1.
History of Sweden
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During the 11th and 12th centuries, Sweden gradually became a unified Christian kingdom that later included what is today Finland. During the early Middle Ages, the Swedish state also expanded to control Norrland and Finland, Modern Sweden started out of the Kalmar Union formed in 1397 and by the unification of the country by King Gustav Vasa in the 16th century. Vasa fought for an independent Sweden and broke with the papacy, in the 17th century Sweden expanded its territories to form the Swedish empire. Most of these territories had to be given up during the 18th century. During the 17th century, after winning wars against Denmark, Russia, Swedens role in the Thirty Years War determined the political as well as the religious balance of power in Europe. The Russians won a war against Sweden in 1709, capturing much of the Swedish army, Sweden joined in the Enlightenment culture of the day in the arts, architecture, science and learning. Between 1570 and 1800 Sweden experienced two periods of urban expansion, Finland was lost to Russia in a war in 1808–1809. In the early 19th century Finland and the territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost. After its last war in 1814, Sweden entered into a union with Norway which lasted until 1905. Since 1814, Sweden has been at peace, adopting a foreign policy in peacetime. Sweden was neutral in World War I, post-war prosperity provided the foundations for the social welfare policies characteristic of modern Sweden. Sweden created a model of social democracy. Sweden remained neutral during World War II, avoiding the fate of occupied Norway, Sweden was one of the first non-participants of World War II to join the United Nations. Apart from this, the tried to stay out of alliances and remain officially neutral during the entire Cold War. The social democratic party held government for 44 years, the 1976 parliamentary elections brought a liberal/right-wing coalition to power. During the Cold War, Sweden was suspicious of the superpowers, with the end of the Cold War, that suspicion has lessened somewhat, although Sweden still chooses to remain nonaligned. The earliest images can, however, be found in the province of Jämtland and they depict wild animals such as elk, reindeer, bears and seals. The period 2300–500 BC was the most intensive carving period, with carvings of agriculture, warfare, ships, domesticated animals, also, petroglyphs with themes have been found in Bohuslän, these are dated from 800–500 BC
2.
Prehistoric Sweden
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The Pleistocene glaciations scoured the landscape clean and covered much of it in deep quaternary sediments. Therefore, no undisputed Early or Middle Palaeolithic sites or finds are known from Sweden, shortly before the close of the Younger Dryas, the west coast of Sweden was visited by hunter-gatherers from northern Germany. This cultural group is referred to as the Ahrensburgian and were engaged in fishing and sealing along the coast of western Sweden during seasonal rounds from the Continent. Currently, we refer to group as the Hensbacka culture and, in Norway. During the late Preboreal period, colonization continued as people move towards the north-east as the ice receded, archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that they arrived first from the south-west and, in time, also from the north-east and met half-way. An important consequence of de-glaciation was a continual land uplift as the Earths crust rebounded from the pressure exerted by the ice and this process, which was originally very rapid, continues to this day. It has had the consequence that originally shore-bound sites along much of Swedens coast are sorted chronologically by elevation, around the countrys capital, for instance, the earliest seal-hunter sites are now on inland mountain tops, and they grow progressively later as one moves downhill toward the sea. The Late Palaeolithic gave way to the first phase of the Mesolithic in c.9600 BC and this age, divided into the Maglemosian, Kongemosian and Ertebølle Periods, was characterised by small bands of hunter-gatherer-fishers with a microlithic flint technology. Where flint was not readily available, quartz and slate were used, in the later Ertebølle, semi-permanent fishing settlements with pottery and large inhumation cemeteries appeared. Farming and animal husbandry, along with monumental burial, polished flint axes and decorated pottery, whether this happened by diffusion of knowledge or by mass migration or both is controversial. In a century or two, all of Denmark and the third of Sweden became neolithised and much of the area became dotted with megalithic tombs. Farmers were capable of rearing calves to collect milk from cows all year round, the people of the countrys northern two thirds retained an essentially Mesolithic lifestyle into the 1st Millennium BC. Coastal south-eastern Sweden, likewise, reverted from neolithisation to a hunting and fishing economy after only a few centuries, in c.2800 BC the Funnel Beaker Culture gave way to the Battle Axe Culture, a regional version of the middle-European Corded Ware phenomenon. Again, diffusion of knowledge or mass migration is disputed, the Battle Axe and Pitted Ware people then coexisted as distinct archaeological entities until c.2400 BC, when they merged into a fairly homogeneous Late Neolithic culture. This culture produced the finest flintwork in Scandinavian Prehistory and the last megalithic tombs, Swedens southern third was part of the stock-keeping and agricultural Nordic Bronze Age Cultures area, most of it being peripheral to the cultures Danish centre. The period began in c.1700 BC with the start of bronze importation, first from Ireland and then increasingly from central Europe. Copper mining was never tried locally during this period, and Scandinavia has no tin deposits, Iron production began locally toward the periods end, apparently as a kind of trade secret among bronze casters, iron was almost exclusively used for tools to make bronze objects. The Nordic Bronze Age was entirely pre-urban, with living in hamlets
3.
