Skolflykting

 

Nu har jag lärt mig ännu ett nytt ord: skolflykting. Allt fler svenskar flyttar till Finland eller skriver sig där för att slippa den svenska skolplikten. Åland, där alla talar svenska, är särskilt populärt.  

Hemundervisning räddade barnen

A female art colony?

 

“Ljus över hav och land. Önningebykolonin på Åland” is a book and exhibition catalogue published by Waldemarsudde in Sweden. The publication year is 2022. Waldemarsudde is an art museum in Stockholm and the former domicile of Prince Eugen (1865-1947), who was a patron of painters and a painter himself. And yes, the “prince” is his actual title, Eugen being the son of King Oscar II. This particular book has no connection to Eugen´s artistic endeavors, however. Frankly, “Ljus över hav och land” is quite boring, unless extremely local landscape painting is your thing, the locale in question being Önningeby at Åland, or perhaps Åland in general. Late 19^th century Åland, that is. Think peasant women working, peasant men working just as much, trees, windmills, coastlines, that kind of stuff.

Åland is an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. The population is Swedish, but Sweden lost Åland to Russia after a major war in 1808-1809. During the same conflict, Sweden also lost Finland to the Russians. Åland was administered as part of the so-called Grand Duchy of Finland until 1917, Finland of course being under Russian overlordship. When Finland became independent in 1917, Sweden wanted Åland back, but eventually the islands became a self-governing territory sorting under Finland, a status they still enjoy.

In 1886, an “art colony” was established at Önningeby, a farming village at Åland. Such “colonies” were apparently quite common all over Europe at the time, forming part of an emerging artistic subculture. Or perhaps demimonde? The colony lasted until 1914, when World War I broke out and the artists left in a hurry. Most members of the colony seem to have been Swedish painters from Finland (there is a Swedish-speaking minority in Finland), which is natural, since Åland´s farming population presumably only spoke Swedish. Most of the artists rented rooms or houses from the local peasants. The leaders of the colony were Victor Westerholm and his wife Hilma (who wasn´t a painter). Another prominent member was the Sweden-Swedish (to coin a phrase) J. A. G. Acke. What made the community unique among European art colonies was that the majority of its members were female, many of them painters in their own right.

I don´t think the articles in the exhibition catalogue are *that* good at explaining this peculiar state of affairs. As already noted, art colonies were an important part of the lifestyle and networking of a certain kind of late 19^th century European painters. There must have been something counter-cultural about them, August Strindberg (the famous writer from Sweden) complaining about rank lesbianism when visiting a French art colony! Önningeby seems to have been much less raunchy, but it was still vaguely alternative since it offered female painters an opportunity to socialize, paint and sell their art. The usual norm at the time was that women were supposed to give up their educations and careers (if any) at marriage.

Other factors also contributed to the establishment of art colonies in the rural hinterland, such as new trends in painting itself, landscape and portrait painting becoming more realistic than before. There were also more or less explicit nationalist sentiments at work, the painters perhaps trying to find something “authentically national”. This kind of art colonies apparently disappeared with the advent of so-called modernism in art, since the modernists extolled the city over the countryside, and weren´t interested in artistic realism anyway. Still, counter-cultural communes certainly continued to exist even after World War I, so perhaps the authors´ perspective is a bit narrow here?

All that being said, “Ljus över hav och land” is mostly just an art book with Åland-related landscape and portrait paintings (and some still lifes thrown in for good measure). Good if you are an Ålandese local patriot, I suppose.

The king as superman

"Sverige vid avgrunden 1808-1814" is a book by Swedish diplomat Dag Sebastian Ahlander. It was published in 2019. The author is a great admirer of French marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (who became Swedish king under the name Karl XIV Johan in 1818), and it shows! The book is essentially an ode to Bernadotte, who is constantly portrayed as some kind of Übermensch and all-round genius, towering high above his Swedish contemporaries, who are all pictured as parochial fools or knaves (they smell badly, too). 

Sweden was in disastrous shape in 1808-1809. The king, Gustav IV Adolf, was an enemy of Napoleon, the French emperor and new strongman of Europe. When Napoleon forced Russia and Czar Alexander into an alliance with France, Sweden was threatened with dismemberment or worse, suddenly being surrounded by enemies on all sides: Russia in the east, Denmark-Norway (an ally of Napoleon) in the west and north, and the French Empire itself in the south, since Napoleon´s armies had occupied Swedish Pomerania in Germany. There were secret plans to partition Sweden between Denmark and Russia, in effect eradicating the Swedish kingdom from the map altogether. In 1808, Russia attacked Sweden and conquered Finland, then the eastern half of the Swedish kingdom. The Russians also took Åland, considered part of Sweden proper. The disastrous loss of almost half the country´s territory to Russia triggered a military coup against Gustav IV Adolf in 1809, who was forced to resign and leave Sweden. He was replaced by the elderly, childless and perhaps senile Duke Karl of Södermanland, who became king under the name Karl XIII. Sweden then adopted a quasi-liberal constitution (Gustav IV Adolf had been an autocrat)and began a complicated process to select a real regent in place of the obviously incompetent Karl XIII. 

Despite having approved the Russian attack on Sweden, Napoleon was still immensely popular in broad Swedish circles, something Ahlander finds downright baffling. He believes that this was a product of Swedish parochialism and isolation from the broader events in Europe. However, I fail to see how this could be the case with the Swedish establishment. When "the men of 1809" (the "revolutionaries" who had deposed Gustav Adolf) began looking for a pro-Napoleonic regent, I assume they were coldly calculating that the Franco-Russian alliance would soon break down (which, of course, it did). With a pro-French regent, Sweden would then support Napoleon against Russia, thereby regaining Finland. As far as I can tell, this was a natural Machiavellian move to make at the time. Of course, a more prosaic explanation would be that the Swedish government were afraid of Napoleon and simply wanted to keep him happy... 

After a series of pretty weird events, detailed in the book, the Swedish Parliament in 1810 elected one of Napoleon´s generals, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, crown prince of Sweden. What nobody knew at the time, was that Bernadotte and Napoleon were estranged from each other, and that Napoleon may have approved of Bernadotte´s elevation to effective Swedish regent mostly to get rid of him! When Bernadotte moved to Sweden and became "crown prince Karl Johan" (and even the adoptive son of Karl XIII), he almost immidiately came into conflict with his erstwhile employer. Napoleon forced Sweden to declare war on Britain, but Karl Johan quickly informed the British that he had no intention of actually attacking them, while also entering into secret negotiations with Czar Alexander. That Napoleon didn´t trust his "cousin" and former general became even more obvious when French troops re-occupied Swedish Pomerania on the eve of the French invasion of Russia. Ahlander believes that this second attack on Pomerania (which seemed unprovoked) finally turned public opinion in Sweden against Napoleon. 

Karl Johan had no intention of attacking Russia in order to reconquer Finland. He believed that Finland was geopolitically part of the Russian landmass anyway, and that the territory was impossible for Sweden to defend in the long run, even if it could somehow be regained temporarily. Perhaps he also understood that many Finlanders actually preferred Russian rule to Swedish - Czar Alexander had been smart enough to grant "the Grand Duchy of Finland" extensive self-government within the Russian Empire. Karl Johan´s real goal was to conquer Norway, creating a united Swedish-Norwegian kingdom, which he believed would be geopolitically more defensible. It would also once and for all reduce Denmark (which controlled Norway) to a small nation that could no longer threaten Sweden (Denmark and Sweden had been enemy nations for centuries). Personal factors may also have been involved when Karl Johan decided to offically join the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon. His only chance to become Swedish king was for the French Empire to be defeated. Without such a victory, he would lose everything... 

The Swedes accepted the so-called "politics of 1812", but very reluctantly, since the loss of Finland (Swedish-controlled since at least the 13th century) to the Russian arch-enemy was keenly felt. Ahlander claims that Karl Johan played an even more central role in the war against Napoleon than usually assumed. Indeed, it was Karl Johan who convinced the Czar to fight Napoleon´s Grand Armée when the latter invaded Russia and many Francophile Russian nobles wanted him to sue for peace! Is this really true, or is it just another example of the author´s personality cult of the Overman Karl Johan? What is clear is that Karl Johan and the Swedish army did participate in the war against Napoleon in Germany (including the Battle of the Nations outside Leipzig). Karl Johan also took the opportunity to weaken Denmark by marching into Slesvig and Holstein. Finally, in 1814, Karl Johan invaded Norway, which had attempted to declare its independence in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, hoping for British support in so doing. Instead, Britain decided to support Sweden, forcing the Norwegians to surrender after only three weeks of armed conflict. In 1818, the former French general finally became union king of Sweden-Norway following the death of Karl XIII. 

