Trans-Baltic Networks and the Conduct of Early Modern Diplomacy

The dynamics of interstate relations around the early modern Baltic can in no way be captured by traditional diplomatic history’s focus on formal state institutions as the privileged agents of diplomatic activity.  Rather than approaching early modern diplomacy as the collision of states’ interests and the institutional apparatus constructed to carry them forward, this paper will argue that the actual conduct of early modern diplomacy ‘on the ground’ must be understood as an aggregate of interactions between individuals possessed of their own values and goals and connected to one another in networks of religious, cultural, economic, and familial affiliation that often paid scant attention to state, dynastic, and ‘national’ boundaries.  The study of those involved in crafting early modern interstate relationships therefore must not be limited solely to formally-credentialed diplomatic representatives, but rather must also take into account the transnational networks of military officers, bureaucrats, scholars, clergymen, and merchants who were just as much involved in building these relationships in less-formal but equally important ways.  This paper will examine the set of such networks that criss-crossed the early modern Baltic and played essential roles in conditioning relations between the states on either side of the sea.  More concretely, the paper will focus on the role played by these networks in servicing the complicated and multifaceted relationship between Brandenburg-Prussia and Sweden that evolved throughout the seventeenth century, and in doing so will complicate traditional understandings of the relationship phrased in the terms of power-political rivalry.  Through the shift of focus to the level of networks, the Baltic will emerge not only as a geopolitical and economic asset over which political entities competed, but also as a cultural zone and node of connection between groups of individuals spread around its coasts whose interactions conditioned those of their states.