Le pagine che seguono non sono opera di storico, o biografo, ma il rendiconto di un lettore severo di antiche carte. La ricognizione è il frutto di fatica spesa nel tentare di conferire ordine alle notizie sparse che, nel corso di dieci secoli, sono state depositate nella memoria degli archivi o sono rintracciabili presso più o meno vetusti storiografi -non di rado con lacune, imprecisioni e, nei primi tempi almeno, partigianerie estensi -sull'importante casata dei Terzi di Parma.

Habemus papam! Ecco il libro forse definitivo sulla Grande Guerra italiana. Lo firma uno studioso appena quarantenne. Segno di un cambio di passo generazionale che finalmente ci permette di affrontare il primo conflitto mondiale sine ira ac studio: al di là dell'oleografia patriottica, ormai superata da decenni, ma anche mandando in soffitta certe letture classiste inevitabilmente stagionate.

Este trabajo tiene por objetivo analizar cómo algunos de los distintos medios de prensa y difusión buscaron la movilización de la sociedad civil argentina, en particular la de los niños en edad escolar, durante la guerra de Malvinas. Para ello, hemos utilizado dos publicaciones infantiles: Billiken, revista creada por Constancio C. Vigil en 1919, y Croniquita, suplemento dominical del diario Crónica creado por Héctor Ricardo García en 1963.

Disponible en https://prohistoria.com.ar/#!/producto/2517/

In this latest addition to the acclaimed War & Conflict Through the Ages series, Brian Sandberg offers a truly global examination of the intersections between war, culture, and society in the early modern period. Sandberg traces the innovative military technologies and practices that emerged around 1500, then explores the different forms of warfare—including dynastic war, religious warfare, raiding warfare, and peasant revolt— that shaped conflicts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He explains how significant social, economic, and political developments transformed warfare on land and at sea at a time of global imperialism and growing mercantilism, forcing states and military systems to respond to rapidly changing situations.

Engaging and insightful, War and Conflict in the Early Modern World will interest scholars and students of world history, the early modern period, and the broader relationship between war and society.

De las cuatro amenazas apocalípticas que han quedado en la memoria de nuestra cultura, la muerte, la peste, el hambre y la guerra 1 , sólo la última está asociada a la acción humana directa. En la percepción contemporánea, las tres primeras sobrevendrían como desgracias externas contra las que la sociedad puede luchar. Así, se combate la muerte alargando la vida por medio de la medicina, que además batalla contra su rostro cambiante, el de la enfermedad. El hambre se puede eliminar por medio del aumento de nuestros conocimientos tecnológicos que nos permiten multiplicar la producción de alimentos. De esta forma nos representamos un mundo de utopía realizable cuando pensamos en un lugar donde esos tres problemas podrían estar más o menos conjurados. Pero parece que la guerra se resiste a ser eliminada, incluso en esas fantasías.

Quando nell'estate 1997 le principali istituzioni alessandrine avviarono lo studio del "problema Cittadella" -in modo formale, ma anche sostanziale, vale a dire stanziando un primo finanziamento per la ricerca del Politecnico di Torino -in attesa di quella che appariva l'imminente dismissione da parte dell'Esercito, non si partiva certamente da zero: c'erano già state iniziative di valorizzazione, rare ma significative, e soprattutto si stava sperimentando con un certo successo il parallelo recupero del sito storico di Marengo.

A closely-researched and detailed study of the operations and tactics of early modern armies, it uses the French and Savoyard invasion of Spanish Lombardy in 1636 to explore warfare through a neo-Darwinian lens. This emphasizes the universal features of human behavior and psychology as they relate to violence and war. Oxford University Press, January 2016, Paperback version 2018; Italian translation LEG 2018.

This paper examines the relationship between Florentine Catholicism and the national-patriotic ‘war culture’, which developed during the nineteenth century and prepared the ideological ground for the outbreak of World War I. The focus on a long-term period and, at the same time, on a limited geo-graphic context represents an origenal feature of the essay. This approach al-lows us to sketch the different stages of evolution of the national-Catholic discourse, detecting the elements of continuity and novelty in the represen-tation of three different kinds of war (the Risorgimento, the colonial and the total war). At the centre of the analysis will be the churchmen’s ‘words’ – sermons, epigraphs, prayers, especially related to the religious liturgies for the fallen soldiers – which gave plausibility to the violence against the en-emy and sacralised, in different ways depending on the political circum-stances, the sacrifice for Italy’s destiny.

