Sweden - Becky Ohlsen [12]
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Gustav III (1746–92) curtailed parliamentary powers and reintroduced absolute rule in 1789. He was a popular and cultivated king who inaugurated the Royal Opera House in Stockholm (1782) and opened the Swedish Academy of Literature (1786), which is now known for awarding the annual Nobel Prize for literature. His foreign policy was less auspicious and he was considered exceptionally lucky to lead Sweden intact through a two-year war with Russia (1788–90). Enemies in the aristocracy conspired against the king, hiring an assassin to shoot him at a masked ball in 1792.
Gustav IV Adolf (1778–1837), Gustav III’s son, assumed the throne and was drawn into the Napoleonic Wars, permanently losing Finland (one-third of Sweden’s territory) to Russia. Gustav IV was forced to abdicate and his uncle Karl XIII took the Swedish throne under a new constitution that ended unrestricted royal power.
Out of the blue, Napoleon’s marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (1763–1844) was invited by a nobleman, Baron Mörner, to succeed the childless Karl XIII to the Swedish throne. The rest of the nobility adjusted to the idea and Bernadotte took up the offer, along with the name Karl Johan. Karl Johan judiciously changed sides in the war, and led Sweden, allied with Britain, Prussia and Russia, against France and Denmark.
After Napoleon’s defeat, Sweden forced Denmark to swap Norway for Swedish Pomerania (1814). The Norwegians objected, defiantly choosing king and constitution, and Swedish troops occupied most of the country. This forced union with Norway was Sweden’s last military action.
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INDUSTRIALISATION
Industry arrived late in Sweden (during the second half of the 19th century), but when it did come it transformed the country from one of Western Europe’s poorest to one of its richest.
The Göta Canal opened in 1832, providing a valuable transport link between the east and west coasts, and development accelerated when the main railway across Sweden was completed in 1862. Significant Swedish inventions, including dynamite (Alfred Nobel) and the safety match (patented by Johan Edvard Lundstrom; Click here), were carefully exploited by government and industrialists; coupled with efficient steel-making and timber exports, they added to a growing economy and the rise of the new middle class.
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Historically about 30% of the Swedish economy is in the public sector: health care, education, services for the elderly, hospitals and unemployment etc.
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However, when small-scale peasant farms were replaced with larger concerns, there was widespread discontent, exacerbated by famine, in the countryside. Some agricultural workers joined the population drift from rural areas to towns. Others abandoned Sweden altogether: around one million people (an astonishing quarter of the population!) emigrated over just a few decades, mainly to America.
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TRACING YOUR ANCESTORS Fran Parnell
Around a million people emigrated from Sweden to the USA and Canada between 1850 and 1930. Many of their 12 million descendants are now returning to find their roots.
Luckily, detailed parish records of births, deaths and marriages have been kept since 1686 and there are landsarkivet (regional archives) around the country. The national archive is Riksarkivet (010-476 70 00; www.ra.se).
SVAR Forskarcentrum (0623-725 00; www.svar.ra.se) holds most records from the late 17th century until 1928. You can pay the staff here to research for you or look for yourself.
Utvandrarnas Hus (Emigrant House; ) in Växjö is a very good museum dedicated to the mass departure. Attached is Svenska Emigrantinstitutet (Swedish Emigrant Institute; 0470-201 20; www.swemi.se), with an extensive research centre that you can use (Skr400 per search).
Also worth a look is Tracing Your Swedish Ancestry, by Nils William Olsson, a free do-it-yourself genealogical guide (40 pages). Get a copy by emailing your name and address to