Preliminary Programme

This study of poor noblewomen will focus on those noblewomen who lived in Ryazan and will be guided by the principle established in the Regulation of December 6, 1831, which required that all hereditary nobles possessing over 100 souls were entitled to participate in the election. Here the scene will be set to examine the experience of those women living on estates with less than 100 serfs. It will also include data gathered from the 1851 .Regulation of the Minister of the Interior referring to those nobles owning less than ten souls. Despite the fact that this group is less well studied, OPEC and county court records can provide abundant and vivid record of their material life since in the province of Ryazan in 1853 there were 5479 estates pledged for a loan from the government established and 2566 in 1860 and even though not all of them were smallholdings, a significant number were.
This study of noblewomen’s lives will be based upon evidence of their material gathered through the estate inventories. The inventory includes a description of: the manor house, often with interior decoration, a description of valuable clothing, the description of the complex of buildings near the manor house, the list of names of families of serfs with a description of the huts where they lived, and livestock in the possession of , land of the manor and farm buildings, and all the land owned. The inventory provided the assessed value and the estimated income gained from the estate. Thus, this paper gives an idea not only about the economic condition of noblewomen, but these documents allow one to “write” the story of poor noblewomen of Ryazan.
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The 17th century was a period coined by change in the Swedish empire. After having been a politically rather insignificant country, situated in the North-European periphery, far away from the pulsating power centers on the continent, it managed to gain unique power and geographical circumference in the early modern period.
This period, however, was not only the period of modernization, centralization and state formation, but also the time of social disturbance and peasant unrest. Sweden had had her share of peasant unrest in the preceding century, e.g. the Dacke War (1542-43) in the Western part of the realm, today’s Sweden, or the Club War (1595-97) in the Eastern part, today's Finland. Surprisingly, there were no uprisings of similar extent in the 17th century. Nonetheless, I argue that the fear of peasant unrest was omnipresent during this time, and haunted the Swedish aristocracy and the State Council, regardless of the absence of an actual rebellion. As earlier research has demonstrated, “everyday resistance” occurred in multiple Swedish provinces and the Swedish peasants, having a uniquely “influential” political position in comparison to peasants in other European states, were not hesitant to exploit the legal political instruments at their disposition, as well as illegal ones.
This fact is closely linked to the political culture in the Early Modern Swedish Empire. Earlier research can generally be divided into two groups: the interactionistic (characterizing the relationship between state power and subjects as a dialogue) and the power-state theoretic (viewing the relationship as controlled by the state elite).
In order to gain more profound insight into this relationship, I analyze the Swedish state power’s information channels. By identifying the sources of information, and studying how information is spread and instrumentalized by the elite, it is possible to depict the flow of information. Acquired information was unarguably a symbol for power. In the case of the Swedish council in the 1630's, it seems to be further fueling the fear of peasant revolts. The knowledge of peasant unrest in other European countries, combined with rather insufficient knowledge about the state of mind of the peasants within the realm, contributed to the highly alarmed state. This led the state to instrumentalize propaganda in order to keep the subjects in line.
Unfortunately, Swedish peasant unrest has been interpreted exclusively in a national context. In my dissertation, I analyze it in a transnational context, focusing on national as well as international channels of information.
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Dinners, concerts and receptions have been described as practices that carried political significance for Europe’s 18th Century elite. Court ceremonies as well as splendid “souper”s have in recent research been interpreted as material ways of expressing political importance.
The Danish salonnière and Finance Minister’s wife, Charlotte Schimmelmann (1757-1816) hosted many such gatherings at the Schimmelmann family residence in the centre of Copenhagen. Danish royals, foreign diplomats, artists and noble lords were among the many guests that were invited to the parties and concerts arranged by the wife of the country’s richest merchant and King’s counselor. In this paper, I argue that the Schimmelmann salon was a forum for the discussion of both national and foreign political affairs; according to the salonnière’s own private letters, she used the salon to assert her position both as a well-informed society hostess and as a participant in political debates between invites such as the Foreign Minister, the king’s son-in-law, the Prince of Augustenburg and the diplomats who were stationed in the city.
I will look at one kind of political action in the salon in particular, namely that of foreign diplomats who visited the Schimmelmann residence during their stay in Copenhagen. Among these diplomats, I focus on the case of the French envoys that visited the Schimmelmann salon at the time of the Revolutionary Wars, in which Denmark was a neutral player – and during which, Danish merchants made fortunes from trading with both sides of the conflict.
While the French Revolution shook Europe into war, it was already considered a decisive historical event by its contemporaries. The late 18th century, and particularly the years of Revolution in the 1780’s and 1790’s, is usually seen as a period of transition and change from absolutism to modernity and towards modern political ideas. On the other hand, diplomatic conduct has been depicted as a “perennial institution” that did not change until the advent of the New Diplomacy after World War I, well over a hundred years after the Revolution. Even so, the French diplomats that visited the Schimmelmann salon were rather seen as bearers of news, business partners, or even grists for the gossip mill when their visits were recounted by the hostess of the house, Charlotte Schimmelman, in her private letters.
Hence, this paper will discuss whether political practice changed at the same pace as its ideological basis. Demonstrating how the Schimmelmann salon indicates the obstacles and boundaries of 18th Century elite policy-making, I hope to widen the picture of a public sphere that replaced the representativeness of Old Regime Europe, by showing how one political sphere, such as the Schimmelmann salon, could mean different things to different political players within it. (Show less)