Between Theology, Early Modern Science and Political Correspondence: The Socinian Exchange of Letters

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Kestutis Daugirdas; Professor Dr. Andreas Kuczera
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 536427265

The digital collection of Socinian correspondence provides a basis of primary sources for researching the transconfessional struggle in Europe for a new balance between theology, early modern science and politics. The collection covers the period from ca. 1580 to ca. 1740, and thus provides information on processes from the age of Confessionalism to the Enlightenment period. The 2.094 letters that have been catalogued, which were addressed to other Socinians or to scholars of other confessions, reflect the complex interdependencies between historicizing, rationalizing approaches to religious subject matter, early modern scientific questions and their methodology, and political correspondence. Additionally, the Socinian correspondence provides valuable insights into the scholarly networks which encompassed large parts of Europe. There is currently no complete historical-critical collection of the Socinian correspondence suitable for research. The funding of DFG helps to identify all of these letters and incorporate them into the digital collection. In addition to textual-critical commentaries, commentaries on the subject matter and content descriptions, the digital collection offers the benefits of evaluation options based on geography, individual persons and topics by means of the systematic keywording of the included texts. Additionally, the collection incorporate graphical depictions of astronomical phenomena which were enclosed with the letters, most of which were published in the form of copperplate engravings, and which illustrate the subject matter discussed in the correspondence. The previously unpublicized political reports, which were enclosed with well over 400 letters, are treated in the same way. In this way, the collection creates the primary source prerequisites for the opening of new interdisciplinary fields of research for theological history, philosophical history, the history of science, and cultural history.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants