There weren't semi-indepemdent duchies and counties like in the rest of Europe, and power was more centralized to the King, right?
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What was Swedish feudalism like?
There were semi-independent duchies at times, but only for the younger sons of the king and it never lasted long because the king was never able to get along with his brothers.
Sad
>What was Swedish feudalism like?
Nowhere near as brutally and unfairly oppressive as butthurt Finns would have you think it was.
Obsessed.
>butthurt Finns
You mean Russian operatives
Even more obsessed.
Russian operatives have been aggressively trying to domineer and poison all discussion relating to Finland for years
When I see a "Finn" praising the poverty and corruption and boundless inferiority of Russia I correctly do not see a Finn but an Igor
This tbqh. The Russians loved the whole ‘we liberated you from tyrannical Swedish oppression’ narrative to justify their takeover.
This. Johan Bäckman is the worst culprit. I cannot even imagine worshipping Russia as a Finn. Really pathetic self-loathing, and the idolization of perhaps the most corrupt and needlessly imperialistic culture and nation on earth.
You view Russia as a historically monolithic and unchanging entity. Saying that Finland has a good deal during the years of autonomy doesn't erase Russification and every other evil Russia has done.
>a good deal during the years of autonomy
That's revisionist history.
*fantasy
He’s not wrong that Finland had a good deal during its time as the autonomous grand duchy. But that all changed once Alexander III became tsar. Alexander I, Nicholas I, and Alexander II were all very good about respecting Finland’s autonomy. During their reigns Finland not only had its own currency, but also its own parliament with the former Swedish law which was inherited, and the duchy’s men were not forced into the Russian Imperial military as conscripts. Alexander III and his son Nicholas II had no desire to respect the autonomy and sought to fully integrate and russify the grand duchy. Virtually every other subjugated state in the Russian Empire had been subject to these policies for some time, and most places (like Poland for example) had nowhere near the autonomy that Finland had.
That said, Russia in recent years has proven itself to be relatively unchanging and monolithic. The era we live in now with what Putin is trying to do in Ukraine proves that Russia is living in the past, obsessed with reestablishing itself to former heights of power. This mentality exists because Russian people too hold onto it and are too proud — they allow it and support it in dangerous droves. Clinging to the past and acting like brutes and barbarians, just like they also used to do.
no, they are not going to literally restore the Russian Empire, but Ukraine specifically is their buffer zone, which is simply vital to control.
>they are not going to literally restore the Russian Empire
My point was not that they will, but that they want to. It is overwhelmingly and abundantly clear that there is a desire and appetite for this. Russia has never properly been humbled and is a bully country which even has a deeply imbedded bully culture. Just ask anyone who grew up there.
>Ukraine specifically is their buffer zone
They want it to be. But they don’t have a right to claim it as such. And even then, Dmitry Medvedev, who is a likely successor to Putin and a very senior official, has said that Ukrainians will either become Russian or die. So they don’t even want it as a buffer zone, they want it as a controlled satellite state at the bare minimum and to fully takeover and incorporate it into Russia at the maximum.
Ukraine was never some kind of "disputed" Russian territory, Russian history literally begins with Kyiv, and it's to be expected that they want it back, especially given the strategic location of the region. It’s terrible how they do it, they absolutely do not know how to seize territory, effectively carry out a blitzkrieg, turning every small village into a bloody massacre.
>it’s to be expected that they want it back
It really isn’t, anon, and you’re now being an apologist for the Russian Federation’s expansionistic nonsense. Countries, cultures, and people groups move and change, as do borders. This has always been the case. Otherwise we should be expecting the Irish to hand Dublin, Limerick, and a handful of other cities back to the Scandinavians. And London should be handed back to the Italians — they’re the closest successors of the Romans after all, aren’t they? Southern Italy should probably be given back to the Greeks, no, as should Marseille? Much of eastern Germany used to be inhabited by the Polabian Slavs, so Poland should get to control that whole area, right?
You see, this kind of irredentism never stops once started. Supporting and believing in these kinds of claims leads to endless, needless bloodshed, largely due to the fact that imperialistic twats like Putin want to feel big and strong. Russia is a wealthy, developed economy as it is. It does not need to control Ukraine, let alone Kiev. Russia has enough internal problems that need addressing, as it lags behind the rest of the developed advanced economy world, having considerably higher murder, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse rates, and a life expectancy that’s like 17 years less than countries like Canada, Japan, and Finland.
>especially given the strategic location of the region
You mean the resource-rich location, right? Of course the mafia-esque imperialists in Moscow want to control this. World’s biggest grain export and tons of oil in the east. Who wouldn’t want to make that theirs? Any Total War gamer certainly would.
>It’s terrible how they do it
You’re damn fricking right about that. But don’t forget all the war crimes which were absolutely and completely unnecessary. Russia is a rule by fear country, and what happened in places like Bucha is their modus operandi on full display.
