Medieval and Modern Notions of the Baltic Sea

The first notion of a ‘Baltic Sea region’ was created in the eleventh century by Adam of Bremen in his chronicle on the History of the Church of Hamburg (Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum).

He wrote about the successful mission of the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen in the North, thus designating the Baltic Sea region as a religious and missionary zone. He described the travels of archbishop Unni on the track of St Ansgar across the Baltic Sea to Birka in Sweden with the words ‘travelling over the Baltic Sea’ (mare balticum remigans). In the fourth book of his history, Adam of Bremen characterised the nature of the Baltic as follows: ‘Now, to say something about the nature of the Baltic Sea [...] this gulf is called Baltic by the inhabitants because it stretches like a belt (balteus) to the regions of the Scythians’ (Nunc autem,..., aliquid de natura Baltici maris dicere... Sinus ille ab incolis appellantur “Balticus” eo quod in modo baltei longo tractu per Sciticas regiones tendatur...).^[616] Adam also mentioned the Normans, the Slavs, the Estonians and other peoples living along the shores of the Baltic Sea.⁶

In the thirteenth century the Baltic Sea became visible as a region traversed by pilgrims and trade. In 1241, Duke Albert of Saxony granted safe conduct to merchants travelling from the East Sea to the West Sea (de orientali mari ad occidentale mare): that is, between the Baltic and the North Sea.⁷ In 1266, the papal nuntio Guido exempted the pilgrims on their way from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea - ‘De orientali mari ad occidentae mare [que] Osterse et westerse vulgariter nuncupantur’ - from the strand law, the wrecking by coastal communities in the case of a ship accident.⁸

Especially with the expansion of Hanseatic trade in the Baltic Sea and in the North Sea, the cities corresponded.

For example, in 1294 the city of Zwolle on the River IJssel wrote to the city of Lübeck about the ‘Eastern Sea’ (mare orientale) and the ‘Western Sea’ (mare occidentale).⁹ A century later, in 1401 Albrecht of Bavaria, Duke of Holland, Zeeland and Hainaut promised safe conduct for the deputies of the Hanseatic cities, which he described as ‘common cities of the East Sea’ (‘ghe- meenre steden bi der osterzee’).¹⁰ In the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Netherlands the terms ‘Oostersche zee’ and ‘Oostzee’ or ‘mer d’oost’ and ‘mer d’Oostlande’ were increasingly used, whilst humanist writers still spoke about ‘Mare Balticum’. The Swedish chronicler Olaus Magnus mentioned in his Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, ‘mare Balticum’, ‘mare Gothicum, seu Finnonicum ac Livonicum’ or ‘mare Sveticum, mare Bothnicum’ and ‘mare Germanicum’. When he referred to mare Balticum, he meant in this context the southern coast and waters of the Baltic Sea.¹¹

Bernhard Schmeidler (Hanover, 1917), pp. 58, 237f.; ‘Sinus quidam ab occidentali oceano orientem versus porrigitur, longitudinis quidem incopertae, latitudinis vero quae usquam centum milia passuum excedat, cum in multis locis contractior inveniatur. Hunc multae circumsedent nationes, Dani siquidem ac Suenos, quos Nordmannos vocamus, et septentrionale litus et omnes in eo insulas tenent. At litus australe Sclavi et Aisti et aliae diversae incolunt nationes’: Einhardi Vita Karoli Magni, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger (Hanover, 1911), p. 15.

⁶ Josef Svennung, Belt und Baltisch, Ostseeische Namenstudien: Mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Adam von Bremen (Uppsala/Wiesbaden, 1953), pp. 24-50.

⁷ Codex Diplomaticus Lubecensis (UBStL) 1 (Lübeck, 1976), pp. 92f.

⁸ UBStL 1, pp. 267f.

⁹ Hansisches Urkundenbuch, Bd. 1: Urkunden von 975 bis 1300, ed. Verein für Hansische Geschichte, rev. Konstantin Hohlbaum (Halle an der Saale, 1876), p. 399.

¹⁰ Geleitbrief des Herzogs Albrecht von Bayern für die Hansestadte, 10 April 1401, in Huibert Antoine Poelman, ed., Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van den Oostzeehandel, eerste deel 1122-1499, eerste stuk, Grote Serie 35 (‘s-Gravenhage, 1917), p.

182. I am indebted to Hielke van Nieuwenhuize for his overview on the Dutch sources.

¹¹ Jorg Hackmann, ‘Was bedeutet “baltisch”? Zum semantischen Wandel des Begriffs im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung von mental maps’, in Heinrich

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a new notion of the Baltic Sea emerged. Battles for military and economic interests, in particular, led to the notion of ‘dominion over the Baltic Sea’ (dominium maris Baltici). Since Denmark attempted to monopolise access to the Baltic Sea via the Danish Sound, other seafaring neighbours in the Baltic Sea, such as Sweden and Poland, opposed the claim militarily and justified this dominium maris Baltici in their propaganda. The Dutch Republic, however, tried to secure free passage to the Baltic Sea to promote their trading interests. In this context, matters of the Baltic Sea (‘saken van de Oostzee’) became prominent in the correspondence of Dutch politicians such as Johan de Witt, Coenraad von Beuningen and Anthonie Heinsius. In the early eighteenth century a special committee ‘Directie van de Oostersche Handel en Rederijen’ was established for this trading and shipping area, while the Russian trade was supervised by the ‘Directie van den Moscovische handel.