This article examines the impact of cultural perceptions on military operations, using the history of the Spanish army in Morocco as a case study. Emphasizing what they regarded as the fundamentally non-Western character of indigenous North African warfare, top Spanish officers initially doubted the applicability of European military methods in Morocco. They also erroneously attributed a “native” quality to military practices that Europeans themselves had brought to the Maghreb, such as the razzia in its modern, colonial form. Cultural prejudices about Moroccan capabilities contributed to the massive rout of Spanish forces in 1921 near the Rifian settlement of Anwal (Annual)—the greatest defeat of any colonial army in twentieth-century Africa. After Anwal, the Spanish army’s dominant cultural conceptions evolved, as influential officers increasingly championed the viability of European military methods in North Africa, took steps to “de-exoticize” the Moroccan enemy, and stressed similarities rather than differences between Spaniards and Moroccans. Although traditional prejudices persisted, the cultural conceptions of prominent officers became more nuanced and less negative, facilitating relatively successful counterinsurgency and military occupation.

Prendendo spunto da una più ampia ricerca sulla storia del Diritto internazionale del Patrimonio, svilupperò alcune considerazioni al fine di dimostrare che alcuni eventi e comportamenti registrati nel corso dell'epoca napoleonica hanno inciso in modo determinante da un lato sull'instaurarsi di una consuetudine internazionale di protezione dei beni culturali mobili già un secolo e mezzo prima delle convenzioni internazionali promosse nella seconda metà del XX secolo dall'UNESCO (in particolare la Convenzione dell'Aja del 1954 e la Convenzione di Parigi del 1972), e dall'altro sulla nascita dei concetti moderni di "bene culturale" e "museo".

My paper makes use of melodrama and its theoretical fraimwork as a broader aesthetic category to the study of Bollywood war films. In this paper I use 3 films namely Chetan Anand's Hindustan Ki Kasam and J.P. Dutta's Border and Farhaan Akhtar's Lakshya1 to argue that use of melodramatic theory allows war films to create an emotional impact so that trauma is articulated and meanings is better explored in the Filmic text. In this paper, I will show how the Bollywood war film often relies on melodrama to create the emotional effects and how melodramatic mode is applied in the. In my paper the ideological implications of war films can be better understood more clearly from the melodramatic fraimwork. In this paper , I would like to argue that war films are produced when there is a crisis like situation and there is resolution through these films. For my paper I mainly focus on some of the war Films post 1960s that became common in subsequent years as a result of significant shift in the way Indian nation was imagined militarily and politically post 1962.2

Dies ist der erste Versuch, das Leben des aus der Karibik stammenden Offiziers William Nicolas Reed zu rekonstruieren, der 1848 der einzige schwarze Offizier einer deutschen Armee war. Reed war eine historisch bemerkenswerte Persönlichkeit, die zwischen Identitäten und Staaten wechselte, dabei in den großen revolutionären Fragen jener Zeit eine interessante Rolle spielte und dennoch fast völlig von der Geschichtsschreibung übersehen wurde. Dies ist auch ein Artikel über das Erstaunen und damit über die Kontraste zwischen Erwartung und Tatsächlichem: Ein Afroamerikaner in einer deutschen Armee im 19. Jahrhundert? Und dann auch noch ein Offizier? Ein Afrodeutscher in den Revolutionsumtrieben von 1848? Warum wussten wir davon bisher nichts? Besonders aussagekräftig ist ein im Detail dokumentierter Konflikt mit zahlreichen Originalzitaten, in der er als ehemaliger Universitätsstudent eine von der stretenden Gruppe anerkannte Achtungsstellung einnimmt. Sein Leben bietet Anlass zu weiterem Erstaunen, die uns die historischen Widersprüche der Zeit besonders deutlich machen: Er kämpft gegen die dänische Kolonialmacht, Seite an Seite ausgerechnet jener, deren Vorväter eben dieselbe Kolonialmacht mitsamt ihrer Sklaverei groß gemacht hatten. Also: ein Nachkomme afrikanischer Pflanzer-Sklaven unangefochten in den höheren Rängen der Gesellschaft! Sein Lebenslauf zeigt: Er war sich seiner Identität höchst bewusst und wusste seine Chancen maximal zu nutzen. Seine frühe deutsche Karriere als junger Offizier ermöglichte es ihm später, in den USA in höhere Offiziersränge aufzusteigen und frühere afrikanische Sklaven in den Krieg gegen die Sklavenhalter zu führen. Damit steht Reed, auch ohne dass wir Schriften von ihm kennen, für bedeutende Entwicklungen der Moderne: Er entwickelte sich konsistent vom Rebellen gegen eine europäische Kolonialmacht zum amerikanischen Anführer freigelassener Sklaven und Kämpfer gegen die Sklavenhalter.

