominant for foreign relations, although in theory Scottish diplomacy could have run alongside the English. (4/6)
18th century #British#emdiplomacy faced self-made hurdles. The personnel for example were British upper classes who could meet the requirements for ceremonial knowledge, but were not trained in international relations or the duties of #emdiplomats in particular. Thus, while European #diplomacy became increasingly professionalised, British diplomacy remained stuck in an increasingly outmoded understanding of ceremonial and social capital. (6/6)
One central problem that resulted from the federal nature of the #Dutch republic was secrecy: How could one keep a secret with so many actors involved? This was almost a mission impossible, although one tried several measures such as an oath of secrecy to deal with the problem.
When dealing with Dutch #emdiplomacy you inevitably come across two other big issues: the Protestant character of Dutch #earlymodern#diplomacy and the importance of trade and commercial interests. For @helmers_h and @NinaLamal these are not contradictory interests. However, they argue that “commerce, geopolitics, and protestantism were perfectly reconcilable”. (4/5)
Finally, @helmer and @NinaLamal argue that it is important to analyse #Dutch#emdiplomacy not only in its European context, but in its global dimension. The East India Company (#VOC) and its growing importance in #Asia played an important role in the rise of the Dutch republic. Unfortunately, both dimesions – the European and the global one – are far too often dealt seperately with by modern research. A problem that is generally true for research on #earlymodern diplomacy.
This leads to an overarching problem of how to competently connect national, European and global perspectives on diplomacy without blurring the focus. A question to be discussed elsewhere. (5/5)
Today, we want to introduce you to another pioneer of #NewDiplomaticHistory who did a lot to promote the subject on an international scene: Roberta Anderson who is also a member of our editorial board. (4/n)
For concluding #WomensHistoryMonth we want to introduce to you another wonderful female #emdiplomacy scholar: Lisa Hellman who recently was inaugurated as professor of global history at Lund University:
Natour thus argues for more interdisciplinary cooperation between the history of diplomacy, art history, the history of music, the history of ideas as well as theatre and literary studies.
If we want to understand what #emdiplomacy was and who #emdiplomats were, we need, according to Natour, include paintings and other visual media in our considerations. (7/7)
Transdisciplinary and transepochal exchange can be inspiring and challenging at the same time. Halvard Leira explores what the #NewDiplomaticHistory can learn from #IR and where one has to be careful when adapting modern concepts to #emdiplomacy.
But it’s not only #earlymodern#NewDiplomaticHistory that can learn from an exchange with #IR: @halvardl is sure that this could give #InternationalRelations a better understanding of how and when ‘the international’ emerged and changed. There is much to learn for both sides and we are looking forward to explore at least some of the questions raised by Leira. (5/5)
When discussing #earlymodern European diplomacy, it is important to widen the perspective and look beyond Europe. This helps to understand #emdiplomacy in its diversity and counteract the classical #eurocentrism. For the @emdiplomacy#handbook Birgit Tremml-Werner has taken up the global perspective.
In her article Tremml-Werner identifies core elements of intercultural and transcontinental #diplomacy such as misunderstandings which could occur on all sides of negotiations, originating from either ignorance or a belief in the superiority of one’s own way of thinking and acting, including religious beliefs, or the importance of power bargaining and different legal regimes in polycentric macro-regions such as the Atlantic world, the Indian Ocean or the Sinosphere. (4/10)
However, traditionally, empires and indigenous communities outside Europe had been excluded from state-centred diplomatic history, so it was left to scholarship in post-World War II area studies, anthropology and the social sciences to thoroughly investigate diplomatic exchange outside European spheres of influence. (5/10)
A popular way of comparing intercultural diplomatic actors beyond Europe is to focus on #courts and their performative roles, especially in (Eur)Asia. Compared to #earlymodern Eurasia, it is far more difficult to apply actor-based approaches in the Mesoamerican frontier and the Pacific, due to different recording styles and differences in how official receptions were prepared, as well as the absence of direct correspondences between delegation members and their patrons, which was usually carried out by indigenous intermediaries. (6/10)
With the expansion of long-distance trade, beneficial commercial relations turned into the prime subject of foreign relations in certain areas. Policies in dealing with foreigners would often develop organically in port cities with large foreign communities. On certain occasions, this would include the official exchange of #envoys with the representatives from the country of origin of merchant communities. In other geographical settings, such as in the East Asian polities described above, boundaries between foreign relations and foreign trade were blurred for centuries. (7/10)
Moreover, Tremml-Werner highlights selected practices of intercultural and transcontintenal #diplomacy such as diplomatic ceremony and tribute-systems, compact or patronage. In many parts of the world, written documents have a long tradition of creating formality and trust, which led them to become the preferred tool of governance and administration. They also became a “symbolic image” of power relations. Given the aesthetic elements of letters, they can be regarded as elements of material diplomacy and – in certain circumstances – an integrated part of employing cultural exchange through gift-giving, in particular when interwoven with gold leaf, as was the case with several official letters sent from Asia to Europe. Other examples of diplomatic letters with a strong aesthetic and material component are to be found in Sumatra and in Islamic Africa. (8/10)
Appearing in various places around the globe, treaties are not only concluded between polities who share a similar idea of sovereignty or territorial rights, which does not disqualify them as instruments of #diplomacy The issue about intercultural treaties leads to the question of whether these agreements had an equal or unequal character. Clearly, different forms of unequal treaties existed from the seventeenth century onwards – colonial treaties and the unequal imperialist treaties implemented with Asian empires such as China, Japan or the Ottomans. In Canada, for example, the British crown concluded dozens of treaties with the indigenous populations with regard to settlements and land rights. Indigenous agency within these processes has often been overlooked in the study of these treaty negotiations. (9/10)
Tremml-Werner demands more exchange between studies of European diplomatic history and that of other world regions and academic traditions to integrate native and indigenous sources and voices more balanced and to understand the rise of diplomacy as a result of global processes. (10/10)