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- Title
Skyddsmakt och tillflyktsort: Sveriges stormaktsställning och protestanterna från de habsburgska arvländerna.
- Authors
Thaler, Peter
- Abstract
The period between the coronation of King Gustavus Adolphus in 1611 and the costly Peace of Nystad with Russia in 1721 is commonly designated as Sweden's imperial era. Its domestic interpretation has undergone considerable change. Originally a central component in nineteenth-century nation-building, a subsequent reorientation away from national and monarchic symbols of identity diminished its status in the scholarly debate. Whereas earlier scholars had used the imperial era to boost national pride, later interpreters emphasized its vast human and economic losses, as well as the personal interests that motivated its policies. Even though these interpretations appear diametrically opposed, they shared a focus on military expansion and cost-benefit calculations. Both approaches put the State at the centre of the analysis, at the expense of alternative concepts of identification. Yet Sweden's status as a major power was closely connected to its position as the protector of Central European Protestantism, entailing a transnational integration of Swedish politics. This article uses the recruitment of Protestant refugees from the Habsburg Empire into Swedish service to demonstrate the close affiliation between Sweden and Central Europe's Protestants in the early 1600s. This affiliation was an important precondition for the success of Swedish policy, because it noticeably expanded the country's resource base. By focusing on the transnational integration of seventeenth-century Sweden, the article points to new angles on the country's century as a great power.
- Publication
Scandia, 2013, Vol 79, Issue 1, p38
- ISSN
0036-5483
- Publication type
Article