Viking Age
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The Viking Age is the period from the late 8th century to the mid-11th century in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, following the Germanic Iron Age. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonisation and conquest. Three Viking ships had beached in Weymouth Bay four years earlier, the Viking devastation of Northumbrias Holy Island was reported by the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin of York, who wrote, Never before in Britain has such a terror appeared. Vikings were portrayed as violent and bloodthirsty by their enemies. The chronicles of medieval England portrayed them as rapacious wolves among sheep, the first challenges to the many anti-Viking images in Britain emerged in the 17th century. Pioneering scholarly works on the Viking Age reached a readership in Britain. Archaeologists began to dig up Britains Viking past, linguistics traced the Viking-Age origins of rural idioms and proverbs. New dictionaries of the Old Norse language enabled more Victorians to read the Icelandic Sagas, the Vikings who invaded western and eastern Europe were chiefly pagans from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They also settled in the Faroe Islands, Ireland, Iceland, peripheral Scotland, Greenland and their North Germanic language, Old Norse, became the mother-tongue of present-day Scandinavian languages. By 801, a central authority appears to have been established in Jutland. In Norway, mountainous terrain and fjords formed strong natural boundaries, communities there remained independent of each other, unlike the situation in Denmark which is lowland. By 800, some 30 small kingdoms existed in Norway, the sea was the easiest way of communication between the Norwegian kingdoms and the outside world. It was in the 8th century that Scandinavians began to build ships of war, the North Sea rovers were traders, colonisers and explorers as well as plunderers. There are various theories concerning the causes of the Viking invasions, for people living along the coast, it would seem natural to seek new land by the sea. Another reason was that during this period England, Wales and Ireland, the Franks, however, had well-defended coasts and heavily fortified ports and harbours. Pure thirst for adventure may also have been a factor, a reason for the raids is believed by some to be over-population caused by technological advances, such as the use of iron, or a shortage of women due to selective female infanticide. Although another cause could well have been caused by the Frankish expansion to the south of Scandinavia. Consequently, these Vikings became raiders, in search of subsistence, There is ongoing debate among scholars as to why the Scandinavians began to expand during the 8th through 11th centuries
4.
Kalmar Union
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The Union was not quite continuous, there were several short interruptions. Legally the countries remained separate sovereign states, but with their domestic, one main impetus for its formation was to block German expansion northward into the Baltic region. The main reason for its failure to survive was the struggle between the monarch, who wanted a strong unified state, and the Swedish and Danish nobility which did not. Diverging interests gave rise to a conflict that would hamper the union in several intervals from the 1430s until its breakup in 1523 when Gustav Vasa became king of Sweden. Norway continued to remain a part of the realm of Denmark–Norway under the Oldenburg dynasty for nearly three centuries until its dissolution in 1814. Then Union between Sweden and Norway lasted until 1905, when a grandson of the incumbent king of Denmark was elected its king, the union was the work of Scandinavian aristocracy wishing to counter the influence of the Hanseatic League. Margaret, a daughter of King Valdemar IV of Denmark, married King Haakon VI of Norway and Sweden, Margaret succeeded in having her son Olav recognized as heir to the throne of Denmark. In 1376 Olav inherited the crown of Denmark from his grandfather as King Oluf III, with his mother as guardian. The two kingdoms were united in a union under a child king, with the kings mother as his guardian, later. On 2 February the next year, she was recognized as regent of Norway. Their common enemy was the Hanseatic League and the growing German influence over the Scandinavian economy. The Nordic union was established on 17 June 1397 by the Treaty of Kalmar, signed in the Swedish castle of Kalmar on Swedens south-east coast, at each junction, installation of a new monarch tended to mean a break-up of the union for a while. Eric of Pomerania, however, became the monarch of all three kingdoms, at Kalmar, the 15-year-old Eric of Pomerania was crowned king of all three kingdoms by the archbishops of Denmark and Sweden, but Margaret managed to remain in control until her death in 1412. It is said that contemporaries of the Union would not recognize the term, Union of Kalmar—that they just understood that much of the time. While the term meaning Treaty of Kalmar was known already at the time, the Swedes were not happy with the Danes frequent wars on Schleswig, Holstein, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania, which were a disturbance to Swedish exports to the European continent. Furthermore, the centralization of government in Denmark raised suspicions, the Swedish Privy Council wanted to retain a fair degree of self-government. The unity of the union eroded after the Danish defeat against the German Hanseatic League in the 1430s, even to the point of armed rebellion, erik was deposed as the union king and was succeeded by his nephew, the childless Christopher of Bavaria. In the power vacuum that arose following Christophers death, Sweden elected Charles VIII king with the intent to reestablish the union under a Swedish king, during the next seven decades struggle for power and the wars between Sweden and Denmark would dominate the union
5.
