With the melting of the ice, nomadic Stone Age people slowly began to make their way across the land that is now known as Sweden or Sverige in Swedish. As far as the history of Sweden goes, some of the best evidence from around this period are the carvings left behind. Etched into rock, the petroglyphs of Sweden are eerily beautiful and a drawcard for visitors trying to understand the ancient Swedish way of life. Interestingly, many of the carvings depict boats — if only the artists of long ago could predict the way boats would change the lives of the people in the Viking Age to come.
The remains of runes cover a wide range of Swedish history, spanning from as far back as the Bronze Age all the way through to the 20 th Century. Probably because the area was central to the development of Sweden through the ages. Despite their enduring existence throughout history, the runes are most often associated with the Vikings.
With Swedish land and resources running out, and the lure of foreign treasures and adventure, Swedish Vikings joined their Scandinavian peers in voyages abroad. They travelled in expertly crafted boats designed specifically for their exploration, allowing them to go further than ever before. The Swedish Vikings raided and traded in many directions, but one of their famous ventures was when they sailed eastwards, making it as far as Kievan Rus Russia.
This moment in history would have a huge influence on the story and culture of this area. Looking at the big picture, this era of Swedish history is obviously monumental in that the Vikings introduced Sweden to the rest of the world. They put them on the map, so to speak.
But digging even deeper, its place in the history books is made even more interesting by the shift in religion that took place as a result. Ancient Swedish history reveals a pagan people that were heavily influenced by their belief in the Nordic gods and mythology.
They were superstitious, proud of their customs and loved a good religious ceremony or two, even practicing ritual sacrifice. While much of their belief system is still shrouded in mystery, evidence suggests that the Nordic gods were firmly entrenched in their culture, having been worshipped in Scandinavia for about years before the Viking Age. As Viking explorers began to settle in foreign lands, missionaries from these places began to arrive in Scandinavia ready to convert the population.
But despite their efforts, it was a slow process, taking hundreds of years. In fact, Sweden gave in to Christianity slower than the rest of Scandinavia. By the time of King Erik Jedvarsson the patron saint of Sweden in , paganism had well and truly been forced out in favour of Christianity.
Despite the fall of paganism, many people in current day Sweden are proud of their Norse pagan roots. The stories of Thor, Odin and the rest of the gods are still popular today. Most scholars agree that their eventual unification under one king is a defining moment in Swedish history.
The exact details of how this partnership came about are a bit sketchy and it depends who you ask, but it likely occurred somewhere around the 12 th Century. While both groups played an equally important role in the making of Sweden, it was obviously the Swedes that gave Sweden its name Sverige in Swedish.
This new unified Sweden went from strength to strength, even eventually taking Finland under their rule — something that would last for over five centuries. The charming Swedish city that we know today would go on to experience a flourishing time of growth, as well as plague, conflict and bloodshed. The waterways have been uniquely melded into the everyday lives of the Swedes who live there, with a city connected by bridges, quaint little alleyways and bustling bike paths.
But back in it was just a town, built by the Swedish ruler Birger Jarl. As is the result in times of power, corruption and inequality, this was ultimately not a happy union for Sweden. A majority of the population reside in cities and urban centers. The head of state for the Swedish Kingdom is a monarch and a government that has the supreme power to implement laws as per the constitution.
After every four years, the people elect a member committee that is entitled the Riksdag. This committee appoints the Prime Minister who acts as the executive head of the government. Sweden was initially part of a three-state union known as the Kalmar Union.
The union was founded in and comprised of three countries: Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, all under one monarch. Queen Margareta was the Danish queen who initiated the uniting of the crowns in , the provinces of Sweden were united but the crowns did not have much significance before this time. Due to Covid, there are currently restrictions on travels to and from Sweden.
For updated information on what applies to your country, please visit krisinformation. This is when Sweden as a whole became populated by people who lived by hunting, gathering and fishing, and who used simple stone tools. Dwelling places and graves dating from the Stone Age, lasting until about 1, BC, are found today in increasing numbers. The Bronze Age was marked in the Nordic region — especially in Denmark, but also in Sweden — by a high level of culture, shown by the artifacts found in graves.
