The Letters of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm to the Emperor Ferdinand III. from the Swedish National Archives
Project leader: Prof. Dr. Mark Hengerer
Researchers: Isabella Hödl, Franziska Honer, Julius Kiendl, Heike Nickel, Hildegard Renner, Alexandra Röckel, Christine Rogler, Dr. Renate Schreiber (Wien), Pia Zachary
Software development: Dr. Gerhard Schön (IT Gruppe Geisteswissenschaften)
Project description:
The National Archives of Sweden possess hundreds of letlers by archduke Leopold Wilhelm to emperor Ferdinand III. from the 1640s. They presumably came to Sweden as loot from Prague. Their special relevance comes, on the one hand, from the fact that they address important aspects of imperial and Spanish politics and warfare in the final phase of the Thirty Years War. On the other hand, they also speak about many topics of daily life and culture. The little known, distant and difficult to read letter were so far extensively used only by Renate Schreiber and Mark Hengerer in their biographies of the correspondants. The edition will make the letters available to a broad academic public.
The project generated a lot of interest at the Historikertage 2016 in Hamburg where Franziska Honer, Hildegard Renner, Heike Nickel, Christine Rolger and Pia Zachary presented it in the poster session on Digital Humanities (see poster).
The project was also presented by Pia Zachary in the international workshop "In Their Own Hand. Personal Letters in Habsburg Dynastic Networks" (Wien, 3. and 4. December 2015) with her paper on "Emotions and Narratology. The Letters of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (1614-1662) to Ferdinand III. (1608-1658)" (see flyer)
The "Münchener Universitätsgesellschaft" supported the research trip to the Riksarkivet in Stockholm. A report on the progect and the stay in Stockholm can be found on its website.
The project was chosen for the innovation in teaching prize of LMU Munich.
http://briefedition.geschichte.lmu.de/
Project duration: Preparatory phase: 2014/15; Project work with digital editor: 2015/17