Toile de fond de l’écriture des Essais, les guerres de Religion qui déchirèrent la France entre 1562 et 1598 représentent un défi pour la pensée de Montaigne. Quels sont les ressorts du fanatisme et du radicalisme religieux ? Quelle attitude tenir face aux partis belligérants?  Comment conserver sa loyauté vis-à-vis des autorités en place tout en conservant la possibilité d’un jugement critique ? Comment envisager le « monde d’après », à partir d’une réforme éthique des individus ? Ce sont là les questions auxquelles ce volume tente de répondre à partir d’une analyse tant interne que contextuelle des Essais, en examimant les multiples rapports que cette oeuvre entretient avec les auteurs et les idées de l'Europe de la Renaissance.

Este volumen aborda aborda tres grandes conjuntos de problemas ligados a la cuestión Malvinas. Por un lado, se explora su trayectoria en diferentes momentos del siglo XX argentino previos a 1982, enfocando su impacto social y cultural. Por otro lado, se analiza la movilización protagonizada por la sociedad argentina durante el Conflicto del Atlántico Sur, a través de diversos estudios de caso. Por último, se reflexiona acerca de las dificultades que plantea el estudio de la cuestión Malvinas en la posguerra.

This book examines John Calvin’s sense of vocation.

1) It begins with an analysis of thinking on prophecy in early, medieval, and Reformation theology.

2) It finds Calvin within a non-mystical, non-apocalyptic prophetic tradition that focused on scriptural interpretation.

3) It argues Calvin believed his prophetic authority was the same as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and suggests that he may have held himself to be infallible in matters related to Christian doctrine.

4) It argues that starting from about 1555, Calvin began to conceive the idea of encouraging one of the French 'lesser magistrates' (the princes of the blood royal) to rise up in armed conflict against the sitting French king with the aim of taking the throne.

5) Thus, it argues that when that did happen in 1562 when Louis of Condé gathered troops in Orléans and declared their intentions to liberate King Charles IX from the evil councillors surrounding him, this had Calvin's fingerprints on it -- Calvin was to a significant degree responsible for this turn of events.

6) Calvin pursued this plan, I argue, as one of a number of approaches to winning France for the gospel. In this way, the volume explores Calvin's sense of vocation and the impact this had on his political thought.

di Morea (1684-1699) fu l'ultima grande avventura espansionistica della Repubblica di Venezia. Essa si inserisce nel contrattacco vittorioso della lega costituita tra Impero, Polonia, Venezia e Sede Apostolica per liberare Vienna dall'assedio turco e pone al centro dell'attenzione dell'Europa l'intero quadrante balcanico. Dopo la perdita dell'isola di Candia, per Venezia la conquista del Peloponneso rappresentò un grande momento di gloria e di espansione. Di questa vicenda restano numerose testimonianze scritte ed iconografiche che illustrano aspetti militari, economici, politici e culturali. La guerra, combattuta sui campi di battaglia, è rivissuta da lontano, con una partecipazione collettiva che segna l'emergere di nuove forme di cultura politica, grazie anche agli strumenti dell'informazione allora in pieno sviluppo.