After BC, such artifacts become increasingly rare as iron came into more general use. During the early Iron Age, the population of Sweden became settled, and agriculture came to form the basis of the economy and society. The Sami have had to fight for their rights, and were only recognised by the Swedish parliament as an indigenous people in In the Sami parliament, Sametinget , was established as both a democratically elected body and a national administrative authority.
The Sami are one of the indigenous people of the world. The first document to mention the Sami in Sweden was written almost 2, years ago. Inland parts of upper Norrland are known to have been inhabited even longer, however — for close to 10, years. Many Viking expeditions set off from Sweden to both plunder and trade along the Baltic coast and the rivers that stretched deep into present-day Russia.
The Vikings traveled as far as the Black and Caspian Seas, where they developed trading links with the Byzantine Empire and the Arab kingdoms. Christianity first reached Sweden with a mission led by Ansgar, who visited in the 9th century, but the country was not converted to Christianity until the 11th century. There are more than 2, rune stones in Sweden, with messages dating from the 5th century to the midth century, making them the oldest preserved Swedish documents.
Relatives often had stones erected in memory of a dead family member. The various provinces of Sweden were absorbed around AD into a single unit, but the crown began to gain significant influence only during the late 13th century. By the midth century, this group, known as the Hanseatic League, dominated Swedish trade, and many towns were founded as a result of lively commercial activity.
However, the Black Death, which reached Sweden in , led to a long period of economic and population decline. The first female monarch after Sweden became a hereditary monarchy. Abdicated in , converting to Catholicism and settling in Rome. In Germania 44, 45 he mentions the Swedes Suiones as a powerful tribe distinguished not merely for their arms and men, but for their powerful fleets with ships that had a prow in both ends longships.
Which kings kuningaz ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a long line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC.
As for literacy in Sweden itself, the runic script was in use among the south Scandinavian elite by at least the 2nd century AD, but all that has come down to the present from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions on artefacts, mainly of male names, demonstrating that the people of south Scandinavia spoke Proto-Norse at the time, a language ancestral to Swedish and other North Germanic languages. In the 6th century Jordanes named two tribes he calls the Suehans and the Suetidi who lived in Scandza.
These two names are both considered to refer to the same tribe. The Suehans , he says, has very fine horses just as the "Thyringi" tribe alia vero gens ibi moratur Suehans, quae velud Thyringi equis utuntur eximiis. Snorri Sturluson wrote that the contemporary Swedish king Adils Eadgils had the finest horses of his days. The Suehans were the suppliers of black fox skins for the Roman market.
Then Jordanes names the Suetidi which is considered to be the Latin form of Svitjod. He writes that the Suetidi are the tallest of men together with the Dani who were of the same stock. Later he mentions other Scandinavian tribes for being of the same height. In the 5th and 6th centuries, they became divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, and established powerful successor-states of the Roman Empire in the Iberian Peninsula and Italy.
Crimean Gothic communities appear to have survived intact until the late 18th century. The Swedish Viking Age lasted roughly between the 8th and 11th centuries. Their routes passed through the Dnieper south to Constantinople, on which they carried out numerous raids. The Byzantine Emperor Theophilos noticed their great skills in war and invited them to serve as his personal bodyguard, known as the varangian guard.
The Arabic traveller "Ibn Fadlan" described these Vikings as following:. The adventures of these Swedish Vikings are commemorated on many runestones in Sweden, such as the Greece Runestones and the Varangian Runestones. There was also considerable participation in expeditions westwards, which are commemorated on stones such as the England Runestones. The last major Swedish Viking expedition appears to have been the ill-fated expedition of Ingvar the Far-Travelled to Serkland, the region south-east of the Caspian Sea.
Its members are commemorated on the Ingvar Runestones, none of which mentions any survivor. What happened to the crew is unknown, but it is believed that they died of sickness. Sweden and Gothia were two separate nations long before that into antiquity. It is not known how long they existed, Beowulf described semi-legendary Swedish-Geatish wars in the 6th century.
