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Tag Archives: Great Northern War

Ukraine: … a Genocide?

08 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by michelinewalker in Autocracy, Ukraine, Ukraine War

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Battle of Poltava, Charles XII, Complicity, Genocide, Great Northern War, Sweden

Charles XII and Mazepa at Dnieper River after the Battle of Poltava by Gustaf Cederström (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Great Northern War

  • Sweden and “Ukraine” were Allies at the Battle of Poltava (8 July 1709).
  • Both Sweden, under Charles XII, and Ukraine, under Ivan Mazepa, fell to Peter I, Peter the Great, at the Battle of Poltava.
  • Poltava was a decisive step in the rise of the Russian Empire, which began in 1721.

The image above is confusing. It shows Charles XII of Sweden and Ivan Mazepa of Ukraine, also called Ruthenia, at the Battle of Poltava, fought on 8 July 1709. Sweden and Ukraine were allies in the Great Northern War (1700-1721). Ivan Mazepa was the Hetman of Zaporizhian Host, a Cossack Hetmanate, in 1687–1708. A Hetman was a leader. Tsar Peter’s wish for near supremacy over Hetmanates threatened what has become present-day Ukraine.

Sweden’s defeat at Poltava was a turning point in the history of Europe. After the Battle of Poltava, Charles XII and Ivan Mazepa fled to Turkey for protection. Ivan Mazepa died in Turkey at the age of 70. In 1721, Sweden ceased to be an Empire, and Ukraine remained under Russian control until 1991, or the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ukraine had also been autonomous for a few years after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

A Nation

Under the control of Sweden, Ukrainians were likely to gain more independence and escape brutality. It did not during World War I (See Alchetron.com). Cruelty toward Ukrainians did not start with the current invasion of Ukraine. When Tsar Nicholas II ordered the quelling of riots at Odessa, it was a blood bath. But Ukraine always remained a nation. Many Ukrainians speak Russian, but they have retained their own language, and they are the Petits Russes who commandeered the Potemkin.

Complicity …

Ukraine has survived as a nation, so a nation is not necessarily a country. Ukraine did not have territorial integrity until 1991, but its territorial integrity is now threatened by Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Ukraine has been attacked, and it is defending its territory. So, what we are witnessing isn’t altogether a war. It is an invasion, and it seems a genocide. I read and heard that Russians did not know what was happening in Ukraine. This could be the case, but I wish they knew Putin has invaded Ukraine and could help send their President to an international court of justice. The more prolonged Putin’s attacks and destruction, the more substantial the bill, assuming Putin fails to annihilate Ukraine. He must not be successful. Sanctions may not suffice, and various ententes to prevent war could turn the world into Vladimir Putin’s accomplice.

RELATED ARTICLES

A Brief Disappearance (6 April 2022)
Ukraine: The Battle of Poltava (5 April 2022)
The War in Ukraine: la petite Russie (1st April 2022)
The Great Gate of Kiev [sic] (21 March 2022)
Sweden’s Age of Liberty, Part Two (9 November 2018)
Sweden’s Age of Liberty, Part One (8 November 2018)
Europe (page)

Love to everyone 💕

Peter the Great by Alexandre Benois (WikiArt.org)
Ivan Mazepa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
8 April 2022
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Sweden’s Age of Liberty, Part Two

09 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by michelinewalker in democracy, Despotism, Sweden

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Age of Liberty, Despotism, Great Northern War, Greatness, Gustav III's self-coup, Hats and Caps parties, Instrument of Government 18, Riksdag of the Estates, Russo-Swedish War, Seven Years' War, Treaty of Åbo, Treaty of Nystad

Gustav III, King of Sweden by Alexander Roslin, 1777

Sweden’s Age of Liberty

  • Charles XII’s death (1719)
  • Peter the Great’s victory (1721)

Between 1611 and 1721, Sweden was an Empire and between 1796 and 1718, it was ruled by absolutist King Charles XII (b. 17 June 1682 – 30 November 1718 [aged 36]). Charles XII was killed during the Siege of Fredriksten, in 1718. In 1731, Voltaire wrote a History of Charles XII (Histoire de Charles XII), the last ruler of the Swedish Empire. After his death, Sweden and its allies lost the Swedish Empire to the Tsardom of Russia, henceforth a Tsardom and an Empire. As we have seen in an earlier post, Peter the Great wanted access to seas, which, to the west, was the Baltic Sea and, by extension, the Baltic provinces and the Baltic states. Peter I was successful in his quest, but he ended Sweden’s age of “greatness.”

