Three Hundred Years After It Fell, Historians Still Aren’t Sure Why Sweden Built An Empire
2021 marks the tricentenary of the collapse of the Swedish Empire, one of the most unusual and unpredictable empires to romp across early-modern Europe. And yet, despite having had all of three centuries to mull it over, historians are still puzzled by Sweden's 'Age of Greatness'.
When it gained independence from Denmark in 1523, the Swedish nation covered a sparsely populated and resource-poor area stretching from the Baltic sea into the Arctic Circle; hardly the foundations on which to build a mighty empire.¹ Over the next two centuries, however, Swedish territory grew at an exponential rate. Much of what is now Estonia and Latvia, the region of Ingria (in which St Petersburg now stands), and a significant portion of both Norway and northern Germany ultimately came under the rule of the Swedish Empire. Colonies were also briefly maintained on the Gold Coast in western Africa,² the Delaware River in America,³ and even, in later years, the Caribbean.⁴ Great powers like Denmark, Poland-Lithuania, the Holy Roman Empire, and Russia were defeated time and again by a Swedish power state that seemed addicted to war.
It was not to last. The whole wobbly edifice of the Swedish Empire came crumbling down at the end of the Great Northern War (1700–1721), when a particularly…