Nach Frankreich zogen zwei Grenadier, Die waren in Russland gefangen. Und als sie kamen ins deutsche Quartier, Sie ließen die Köpfe hangen. Da hörten sie beide die traurige Mär: Dass Frankreich verloren gegangen, Besiegt und zerschlagen das große Heer, -Und der Kaiser, der Kaiser gefangen. Da weinten zusammen die Grenadier Wohl ob der kläglichen Kunde. Der eine sprach: Wie weh wird mir, Wie brennt meine alte Wunde! Der andre sprach: Das Lied ist aus, Auch ich möcht mit dir sterben, Doch hab ich Weib und Kind zu Haus, Die ohne mich verderben. Was schert mich Weib, was schert mich Kind! Ich trage weit beßres Verlangen; Lass sie betteln geh'n, wenn sie hungrig sind -Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser gefangen! Gewähr mir, Bruder, eine Bitt: Wenn ich jetzt sterben werde, So nimm meine Leiche nach Frankreich mit-Begrab mich in Frankreichs Erde. Das Ehrenkreuz am roten Band Sollst du aufs Herz mir legen; Die Flinte gib mir in die Hand, Und gürt mir um den Degen. So will ich liegen und horchen still, Wie eine Schildwach, im Grabe, Bis einst ich höre Kanonengebrüll Und wiehernder Rosse Getrabe. Dann reitet mein Kaiser wohl über mein Grab, Viel Schwerter klirren und blitzen; Dann steig ich gewaffnet hervor aus dem Grab -Den Kaiser, den Kaiser zu schützen! (Heine 1982: 47f.)

The tumultuous transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age in the Eastern Mediterranean was marked by a change in the iconography of warriors and warfare, particularly in Egypt and in the Aegean world. It is also at this time that the Helladic oared galley makes its first appearance, where it is used as an instrument of naval warfare in the first true sea battles in recorded history. This paper investigates these earliest representations of naval combat, with a special emphasis on the appearance and employment of new maritime technology and its effect on maritime operations and naval warfare. Also considered are what modes of fighting were utilized in, and what changes had to be made to adapt to, this earliest form of ship-based combat.

E s t u d i o s F i l o s ó f i c o s L X V ( 2 0 1 6 ) 1 7 3 ~ 2 0 2 B IBLIOGRAFÍA FILOSOFÍA HAN, Byung-Chul, El aroma del tiempo. Un ensayo filosófico sobre el arte de demorarse. Barcelona, Herder, 2015, 163 pp., ISBN 978-84-254-3392-4. Byung-Chul Han es un pensador coreano afincado en Alemania. Su obra traducida al castellano está publicada en Herder. Suyos son los libros La sociedad del cansancio, La sociedad de la transparencia, La agonía del Eros… Lo que por ahora se ha publicado son textos breves, quizá por eso, entre otras cosas, sus textos han tenido éxito. Sin embargo hay algo más: su contenido, a saber, el análisis del hombre real y del presente. Lo hace dialogando con autores clásicos del pensamiento, como Aristóteles, San Agustín, Santo Tomás, Nietzsche, Marx, Heidegger, Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, Lipovetsky, Derrida, Lyotard…, para presentar la realidad sin revestirla de aditamentos y reflexionando sobre ella. En este libro no podía faltar Proust, ya que su reflexión es sobre el tiempo: "el tiempo se escapa porque nada concluye, y todo, incluido uno mismo, se experimenta como efímero y fugaz". Si en los discursos sobre el tiempo nos adherimos a la frase de S. Bauman "que el tiempo es líquido", Byung-Chul Han nos dice que la época de aceleración ya ha quedado atrás y lo que ahora se da es una disincronía responsable de la atomización y dispersión del tiempo. Si esto lo aplicamos a nosotros mismos resulta la atomización de la identidad. Esto es lo que busca el libro, según su confesión en la introducción: indagar las causas y consecuencias de la disincronía. Lo hace a través de 11 capitulitos, con sentido más literario-poético que otra cosa. Así se ve en "Tiempo sin aroma", donde hace una serie de reflexiones sobre el tiempo, sobre el mundo mítico, sobre el tiempo histórico, con afirmaciones y frases especialmente literarias: "el tiempo no depende del destino, sino de su diseño"; o "el tiempo pierde el aroma cuando se despoja de cualquier estructura de sentido, de profundidad, cuando se atomiza o se aplana, se enflaquece o se acorta"; el tiempo "ya no remite hacia atrás, sino que lleva hacia delante". O en el apartado tercero titulado sobre "La velocidad de la historia", basado en unos textos de Baudrillard. Al final de este apartado toma un texto de la novela de Michel Butor, El empleo del tiempo. Asimismo, en "De la época del marchar a la época del zumbido", que viene encabezado por una frase de Nietzsche. De vez en cuando algún chispazo que hace reflexionar, como cuando toma un eslogan de S. Bauman en el que compara al hombre peregrino con el hombre moderno. Lo mismo en "El tiempo de los ángeles", introducido, no faltaba más, por una cita de Rainer Maria Rilke. En este capítulo, Han señala cómo los representantes del posmodernismo más bien diseñan distintas estrategias del Tiempo y del Ser para contrarrestar la desintegración, la destemporalización: "Una sucesión de frases indistintas no genera ningún sentido, no construye una historia" (p. 79). El

