The culture of diplomacy in Brandenburg-Swedish relations, 1575--1697

This dissertation focuses on the individual actors involved in carrying out Brandenburg-Swedish relations "on the ground" from the late-sixteenth through the end of the seventeenth century. The educational backgrounds, intellectual and cultural interests, religious convictions, and networks of personal connections these individuals possessed fundamentally informed how they viewed the world and their roles as statesmen within it, and in turn shaped how they functioned as diplomats and crafted a relationship between their states. Certain Brandenburgers and Swedes shared a common cultural possession - a pan-Protestant, cosmopolitan outlook often cultivated through foreign travel or study, especially in the Netherlands - that allowed to look beyond the more narrowly defined concerns of state, dynasty, and (Protestant) confession to conceive of Brandenburg and Sweden as complementary pieces of a larger common whole to which they owed common allegiance, and equally importantly gave them a shared set of experiences, values and goals that connected them to one another in networks of personal relations. The dissertation traces the development of this "culture of diplomacy" and its impact on Brandenburg-Swedish relations over time. In doing so it considers the actions not only of formally-credentialed diplomatic representatives, but also of the military officers, bureaucrats, scholars, clergymen, and merchants who shared in the common culture and were just as much involved in building the relationship between Brandenburg and Sweden in less-formal but equally important ways. The decentralized activities of these individuals were impacted by their own biographies and beliefs, and were pursued through informal contacts and familial and friendship networks every bit as much as through official diplomatic channels.; The rise of substantial and meaningful bilateral relations between Brandenburg and Sweden in the seventeenth century tacks closely with the development of the diplomatic culture, and the dissertation details the tight connections between these intertwined and mutually reinforcing processes. Brandenburg-Swedish relations are traced through stages of development from very modest beginnings in the sixteenth century to a period of intense and intimate connection that lasted through much of the seventeenth century before being reconfigured in a new register as the century - and the culture of diplomacy - came to an end.