I was watching an American Civil War documentary, and I started to wonder if you had history enthusiasts who would reenact military battles. It’s a niche here, but the people who do it are seemingly pretty into it. If anyone has seen the movie Gettysburg, most of the soldiers were reenactors who came to the field with their own equipment and a lot of knowledge on camp life and tactics.

22 comments

  1. It’s a niche here too, but reenactment fans exist. Especially popular are the Napoleonic wars like the battles of Leipzig, Jena, Austerlitz, Waterloo etc.

    Also Roman empire and middle ages reenactments exist. 20th century wars for obvious reasons not so much.

  2. Yes, we sort of do in Romania but not in the american sense. Some cities have sort of a club themed around knights from Roman and/or Dacian times. They practice sword fighting and collect props etc and they go to festivals of all sorts and put up shows and sell crafted stuff. And when I say shows, I mean stuff like sword fighting, dancing, crafting shows. The only reenacment is a guy playing jesus and carrying a cross once a year.

  4. Look up The Sealed Knot (re-enactment) these guys are bang into it, even eating and drinking food from the era.

  5. Middle Ages reenactment including HEMA is something that exists, but it’s quite niche. Other than that, no not that I’d ever heard about it.

  7. Maybe as a reenactor I am biased in saying this, but I would say that reenacment is quite a common hobby here. The main focus points for most of the groups are 14th and 15th century, 30 Years War, Napoleonic era and Czechoslovak legions. A bit less common are groups focused on Roman era, early middle ages in general and 2nd World War.

    The most famous group would probably be [Doba Karlova](https://www.facebook.com/DobaKarlova) focused on the reign of Charles IV.

    There also is quite a large subgroup of theatrical fencers who can be quite commonly seen performing at different castles. These sadly in absolute majority of cases pay little attention to history and often only spread common historical myths (poor hygiene, armour being extremely heavy and obstuructive, swords being extremely unvieldy and similar).

    HEMA and Buhurt are a bit more niche, but are also quite widespread.

  8. We have Viking era reenactment enthusiasts. They don’t just reenact fighting, but aspects of daily life as well. It’s a niche interest, but is looked upon favourably.

    There’s been an annual Viking festival in Hafnarfjörður since the 90s.

  9. Poland has a noticeable scene of historical reenactment fans.I know myself a bunch of people who are into recreation of Roman period, but I guess that either Middle Ages or World War 2 are most popular. When summer comes, you have so-called “history picnics” all over the country and the ever famous Viking Festival in Wolin. You should check these people out, they’re weird, bit in positive sense of the word. They literally pay tons of money for period-correct clothing and armour, often recreating long forgotten methods of cloth dying, sewing, smithing… and when they recreate fights, there’s no bitchin’ around, there will be blood.

  11. Yes.

    I sail a viking ship for one… (I don’t have complete viking age attire though)

    We have plenty of history to reenact, there are groups that do viking age reenactment, some do fighting, some do trading, some do crafts, construction or every day life! We have various open-air museums where you can come and stay for some time (days-weeks) during summer and live like in the viking age, iron age, bronze age, stone age etc.

    The closest thing we have to the American Civil War reenactment are probably the “1864 reenactors”; we lost a major war against Prussia (Germany) and lost a part of our country (we since got about half of it back). So there are muzzle loaders, bayonets, canons, horses, smoke and fire!

    But like elsewhere, it’s a niche hobby!

  12. I’ve been to a battle reenactment from the 1848-49 freedom fights once, it had horses and uniforms and cannons, and had a cooking contest and whatnot next to it like a little fair. Afaik it’s a yearly thing, and most of the participants did other battles in other places as well.

  14. I’ve been to a couple of ww2 re-enactments down on the Wexford coast (where the d-day scene in saving private ryan was filmed). I wouldn’t say they are very popular in Ireland but there are groups that do it. One thing I find strange about the ww2 re-enactments is everyone wants to dress up as the germans. There’d be like 3-4 SS officers for every allied soldier. Its odd.

  15. The same status, its niche but you have people that do it, one interesting thing is that sometimes people of other countries comes to do a combine reenactment, i remember one story of a napoleonic reenectment event in wich a polish asocciation came and do the paper of the vistula legion in Spain.

  17. Yes, we celebrate every single failed English invasion of the city (I believe we hold a record). We keep the cannons in good order to be fired “Black Sails” style. Amazing and terrifying sound.

  18. Not really. There are some plays around in the outbacks trying to portray a thousand year old battle or other historical circumstances.

  19. There is some reenactment in the Netherlands. WW2 is probably the most popular theme. I had to make parts for quite a few American army trucks

  20. One of the weirdest things ive ever seen in Europe was a bunch of brits reenacting the american civil war when i visited the location of the battle of hastings

  22. If we try to reenact a battle of Spanish Civil War, many people will get wounded. It’s still a polarized topic.

    There are some reenactments of medieval battles, which I doubt its veracity, and also some about Carlism War (late 19th century) in the north.

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