‘The Great and Miserable Flight’: The Experiences of Refugees in Newsprint during the Thirty Years’ War

Abstract

As the Thirty Years’ War was the greatest demographic crisis in Europe between the Black Death and the two World Wars, it is unsurprising that the conflict created the greatest number of refugees in the continent’s history prior to the twentieth century. However, the limited scholarship on displaced persons between 1618 and 1648 has been exclusively based on micro-level eyewitness accounts, diaries, and memoirs. This article broadens the scope of studies on refugees during the Thirty Years’ War beyond such individualistic sources through an examination of their treatment in newsprint, a source base which has hitherto been entirely overlooked. A case study based on over 200 newspaper reports allows this article to examine how the frequency of appearances of refugees in newsprint, as well as the language and vocabulary used to describe them, can provide a valuable insight into the experiences of displaced persons and the attitudes of contemporaries in mid-seventeenth century Europe.