Swedish Empire
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The Swedish Empire refers to the Kingdom of Swedens territorial control of much of the Baltic region during the 17th and early 18th centuries, a time when Sweden was one of the great European powers. The beginning of the Empire is usually taken as the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, who ascended the throne in 1611, in Swedish history, the period is referred to as stormaktstiden, literally meaning the Great Power era. The interests of the high nobility contrasted with the uniformity policy, in territories acquired during the periods of de facto noble rule, serfdom was not abolished, and there was also a trend to set up respective estates in Sweden proper. The Great Reduction of 1680 put an end to efforts of the nobility. However, in the course of this war as well as in the subsequent Scanian War, Sweden was able to maintain her empire only with support of her closest ally. Charles XI of Sweden consolidated the empire and ensured a period of peace, before Russia, Saxony and Denmark started an attack on his successor. Sweden emerged as a great European power under Axel Oxenstierna and King Gustavus Adolphus, during the Thirty Years War, Sweden managed to conquer approximately half of the member states of the Holy Roman Empire. After France had intervened on the side as Sweden, the fortunes would shift again. As the war continued, it turned more and more grim, although exact population estimates do not exist, historians estimate that as many as one-third of the people in the Holy Roman Empire may have died as a result of the war. At the same time, Sweden joined the other important northern European nations in founding overseas colonies, New Sweden was founded in the valley of the Delaware River in 1638, and Sweden later laid claim to a number of Caribbean islands. A string of Swedish forts and trading posts was constructed along the coast of West Africa as well, at the conclusion of the Thirty Years War, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 granted Sweden territories as war reparations. Sweden demanded Silesia, Pomerania pay a sum of 200,000 Riksdaler out of the lands they would receive, or 2) surrender a fourth of the property itself. Against this, the over-taxed lower estates protested, and the Diet had to be suspended, the king intervened, not to quell the commons, as the senate insisted, but to compel the nobility to give way. He proposed a committee to investigate the matter before the meeting of the next Riksdag. Charles X Gustav had done his best to recover from the extravagance of Christina. However, his own desire for military glory may have caused problems for his country, in three days, he persuaded the Swedish estates of the potential of his attack on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, when he left Stockholm for Warsaw on July 10,1654, the Polish-Swedish War expanded into a general European war. He achieved passage over the Belts and emerged triumphant, only to die of sheer exhaustion, immediately after his death, a regency was appointed to govern Sweden during the minority of his only son and successor, Charles XI of Sweden, who was four years old
6.
