During the era between 8000 BC and 6000 BC, Sweden was populated by tribes who lived on hunting, gathering edible nuts and plants, and fishing. The Bronze Age was a significant era in the Nordic region. Artifacts found in graves indicate that a high level of culture had been established in the region. During the early Iron Age (after 500 BC), the population settled down as agriculture provided livelihood for people and started to shape the society.
The Viking Age (800–1050 AD) in Sweden was characterized by expansion activities, primarily to the east. Viking expeditions had two very different missions: some groups raided towns and villages whereas others traded goods along the Baltic coast and along the rivers that flow deep into present-day Russia. The Vikings traveled as far as the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, where they developed trading partnerships with the Byzantine Empire and Arab kingdoms. Sweden was converted to Christianity in the 11th century.
Around 1000 AD, autonomous provinces in Sweden formed a single governance. It had little impact on anything until 1280, when King Magnus Ladulås (1240–90) issued a statute that established nobility and organized the society according to feudal model.
Under the leadership of the city of Lübeck, German towns had formed a trading network known as the Hanseatic League in the 14th century. By the mid-16th century, towns on the Baltic coast and Sweden had joined this prosperous trading group.
In 1397, the Kalmar Union was formed. It was an alliance of kingdoms. It meant that three Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway and Sweden were governed by one monarch, Danish Queen Margareta. The Kalmar union (1397–1523) ended in the 1521 rebellion in Sweden. The power in Sweden was seized by a Swedish nobleman, Gustav Vasa. He was elected the king of Sweden in 1523.
Gustav Vasa (1496–1560) laid out the foundations for the Swedish state. The church was nationalized; its properties were confiscated by the crown, and the Protestant Reformation was carried out. Power was concentrated to the king, and hereditary monarchy was mandated.
After leaving the Kalmar Union, Sweden aimed at dominating the Baltic Sea. Denmark had the same strategy, which led to repeated wars with Denmark from the 1560s onward. After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the Peace of Roskilde with Denmark in 1658, Sweden was a great power in northern Europe. Finland, provinces in northern Germany and the present-day Baltic republics belonged to Sweden.
Sweden lost most of its provinces around the Baltic Sea after the Great Northern War (1700–21).
During the Napoleonic Wars, Sweden surrendered Finland to Russia in 1809. France forced Norway into a union with Sweden in 1814. This union was dissolved in 1905.
In the early 18th century, the Swedish parliament (Riksdag) and council were strong enough to introduce a new constitution that abolished the absolute power of the king. The parliament took the power in its own hands.
Eighteenth century Sweden experienced rapid cultural development, largely because of its close relationship with France. In the late 19th century, 90 percent of Swedes earned their livelihood from agriculture.
A consequence of heavy reliance on agriculture was emigration that was mainly directed to North America. From the mid-19th century to 1930, approximately 1.5 million Swedes emigrated. Even with extensive emigration, the population grew steadily: from 3.5 million in 1850 to more than 6 million in 1930.
Universal suffrage was introduced for men in 1909 and for women in 1921. The first Social Democrats joined the government in 1917. Plans for a welfare state were drafted in the 1930s after the Social Democrats had risen to power. In close co-operation with the democratic parties, Social Democrats carried out a series of reforms in the 1940s and 1950s that laid the foundations for the Swedish welfare state.
The power of monarchy was further reduced in the 1970s. The parliament, selected in free elections, was assigned the ultimate power in the state. The monarch was still the head of state, but in name only. In 1979, male and female heirs were given an equal claim to the throne. Accordingly, Crown Princess Victoria is the next in line to the throne, not her younger brother, Carl Philip.
For more than 200 years, Sweden has managed to stay out of war. The last one was a conflict with Norway in 1814 that resulted in a union of the states. Sweden has consistently pursued a policy of non-alignment in peacetime and neutrality in wartime. Swedish troops have been active in United Nation’s operations. The country also co-operates with NATO.
Sweden joined the European Union on January 1, 1995. In a national referendum in 2003, the majority of Swedes didn’t want to join the euro currency system and voted to keep their own krona currency.
When Vikings sailed the seas and established new settlements on the shores of near and distant lands, Norway was not one united country, but multiple small kingdoms that governed their own regions. The Viking Period was a long era in history, lasting from 800 until 1050 AD. Many Vikings were merchants and traded goods, whereas others were warriors who raided towns and villages. Christianity was introduced to Norway in the 11th century when it replaced old Norse religious practices.
In 1397, Norway, Denmark and Sweden formed a union (Kalmar Union). The union was ruled by a common king. Sweden gradually withdrew from the union, but Denmark and Norway remained united until 1814. Denmark governed the union from Copenhagen which was also the cultural and administrative center of the alliance. Norwegians paid taxes to the Danish King and had to communicate in Danish.
Norway drafted its own constitution on May 17, 1814 in the hope of becoming an independent nation. It didn’t happen at that time, because after losing a war in Europe, Denmark had to surrender Norway to Sweden. Sweden allowed Norway to maintain its constitution (after modifications), and establish its own government. The Swedish king, however, had the ultimate power in Norway.
