Umocnienia polowe jako znak kulturowy

• Authors: Rafał Śledzik-Kamiński

Title variants

EN

ON THE CULTURAL CONNOTATION OF SCHWEDENSCHANZEN IN LOWER SILESIA

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Anomalous features of relief were marked on maps by cartographers as Schwedenschanzen. A field fortification which survives from the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) and the time of the presence of Swedish forces in Silesia is the sconce [Schanze]. It is possible to distinguish sconces into open and closed forms. The religious differences between the predominantly Protestant population of Silesia and Catholic monarchs from the House of Habsburg led to misunderstandings and escalation of conflict. The result of close ties between the Silesian and the Bohemian estates was participation of Silesian units in the initial phase of the conflict. After the defeat in the Battle at White Mountain (8 November 1620) and an accord reached sometime later with the Catholic monarch, Silesia enjoyed a brief period of peace. On July 1630 the army of Gustaf II Adolf landed on the island Usedom. Starting from 1632, three Protestant armies were operating in Silesia: the army of Sweden, Brandenburg and Saxony. A separatist peace made by the Electorate of Saxony with the Emperor (30 May 1635) exposed the Swedish flank and deprived the Swedish armies of supplies. The commanders decided to lead their units to an area vacated by the army of Saxony to fill the gap in the defensive and supply lines. Contacts between the villagers and soldiers presumably were tense during the initial period of their stay but distrust may have subsided a little as the two groups began to get to know each other. The farmers were natural suppliers of food, drink and diversions. Commercial and social contacts between peasants and soldiers were made. The outsiders gradually became “tame”, no longer strangers, the presence of the army may have protected the local people from marauders or from other armed units. The Peace of Westphalia which ended the Thirty Years’ War (signed in 1648) extended also to the Protestants in Silesia. The Swedish monarch and the Protestant estates of the German states obtained the right to intervene on the behalf of Silesian Protestants if their rights were violated. Restoration of Catholicism in Silesia started in 1653. Oppression of the Protestant faith, pressure to change their confession and persecution generated antagonism between the monarch and his subjects. The ruler was not “one of us”, he was “an outsider”, not a friend; instead, the Swedish kings appeared increasingly to be “our own”. The name Schwedenschanzen given to defensive works would have been a sort of a memento that there is a defender of the oppressed, someone the ruler has to reckon with. Military operations and political activity associated with them, military engineering concept, war campaigns, the relationship between “natives” and “outsiders”, religious conflict and – even – historical fiction, all combine in the name Schwedenschanzen used to describe features of the landscape.

Keywords

EN

SCHWEDENSCHANZEN; FIELD FORTIFICATIONS; SILESIA; THIRTY YEARS’ WAR

• Publisher: Instytut Archeologii Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego
• Journal: Śląskie Sprawozdania Archeologiczne
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 53
• Pages: 167-176

Contributors

author

Rafał Śledzik-Kamiński

• Stacjonarne Studia Doktoranckie Nauk o Kulturze, Uniwersytet Wrocławski, ul. Szewska 48, 50-139 Wrocław, Poland