SWEDEN : HISTORY
A land of ancient bedrock, Sweden was inhabited by hunters and gatherers
during the Stone Age (6000 BC – 4000 BC), following the recession of the
last ice age – the Weichsel glaciation. Sweden was first mentioned in
the 1st century, by Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote that the Suiones
lived out in the sea and were powerful in both arms and ships. During
the Viking Age of the 9th and 10th century, these Swedes mainly
travelled east, to the Balticum, Russia and the Black Sea and down to
southern Europe.
Sweden gradually became a unified Christian kingdom during the 11th and
12th centuries . Its expansion into the northern wilderness of Lapland,
the Scandinavian peninsula, and present-day Finland continued. The
country today known as Finland was a part of Sweden from 1362 until
1809. In 1397, Queen Margaret of Denmark united all the Nordic lands in
the "Kalmar Union". Continual tension within the countries and within
the union gradually led to an open conflict between the Swedes and the
Danes in the 15th century. The union's final disintegration in the early
16th century brought on a long-lived rivalry between Norway and Denmark
on one side and Sweden and Finland on the other.King Gustav I of Sweden
(Vasa) ultimately broke free in 1521 and established a nation state,
considered the Foundation of modern Sweden, and shortly thereafter
carrying through a Protestant Reformation.
The 17th century saw the rise of Sweden as one of the great powers in
Europe, due to successful participation, initiated by King Gustav II
Adolph, in the Thirty Years' War. By 1658, Sweden ruled several
provinces of Denmark as well as what is now Finland, Ingermanland (in
which St. Petersburg is located), Estonia, Latvia, and important coastal
towns and other areas of northern Germany.
Mighty as it was, it crumbled in the 18th century with Imperial Russia
taking the reins of northern Europe in the Great Northern War, Russia,
Saxony-Poland, and Denmark-Norway pooled their power in 1700 and
attacked the Swedish-Finnish empire. Although the young Swedish King
Karl XII (also known as Charles XII) won spectacular victories in the
early years of the Great Northern War, his plan to attack Moscow and
force Russia into peace proved too ambitious; he fell in battle in 1718.
In the subsequent peace treaties, the allied powers, joined by Prussia
and England-Hanover, ended Sweden's reign as a great power. Sweden
suffered further territorial losses during the Napoleonic wars and was
forced to cede Finland to Russia in 1809.
The Campaign against Norway, 1814, led to the Treaty of Kiel, whereby
Norway was forced into a union with Sweden that wasn't dissolved until
1905. But the campaign also signified the last of the Swedish wars and
its 200 years of peace are arguably unique in the world today.
During the 1800's, Sweden knew a significant population increase,
generally attributed to the three factors of peace, vaccination and
potatoes, doubling the population from 1750 to 1850. Many people on the
countryside, the home for the majority, found themselves out of work,
leading to poverty and alcoholism. Therefore a massive emigration to
mainly the United States occurred 1850–1910. However, as the Industrial
revolution in Sweden progressed during the century, people gradually
began moving into the Swedish cities and factory work, where they
organized in Socialistic unions. A threatening Socialist revolution was
avoided in 1917, following the re-introduction of Parliamentarism, and
the country was democratized.
During and after World War I, in which Sweden remained neutral, the
country benefited from the worldwide demand for Swedish steel, ball
bearings, wood pulp, and matches. Postwar prosperity provided the
foundations for the social welfare policies characteristic of modern
Sweden. Foreign policy concerns in the 1930s centered on Soviet and
German expansionism, which stimulated abortive efforts at Nordic defense
cooperation. Sweden followed a policy of armed neutrality during World
War II and currently remains nonaligned. Sweden became a member of the
European Union in 1995.
