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Vilnius branch of the German Historical Institute Warsaw, Research Centre Ukraine / Max Weber Stiftung, and Vilnius University Faculty of History invites you to the 𝟐𝟖𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐋𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐰𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤, this time devoted to the history of violence, entitled 𝐕𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡-𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐮𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡.German Historical Institute Warsaw holds a discussion forum several times a year named after the renowned historian Joachim Lelewel (1786-1861). The aim of these scholarly exchanges is to invite researchers from Eastern and Western Europe to discuss mutually important historical topics. This will be the 28th Joachim Lelewel Talk organized by the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, and the second discussion to be held in Vilnius.
🗣️Please note that this event will be held in English.
📝𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧:
Historical imaginaries abound with images of brutal violence raging throughout the early modern period. Broadly conceived, the era between the "discovery" of the Americas and the French Revolution produced theatrical punishments, zealous religious persecution, and the first truly global conflict. Classical political history interpreted this period as the protracted birth of the modern state, which eventually claimed a monopoly on legitimate violence and thereby set interpersonal conflict on a trajectory of steady decline. Historically minded social-scientific research has lent support to this thesis by demonstrating, convincingly, a fall in homicide rates since the Middle Ages.
Quantitative perspectives, however important in their own right, capture only one side of the story. Qualitative scholarship, including anthropologically informed cultural history and microhistory, has shown violence to be a regulated and socially legible means of settling disputes rather than a breakdown of order. Further research has demonstrated how gender determined the entitlement to violence, shaped its justification, and structured its rules of engagement. More recently, developments in the history of the senses, emotions, and the body have illuminated the lived experience of violence. These approaches have done more than nuance the grand narrative of violence in decline: they have revealed violence as a resource for producing a particular social and political order, and they have prompted inquiry into the claims that competing institutions, beyond the centralizing state, made upon this resource.
The causes of interpersonal violence have received considerable attention in the historiography. Historians routinely identify the culture of honor as a principal trigger, since injured honor was traditionally redressed by violent means. Over the course of the early modern period, however, the centralizing state offered mediation and peaceable alternatives, thereby opening new forums for conflict resolution. Another frequently cited cause is the religious violence that beset post-Reformation Europe. While the limits of toleration have been studied extensively, research on everyday life has emphasized that kinship, economic interest, and neighborly ties often helped to bridge confessional divides. To date, however, the causes of conflict have attracted far more scholarly interest than its aftermath. Reconciliation practices, whether ordained by the state, the church, or custom, remain a promising avenue for further research.
This roundtable will situate the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within the broader comparative scholarship on interpersonal violence in early modern Europe, with the aim of discussing recent terminology and historiographical developments in the field.
🎙️𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬:
Prof. Paolo Broggio (Roma Tre University)
Dr. Jaśmina Korczak-Siedlecka (Uppsala University)
Dr. Yurii Zazuliak (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Doct. Povilas Andrius Stepavičius (Vilnius University)
🗒️𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫:
Dr. Povilas Dikavičius (German Historical Institute Warsaw)
📷 Please note that the event will be photographed and recorded.
🪪Prior registration is required: https://forms.gle/hPhaASDJTSb3fK4KA
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Event venue
VU Istorijos fakultetas, Universiteto g. 7, Universiteto gatvė 7, LT-01131 Vilnius, Lietuva, Vilnius, Lithuania
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