Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - First part - II. The Swedish People - 1. Survey of its History. By E. Svensén, Author, Stockholm - Modern Times (from 1523 onwards)
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SURVEY OF ITS HISTORY.
83
ledge. At the close of the lengthy conflict (1648), Sweden was master of the
mouths of all the German rivers and of the greater part of the shores of the
Baltic.
Almost simultaneously with these events, Sweden succeeded, by the peace of
Brömsebro (1645) and by that of Roeskilde (1658), in acquiring the provinces
of Skåne, Halland, Blekinge, Gotland, Bohuslän, Herjedalen, and Jemtland,
which had hitherto belonged to Denmark or Norway. This was an immensely
valuable territorial acquisition, which increased the Swedish population by almost
one third and gave the country the boundaries which, under modern conditions,
must be termed its only natural ones. And of all the territorial acquisitions
made in its period of political greatness, these also are the only provinces that
Sweden still has in her possession.
Vidtsköfle Castle, in Skåne.
In 1658 the Swedish power had reached its highest point. Even after some
cessions had been made in 1660, it embraced the whole of present Sweden and
Finland, and in addition, Esthonia, Livonia, a part of Ingria, Citerior Pomerania,
Wismar, Bremen and Verden — a total area of 900,000 sq.km., with a
population, then, of about 3,000,000 people, corresponding, at the present time, to
about 11,000,000 inhabitants.
The mighty wars it had fought, and the position of a Great Power which it
had so unexpectedly acquired, were not without a marked ascendency over the
internal conditions of Sweden. The multifarious increase of communication with
abroad gave evidence of its effect by the great influence it had upon Swedish
intellectual culture, then commencing to flourish, and which was promoted to a
high degree by the enlightened care and interest of Gustavus Adolphus, Axel
Oxenstierna, and Charles XI. The position of Sweden as a military power was
purchased, however, by its people, at the price of heavy economical sacrifices, and
the common people could only with the greatest difficulty endure the heavy burden
of taxation and the continual recurrence of military conscriptions. The nobles
enriched themselves to a great extent by means of the war, and continually in-
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