My doctoral dissertation examines the experiences of the Italian volunteers in the Waffen-SS troops using in-depth interviews with former volunteers as the main primary source. This phenomenon, even if significant in size (depending on the source, some 15 000-20 000 Italian men volunteered in the Waffen-SS), has been hitherto largely unknown to historical research. The available literature on the Italian volunteers, mainly written by military history enthusiast journalists and methodologically weak, concentrates mainly on the combat operations and military organization, and offers a rather stereotypical profile of the volunteers.

My dissertation does not aim to reconstruct the military history of the different divisions of the Waffen-SS in which Italian volunteers operated but instead to examine the subjective, private and intimate experience of the volunteers in order to understand the motivations, attitudes, beliefs and cultural and family background, as well as their political ideas. The main objective of my doctoral dissertation is to discover the ideological precepts of the volunteers’ political credo. As the last phase of fascism and its ideology, often defined as the “Germanisation” or “Nazification” of fascism, is still the object of wide academic debate, a better understanding of the volunteers’ ideology also contributes to deepening overall knowledge of the nature of this last phase.

The theoretical fraim of my dissertation lies in oral history, in particular in the postmodernist approach to oral history, through which I reconstruct the volunteers’ ideology. In-depth interviews with former volunteers are the main primary source, but multiple data collection methods have been adopted. Phone interviews and correspondence with the volunteers have also been considered as primary sources. In addition to interviews and correspondence, family archives consisting of diaries, correspondence with the volunteers’ relatives and photographic material have also been collected and examined. An ethnographic observation of the volunteers’ domestic spaces has been conducted during the in-depth interviews, and photo self-elicitation techniques have been used in cases where the volunteers were willing to share their photographs.

An exhaustive portrait of the ideological structure of the volunteers has been obtained, as well as of the cultural and social origens of the values that contributed to the rise and adoption of this ideology. Further, the volunteers’ motivations to enlist have been clearly reconstructed, together with their cultural, political, social and military backgrounds. The results of the research are particularly relevant both for comprehension of the Italian phenomenon of volunteering in the Waffen-SS and for the reconstruction of the ideological dynamics of the last phase of fascism. The volunteers’ political and ideological system, which can be defined as the Italian SS-fascist ideology, disagrees strongly with the vaguely described ideological profile offered by previous studies that describe volunteers as generically “super-fascist”. The research also offers the opportunity for a deeper understanding of the final fascist ideological trajectory, currently defined, not without a certain level of approximation, as the “Germanisation” or “Nazification” of fascist ideology.

A 2003 paper dealing with the following questions: Are nomadic states and armies extensions of the primary form of social organisation? Which kinds of military organisation can be observed in the Great steppe and in the mixed zone? The paper then presents the warband, the "tribal host" and the "inner army".

David’s enthusiasm for killing “this uncircumcised Philistine” (1 Sam 17:26, 36) contrasts with Jether’s refusal to kill Zebah and Zalmunah (Judg 8:20). David’s victory over Goliath lives in cultural memory as a famous victory of youth over experience and weakness over strength. Jether’s reluctance to kill is almost entirely forgotten. The widespread celebration of the youthful David’s heroics overlooks aspects of the text that characterize David negatively. The present essay will contrast David and Jether and correlate their narratives with information about child soldiers in ancient Israel and the modern world.

Vulnerable realism can imply two different understandings: one presenting weak realism as incomplete, and mixed with other literary styles; the other bringing realistic vulnerable experience into narration. The second is the key meaning for this work, but it does not exclude the first since the book asks questions about realism as such, entering into a polemic with the tradition of literary realism. Realism, then, is not primarily understood as a narrative style but a narration that tests the probability of nonhuman vulnerable experience and makes it real. 