Age of Liberty
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The shift of power from monarch to parliament was a direct effect of the Great Northern War, which was disastrous for Sweden. Suffrage under the government of the Age of Liberty was not universal. Although the taxed peasantry was represented in the Parliament, its influence was disproportionately small, at home the Reduction was cautiously pursued, while abroad the successful conclusion of the great peace congress at Ryswick was justly regarded as a signal triumph of Swedens peaceful diplomacy. From the very beginning of the Great Northern War, Sweden suffered from the inability of Charles XII to view the situation from anything and his great determination to avenge himself on enemies overpowered every other consideration. Again and again, during eighteen years of warfare, it was in his power to dictate a peace advantageous to Sweden. After initial setbacks, Charles, with the help of the combined English and Dutch fleet, defeated Fredrick IV, soon, Charles defeated the Russian forces at the Battle of Narva on 20 November 1700. But Charles, intent on dethroning the last member of the coalition against him, Augustus II of Poland, subsequently in 1701 he rejected a personal appeal from William III of England to conclude peace on his own terms. Moreover, two of Swedens Baltic provinces, Estonia and Ingria, had seized by the Tsar. Yet even now Charles, by a stroke of the pen, in 1707 Peter was ready to return everything except Saint Petersburg and the line of the Neva, and again Charles preferred risking the whole to saving the greater part of his Baltic possessions. When at last, after Charles catastrophic defeat in the Poltava in June 1709 and his flight into Turkey, he condescended to use methods, it was solely to prolong, not to terminate. Even now he could have made honorable terms with his numerous enemies, the resources of Sweden were still very far from being exhausted, and during 1710–1711 Magnus Stenbock, while Charles was still trapped at Bender, upheld her military supremacy in the north. But all the efforts of the Swedish government were wrecked by the determination of Charles XII to surrender nothing, at the beginning of 1719, peace overtures were made to Britain, Hanover, Prussia and Denmark. Northern Swedish Pomerania with Rügen which had come under Danish rule during the war, was retained by Sweden, negotiations were reopened with Russia at Nystad, in May 1720, but peace was not concluded till 30 August 1721 and then only under the direst pressure. By the Treaty of Nystad Sweden ceded to Russia Ingria and Estonia, Livonia, Finland west of Viborg and north of Käkisalmi was restored to Sweden. She also received an indemnity of two million Riksdaler and an undertaking of non-interference in her domestic affairs. All power was vested in the people as represented by the Riksdag, consisting, as before, of four estates, nobles, priests, burgesses. The conflicting interests of four independent assemblies, who sat and deliberated apart and with their mutual jealousies. No measure could now become law until it had obtained the assent of at least three of the four estates
7.
Gustavian era
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This is a History of Sweden from 1772 through 1809, more known as the Gustavian era of Kings Gustav III and Gustav IV, as well as the reign of King Charles XIII of Sweden. Adolf Frederick of Sweden died on February 12,1771, nothing could be done, however, till the return of the new king, Gustav III, from Paris. The new coronation oath contained three revolutionary clauses, The first aimed at making abdications in the impossible by binding the king to reign uninterruptedly. The third clause required him, in all cases of preferment, to be guided not principally as heretofore, all through 1771 the estates wrangled over the clauses. An attempt of the king to mediate foundered on the suspicions of the estate of burgesses, the non-noble Cap majority now proceeded to attack the Privy Council. The Riksrådet, the last stronghold of the Hats, and, on April 25 of that year and it was now, for the first time, that Gustav began to consider the possibility of a revolution. The new constitution of August 20,1772 which Gustav III imposed upon the Riksdag of the Estates, converted a weak and disunited republic into a strong, but these extensive powers were subjected to important checks. Thus, without the consent of the estates, no new law could be imposed, no old law abolished, no offensive war undertaken. The estates alone could tax themselves, they had the control of the Riksbank - the Bank of Sweden. In Sweden the change was most popular, but Gustavs first Riksdag, that of 1778, opened the eyes of the deputies to the fact that their political supremacy had departed. But it was not till after eight years more had elapsed that actual trouble began, the Riksdag of 1778 had been obsequious, the Riksdag of 1786 was mutinous. It rejected nearly all the royal measures outright, or so modified them that Gustav himself withdrew them, when he dismissed the estates, the speech from the throne held out no prospect of their speedy revocation. Nevertheless, within three years, the king was obliged to summon another Riksdag, which met at Stockholm on the January 26,1789 and his attempt in the interval to rule without a parliament had been disastrous. Abroad the Swedish revolution made a great sensation, unknown to party leaders, Gustav had renewed the Swedish alliance with France and had received solemn assurances of assistance from Louis XV if Gustav were to reestablish monarchical rule in Sweden. Moreover, France agreed to pay its outstanding subsidies to Sweden, amounting to 1.5 million livres annually, beginning from January 1772. Whats more, Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes, was to be sent to Stockholm to circumvent the designs of Russia just as he had previously done in the Sublime Porte at Constantinople, the new king, Gustav IV, still a minor, was brought up among Jacobins. During the kings minority, Gustaf Reuterholm virtually ruled Sweden, the negotiations with the French Jacobins exacerbated the hatred which Gustavs supporters felt for the Jacobin counselors of Charles, the duke-regent, later Charles XIII of Sweden. They formed a conspiracy to overthrow the government, led by Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt, which was to have been supported by a Russian fleet, the conspiracy was discovered and vigorously suppressed
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