| 1. |
- Andersson, Martin, 1988-
(författare)
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Migration i 1600-talets Sverige : Älvsborgs lösen 1613–1618
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is a study of migration in the early seventeenth-century Swedish feudal society, and of its migration regime; that is the political, legal and economic structures that shaped the migration patterns. The most important sources are taxation records from Älvsborgs lösen, containing demographic migration data for large parts of the Swedish realm 1613–1618. The migration regime is also studied through sources such as legislation and legal records.Migration rates and migration distances are analysed for households and for servants. Although most migration was short-distance, different social groups had different migration patterns. Further, urban migration patterns, inter-regional and international migration are analysed. Concerning migration rates, the study shows that migration was as common in seventeenth-century Sweden as in other parts of Europe (including England), and also as common as in the nineteenth century. In the thesis, legislation and legal practices concerning the mobility of tenants and servants, as well as concerning urban migration, international migration and forced migration (banishments and deportations) are studied. The study of the migration regime found that since not only rural but ideally also urban production was geographically fixed, regulating migration and population mobility was an important issue within the Swedish feudal society. The results confirm the fundamental importance of migration for the Swedish seventeenth-century feudal society, in which labour was free while the means of production were immobile. Through comparisons with historical research on other regions, this result is evidently not only valid for seventeenth-century Sweden, but may be generalized also for other feudal societies.
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| 2. |
- Blomqvist, Olof, 1990-
(författare)
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I want to stay : Local community and prisoners of war at the dawn of the eighteenth century
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is about war captivity in the early eighteenth century. It is also about the ways in which early modern local communities negotiated their boundaries towards the outside world. The resident populations’ interaction with prisoners of war (POWs) offers unique perspectives on how local communities handled wartime migrants. The dissertation studies three towns forced to receive POWs during the Great Northern War: Aarhus, in the kingdom of Denmark, Torgau in the electorate of Saxony and Uppsala in the kingdom of Sweden. It represents the first attempt to situate this conflict within the larger field of research on early modern war captivity. The dissertation uses a broad range of sources—including official correspondence, POW muster rolls, town council minutes and parish records—to reconstruct the movements and actions of individual POWs. These reconstructions show how their position in the community changed over time, a perspective that represents a distinctly new approach for studying early modern war captivity. The results underline that the local community played a crucial role in organising war captivity and, consequently, how the situation of the POWs became closely intertwined with other challenges facing the community at the time. The state strove to delegate costs and administrative responsibilities associated with housing, supporting and guarding POWs. These attempts were a forceful claim on local resources. Thus, the administration of war captivity was part of an ongoing negotiation regarding the relationship between the local community and the state. At the same time, the everyday interactions of war captivity were shaped by the fact that the status of POW lacked distinct social and legal meaning in the local context. The state showed little interest in regulating the POWs’ relationship to local institutions, such as the congregation and the legal system, leaving such questions to be negotiated on the local level. With little or no previous experience of interacting with POWs, the local community treated these people much the same as well-known and already established social groups, such as billeted soldiers and servants. The POWs’ position in the community was therefore not a great deal different from that of other groups of migrants, and the level of local belonging which POWs were able to achieve depended fundamentally on their individual ability to live up to local social norms. Of particular importance was the fact that POWs were employed in local households as servants, which provided them with a widely accepted social position in the community. However, building up a local social network, cultivating relationships with influential local patrons and marrying a local woman were processes that took time, generally requiring that the POW was able to remain in the community for several years.The experience of war captivity in Aarhus, Torgau and Uppsala demonstrates how a stranger could relatively easily achieve a basic degree of belonging in early modern towns. The threshold to full belonging, however, was steep. The dissertation argues that, particularly in Aarhus and Uppsala, the war served as an engine of social integration. Wartime mobilisation of economic and human resources destabilised these communities, creating vacant social and economic niches which some POWs were able to fill.