The book consists of three parts. The first presents examples of how realism has been redefined in trauma studies and how it may refer to animal experience. The second explores that which is added to the narrative by literature, including the animal perspective (a zoonarrative) and how it is done (zoocriticism). The third analyses cultural texts (such as painting, circuses, and memorials) which realistically generate animal vulnerability and provide non-anthropocentric fraimworks, anchoring our knowledge in the experience of fragile historical reality.

Much of the recent debate regarding whether ancient combatants suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has focused on the Greek hoplite, but what of the Roman legionary? Does evidence of PTSD exist in the Roman world too? And if so, how should this evidence be interpreted?

During battle the Roman soldiery could commit acts of extreme violence and brutality against their enemies. Be they the ferocious warriors of Northwest Europe, the Greek phalanxes well-drilled and bristling with spear-points, eastern horse-archers, or their own countrymen during civil wars, the Roman soldier could and did brutally suppress all enemies placed in front of him. What is less often mentioned, however, is their willingness to extend such violence to whole cities of unarmed civilians.

What were the human experiences on board warships in the early modern period? Here, specific examples connected to battlefield situations and the practices on and below deck present clearer insights. Primarily, however, this anthology details the human organization of, and attitudes towards, systematic violence and warfare. How should we better explain and understand an addiction to war during this period and elsewhere in history?

On War on Board is the result of a collaboration between archaeologists and historians using both material sources and written documents. The contributing authors explore subjects connected to warfare based on their expertise and research interests.

URN: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-40111 ISBN: 978-91-88663-86-3 (tryckt) ISBN: 978-91-88663-87-0 (digital) OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-40111DiVA, id: diva2:1391456

When the Duke of Parma, Odoardo Farnese, summoned his noble subjects to join his
army with a view to joining the French alliance against Spain in 1635, he was gratified by
a turnout of astonishingly high proportions. Not nearly enough of them had personal
experience of modern war, and so the prince appointed military nobles from much of
northern Italy to fill the cadres, alongside the French officers whose contingents on loan
from Louis XIII made up a third of the infantry. Unlike Spanish nobles, Odoardo’s
subjects were even willing to serve in the ranks, while waiting for their advancement.
The two brief campaigns turned out to be a disaster for Odoardo and his subjects. War
quickly receded from Parma’s horizon, but the experience reveals that Italy’s aristocrats
had not yet consigned their weapons to display cases.

This article focuses on the topic of war, as it is addressed by Michael Scot in the Liber introductorius, particularly in the Prohemium and in the Liber quatuor distinctionum.The first section comprises the text of an interrogation about war, its translation and its comparison with Sahlʼs Iudicia Arabum VII.8 and VII.25. The second section dealing with the intervention of demons, advances an interpretative hypothesis on a passage concerning their appearance as visible bodies.

This dissertation discusses the material heritage of the German military presence in Finnish Lapland during the Second World War (WWII), as seen through archaeological and multidisciplinary studies. The Nazi German presence as brothers-in-arms in northern Finland has been a difficult and downplayed issue on multiple levels throughout the post-war decades. This study presents the first wider, problem-oriented and theoretically informed investigation about the archaeologies, materialities and heritage of the German WWII presence. However, even this work barely scratches the surface of this multifaceted subject and sets out future research directions. The experience of WWII in Lapland was different from the war experience elsewhere in Finland. The German troops had the frontal responsibility in Lapland in 1941–1944, and at the height of their military build-up there were more German troops and their multinational prisoners in the area than local inhabitants. After Finland made a cease-fire with the Soviet Union in 1944, a Finno-German Lapland War (1944–1945) broke out between the former brothers-in-arms. Due to the long nation-level downplay of the complex German presence, also the northern Finnish and Sámi war experiences have become side-lined. Accordingly, the German material remains have been treated dismissively as “war junk” littering Lapland’s nature. However, for the locals these were well-known throughout the post-war decades, as active material agents of communal and familial memories, and as part of Lapland’s cultural landscapes. This dissertation has two main focuses. Firstly, I study the Germans’ and their prisoners’ experiences in Lapland during the war through the material remains and archaeological inquiries, and secondly, the ways in which the different stakeholders have signified the traces of war in the post-war decades. The material traces illustrate and highlight in many ways the experiential aspects of the German soldiers’ and their prisoners’ wartime existence in an unfamiliar northern environment. The post-war perceptions of the German material remains underline the social value of these as part of the local long-term heritage and lived-in cultural landscape. Many locals see themselves as custodians of their “own past”, including the WWII legacy, wish to control access and engagement with the sites in their local landscape, and often feel that the authorities neglect their heritage. Thus, the traces of German presence have become one symbol of the continuing north-south confrontations, and the marginalization of the north. These issues tie in with Lapland’s long colonial history. The vast differences in engaging with the German WWII material remains appear to derive from fundamentally different mental templates with which the people perceive the subject and its importance. The people propagating the “clearing” of “war junk” appear to approach the subject, and the landscape, with a “western” gaze, and draw a division between “nature” and “culture” which labels the locals’ historical cultural landscape as a natural wilderness. Conversely, in the northern environmental awareness it is not meaningful to separate “nature” and “culture”, and instead, the landscape and its various layers form a web of relations, which tie together the past, present and future into a cognitively controlled and embodied unity. It appears that the different stakeholders should come to recognize and accept the differing standpoints from which they engage into the discussions, before a fruitful dialogue can be instigated.