During the Enlightenment, academic and scientific interest in the Baltic Sea intensified. For example, Johann Heinrich Zedler’s Encyclopedic dictionary (1732) includes an article on the Baltic Sea. In 1845, the Berlin linguist Georg Heinrich Ferdinand Nesselmann coined the term ‘Baltic languages’ (Baltische Sprachen) for Lithuanian, Curonian, Old Prussian and Latvian.¹² Nesselmann linked the names of the languages to the particular areas of settlement along the sea coast, thus, for the first time, using the sea as linguistic and ethnic identifier. This interest coincided with a shift of the political significance of the Baltic provinces from Sweden to Russia due to the Peace of Nystad (1721).

Initially, Russia named its new provinces ‘ostzejskij (after the German Ostsee), designating them as Baltic Sea Provinces. In the later nineteenth century, the official name became ‘pribaltijskij, which means located at the Baltic Sea: the Baltic provinces were now perceived as the coastal provinces of the Russian Empire. ‘Baltic’ (Baltisch) became at the same time a label for the Baltic Germans.

Bosse, O. H. Elias and Rorbert Schweitzer, eds., Buch und Bildung im Baltikum (Festschrift für Paul Kaegbein zum 80. Geburtstag) (Münster, 2005), p. 21. The various notions are Oostersche Zee, Ostersche Zee, Oestersche Zee, Oistersche Zee. Niederländische Akten und Urkunden zur Geschichte der Hanse und zur deutschen Seegeschichte, I, 15311557, ed. Rudolf Häpke (Munich, 1913), p. 105f.; see also the letter of the (High) Court of Holland to Stadtholder Hoogstraten, 18 June 1661, cited in Niederländische Akten und Urkunden, ed. Häpke, pp. 116-19.

¹² Johann Friedrich Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal-lexicon der Wissenschafften und Künste, 62 vols. (Halle, 1732-50), III, cols. 289-90, s.v., ‘Baltisches Meer’; G. H. F. Nesselmann, Die Sprache der alten Preussen: an ihren Ueberresten erläutert (Berlin, 1845), p. xxix (‘Ich werde vorschlagen diese Familie die der Baltischen Sprachen zu nennen’).

After the foundation of the new Baltic States in 1918-19, the Western powers took ‘Baltic’ as a term to designate the new Baltic states. This period saw several attempts to create a ‘Baltic’ or ‘Baltic Sea’ identity. Although a ‘Baltic League’ to coordinate foreign policy from Sweden to Poland failed, a number of initiatives proved effective. Among those were the foundation of the Baltic Institute in Torun (1925) and the journal Baltic Countries: A survey of the peoples and states of the Baltic with special regard to their history, geography and economics (1935).^[617] In 1937, historians from the Baltic Sea countries met for the first Conventus primus historicum Balticorum.^[618]

The Soviet occupation of the Baltic states and their integration into the Soviet Union as well as the loss of the German territories along the Baltic coast reduced international interest in the Baltic Sea and the Baltic Sea region which was only kept alive by emigrants.

Only in the 1970s and especially in the 1980s did the process of detente build new bridges. Due to the re-established ferry connection between Helsinki and Tallinn by the end of the 1970s, 90,000 people yearly visited Tallinn - the visitors were largely Finnish Vodka-tourists - yet Estonians and Finns began to familiarise themselves with each other again. Furthermore, scientific exchange in the area increased to some extent. In this context, the debate on a ‘New Hansa’, stimulated by the Schleswig-Holstein Prime Minister Bjorn Engholm, gained momentum. Engholm wanted to re-establish Baltic Sea relationships with reference to the old German Hansa. He created cultural initiatives, such as ‘Ars Baltica’ and ‘Jazz Baltica’. However Engholm’s program became obsolete due to the fundamental changes of 1989 and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union. The perception of the region changed once more. Cities and countries which had been considered as distant, unfamiliar and foreign, since they belonged to a different political bloc, were suddenly discovered to be neighbours and, despite the visible physical deterioration of the architecture, were seen as culturally similar.

Facing these political changes, politicians designed a new vision for the Baltic Sea region. Scandinavia especially, where only Denmark belonged to the EU, was expecting to be marginalised in the dynamics of European unification. That is why, in 1992, at the initiative of the Danish and German foreign ministers Uffe Ellemann-Jensen and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the countries of the Baltic Sea region founded the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS).^[619] Since the CBSS included Iceland and Norway, the Baltic Sea region was politically redefined. At the same time Finland, Sweden and Norway applied for EU membership, but only Swedes and Finns opted for it, while the Norwegians declined. Apart from EU-integration Finland wanted to preserve its traditional middleman role between East and West and developed a strategy of ‘Northern Dimension’.

Under this umbrella Finland took the lead in the dialogue with post-Soviet Russia. After Sweden’s and Finland’s entry into the EU, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania applied together with Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia for EU membership. The negotiations took quite some time, since the EU wanted to solve the problems of citizens’ rights for the Russian-speaking population. In May 2004, the Baltic States together with Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta became members of the EU. The enlargement of the EU, to which all states bordering the Baltic Sea, with the exception of Russia, now belong, and the EU Baltic Sea strategy, with its focus on environment, trade, security and access have changed the image of the Baltic Sea again. With these broad shifts in the perception of the Baltic - as a sea and as a region - in mind, let us now examine it as a zone of commerce and circulation, starting in the twelfth century.

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Source: Armitage David, Bashford Alison et al. (eds.). Oceanic Histories. Cambridge University Press,2018. — 338 p.. 2018

Medieval and Modern Notions of the Baltic Sea

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