475px-David_von_Krafft_-_Konung_Karl_XII

Charles XII by David von Krafft

However, and ironically, Charles XII’s death and Sweden’s defeat provided a window of opportunity for the development of a rudimentary parliament in Europe. Sweden had lost its “greatness,” but it had entered its Age of Liberty, or Age of Freedom. Sweden’s Age of Liberty is:

a half-century-long period of parliamentary governance and increasing civil rights, beginning with Charles XII‘s death in 1718 and ending with Gustav III‘s self-coup in 1772.

(See Age of Liberty, Wiki2.org.)

In 1719, Count Arvid Horn (6 April 1664 – 17 April 1742), President of the Privy Council Chancellery of Sweden, transferred power from an absolute monarchy to a parliament, Sweden’s Riksdag of the Estates, a name used by the Estates when they assembled.

Charles XII was childless. He was succeeded by Ulrika Eleonora, his sister, who abdicated because power was in the hands of the Riksdag of the Estates. Her husband Landgrave Frederick I of Hesse-Kassel, a prince consort, would serve as King Frederick I of Sweden until 5 April 1751.

The Treaty of Nystad (10 September 1721)

Frederick I of Sweden signed the Treaty of Nystad (1721) which ended the Great Northern War (1700 – 1721). Sweden surrendered Swedish Estonia, Swedish Livonia  (which had capitulated in 1710) and Southeast Finland (Kexholmslän and Karelia), in exchange for two million silver thaler.

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Treaty effects: pre-war Sweden in yellow, Russia in green, Russian gains indicated. (Wiki2.org.)

The Riksdag of the Estates

  • the Riksdag of the Estates vs Britain’s Parliament
  • the Hats and the Caps (Nightcaps)
  • Arvid Horn

The Riksdag of the Estates differs from Britain’s Parliament. It may consist of two parties opposing one another. During the Age of Liberty, the Riksdag opposed the Hats (les Chapeaux) and the Caps (les Bonnets). I noted the role played by the Hats and the Caps in the short version of this post. But I should add that the “Horn Period” was a better Age of Liberty than the period during which the Hats ruled.

His strong hand kept the inevitable strife of the parliamentary factions within due limits, and it was entirely owing to his provident care that Sweden so rapidly recovered from the wretched condition in which the wars of Charles XII had plunged her.

(See Arvid Horn, Wiki2.org.)

Frederick I Martin van Meytens
Frederick I Martin van Meytens
Adolph Frederick by Gustaf Lundberg
Adolph Frederick by Gustaf Lundberg

The Two Kings

  • Frederick I and Adolph Frederick
  • The Hats: Wars and Greatness

As for the relationship between the Riksdag of the Estates and the kings who reigned during the Age of Liberty, it reflects to a large extent, the rule of the Hats and the Caps. I have mentioned the Russo-Swedish war of 1741-1743. Sweden, the former Swedish Empire, was defeated and, under the terms of the Treaty of Åbo, it had to cede territory east of the Kymi river to Russia. Elizabeth of Russia demanded that pro-absolutist Adolph Frederick from the House of Holstein-Gottorp be the future king of Sweden. As a result, members of the house of King Frederick I of Sweden, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel were eliminated from the line of succession.

Under pro-absolutist Adolp Frederick of the House of Holstein-Gottorp, the Riksdag of the Estates was attacked twice: the Coup of 1756 and the very serious December Crisis of 1768. (See Sweden’s Age of Liberty, 8 November 2018.)

