Violent Encounters at Ostend, 1601–1604: patiality, Location, and Identity in Early Modern Siege Warfare

Die Belagerung von Ostende (1601–1604) mag kein großes Thema aktueller Historiographiesein, doch sie erregte im Europa des frühen 17. Jahrhunderts immense Aufmerksamkeit. VerschiedenstePublikationsformate widmeten sich der Operation als bedeutendem Teil des niederländischenAufstands gegen die Habsburgermonarchie und präsentierten eine blutigeKonfrontation von bislang ungekannter zeitlicher Länge. Illustrierte Flugblätter und ausführlichegedruckte Berichte trugen dazu bei, dass Ostende zu einem symbolträchtigen Ort fürdie Formierung einer neuen niederländischen Identität werden konnte – wenngleich die Spanieres einnahmen. Die Geschichte der Belagerung illustriert so einerseits Michel de Certeausmetaphorische Überblendung zwischen Krieg und Erzählung als Raumpraktiken. Andererseitserinnert sie auch an die physische, existenzielle Dimension von Kriegsgewalt. Gewaltpraktikenund -repräsentationen formten gemeinsam eine „Kriegslandschaft“ (Kurt Lewin) mit Orten, andenen neue Grenzen zwischen Eigenem und Fremdem geschaffen wurden. Die schlammigenGräben von Ostende wecken heute Reminiszenzen an die Felder von Flandern des Ersten Weltkriegs,was zu vergleichenden Betrachtungen dieser „Gewalträume“ (Jörg Baberowski) anregt.Zugleich können die Belagerungsoperationen, die tausende von Menschen mobilisierten, imLichte neuer Ortskonzepte betrachtet werden, die eher hervorheben, wie spezifische Orte sichan den Kreuzungspunkten individueller Bewegungsbahnen formen. Durch die Verbindungdieser unterschiedlichen Konzeptionen von Raumkonstruktion ist es möglich, die physischenAspekte der gewaltsamen Begegnung und des Alltagslebens in der Belagerung mit der Entstehungdes neuen niederländischen Staates in Beziehung zu setzen.While the siege of Ostend (1601-4) is not overly prominent in modern historiography, it did raise immense attention across Europe in the early 17th century. The operation, which formed part of the Eighty Years’ War of the rebellious Netherlands against the Spanish Habsburg monarchy, was represented as a bloody encounter of inconceivable length in various published formats. Contemporary sources such as broadsheets and printed siege accounts contributed to Ostend’s becoming one of the iconic places of the formation of a new Dutch identity – in spite of its capture by the Spanish. The story of the siege thus substantiates Michel de Certeau’s metaphorical likening of warfare and story-telling as spatial practices. Yet, it is also a reminder of the physical, existential dimension of war. Practices and representations of violence contributed to the making of a “war landscape” (Kurt Lewin), of places, in which new boundaries of identity and alterity were produced. As the muddy trenches of Ostend call to mind early-20th-century war experiences in Flanders, they invite comparative approaches to the general characteristics of “spaces of violence” (Jörg Baberowski). Yet, as will become clear, this massive siege operation, which mobilized thousands of people, can also be regarded in the light of new conceptions of “place,” which emphasize particularities created in the crossing of individual trajectories. An analysis that unites these different concepts of spatial constructions is able to link the physicality of violent encounters and the daily life of the siege to the emergence of the new Dutch state within early modern Europe

Introduction

This thematic issue of Comparativ examines the relationship between place and cultural encounters in conceptual as well as empirical respect. The introduction delineates the discussions revolving around the concepts of place, space, and encounter. It proposes a reappraisal of the concept of place, which had almost been pushed off the agenda by the spatial turn and globalisation debates. The authors of the introduction and of the other thematic contributions argue for a perspective on place which connects spatial configurations and practices of encounter, understanding places as products of social, material, and conceptual relations. In doing so, they take up theoretical reflections about the relationality of place or space as put forward by Tim Ingold (in social anthropology), Doreen Massey (in geography) or Karl Schlögel (in history). All of their approaches emphasize that places are formed in relational processes, often spanning across time and space. In this sense, places are not mere stages or contexts for events of encounter but are being constituted by them. From such a perspective, the room for manoeuvre, which opens up through interaction, becomes apparent: Neither identities nor (hi-) stories are inalterably bound to pre-existing places, but they are just as dynamic as the relations forming particular sites. The great diversity of (cultural) encounters only emerges jointly with the respective places of interaction. Such lines of thought also allow for new approaches to past and current forms of global connections and mobility. In this sense the contributions united in this interdisciplinary thematic issue examine case (or: place) studies from the 17th century up to the present. Grounded in historiographical, literary- and religious-studies scholarship, they undertake to further refine the process-oriented perspective presented in the introduction