In the 19th century, a strong National Romanticism movement developed in Norway. It was primarily expressed in literature, visual arts and music. A sense of national identity emerged which led to a strong desire for the country to become independent. The aspiring nation didn’t have a common language, except for Danish which was the only written language (bokmål) in Norway. Linguist Ivar Aasen (1813-1896) travelled around the country, and collected samples of dialects spoken in small and large communities. From these samples, he created a new written language called nynorsk. Both variants are still official Norwegian languages.
On July 7, 1905, Norway’s Parliament (Storting) simply declared that the Swedish king was no longer the ruler of Norway. The union with Sweden was terminated. Narrowly avoiding a war with Sweden, Norway decided it would be a monarchy. Danish Prince Carl was chosen as the king of Norway. He assumed the Norwegian royal name Haakon. He was the seventh King of Norway until his death in 1957.
German troops invaded Norway on April 9, 1940. The battle lasted only a few days before Norway surrendered. Numerous resistance groups continued to sabotage, organize civil disobedience and conduct passive resistance against the ruling regime that was appointed by Germany. The occupation lasted until the end of the World War II in May, 1945. Many coastal towns were completely destroyed in the war.
After the war, rebuilding of the country and its relationships to other nations began. Norway was one of the first countries to join the United Nations in November, 1945. In 1949, Norway and eleven other countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty which today is known as NATO.
In the 1960s, a number of companies wanted to drill for oil and gas off the coast of Norway. The state owns the oil resources, but enterprises are allowed to buy rights to explore, drill and extract oil in pre-determined areas. Oil was found in the North Sea in 1969. After that, Norway has gradually transformed into a wealthy nation that has invested some of the oil profits in funds that protect it from oil price fluctuation and allows the nation to prepare for the time when the oil and gas run out.
Finland’s history can be divided into three periods: Finland as the eastern province of the Kingdom of Sweden until 1809, the Russian rule 1809 - 1917, and independence from 1917 onwards.
The geographical area that is now known as Finland was politically no man’s land until mid-12th century. Sweden and Novgorod (Russia) were interested in the region, but it was only in 1323 when a treaty between Sweden and Novgorod assigned the western and southern parts of Finland to Sweden and the eastern regions of Finland to Novgorod.
The Swedish legal and social systems were applied to Finland. Finland’s most important center was Turku, which was founded in the 13th century. Turku’s medieval castle still stands on the southwest coast as a reminder of those times.
The Catholic church had managed to convert people who lived in Finland to Christianity, but when Luther’s Reformation arrived in the early 16th century in Sweden, Finland was also converted to Lutheranism. The Reformation set in motion the development of formal Finnish language. The first book written in Finnish was the New Testament, translated to Finnish in 1548 by the Bishop of Turku, Mikael Agricola.
In the 17th century, Sweden became a Nordic superpower that expanded to the Baltic region and further east to Russia, effectively pushing Finland’s border further east. Swedish was the official language in Finland as the administration was run by Swedes. During the Swedish period, Finland was a group of provinces of Sweden rather than a coherent cultural or national entity. Stockholm was the capital for the Finnish provinces as well.
Sweden’s powerful position gradually faded in the early 18th century. Russia conquered Finland in the 1808–1809 war with Sweden. To a certain extent, Russia allowed Finland to establish its own governance as an autonomous Grand Duchy. The Russian Emperor had highest power.
The Grand Duke of Finland from 1809 until 1825, Russian Emperor Alexander I, gave Finland extensive autonomy, which meant that he knowingly or unknowingly allowed the Finnish state to gradually take shape. In 1812, Russia moved the capital of Finland from Turku to Helsinki. Emperor Alexander II issued the Language Decree in 1863 that made Finnish an official administrative language.
In the early 20th century, Russia took a firmer grip on Finland’s governance, a policy known as Russification. It lasted until Finland became independent nation in 1917.
On December 6, 1917, Finland’s Parliament approved the declaration of independence. Soon, however, Finland was drawn into a civil war. In the end of January, 1918, left-wing parties staged a coup, which forced the government to flee Helsinki. The war ended in May with a victory for the government troops, led by General Gustaf Mannerheim (1867–1951). Finland became a republic in 1919. K.J. Ståhlberg (1865–1952) was elected the first president.
In August, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact, which included a secret protocol relegating Finland to the Soviet sphere of interest. Soviet Union troops attacked Finland on November 30, 1939. The brief Winter War ended in a peace treaty on March 13, 1940 where southeastern Finland was surrendered to the Soviet Union.
The war, however, wasn’t over yet for Finland. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Finland re-entered the war as Germany’s ally. The “Continuation War” ended in armistice in September, 1944. In addition to the areas lost to Soviet Union in Winter War, Finland also ceded Petsamo region on the Arctic Ocean.
The relationship with Soviet Union was a very delicate and sensitive matter for Finland until the disintegration of Soviet Union in 1991. Perhaps the most skillful politician who kept both sides relatively happy was Finland’s long-standing president Urho Kekkonen who dominated Finnish politics from 1956 until 1982.
After the war, Finland’s rapid rise from a relatively poor farming nation to one of the wealthiest industrial countries in the world began. Heavy machinery and forest industries were driving exports until the electronics and software industry, spearheaded by Nokia, emerged as a new major trade for the country.
Finland joined the European Union in 1995 concurrently with Sweden. Finland, unlike Sweden, adopted the Euro as its currency in 2002. Finland is not a member of a defense alliance, although the nation has varying levels of co-operation with Sweden and NATO.