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| 3. |
- Folkesson, Pontus, 1990-
(författare)
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Att skola en stormakt : Framväxten av 1600-talets skolsystem genom lokalsamhällets aktörer
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis shows how Swedish urban schools were reformed, expanded and developed into a school system following the 1649 school curriculum. While previous research has emphasized different educational needs within the context of normative school curriculum or in relation to the emerging power of the state, this study argues that the expansion of urban schools must be understood as a response to local community actors and their interests. Gustav II Adolf's school reform comprised a resource-saving reorganisation. In spite of this reform, urban schools expanded, with the crown finally assuming the financial responsibility for the kingdom's schools in 1649. This study examines the reasons for this using the diocesan towns of Västerås and Strängnäs and the market towns of Arboga, Nyköping, Södertälje and Örebro.By using a wide range of source material, including school regulations, royal correspondence, cathedral copy books, matriculation registers and especially accounts, this book analyses the development of urban schools. Starting from the schools' funding and how that funding was used, the study identifies different actors and their interests. The involvement of the local community, which responded to the school reforms and their educational interests, explains the expansion of urban schools between 1620 to 1649.The results show that local community actors, such as bishops, the bourgeoisie, urban vicars and schoolmasters, played a crucial role in establishing and maintaining urban schools. In contrast to previous research, which has considered the growth of the state to be the result of negotiations between local actors and a central elite, the expansion of the urban schools up to 1649 should be seen as a reaction of local community actors to the state's reduction of resources. The bourgeoisie and bishops then acted to reshape the original school reform that Gustav II Adolf had presented in 1620.Rather than an unambiguous top-down or bottom-up process, the expansion of schools up to 1649 can be explained as the result of an interweaving of negotiations, conflicts and restructuring at different levels of society. These interactions led to a gradual hierarchization of existing schools in the kingdom's towns, which were then incorporated into a new school system.The political influence of the bourgeoisie was manifested by the preservation of the schools in the market towns; at the same time, their educational goals were incorporated into a common curriculum and school type for the entire kingdom, trivialskolan. The bishops successfully ran their prestige projects, gymnasieskolorna, which significantly strengthened the finances of the dioceses and made the diocesan towns prominent centers of education. At the same time, the crown's influence over urban schools increased. Thus, the expansion of the kingdom's schools up to 1649 can be regarded as a compromise of several actors’ interests.The results of this thesis show how the bourgeoisie and the clergy succeeded in manifesting their political influence, which was usually formulated outside the more institutional contexts of the Riksdag. The schools functioned as arenas where local interests and resources were aggregated. The study provides new insights into how the schools' actors influenced and shaped political decisions and processes, which were in turn significant for the overall social development of the early modern towns and the formation of the state in 17th-century Sweden.
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| 4. |
- Johansson, Dan, 1953-
(författare)
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Makt och Motstånd : Bönderna, örlogsflottan och den svenska staten 1522-1640
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The development of the Swedish state is studied through the central and local organizations that built, repaired, maintained and provisioned the Royal Swedish Navy. The state is viewed as an organization which bargained for resources with powerful social groups. Inspiration comes from theories of modern firm growth, powerholder-subordinate relations, and Charles Tilly´s theory of state formation. The statebuilding process has mainly been understood as a top-down process determined by negotiations between rulers and elites. In this dissertation, I argue for the relevance of another perspective, “statebuilding from below”. In 16th and early 17th century Sweden around 60 % of the land was owned by freeholders; freeholders who, with property rights and access to central and local representative assemblies, had influence over local political and economic issues. In the absence of a strong nobility and wealthy cities Swedish rulers, and the Swedish statebuilding process were dependent on freeholding farmers; both for their political support and the resources they represented in the form of taxes and labor. The main issue of the dissertation is to explain the different paths the organization supporting the Royal Swedish Navy took over a period of 120 years. From centralization, to decentralization, from state-organized to privately organized, and back.In order to demonstrate this “statebuilding from below” I investigate the organization’s provision of timber, labor and revenue, setting this in a context of power mobilization, conflicts and negotiations. Between 1523 and the mid-1540s the farmer’s met the states demand for resources to the navy with resistance, both open and violent. The state answered with coersion and repression. From the mid-1540s the state was forced to adapt to the reality of power relations between itself, the nobility and the tax-paying farmers. The result was a new way to interact and respond to farmers grievances. The system “the negotiating state” gave protection to ordinary people, against nobles, the authorities and famine, and stopped the open and violent protests. Negotiations and agreements between the king’s bailiffs and the freeholders were central for the state, and for the organizations ability to reach its goals.But as the navy and state power grew the system could not prevent an increased exploitation. To finance the production, shipbuilding was organized with local resources and decentralized to a vast number of local plants. In response the farmers combined the institutionally-sanctioned methods of protest with passive or hidden resistance; a resistance that grow with the states demands for revenue, ship carpenters and labor. In the first decade of the 17th century the king used the central parliament to mobilize greater resources for the armed forces and the navy. In 1611 the decentralized organization imploded. Instead of more coercion the state was again forced to adapt to the resistance from farmers and nobles. From 1615 the organization was centralized into three large production units. The earlier system with forced labor was abandoned. Centralization and an alliance between the king and the nobles changed power relations and created stability. However, despite the stronger position of the state, the freeholders’ actions compelled the development of a system with central and local representative arenas, where negotiations could take place and complaints heard. These steps were necessary for the creation of legitimacy and the necessary compliance with continued resource extraction. The freeholders’ influence on the early modern Swedish state building process was extensive and must be described as “state building from below”.
