Authors

John Freeman¹;  ¹ University of Warsaw, Poland

Discussion

The Duchy of Courland has been referred to by the Latvian National History Museum as the ‘longest-surviving state in the territory of Latvia during the Early Modern age’. Such a description acknowledges that Courland was not quite a forerunner to Latvia but perhaps the closest equivalent of a Baltic state during this period. The duchy, a vassal of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, owed much of its early modern identity to its location as a Baltic Sea borderland. From the seventeenth century onwards, the dukes of Courland attempted to position themselves as neutrals between the Commonwealth, Sweden and Muscovy, as well as gaining a reputation as a maritime merchant power. This created new opportunities for the duchy to be of use to figures from abroad who wished to gain information about regional Baltic conflicts or propose new commercial ventures. However, much of Courland’s positionality was contested, not just by foreigners that coveted influence over it, but also within the duchy’s political estates and social strata. The mostly Baltic German elite was split between the dukes, the towns and the powerful nobility, the last of which constrained the domestic agency of the two former estates. The nobility constructed a knightly identity based on the Baltic crusades of the medieval period and notably opposed foreign or foreign-educated influence in the ducal council. The dukes, meanwhile, sought opportunities outside of the Baltic to compensate for their lack of local power, the most dramatic example being Duke Jakob’s (reigned 1642-1682) attempt to establish outposts in the Caribbean and Africa. This was not only an attempt to gain wealth through long-distance trade, but also to establish an ‘Atlantic Courland’ where the duke could exercise greater influence than in the Baltic domestic sphere. 

The paper investigates the role of place and space in forming different identities between Courland’s three estates and its peasantry, as well as asking what use early modern actors gained from Baltic or extra-Baltic positionality. It will consider whether a concept of 'Atlantic Courland' as opposed to 'Baltic Courland' is useful in charactersing Duke Jakob's objectives or the competing horizons of the ducal and noble estates.