Remains of what is believed to have been a large market have been found in Ystad dating from — AD. In Paviken, an important centre of trade in the Baltic region during the 9th and 10th century, remains have been found of a large Viking Age harbour with shipbuilding yards and handicraft industries. Between and , trade brought an abundance of silver to Gotland, and according to some scholars, the Gotlanders of this era hoarded more silver than the rest of the population of Scandinavia combined.
Ansgar is usually credited for introducing Christianity in , but the new religion did not begin to fully replace paganism until the 12th century. During the 11th century, Christianity became the most prevalent religion, and from Sweden is counted as a Christian nation. The period between and was characterized by internal power struggles and competition among the Nordic kingdoms.
Swedish kings began to expand the Swedish-controlled territory in Finland, creating conflicts with the Rus who no longer had any connection with Sweden. Except for the province of Skane, on the southernmost tip of Sweden which was under Danish control during this time, feudalism never developed in Sweden as it did in the rest of Europe.
Therefore, the peasantry remained largely a class of free farmers throughout most of Swedish history. Slavery also called thralldom was not common in Sweden, and what slavery there was tended to be driven out of existence by the spread of Christianity, the difficulty in obtaining slaves from the lands east of the Baltic Sea, and by the development of cities before the 16th century Indeed, both slavery and serfdom were abolished altogether by a decree of King Magnus Erickson in Former slaves tended to be absorbed into the peasantry and some became labourers in the towns.
Still, Sweden remained a poor and economically backward country in which barter was the means of exchange. For instance, the farmers of the province of Dalsland would transport their butter to the mining districts of Sweden and exchange it there for iron, which they would then take down to the coast and trade the iron for fish they needed for food while the iron would be shipped abroad. In the 14th century, Sweden was struck by the Black Death.
The population of Sweden was decimated. During this period the Swedish cities began to acquire greater rights and were strongly influenced by German merchants of the Hanseatic League, active especially at Visby.
However, Margaret's successors, whose rule was also centred in Denmark, were unable to control the Swedish nobility. A large number of children inherited the Swedish crown over the course of the kingdom's existence; consequently real power was held for long periods by regents notably those of the Sture family chosen by the Swedish parliament. King Christian II of Denmark, who asserted his claim to Sweden by force of arms, ordered a massacre in of Swedish nobles at Stockholm. This came to be known as the "Stockholm blood bath" and stirred the Swedish nobility to new resistance and, on 6 June now Sweden's national holiday in , they made Gustav Vasa their king.
This is sometimes considered as the foundation of modern Sweden. Shortly afterwards he rejected Catholicism and led Sweden into the Protestant Reformation. The Hanseatic League sought civil and commercial privileges from the princes and royalty of the countries and cities along the coasts of the Baltic Sea. In exchange they offered a certain amount of protection. Having their own navy the Hansa were able to sweep the Baltic Sea free of pirates. The privileges obtained by the Hansa included assurances that only Hansa citizens would be allowed to trade from the ports where they were located.
They sought agreement to be free of all customs and taxes. Exports from Sweden consisted of iron and copper. However, the Swedes began to resent the monopoly trading position of the Hansa mostly German citizens and to resent the income they felt they lost to the Hansa. Consequently, when Gustav Vasa or Gustav I broke the monopoly power of the Hanseatic League he was regarded as a hero to the Swedish people. History now views Gustav I as the father of the modern Swedish nation.
The foundations laid by Gustav would take time to develop. Furthermore, when Sweden did develop, freed itself from the Hanseatic League and entered its golden era, the fact the peasantry had traditionally been free meant that more of the economic benefits flowed back to them rather than going to a feudal landowning class. This was not the case in other countries of Europe like Poland where the peasantry was still bound by serfdom and a strong feudalistic land owning system.
During the 17th century Sweden emerged as a European great power. Before the emergence of the Swedish Empire, Sweden was a very poor and scarcely populated country on the fringe of European civilization, with no significant power or reputation. Sweden rose to prominence on a continental scale during the tenure of king Gustavus Adolphus, seizing territories from Russia and Poland—Lithuania in multiple conflicts, including the Thirty Years' War.
These German provinces excluded themselves from Swedish power one by one, leaving Sweden with only a few northern German territories: Swedish Pomerania, Bremen-Verden and Wismar. The Swedish armies may have destroyed up to 2, castles, 18, villages and 1, towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns. In the middle of the 17th century Sweden was the third largest country in Europe by land area, only surpassed by Russia and Spain.