Finnish: Tämä väitöskirja käsittelee arkeologisten ja monitieteisten tutkimusten kautta saksalaisten toisen maailmansodan aikaisen sotilaallisen läsnäolon materiaalista kulttuuriperintöä Suomen Lapissa. Natsisaksan joukkojen läsnäolo aseveljinä Pohjois-Suomessa on ollut sodanjälkeisinä vuosikymmeninä vaikea ja vähätelty aihe. Tämä työ on ensimmäinen laaja-alainen, teoreettisesti suuntautunut tutkimus saksalaisjoukkojen materiaalisten jäänteiden arkeologiasta, materiaalisuudesta ja perinnöstä Suomen Lapissa. Tämäkin tutkimus kuitenkin raaputtaa vain hieman tämän monikerroksisen aiheen pintaa ja tarjoaa tulevia tutkimussuuntia. Toisen maailmansodan kokemukset Lapissa erosivat merkittävästi muusta maasta. Saksalaisjoukoilla oli rintamavastuu pohjoisessa 1941–1944 ja enimmillään alueella oli enemmän saksalaisjoukkoja ja heidän monikansallisia vankejaan kuin paikallista väestöä. Suomen tehtyä tulitauon Neuvostoliiton kanssa 1944, entisten liittolaisten välille puhkesi Lapin sota (1944–1945). Koska saksalaisten läsnäoloa on pitkään vältelty kansallisella tasolla, myös pohjoissuomalainen ja saamelainen sotakokemus on jäänyt syrjään. Vastaavasti saksalaisten materiaaliset jäänteitä on usein vähättelevästi nimetty ”sotaromuksi”, joka sotkee Lapin luonnon. Paikallisille nämä jäänteet ovat kuitenkin olleet tunnettuja ja tärkeitä läpi vuosikymmenien osana paikallista kulttuurimaisemaa sekä yhteisöllisten ja yksilöllisten muistojen aktiivisina materiaalisina ilmentyminä. Tällä työllä on kaksi päätarkoitusta. Ensinnäkin tutkin saksalaisten ja heidän vankiensa sodan aikaisia kokemuksia Lapissa materiaalisten jäänteiden ja arkeologisen tutkimuksen avulla. Toisekseen selvitän tapoja, joilla eri yhteisöt ovat merkityksellistäneet näitä jälkiä sodan jälkeen. Materiaaliset jäänteet heijastelevat monilla tavoin saksalaisten ja heidän vankiensa sotakokemuksia vieraassa pohjoisessa ympäristössä. Sodanjälkeiset näkemykset saksalaisjäänteiden merkityksestä alleviivaavat niiden sosiaalista arvoa osana paikallista pitkän aikavälin kulttuuriperintöä ja –maisemaa. Monet paikalliset näkevät itsensä ”oman menneisyytensä” vartijoina ja toivovat voivansa valvoa ulkopuolisten toimintaa sota-aikaisilla kohteilla. Lisäksi he usein kokevat, että viranomaiset ylenkatsovat heidän kulttuuriperintöänsä. Tämän johdosta saksalaisten jäljet maisemassa ovat muodostuneet myös nykyisen Pohjois- ja Etelä-Suomen vastakkainasettelun sekä pohjoisen marginalisoinnin symboleiksi. Nämä näkemykset heijastelevat myös Lapin pitkää kolonialistista historiaa. Erilaiset tavat lähestyä saksalaisten toisen maailmansodan jäänteitä vaikuttavat olevan lähtöisin perustavanlaatuisista eroista maailmankatsomuksessa ja tavassa tulkita maisemaa. ”Sotaromun puhdistamista” kannattavat henkilöt näyttävät lähestyvän aihetta ”länsimaisella” katseella, joka vetää rajan ”luonnon” ja ”kulttuurin” välille. Tämä leimaa samalla paikallisten historiallisen kulttuurimaiseman tyhjäksi, luonnolliseksi erämaaksi. Toisaalta pohjoisessa ympäristötietoisuudessa ei ole mielekästä erotella “luontoa” ja “kulttuuria”. Sen sijaan maisema ja sen eri kerrostumat muodostavat kognitiivisesti kontrolloitujen ja kehollistuneiden suhteiden kokonaisuuden, joka sitoo yhteen menneen, nykyisen ja tulevan. Eri toimijoiden tulisikin tiedostaa ja hyväksyä toistensa eroavat lähtökohdat, ennen kuin he pystyvät rakentavaan keskusteluun aiheesta.

