Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SMALLST (The Diplomacy of Small States in Early Modern South-eastern Europe)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-09-01 al 2025-02-28
The project aims to explore what early modern small states at the borderland between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe have in common in their diplomatic strategies, despite their greatly varying characteristics. The legal traditions, forms of rulership, political cultures and languages were inherently different in e.g. the Western Christian city-state Ragusa, the Eastern Orthodox elective principality of Wallachia, and the Muslim hereditary khanate of Crimea. And yet, these political units all managed to keep a relatively high level of autonomy on the frontiers between empires with different civilizational background.
Through a comparative analysis of diplomacy in the region, we aim to contrast empire- or nation-state-based narratives on Early Modern diplomacy from a radically different perspective, bringing into focus an array of hitherto neglected issues. Such issues are the strategies these small states followed to overcome their vulnerability and to cope with their situation; the impact of their position at cultural borderlands on their diplomatic practices; the way they managed to communicate in two radically different political languages; and how the agents of diplomacy functioned in this peculiar context. The following small states stand in our focus: Ragusa, Transylvania, Moldavia, Wallachia, Crimea, Cossack Ukraine, as well as the short-lived Hungarian attempts to create a polity separate from the Habsburg-ruled Kingdom of Hungary.
The result of the project is going to be a collective monograph, compiled from preliminary research papers provided by the experts of the individual small states, based on questionnaires that specify the details of the topics to be discussed, and thus making a unified narrative possible. The monograph will be joined by a source compendium, in which early modern texts in English translation illustrate the most important phenomena characteristic for the individual small states. The project will have three international conferences dedicated to major themes of the small states’ history of diplomacy, opening up the scope of interest to Europe and its immediate surroundings. A database on the diplomats of the small states will support the clarification of specific problems related to the agents of foreign affairs, and provide a useful research tool for the public.
Through a comparative analysis of diplomacy in the region, we aim to contrast empire- or nation-state-based narratives on Early Modern diplomacy from a radically different perspective, bringing into focus an array of hitherto neglected issues. Such issues are the strategies these small states followed to overcome their vulnerability and to cope with their situation; the impact of their position at cultural borderlands on their diplomatic practices; the way they managed to communicate in two radically different political languages; and how the agents of diplomacy functioned in this peculiar context. The following small states stand in our focus: Ragusa, Transylvania, Moldavia, Wallachia, Crimea, Cossack Ukraine, as well as the short-lived Hungarian attempts to create a polity separate from the Habsburg-ruled Kingdom of Hungary.
The result of the project is going to be a collective monograph, compiled from preliminary research papers provided by the experts of the individual small states, based on questionnaires that specify the details of the topics to be discussed, and thus making a unified narrative possible. The monograph will be joined by a source compendium, in which early modern texts in English translation illustrate the most important phenomena characteristic for the individual small states. The project will have three international conferences dedicated to major themes of the small states’ history of diplomacy, opening up the scope of interest to Europe and its immediate surroundings. A database on the diplomats of the small states will support the clarification of specific problems related to the agents of foreign affairs, and provide a useful research tool for the public.
The methodology devised for the collective monograph was successfully implemented in the first two years of the project, thus research papers were submitted by the project members concerning the thematic sections ‘Strategies’ and ‘Practices’. The first discussed the content of the small states’ rulers’ political conduct, the framework of their activities in the Ottoman and in the Christian international societies of the early modern era, as well as their methods for establishing or maintaining their positions. The aim of the second was to identify the structural framework of their diplomatic representation in various environments, and their methods used for finding patrons and securing support for maintaining or enlarging their space of manoeuvring. The preliminary research papers were turned into monograph chapters, and thus creating the most important planned result of the project goes according to schedule.