Sweden reached its largest territorial extent under the rule of Charles X after the treaty of Roskilde in The foundation of Sweden's success during this period is credited to Gustav I's major changes on the Swedish economy in the 16th century, and his introduction of Protestantism. In the 17th century, Sweden was engaged in many wars, for example with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with both sides competing for territories of today's Baltic states, with the disastrous Battle of Kircholm being one of the highlights.
One-third of the Finnish population died in the devastating famine that struck the country in The Swedes conducted a series of invasions into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, known as the Deluge. After more than half a century of almost constant warfare, the Swedish economy had deteriorated. It became the lifetime task of Charles' son, Charles XI, to rebuild the economy and refit the army. His legacy to his son, the coming ruler of Sweden Charles XII, was one of the finest arsenals in the world, a large standing army and a great fleet.
Sweden's largest threat at this time, Russia, had a larger army but was far behind in both equipment and training. After the Battle of Narva in , one of the first battles of the Great Northern War, the Russian army was so severely decimated that Sweden had an open chance to invade Russia.
This gave Russia time to rebuild and modernize its army. After the success of invading Poland, Charles decided to make an invasion attempt of Russia which ended in a decisive Russian victory at the Battle of Poltava in After a long march exposed to Cossack raids, Russian Tsar Peter the Great's scorched-earth techniques and the cold Russian climate, the Swedes stood weakened with a shattered morale and enormously outnumbered against the Russian army at Poltava.
The defeat meant the beginning of the end for the Swedish Empire. In addition, the plague raging in East Central Europe devastated the Swedish dominons and reached Central Sweden in Charles XII attempted to invade Norway ; however, he was shot dead at Fredriksten fortress in The Swedes were not militarily defeated at Fredriksten, but the whole structure and organization of the Norwegian campaign fell apart with the king's death, and the army withdrew.
Forced to cede large areas of land in the Treaty of Nystad in , Sweden also lost its place as an empire and as the dominant state on the Baltic Sea.
With Sweden's lost influence, Russia emerged as an empire and became one of Europe's dominant nations. As the war finally ended in , Sweden had lost an estimated , men, , of those from the area of present-day Sweden and 50, from the Finnish part of Sweden. In the 18th century, Sweden did not have enough resources to maintain its territories outside Scandinavia, and most of them were lost, culminating with the loss of eastern Sweden to Russia which became the highly autonomous Grand Principality of Finland in Imperial Russia.
In interest of re-establishing Swedish dominance in the Baltic Sea, Sweden allied itself against its traditional ally and benefactor, France, in the Napoleonic Wars. Sweden's role in the Battle of Leipzig gave it the authority to force Denmark-Norway, an ally of France, to cede Norway to the King of Sweden on 14 January in exchange for northern German provinces, at the Treaty of Kiel.
He launched a military campaign against Norway on 27 July , ending in the Convention of Moss, which forced Norway into a personal union with Sweden under the Swedish crown, which lasted until The campaign was the last war in which Sweden participated as a combatant. Swedish troops partake in peace-keeping missions and currently have forces deployed in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Between and , the population in Sweden doubled.
Nevertheless, Sweden remained poor, retaining a nearly entirely agricultural economy even as Denmark and Western European countries began to industrialize. Many looked towards America for a better life during this time. It is believed that between and more than one million Swedes moved to the United States.
In the early 20th century, more Swedes lived in Chicago than in Gothenburg Sweden's second largest city. Most Swedish immigrants moved to the Midwestern United States, with a large population in Minnesota, with a few others moving to other parts of the United States and Canada.
Despite the slow rate of industrialization into the 19th century, many important changes were taking place in the agrarian economy because of innovations and the large population growth. These innovations included government-sponsored programs of enclosure, aggressive exploitation of agricultural lands, and the introduction of new crops such as the potato.
Because the Swedish peasantry had never been enserfed as elsewhere in Europe, the Swedish farming culture began to take on a critical role in the Swedish political process, which has continued through modern times with modern Agrarian party now called the Centre Party.
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