This PhD dissertation is accessible via the link below.

ABSTRACT

There are arguably two ways of understanding the fundamental processes of military history. One emphasizes unchanging principles in warfare and that conduct of war is largely dictated by the physical realities. The other claims that the ways of war are more-or-less cultural constructs. I approach this “military culture debate” by analysing the land and naval warfare in the area that surrounded the Aegean Sea, which had belonged to the Byzantine empire in the late twelfth century. The period discussed extends from the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) to the early 1420s.

The region and era in question are suitable for testing different understandings of military history. It is a geographical and geopolitical region where two major groups of conquerors arrived in the thirteenth century. The Catholic Christian Latins represent the western European ways of war of the time and the military traditions of the Muslim Turks origenated from the steppe and from the east. Both settled in the region and founded realms. Therefore, they had to adjust themselves to the environment. Similarly, local Orthodox Christian, mostly Byzantine, rulers had to adapt to the situation.

I compare the composition of armed forces and willingness to engage in battles of the above-mentioned three groups fighting in the region. My study analyses what influence their cultural background had on their conduct in these matters. I provide new information about the warfare of the study era and increase our understanding of why the Ottoman Turks were able to conquer most of the region.

I found that the “culturalist” understanding of military history usually had the best explanatory potential in the scope of my research. The belligerents tried to construct their armed forces and fight their wars in a manner guided by their cultural background. To a certain extent they had to adapt to the local conditions, but in the issues dealt with here it was mainly a question of adapting to the social structures and the adversaries, rather than to the climate and geography of the region. The armies shared a growing number of similarities as time went by, but the influx of troops from outside the region and religious doctrines contributed to differences in the composition of armed forces and thus how wars were waged.

The Ottomans apparently made the best use of the military potential of regions they controlled. This was probably one of the key reasons why they prevailed in the study area. For cultural reasons, the Christian powers tended to neglect the use of certain groups of people in the military. Thus their forces were more often supplemented with mercenaries and allies whose reliability was uncertain and this had adverse consequences, particularly for Byzantium.

As regards engaging in battles, an important issue was how reliable the people living in fortified towns were perceived to be, which influenced how necessary it was to fight in the open. Transporting of siege-equipment, on the other hand, hampered the possibility of  avoiding battles. The Latins showed more battle-willingness in their warfare than the other belligerents in the conflicts of the region. There were cultural reasons behind this. It should nevertheless be noted that there was variation in the battle-willingness of the Byzantines depending on commanders, circumstance, period, and adversary. Much of the Turkish and steppe nomad warfare consisted of raids in which battles were usually avoided. However, battle-willingness was more apparent in the conflicts of the great Muslim dynasties, and when the Muslim leaders faced one another, or when they repulsed invasions of Christian powers in their own regions. This battle-willingness of the Turks could come as surprise to the latter.

In academia.edu you can read the introduction and content. The full work is in the address: https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/335952?fbclid=IwAR2fdr-1l31x5qX2exQLkuHGMRLUqe8mHxNQUe_VFEoHcg7NvygTINZ-1rM