Identifying the sources to be covered by the source compendium also started and by the end of Year Two we have the draft of four chapters available out of the planned six. This includes a selection of sources to be translated into English and a short introduction for each one, which explains its relevance for the thematic section, as well as an explanation of the specific historical circumstances necessary for understanding the source itself. The third pillar of the project’s activities are the international conferences, and both conferences specified for the first two years in the Document of Action have taken place. Both “Navigating the Society of Princes: The Strategies of Early Modern Small States in Their Foreign Policy” (Budapest, 30–31 May 2023) and “Accessing Arcana Imperii: Diplomatic Practices of Early Modern Small States in Eastern Europe” (Bucharest, 28–29 May 2024) involved a large number of scholars outside the project, who enriched our thinking with both novel questions and interesting new results. The editorial work related to the edited volume based on the first conference has already commenced, and we are also expecting the contributions for the second to arrive.
The database covering the diplomats sent by early modern Southeast-European small state rulers is also being developed, and further works of the project are ready to be printed, such as the first item in a planned series of narrative sources from the region related to diplomacy in English translation: the memoirs of a Transylvanian aristocrat, János Kemény.
Identifying the sources to be covered by the source compendium also started and by the end of Year Two we have the draft of four chapters available out of the planned six. This includes a selection of sources to be translated into English and a short introduction for each one, which explains its relevance for the thematic section, as well as an explanation of the specific historical circumstances necessary for understanding the source itself. The third pillar of the project’s activities are the international conferences, and both conferences specified for the first two years in the Document of Action have taken place. Both “Navigating the Society of Princes: The Strategies of Early Modern Small States in Their Foreign Policy” (Budapest, 30–31 May 2023) and “Accessing Arcana Imperii: Diplomatic Practices of Early Modern Small States in Eastern Europe” (Bucharest, 28–29 May 2024) involved a large number of scholars outside the project, who enriched our thinking with both novel questions and interesting new results. The editorial work related to the edited volume based on the first conference has already commenced, and we are also expecting the contributions for the second to arrive.
The database covering the diplomats sent by early modern Southeast-European small state rulers is also being developed, and further works of the project are ready to be printed, such as the first item in a planned series of narrative sources from the region related to diplomacy in English translation: the memoirs of a Transylvanian aristocrat, János Kemény.
The methodology of writing the collective monograph is extremely rare among historians, who usually prefer individual work or think in terms of collective volumes where chapters are geographically based, and written separately by individual researchers. Its successful implementation can be considered one of the greatest achievements of the project, since it manages to tackle two problems comparative research concerning the Southeast-European region has to face: no single person can master the enormous variety of the languages of sources and secondary literature, but if the analysis is made by a group, individual scholars are likely to have very different approaches and sets of questions, which produces narratives incomparable to each other. The seven chapters which are already available in the first draft show that the book will not only bring together already existing knowledge, but it will be successful in opening up new research fields for the scholars working on the individual polities, since they had to face questions which is clearly relevant for another small state, but was never considered such in the framework of the research on their own polity. Apart from this, the collective monograph also brings forth new evidence that had never been earlier used in the history of the individual polities, because it would have required special linguistic skills or intimate knowledge on groups of sources that were never considered central for the research on the specific small state.
From the chapters available so far it is striking how the internal social structures and historical traditions of the specific individual states determine their political action and diplomatic practices – much more than their theoretically similar Ottoman tributary status. Even in the Ottoman context, differences are extremely wide between the individual polities, as their political elites learn to adapt the forms offered by the sultanic centre according to their own historical traditions and their interests. The huge variety of practices identified in the context of Ottoman politics at the same time also underlines the importance of the often emphasised flexibility of the sultans’ empire-making. Analysing the small states’ presence in the Christian international society brings forth important evidence about the often rather flexible and context-based rules of accepting rulers with limited sovereignty as legitimate partners in the early modern society of princes.
From the chapters available so far it is striking how the internal social structures and historical traditions of the specific individual states determine their political action and diplomatic practices – much more than their theoretically similar Ottoman tributary status. Even in the Ottoman context, differences are extremely wide between the individual polities, as their political elites learn to adapt the forms offered by the sultanic centre according to their own historical traditions and their interests. The huge variety of practices identified in the context of Ottoman politics at the same time also underlines the importance of the often emphasised flexibility of the sultans’ empire-making. Analysing the small states’ presence in the Christian international society brings forth important evidence about the often rather flexible and context-based rules of accepting rulers with limited sovereignty as legitimate partners in the early modern society of princes.