press release 242-01 vom 01. Dezember 2001
Competition in the Humanities promoted by the Ministry of Education

The project in Rostock "Network of Towns and Urbanization in the Baltic in Modern Times - Historical Information System and Analysis of Demography, Economy and Building Culture in the 17th and 18th Century" (Directors: Prof. Kersten Krüger, Prof. Gyula Pápay) combines in a very interesting way historical questions concerning the comparative history of towns in the Baltic region with the development of an innovative information system. In digitized maps, the insights won in the project will provide information about the social structures in the towns of the Baltic region. While the historic material is edited in Rostock, Wismar and Greifswald, computer scientists in Rostock allow for the material's use and the further processing by the scientific cooperation partners in the Baltic region via the internet
Competition in the Humanities

1 Summary

It is a task for the 21st century to regain the Baltic's lost unity. The historical retrospection on epochs when the Baltic Sea and its adjoining states formed a united economic, action and culture space can help this goal. The last section of this unit, when the Swedish great power ignited a societal modernization process through systematic urbanization politics, deserves special attention. The existing network of towns changed through this process which is understood as Europeanization, as well as through the military requirements of the great power. The building of fortresses and garrisons became location factors besides the economy. It can be assumed that the standardization of the building shape which accompanied the process left traces also in the consciousness of the citizens and inhabitants.

The goal of the project is the analysis of urbanization, of the network of towns and of its change in the Swedish Baltic region in the 17th and 18th centuries. The results are to be documented in a Historical Information System, as well as in an anthology. The information system is to link maps, databases, graphics and texts and make them available for present and future researchers.

2 Historischer Rückblick

Water does not separate, water unites. This experience and wisdom made the Baltic Sea a high-speed traffic way for centuries, which allowed the Baltic region to be a united space of action for economy, culture and politics. Chambers of settlement, regions and landscapes found their natural borders in the surrounding impassable forests, while waters allowed communication and interaction. It was first modern times - when faster traffic was flowing on artificial streets and railways - that allowed waters to be defined and handled as natural borders. Finally it was the competing national movements and the following national states of the 19th and 20th centuries which destroyed the union of the Baltic region by fragmenting it politically and economically. Under the conditions of the Cold War, the confrontation of the great power blocks turned large portions of the Baltic Sea into a Mare Clausum. First since the end of the 20th century there has been hope to regain the lost unity of the Baltic region, which is to be designed by the 21st century. In pre-Christian times the military as well as commercial activities of the Vikings were carried by the Scandinavic and in part also Slavic farmer societies. Only in few places, settlements similar to towns developed for exchange in distant trade, i.e. Haithabu, Birka (located at the Mälar Lake) or Rerik (proven in Groß Strömkendorf). New dimensions in quantity and quality of broad economical as well as cultural interaction were opened up by the Hanse in the course of Northern and Eastern Europe's Christianization and after. This was accompanied by a first, still wide meshed urbanization of the Baltic region that created a network for the region's integration into the Christian Europe and arranged an extensive first advance of modernization for the countries of the Baltic. The monarchies that were strengthened by this, increased their power in famous unions: the Polish-Lithuanian from 1386 and the Kalmar Union from 1387 and were able to successfully stand up to the dominance of the Hanse. For the Hanse organized the exchange in a bound system, secured by privileges and of unequal chances, that was replaced by free trade through the cooperation of the Hanse rivals - Netherlands and England - and the Baltic States. Free trade shaped the business cycle (große Konjunktur?) of the 16th and 17th century. Change was brought by the erection of the Swedish Baltic dominance in the 17th century.

The Kalmar Union had broken with Gustav Vasa in 1523 and had induced the beginning of Sweden's rise to the status of a great power. A weakness in foreign policy characterized the Russian and the Polish empires as well as the Holy Roman Empire of German Nations. It was here that the Swedish great power won ground, and when the Baltic Sea did not develop into a Swedish Mare Clausum, it is thanks to the competing great power Denmark. Sweden did not leave it at the establishment of maritime and military dominance but launched a concentrated urbanization which combined the goals of economic modernization and military security. By order of the Swedish crown not less than 31 new towns were established in Sweden and Finland from 1580 until 1688, i.e. Helsingfors/Helsinki or Karlskrona - in comparison to 61 already existing towns. Besides this, existing towns such as Landskrona, Reval, Stettin, Stralsund and Wismar were fortified. New functions of the affected towns did not only result in constructional changes but also in drastic economical and social change: the economy had to blend in with the great power interests and the military and administrational personnel that moved into the town claimed the role of a leading group. During this process, the unity of the Baltic region remained essentially unchanged, even when Sweden lost many of its possessions and with this the role of a great power, after the Great Nordic war. Russia, which had risen to a Baltic Sea power, dealt carefully with its new acquisitions. Here the authority had changed but the traditional inner structures as well as the outer relations stayed untouched. This also still applied to Finland when it came from Sweden to the Czarist Empire in 1809. Only the later national movements narrowed the horizons by not only separating themselves from other peoples but also by erecting borders even on the water. The desideratum of borders as least penetrable as possible destroyed the unity of the Baltic space of action with its freedom of trade, change, culture and politics. Chances for the future did not actually arise from this, rather the contrary. It will be the 21st century that can provide changes here.