>Russian history literally begins with Kyiv, and it's to be expected that they want it back
Bullshit claim. Literally “we claim possession of this, because we’re the proper inheritors of it, more than the people who live there and whose language and culture is very close to but divergent from our own” — as if their culture hasn’t also changed in the last 1200 years. You’re excusing and basically justifying imperialistic nonsense, anon.
some kind of delusional ideology like “imperialism” exists only in your head, IRL there are only strategically important regions, and that is Ukraine for Russia, it became such after the Amerimutts installed their puppet government there in 2013-2014.
>Amerimutts installed their puppet government there in 2013-2014
Right, right. Because Ukrainians have no will of their own, and no right to self determination. They don’t want to be a part of the west, no, it’s that they’re being conned and forced into joining it.
How does that Kremlin cum taste, anon? Or is it that you take it up the ass instead?
spoken like a true geo-politics pro strategy gamer and 17 year old
Anon, Putin himself can be quoted as saying that “the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union.” Not the holocaust, for example — this. Basically no historian worth their salt disputes that the USSR was a) imperialistic as frick and b) Russian Empire 2.0 under different management. Why else did the USSR spend its first decades after the Russian Revolution taking over (and trying to take over) countries which the Russian Empire had formerly controlled? Just for fun?
why don't you want to be part of the empire?
Who the frick wants to be Russian save for propaganda-addled Putinists? Russia’s quality of life is dreadfully behind the rest of the developed world, and it is one of the most corrupt countries on the planet. The only people who actually move there with the intent to stay are people from even shittier countries like Uzbekistan and Azerbajina.
you are right, but since Russia is not a globohomo-controlled country, then if the Putin mafia is overthrown, you can literally turn it into a racially loyal empire of white people.
>since Russia is not a globohomo-controlled country
They have AIDS and believe in stupid gay Soviet-style pan-ethnic federations. It's possibly the most globohomosexual country in the world. There's also no planet where Russians are white.
yes they need "buffer zones" to "buffer" against large scale land-invasions like 1941 because having the highest number of nukes in the world isn't enough. nevermind that their own behavior is what quite directly causes neighboring countries to reject neutrality.
But they need a buffer, anon! That’s why they want to completely take over and absorb Ukraine! They need their border to be right at NATO’s doorstep even more so, because buffer!
Bufferzones don't do shit when the enemy and you has ICBMs
Quite different from continental Europe
Mostly extremely poor and extremely religious.
Peasants here were not serfs, they were not bound to the land. They were still dirt poor and chained to their land regardless cause of heavy taxation since nobility and church were exempt from taxes.
It was still uppheld by classic feudalism, i.e vassals holding land in exchange for loyalty and providing knights to the king. Kalmar Union unironically laid the real foundations to a centralized Swedish state (the Kalmar Union was a Danish project btw to unify the Nordic).
Hansa League had a heavy impact on Sweden since Sweden were dirt poor but German merchants were not. The German merchant quickly became a nobility class themselves in the cities and began influencing our language and arcitecture (most Swedish cities are fundemental copies the German arcitecture). The old norse language was preserved on Iceland, the rest of the nordic was Germanized largely thanks to the Hansa league.
Only those living in Sweden with an education were part of the Church. Not a single Swedish king could read or write during the middle ages (yes its true). First university doesnt open until 1477 in Uppsala, before that the only studies could be made in Germany and France and Northern Italian states, hence the educated were all foreigners or had lived abroad and imported a continental culture, it wasnt until 1500 that Sweden began to develope a more "Swedish" culture.
Sweden remains largely controlled by the church cause our cities are small and our bourgeoisie class is poor and insignificant. This had a major impact on Sweden during the reformation when Sweden converted to protestantism, it severed the ties with continental Europe completely so our renaissance become a step back, not forward.
The reformation btw happened solely because the king wanted to centralize his power (frick off Church) and to get more money (Sweden poor / Church rich = Sweden rich / Church gone).
/Swede
This seems like a good response, and fascinating.
>our renaissance become a step back, not forward.
Interesting. Can you elaborate? The days of the Swedish Empire seem to me a period of golden age so it is interesting to read that
The crown too poor and the bourgeoisie too small. Educated men simply wasnt brought so the influx of ideas and scnience which the Church didnt approve of was limited. When Sweden converted, the link was completed severed for a time. The Renaissance simply never arrived. Unironically, the renaissance had greatly caused the reformation which put Sweden backwards, also became the kickstarter towards the Swedish Empire. All the wealth confiscated from the church by converting Sweden to Protestantism would later fund the states ambition to become a great power.
The change began when the Vasa dynasty wanted to turn Sweden into a nationstate after the successful secession from Denmark.
The reformation, altough severed links with the papacy and its power, actually made Sweden even more religiously intolerant. The church was now in the hands of the state, and the king wanted absolute power. Critics and heretics were punished by death. Local priests were now preaching about the loyalty to the state being loyalty to god which made the peasants more loyal to their committment.
The renaissance only became important now because he wanted to give Sweden an image of power towards the rest of Europe.
Because of the poor nobility and the barely non-existant bourgeoisie class, Swedens national identity and culture depended solely on what the king felt like it should be.