The story of Karl XIV Johan ends somewhat paradoxically. In Sweden, Karl Johan became almost as autocratic as the deposed Gustav IV Adolf. He attempted to curtail the freedom of the press, employed a network of secret agents, and frequently worried about conspiracies against his person. One of his favorite expressions was "opposition is conspiracy". He also continued the mercantilist economic policies of Gustav IV Adolf, mercantilism being something he as a Frenchman was used to. Karl Johan never learned Swedish, and was relatively isolated within a small clique of Francophone Swedish nobles. In Norway, by contrast, Karl Johan had to accept the most liberal constitution in Europe at the time, with the Norwegian Parliament having effective veto power over many of his decisions! Karl Johan was pragmatic enough to grant Norway a large amount of self-government, making Norway a semi-independent nation in personal union with Sweden, rather than a conquered and subordinate territory, but it must have been one of the strangest unions in history, and perhaps a hard pill to swallow for the old general...

Ahlander´s book also contain information on Karl XIV Johan´s personality. In keeping with the idea of Karl Johan as super-hero, he is portrayed as unusually handsome, very tall (something which supposedly made Napoleon resent him!), well spoken, gracious to friends and enemies alike, a man of honor, and a hard worker. Even his authoritarian side is said to be a good thing. The Frenchman straightened out the dull and dim-witted Swedes! Ahlander claims that Karl Johan spoke French with a distinct Gasconian accent. Apparently, Gasconians are even more fiery, energetic and passionate than Frenchmen in general. (Gascony, where Bernadotte was born, is a historical region in southern France.) On a more humorous note, Ahlander notes that Karl Johan constantly complained about how dirty and smelly Swedes were, including Swedish nobles. Karl Johan is said to have had a man-servant with him at all times, who would give the regent a perfumed handkerchief to hold around his nose everytime the stench became too overbearing. It was also considered something of a sensation that Karl Johan had a hot bath installed in the royal palace, which he moreover used every day! Tobacco and brännvin (a Swedish hard liquor) were no-nos, the king much preferring wine and café au lait. Suffering from the cold Swedish climate, Karl Johan often stayed in bed, even when discussing government matters with his ministers and aides, making his opponents refer to his rule as "the bed chamber regime". Out of bed, Karl Johan always wore his fancy Swedish general´s uniform, complete with all the medals he had been awarded, apparently seeing this as some kind of official outfit. We also learn that his son, Oscar (who eventually succeeded him on the thrones of Sweden and Norway) did learn both Swedish and Norwegian, and apparently spoke at least Swedish without any foreign accent. As king, Oscar I became the first truly "liberal" king of Sweden, but that´s another story...

"Sverige vid avgrunden 1808-1814" (Sweden on the brink 1808-1814) is interesting, to be sure, but I will probably try to find some other books to double-check its most sensational claims. And I don´t mean those handkerchiefs. 

Ja, Åland

Den egensinnige åländske redaren Gustaf Eriksson intresserar dagens miljövänner. På engelska!

Captain Eriksson´s Equation

None dare call it treason

“1808: Gerillakriget i Finland” is a book by a Swedish author named Anders Persson. The name is extremely common, and I admit that I don´t know exactly who this Anders Persson might be, except that he has written several books on modern European history. His main interest seems to be the fate of small nations squeezed between the great powers: interwar Austria and Czechoslovakia, and Finland pretty much all the time. Persson´s main thesis is that it´s frequently the common people who take up arms to defend their nations (or at least their homesteads) in times of war, while the political and economic elite waffle and even collaborate with the enemy. His book gives a somewhat peculiar impression, “leftist” and yet somehow conservative at the same time.