The Hats also involved Sweden in the Pomeranian Theatre of the Seven Years’ War. Sweden lost 40,000 men in a war France did not win. Sweden suffered immense losses seeking the “greatness” it had lost.

The End of the Age of Liberty

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the reason for the transfer from absolutism to its Age of Freedom was “the complete failure of the policy of ‘greatness’ connected with the Carolingian [Charles XII] absolutism.” In 1772, Gustav III‘s self-coup re-introduced absolutism. Gustav III is described as a popular king. He was when he modelled his absolutism on his uncle, Frederick the Great of Prussia’s enlightened despotism. But what of the people’s will?

They [enlightened desposts] typically instituted administrative reform, religious toleration, and economic development but did not propose reforms that would undermine their sovereignty or disrupt the social order.

(See Enlightened Despotism, Britannica.)

They felt, as did Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, that aristocracy was their “profession.” Elizabeth of Russia used the Treaty of Åbo as a coup. She became an Empress of Russia and named her successor: Peter III of the House of Holstein-Gottorp. In Sweden, kings and queens were elected! When Gustav IV lost Finland, he was deposed by officers of his army and various notables. He had to abdicate and go into exile, never to return. A democracy is a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” (See Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburgh Address, Wiki2.org.)

The Age of Liberty‘s early Riksdag of the Estates took all powers away from monarchs. This would change as Swedish democracy developed, a process usually marked by trials and errors. The Age of Liberty can be viewed as an experiment in democracy. Matters  change. Arvid Horn’s grew increasingly neutral, and his neutrality was opposed. Ulrika Eleonora, Charles XII’s sister, abdicated because she refused to be a figurehead. But, although King Charles XIII was prematurely senile, he was involved in the drafting of the Instrument of Government of 1809, Sweden’s constitution. It was not developed unilaterally and it remained unchanged until 1974.

In fact, to what extent was Charles XII an absolute monarch? Voltaire preferred Charles XII to Peter the Great.

The form of government instituted in Sweden under King Charles XI and passed on to his son, Charles XII is commonly referred to as absolute monarchy; however, the Swedish monarch was never absolute in the sense that he wielded arbitrary power.

(See Absolute Monarchy, Wiki2.org.)

It remains that, as an absolute monarch, Gustav III tried to abolish the Privy Council of Sweden and propably did so out of fear. Gustav III’s Union and Security Act of 1789, “swept away most of the powers exercised by the Swedish Riksdag.” He “severely curtailed” the Freedom of the Press Act of 1766. (See Gustav III, Wiki2.org.)

Yet, Sweden defeated Russia at the Battle of Svensksund, Gustav III demonstrating leadership and “greatness.” But such “greatness,” Sweden had probably outgrown in its Age of Liberty.

im524-640px-Desprez-Swedish_war_preparations_1788

Swedish warships fitted out in Stockholm in 1788; watercolor by Louis Jean Desprez

Love to everyone 💕

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Catherine the Great by V. Borovikovsky (2 November 2018)
  • Enlightened Despotism in Russia (1 November 2018)
  • Mostly Diderot & Catherine II (the Great) (25 October 2018)
  • The House of Bernadotte (27 September 2018)

Sources and Resources

  • This story is told and beautifully illustrated in Hérodote. FR
  • Voltaire’s History of Charles XII, King of Sweden is an Internet Archive Publication. EN
  • The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Enlightened despotism”
    Encyclopædia Britannica
    https://www.britannica.com/topic/enlightened-despotism
  • Lennart T. Norman, Staffan Helmfrid and Others (See All Contributors),
    “Sweden”
    Encyclopædia Britannica
    https://www.britannica.com/place/Sweden/The-reign-of-Charles-XII
  • The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Treaty of Åbo”
    Encyclopædia Britannica
    https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Åbo

Charles XIV John of Sweden(Wiki2.org.)

© Micheline Walker
9 November 2018
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