The Seven Years’ War in the memoirs of the parish priest of Krzewina, Martin Baltzer (d. 1785)

Abstract

The subject matter of this miscellaneum are accounts of the Seven Years’ War written by Martin Baltzer, a Catholic parish priest from Krzewina on the Lusatian Neisse (d. 1785). They are contained in a diary he wrote down, known only from an autograph stored in the Library of the Oberlausitzische Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Görlitz. The first part of this work presents Martin Baltzer’s biography and his work, in which he recounted the history of the years 1756–1782. Krzewina and its immediate surroundings remain in the centre of his accounts. From this perspective he also presented the course of the Seven Years’ War, to which he dedicated about 200 pages of his diary. He described in detail the consequences of the war for the inhabitants of Krzewina and Upper Lusatia. Warfare in this region was presented against the background of events in neighbouring countries, particularly in Silesia and Saxony.