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| 5. |
- Salamonik, Michał, 1986-
(författare)
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In Their Majesties’ Service : The Career of Francesco De Gratta (1613-1676) as a Royal Servant and Trader in Gdańsk
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study analyses the administrative and economic career of Francesco De Gratta (1613–1676) as Royal Postmaster, Royal Secretary, and trader within the postal and fiscal systems of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This investigation focuses mainly on his network and career strategies and is based on various sources from a number of European archives and libraries, mainly those situated in Italy, Poland and Germany.The study presents the family De Gratta and the familial social actions that Francesco used in order to root his children and family in the Polish-Lithuanian noble culture. Next, the analysis shows that the career of Francesco De Gratta was inextricably correlated with the establishment of the early modern royal postal system in Gdańsk (the city of Gdańsk fulfilled an important bridging role within the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth) as well as his close contacts with different Polish kings and queens.The career followed distinct stages, tying him ever closer with the Crown, the nobility as well as the merchants in Gdańsk. It all started with his position as Head Postmaster in Gdańsk, in 1654. In 1661, he became Postmaster General of Royal Prussia, Courland, Semigallia and Livonia. After these initial steps, Francesco immersed in creditor activities and close contacts with the Royal Prussian cities, royal authorities, and not the least different Polish mint masters. He also got involved in the potash trade with his later son-in-law Jan Wawrzyniec Wodzicki, first as his factor and later as a co-owner of Wodzicki’s company. The study finally traces his social and economic advancement by the analysis of Francesco De Gratta’s legacies and their importance for his heirs’ social status.The summary compares the career of Francesco De Gratta with that of other postmasters and mint masters of Italian origin in Poland-Lithuania.
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| 6. |
- Zavatti, Francesco, 1982-
(författare)
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Writing History in a Propaganda Institute : Political Power and Network Dynamics in Communist Romania
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In 1990, the Institute for Historical and Socio-Political Studies of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party was closed, since the Party was dissolved by the Romanian Revolution. Similar institutions had existed in all countries belonging to the Soviet bloc. This Institute was founded in 1951 under the name of the Party History Institute, and modelled on the Marx-Lenin-Engels Institute in Moscow. Since then, it served the Communist Party in producing thousands of books and journals on the history of the Party and of Romania, following Party orders. Previous research has portrayed the Institute as a loyal executioner of the Party’s will, negating the agency of its history-writers in influencing the duties of the Institute. However, the recent opening of the Institute’s archive has shown that a number of internal and previously obscured dynamics impacted on its activities. This book is dedicated to the study of the Party History Institute, of the history-writers employed there, and of the narratives they produced. By studying the history-writers and their host institution, this study re-contextualizes the historiography produced under Communist rule by analysing the actual conditions under which it was written: the interrelation between dynamics of control and the struggle for resources, power and positions play a fundamental role in this history. This is the first scholarly inquiry about a highly controversial institute that struggled in order to follow the constantly shifting Party narrative canon, while competing formaterial resources with rival Party and academic institutions. The main actors in this study are the history-writers: Party veterans, young propagandists and educated historians, in conflicting networks and groups, struggled in order to gain access to the limited resources and positions provided by the Party, and in order to survive the political changes imposed by the leadership. By doing so they succeed, on many occasions, to influence the activities of the Institute.
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