4. The Swedish hegemony in the Baltic region and the Great Northern War (1561/1629–1721)

Question 1

• King Gustav II Adolf (1611–1632)

Answer 1

Decisive role in the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) Stormaktstiden – period of (Swedish) great power
Swedish King Gustav II Adolf (ruled l6l l-32) created the most efficient military fbrce in Europe and this enabled Sweden to play a decisive role in European politics as the major Protestant power in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48). ln the seventeenth century Sweden essentially estab ished dominium maris Baltici, hegemony in the Baltic Sea region. Not only did Sweden control Livland and the entire coastline of the Gulf of Finland, including Ingria (the future site of St Petersburg), after the Peace of Stolbovo in 1617, it also acquired German territories on the southern Baltic coast during the Thirty Years’ War. The Swedes attempted to oust the Dutch and English from shipping in the Baltic and obtain control over Russian trade. An important element of this strategy was to build up the city of Narva as the leading centre for trade with Russia

Question 2

• Governance of the provinces Estland and Livland

Answer 2

A dual administrative system:
* Swedish state representation
* Self-rule of 1) towns and 2) nobilities (Ritterschaften

Question 3

• The corporation of nobility – the Ritterschaft

Answer 3

Ritterschaft of Estland
Ritterschaft of Livland
Ritterschaft of Ösel / Saaremaa

Question 4

• Religious policy

Answer 4

Unity of the Lutheran religion
Building of the Lutheran church organization
Promotion of literacy among the population, including the peasants, publication of Estonian-language religious literature
→ development of the Estonian literary language
The general aim of all this – to strengthen Lutheranism
Translation of the Bible – the New Testament 1686
1684 Teacher’s seminary near Tartu, for the preparation of peasant school teachers founded by Bengt Gottfried Forselius
A network of Estonian-language parish schools

Question 5

Education

Answer 5

• 1632 Tartu University, Academia Gustaviana founded by king Gustav II Adolf and high chancellor Johan Skytte
• 1631 Gymnasium (advanced secondary school) in Tallinn / Reval
• The first newspaper 1689: Reval(i)sche Post-Zeitung
• Manors
• possessed by the (Baltic German and Swedish) nobles
• possessed by the state, „crown manors“
• belonging to the office of the Lutheran pastor, the parsonage

Question 6

land reforms

Answer 6

• Corvée dutyCharles abolished serfdom on the Crown estates in the Baltic provinces in 1687. To what extent his wish was actually ever implemented is a matter of debate. The ‘reduction’ was ultimately to prove costly for Sweden since it alienated the nobility. To overcome entrenched resistance among the Livland nobility to its reduction policy, the Crown dissolved the Livland Land Council.
• Absolutism of king Charles XI since the early 1680s
• The reduction (reclaim) of land to the crown, which had been earlier transferred to the nobles as fiefs (Stora reduktionen)
  The former lands of the Teutonic Order in Estland became the prop erty of the Swedish Crown, as did later the lands of the Polish king in Livland. Swedish monarchs awarded most of these lands as fiefs to Swedish and German nobles, a practice particularly prevalent under the weak rule of Queen Christina (reigned 1632 54). By the second half of the seventeenth century it became clear that this process deprived the state of much-needed revenue. King Charles XI (ruled 1661-91) reversed this process in the 1 680s with a policy of ‘reduction’, nationalis ing estate lands to create income for the royal treasury in order to finance Sweden’s formidable military machine. A royal commission determined the legitimacy of titles and reclaimed the majority of land fbr the Crown, flve-sixths of the estates in Livland and half in Estland. Revenue from Estland and Livland not only covered the costs of administering these provinces, but in bountiful years provided almost one-quarter of the Swedish state treasury’s income.r8 The land-owners formally became Crown tenants, but still remained in charge. The State regulated the rela tionship between the peasants and the tenants so that the latter could not arbitrarily exploit the former.

Question 7

• The Great Northern War (1700–1721)

Answer 7

Anti-Swedish alliance: Poland, Denmark, Russia
King Frederick IV of Denmark (reigned 1699-1730)’ Tsar Peter I ofRussia (reigned 1682-1725) and Frederick Augustus, the Elec tor of Saxony, who also reigned in Poland-Lithuania as Augustus II (1697-1106; 1709-33) hatched an alliance aimed at rolling back the Swedish Empire
Charles XII ascended the throne in 1697. Unexpectedly, Charles turned out to be a brilliant military commander, who believed that the best def’ence was a strong offence and he immediately took the hght to his ene mies. He landed in Denmark in April 1700 and within a fortnight forced Denmark to sue fbr peace.
he rapidly marched his troops to Narva where they defeated a much larger Russian army in a blinding November snowstorm
For the next seven years Charles’s army was mired in Poland, thus allowing Peter to rebuild and modernise his forces and launch devastating raids on weakly defended Estland and Livland. By 1704 only the major cities of Estland and Livland remained under Swedish control.
After forcing the abdication of Augustus, Charles finally moved against Peter and mounted an invasion of Russia in 1708.
Charles vs. Peter at Battle of Poltava on 27 June 1709. Peter’s defeat of the weakened and overstretched Swedes was a turning point in European history, marking the beginning of the end of the Swedish Empire and the advent of Russia as a European great power. Charles eluded capture and found refuge in Turkish Moldova where he was forced to cool his heels for five years. ln the meantime, Peter returned to the weakly defended Baltic where his army besieged Reval and Riga. The cities and the Estland and Livland corporations of the nobility capitulated in 1710.
1710 The Capitulation of:
the Swedish garrison of Riga
the Ritterschaft of Livland
the town of Riga
the Swedish garrison of Pärnu / Pernau
the Swedish garrison of Tallinn /Reval
the Ritterschaft of Estland
the town of Tallinn / Reval
Confirmation of the extensive privileges of the local estates by the Russian side
* The Treaty of Nystad / Uusikaupunki, 1721
The Peace Treaty of Nystad in 1721 officially transferred Estland and Livland to Russia. With his new conquests, Peter took the title of ‘Emperor of All Russia’ and Muscovy generally came to be known as the Russian Empire.

Question 8

Sweden <3

Answer 8

Of all the periods of foreign domination, only the Swedish one is referred to in the collective memory of Estonians and Latvians as ‘good’. The main reasons for this are the introduction of schooling and the reforms which improved the position of the peasantry. The fact that Swedish rule was preceded and followed by calamitous times also played a role in shaping a positive narrative.