Gotland as a Borderland in the Baltic Sea region during the Period of the Kalmar Union between Denmark and Sweden

Since the end of the 14th Century up to the beginning of the 16th Century Gotland was almost a permanent object of confrontation in the Baltic Sea Region. The period of investigation starts with the conquest of Gotland by the so-called Victual Brothers in 1394 and ends with the maritime campaign of Lübeck against Gotland in 1525. International trade and political relations could from Gotland be influenced massively– those who ruled the island and the important castle Visborg in Visby (from 1411 onwards) were able to play a powerful role in the Mare Balticum. Furthermore, the residents of this European region were inextricably linked by common political and economical interests. This period is characterized by the founding of the Kalmar Union, which, with some reservations, lasted from 1397 to 1520 and united the three Scandinavian kingdoms temporarily under the reign of one common king.

The large islands of the Baltic have so far not been systematically investigated by research. Due to their location at the intersections of sea routes, such islands can at specific points of time be of crucial geopolitical importance. The borderland approach allows researchers to better understand the complexity of these islands historical role than application of conventional centre-periphery paradigms alone.

The aim is to analyze Gotland as a Baltic borderland in the history of the union from the end of the 14th to the beginning of the 16th Century. The conflicts around the legal status of Gotland are seen as a boundary dispute of pre-national stakeholders in a maritime environment. Gotland and the Baltic Sea are viewed as specific borderlands, which enabled the different parts of the border-society on Gotland as well as several other actors to act more freely than in a terrestrial context, but simultaneously set boundaries for these actions. One of the specifics of islands is their openness for interactions in all directions. My Dissertation-Project thus views Gotland as a micro-region with manifold connections to the macro-region of the Baltic Sea Region. The project as a whole also aims to contribute to the question of borderlands in a maritime surrounding.