In 1808, Russia attacked Sweden and eventually occupied Finland, which had been under the Swedish crown for centuries, thereby effectively depriving Sweden of almost half of its territory. The war of 1808-1809 was a national disaster for Sweden, and King Gustav IV Adolf was actually overthrown as a result. Sweden had refused to join Napoleon´s continental blockade against Britain, while Gustav Adolf apparently quite un-ironically believed the French emperor to be the Beast of Revelation mentioned in the Bible. Perhaps not the best grounds for a realistic foreign policy of a small nation during the turbulent Napoleonic Wars! When France and Russia temporarily united against the British, Napoleon gave Czar Alexander the green lights to attack Sweden and dismember it best he could. The Swedish troops at Sveaborg in southern Finland, one of Sweden´s best fortifications, surrendered to the Russians already at an early stage of the war. This was a huge national scandal, and many suspect to this day that the commanders at Sveaborg were conscious traitors.

Indeed, it seems that most “lords” in Finland were more than willing to collaborate with the advancing Russian troops. Landlords, priests and bailiffs remained at their posts and started taking orders from the Czar and the Russian military brass, thereby easing the way for the enemy. In the Lutheran Churches, the priests often preached non-resistance. Of course, this was before the era of nationalism and the modern nation-state, but it´s difficult not to see the actions of the officials in charge as downright treasonous. After all, they were supposed to be loyal to the King in Stockholm! There was also an active Swedish exile milieu in the Russian imperial capital of St Petersburg, which lobbied the Czar with requests to take military action against Sweden. These aristocratic exiles had their roots in the “Anjala League” directed against King Gustav III, Gustav IV Adolf´s father, and his war against Russia in 1788-1790.

When the petty and not-so-petty officials decided to side with the Russians (for “practical” reasons, of course – what else?), the peasants took up the resistance instead, sometimes with the aid of Swedish military, sometimes on their own. A large portion of the book deals with the struggle at Åland, which has a Swedish population. That the peasants at Åland fought back, while the commanders at Sveaborg surrendered, wasn´t lost on the Swedish press. King Gustav IV Adolf eventually awarded the leaders of the Åland guerillas medals of valor at a special ceremony in Stockholm. The book also describes the resistance in Österbotten, Birkaland and Norra Karelen. It was a curious alliance in a way, between the conservative anti-Napoleonic autocrat Gustav IV Adolf and angry armed peasants with little respect for the local officials and priests. Persson compares it to the anti-French resistance in Spain, led by priests and monks, or the ditto peasant war in Tyrol under Andreas Hofer. The author believes that Romanticism rather than Enlightenment thinking heralds nationalism, a phenomenon he seems to regard as historically progressive. Overall, however, the book is descriptive rather than analytical.

Russia´s victory in the War of 1808-1809 was probably a foregone conclusion. Russia had more manpower, while the Finnish population suffered from failed harvests, famine, and pestilence. It´s amazing the peasants managed to resist at all! Clearly, the Swedish military suffered from bad leadership (including from the King´s side), while traitors abound everywhere. Finland was finally declared an autonomous Grand Duchy under the Czar. Persson believes that the popular resistance against the advancing Russian army made the Czar rethink any plans he might have had to make the Finnish peasants serfs. Somehow, I doubt this – my guess would rather be that it would have taken a considerable mobilization of resources to reduce the free Finnish peasantry into serfdom. Rather than undertaking such an operation, the Czar already from the start planned to keep the social relations in Finland pretty much as they were within the context of an autonomous “Grand Duchy”. That, of course, is why the officialdom in Finland (including the Lutheran clergy) so easily made the transition from Swedish to Russian dominion – it wasn´t much of a transition to begin with. The peasants, by contrast, feared enserfement or at the very least large-scale plunder at the hands of “Cossacks and Kalmyks”. Also, their deep-seated class suspicions against the officialdom were amply confirmed when the local “lords” put their own safety above loyalty to king and country (which the peasants supported).

In the end, both camps were vindicated – Finland did enjoy autonomy without serfdom under the Czar for generations…until Russia decided that the time had come to Russify Finland (but still without serfdom, alas), triggering a series of events which eventually led to Finnish independence in 1917.

We'll be home for Christmas

A review of a hat with the text "Make Sweden Great Again" 

I concur. First, we take that Finnish duty free zone where everyone speaks Swedish (Åland) and reunite it with the Motherland (and its Social Democratic taxes). Then, we shall march on Poltava and Moscow and...naah, on second thoughts, I think the duty free chocolate, perfume and whiskey from Åland will do!