Perceptions of the Person in Representations of Violence. Self-Narratives from the Thirty Years War

Researcher: Dr. Andreas Bähr

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Claudia Ulbrich

Abstract

This project investigates conceptions of the ‚person‘ in self-narratives from the times of the Thirty Years‘ War and the ‚Turkish Wars‘ in the 17th century. Self-narratives from the times of the Thirty Years‘ War describe a disruption of the personal order in the face of an “unspeakable” fear of the wars’ violence when religious and moral, political and cultural affiliations and classifications were challenged. As this fear was often described as one that had been overcome or had to be overcome, the written memory of anxiety often seems to be an attempt to maintain or to reconstruct order in the face of the violence that destroyed it. This project explores texts by people from different confessions and regional origins, different social strata and gender from the perspective of historic-cultural semantics. It will be explored to what extent the experience of fear of violence constitutes the writer as person and to what extent these persons perceived themselves as agents. Since fear in this context clearly had significant religious implications, accounts of Christian fear characterized by Christian denominations will be compared with Christian fear of the “turkish” ‘non-Christians’. This comparison will be central in order to answer the question about the historic and epochal significance of the Thirty Years’ War more accurately.

Dr. Andreas Bähr