About this project

We will guide you through the first half of 17th century and introduce you the history of Thirty years war.

Why the Thirty years war? There was no area in Europe, which was between years 1618 – 1648 spared of war and misery. Even the New Word settlements were affected by competing states in Old World. These 30 years of war changed the way of life and start the changes in economy and society as whole. The end of the war was the dawn of national state and rule of absolutistic monarchy. By the Thirty years war, the middle ages in Europe definitely ends.

Aim of this site is to bring varied articles and short texts about history of Thirty years war in Europe. Thematically we want to cover military history, material culture, every day life od soldiers and officers and from time to time we will introduce some essays about living history and re-enactment.

We hope, that 1618-1648.eu bring interesting stories and information not only to reenactors, but to everybody with even smallest interest in this part of history.

Flagship of our site is project “Erdhart 1645”. It will describe the everyday life and adventures of common soldier during one year and one campaign in the year of 1645 in Bohemia in form of series of articles.

After all episodes will be published on this site, we are planning to add more photos, more text and stories and put it to the print. The final goal is publishing of book “Erdhart 1645”.

About authors:

Tomáš Koch 

Tomáš Koch takes a degree in Historical sciences on Faculty of Art at Masaryk University. He is author of Jankow1645 publication an in his portfolio we can found fair number of articles about military history of first half of 17th century published in various Czech historical magazines for general public. These days he is working on publication not only of “Erdhart 1645” but more not-yet-revealed books.

Milan Madlenák

Milan Madlenák is long time re-enactment and historical fencing enthusiast. He was trying many different “eras” of re-enactment from middle ages to Napoleonic wars, but finally he stopped at 17th century military. His main interest lay in material culture of early modern Europe. Primary he is experimenting not only with replicas of military equipment of Thirty years war era, but also with fishing equipment of 16th century era from middle Europe. The best view on his re-enactment adventures you can get on Instagram profile @common_reenactors.

Both authors share more than 10 years’ experience with living history and re-enactment. They are not afraid of long researches to achieve historically accurate projects. They don’t stop from experimenting with their own health and body. They know, what is to sleep through extreme cold only in historical clothing, and what mean to worn shoes during marching. In year of 2001 both commanded the experimental unit of about 160 people and test the true historical tactics of Thirty years war era.

Now their target is publication of “Erdhart 1645”

You can follow us on Facebook, just search for Projekt 1645 or you can follow our Instagram account @common_reenactors.

If this site or our project engage your attention, we will be glad to hear from you. Just send us email on reenactors1645 [at] gmail [dot] com.