History books began to be heavily fabricated to give Sweden a sense of pompous legitimacy as a great power and legitimice the king as a mandate of heaven. Books on Gothicism (search on Wikpedia) began to spread, which basically linked the Swedish people to the germanic Goth tribes that took down Rome, and who in turn came from Atlantis and ancient Egypt. It was a form of "we wuz Aryans n shiet". Very effective. Most people believed it.
P1
A main effort was to get rid of all church-esque culture and instead embrace the pompous court styles, especially from France. Sweden wanted to look like Louise XIV.
Gustav Adolf II (You guys know him as Gustavus Adolphus) especially wanted to make the court free from nobility. The nobility owned roughly 2/3 of the land but Gustavus managed to modernize the administration (and the army, read Thirty year war), which made him less depended on the nobility to run the country. At a stroke, the parlament completely confiscated all land from the nobility in 1680 (Adolphus plans, but he was now dead). Now only the king can own the land.
This is in the middle of the height of the Swedish Empire. The vast majority of the population are poor peasants and heavily taxes to support all the constant wars with HRE, Denmark, Poland and Russia.
regardless, Queen Christina (Gustavus Adolphus daughter) invested heavily in culture by importing big names from the Italian states and HRE. This gave the Swedish empire a more "mixed" culture of different European styles which you can see in old Swedish castles today (The royal castle in central Stockholm i a mix of Baroquism and Rococo). Sweden was to have a pompous image. Educated men were brough in, trade and post connection established, universities opened up at this time. Most important was Baroquism (an art, architecture and decorative style primarily on showing off might and wealth).
Culture was further boosted by war by looting or buying (Sweden stole the Codex Argenteus from HRE).
Sweden tried to vigiouriously copy the might of the French court, and France became the primary ally, providing most of Swedens funds in the thirty year war and Great northern war.
Something I forgot to mention: 1541 came the first 'Swedish' bible during the Vasa dynasty which had a huge impact on the language. Prrevious books were writte in latin. It's the first time ever that the letters å ä ö were introduced in writing
How much tumult and seethe did Christina's conversion to Catholicism cause? I imagine that must have been quite the whiplash, to go from
>The church was now in the hands of the state, and the king wanted absolute power.
back to Catholicism. Were the nobles angry? I imagine they profited a bunch from the clergy being dispossessed and would be against a return of that class to Sweden
Not him, but she converted to Catholicism after she had abdicated so there was never a risk that Catholicism would return at that time (although that risk had been there 60 years earlier when the Catholic Sigismund was king). People were still really pissed about it though and the state income she had been guaranteed when she abdicated was revoked, but they still didn't completely cut ties. As I recall, she was allowed to come to Karl X Gustavs funeral and was later a pen pal of the young Karl XI.
Also, the churchs wealth basically only went to the crown, as in other Protestant countries, so the nobility didn't really profit off of it.
>Also, the churchs wealth basically only went to the crown, as in other Protestant countries, so the nobility didn't really profit off of it
Interesting. I associate Catholicism with strong unitary kings mainly because of the Louis XIV I assume.
So the English crown also ended up with the former church's wealth? Because I associate that country during that period with internal strife, deferment to nobles through parliament etc. How can that be if the crown should have been powerful from seizing church assets?
Wealth is only a temporary strength as it disappears as soon as you spend it.
Henry VIII primarily went after the monasteries, which Thomas Cromwell got through parlement. Their land either became the crowns or was auctioned off.
>France became the primary ally, providing most of Swedens funds in the thirty year war and Great northern war.
Even longer than this. France supported Sweden as an ally well until the revolutionary era of the 1780s. In the decades prior, as one example, France sent Sweden 40 barrels of gold per year for the construction of Sveaborg (now known as Suomenlinna, in Helsinki), which was hailed as the ‘Gibraltar of the North’ when it was built. It was the single largest construction project of the 18th century and thought to be impregnable even by the Russians who besieged it in 1808-09. And the reason France was so willing to finance its construction was because of Russia — France, having long been the most populous and strongest country in Europe for centuries (only being surpassed by Russia after 1815), saw Russia as a looming threat to keep an eye on. Pretty good foresight, all things considered.
Sweden’s alliance was so valued in France that they even had a ‘Swedish’ regiment in the French military — le Régiment de Royal Suédois — and France was the first choice for Swedish military officers who sought to do foreign service.
They weren't always allies, that regiment was originally formed by Swedish POWs who had been sent to defend the kings ancestral fiefs in the Palatinate from a French invasion in the 1690s.
This is IQfy not r/askhistorians
Sorry, i'll throw a few frick Black folk and troonys into my text next time.
Don't forget to praise Hitler and derail the topic into being about [current event].
just because it's IQfy doesnt mean it has to be /misc/.
I find /misc/tards to be just as insufferable as reddit troonys. They are two sides of the same coin who wants to preserve an echo chamber. The ideology is different, the personalities are the same.
In case you haven't noticed, IQfy is just /misc/ that is restrained by the 20 year rule.
Interesting.
>Thread is about SWEDEN
>devolves into Russian Finnish babble yapping
STAY ON TOPIC, homosexualS
>thread about Swedish feudalism
>1 post about Swedish feudalism
>rest is shit-flinging about modern Russia
please kindly frick off to one of the dozen dedicated threads. Much love