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HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL
LINKS BETWEEN LITHUANIA AND
SWEDEN
In 853 the Danes attacked the Curonians
(Cori) that "had in former time been in
subjection to the Swedes, but had a long
while since rebelled and refused to be in
subjection". After the defeat of the
Danes by the united army of 5 Curonian
lands, the Swedish King Olaf organised a
successful attack on the Curonians,
captured Seeburg (Grobiņa), and forced
Apuolė to pay ransom for it (Skuodas
region, Lithuania). Apuolė thus became
the first place of Lithuania, mentioned in
written sources (Life of Anskar by
Rimbert).
Sigismund III Vasa (1587–1632)
Close links, including cultural links,
were established when King
Sigismund Vasa ruled Lithuania and
Sweden between 1592 and 1599.
He had been deposed in Sweden for
supporting Catholicism. His long
reign coincided with the apex of
the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth's prestige, power
and economic influence . On the
other hand, it was during his reign
that the symptoms of decline
leading to the Commonwealth's
eventual demise surfaced.
Władysław IV Vasa (1632–1648)
As Władysław Zygmunt Waza-Jagiellon, in 1632
he was elected King of Poland. By paternal
inheritance, he legally succeeded as King of
Sweden . He supported religious tolerance and
carried out military reforms. He failed,
however, to realize his dreams of fame and
conquest, or to reform and strengthen the
Commonwealth. His death marked the end of
the Golden Age of the Commonwealth .
Jan Kazimierz Vasa (1648–1668)
The reign of the last of Vasas in the
Commonwealth would be dominated by
the culmination in the war with Sweden,
groundwork for which was laid down by
the two previous Vasa kings of the
Commonwealth. In 1660 John Casimir
would be forced to renounce his claims to
the Swedish throne and acknowledge
Swedish sovereignty over Livonia and city
of Riga. He abdicated on 16 September
1668 and returned to France where he
joined the Jesuit order and became an
ordinary monk. He died in 1672.
THE WARS WITH SWEDEN
The claim of the Vasa dynasty, who ruled the Commonwealth of the
Both nations (i.e. Poland – Lithuania), to the Swedish throne was one of
the causes of later wars between the Commonwealth and Sweden.
During two centuries there were so many wars between Commonwealth
and Sweden countries that so hard to count them. One of the most
known are:
War against Sigismund
Polish–Swedish War of 1600–1611
Polish–Swedish War of 1620–1625
Polish–Swedish War of 1626–1629
Northen Wars in 1655–1661
During one of these wars, according to the
Treaty of Kėdainiai in 1655, attempts were
made to form union between Lithuania and
Sweden, by which Lithuania would separate
from Poland. The agreement did not last for
long and never came into effect, as the
Swedish defeat in the Battles of Warka and
Prostki as well as a popular uprising in both
Poland and Lithuania put an end both to
Swedish power and the influence of the
Radziwiłłs.
The Battle of Kircholm monument at Salaspils where in 1605
joint Polish-Lithuanian-Courland armies defeated an invading
Swedish army.
Chodkiewicz, having smaller forces (approximately a 1:3 disadvantage), used a
feint to lure the Swedes off their high position. The Swedes under Charles
thought that the Lithuanians and supporting Poles were retreating and
therefore advanced, spreading out their formations to give chase. This is what
Chodkiewicz was waiting for. The fighting lasted barely 20 to 30 minutes, yet
the Swedish defeat was utter and complete. The army of Charles IX had lost at
least half, perhaps as much as two-thirds, its original strength. The PolishLithuanian losses numbered only about 100 dead and 200 wounded, although
the Hussars, in particular, lost a large part of their trained battle horses.
Jan Karol Chodkiewich in battle of Kircholm 1605
A Foreigner Fights for Freedom
The remarkable story of a pioneering Swedish pilot who
fought for Lithuania’s independence .One significant
foreign cadre was a Swedish aviator by the name of Carl
Olof Dahlbeck. He was one of the very first to organise
what is today known as the Lithuanian Air Force.
Furthermore, he participated in battles against the
Bolshevik army as a fighter pilot. The contributions by the
Swede were later recognised as crucial by the Lithuanian
government.
Swedish officer in 1919 in
Lihuania
Cultural relations flourished during the time of the First Lithuanian
Republic (1918-1940). In the interwar period many intellectuals in
Lithuania promoted the idea of closer links between Lithuania and
Sweden as well as the other Scandinavian countries. This idea came
to be known as the idea of Baltoscandian union.
Sweden was interested in the independence of the newly created
Lithuanian nation-state, although it could not take on greater
political, let alone military, responsibility, because of the complicated
development of international relations during the interwar period.
Therefore, mostly economic and cultural links were built. In April
1932, a Swedish language course started at Vytautas the Great
University in Kaunas
The life and writing career of Ignas Šeinius is one of the most interesting
phenomena in the new Lithuanian literature. He belongs to the generation
of the representatives of aestheticism, impressionism, and symbolism.
During the war (1916-1919), I.Šeinius was a representative of the
Lithuanian Central Committee to support the war victims in Stockholm,
Sweden. There I.Šeinius had organised the Committee of Lithuanian
Independence, established the Bureau of Lithuanian Press, issued a
newsletter to spread the idea of independence, published books in
Swedish.
In 1940 I.Šeinius had returned to Sweden where his family lived and
stayed there till his death. He took care of Lithuanian affairs, co-operated
in free Lithuanian press in Europe and America, maintained relations with
other Lithuanian activists and writers. I.Šeinius had been planted into a
foreign soil very early and had created his personal life abroad. He
maintained relations with his native country only intellectually and through
his job. The foreign environment had demoralised I.Šeinius completely.
From 1940 he wrote mainly in Swedish.
I.Šeinius was an exceptional figure in Lithuania’s diplomacy, his
contribution to the development of diplomatic relations between Lithuania
and Sweden is still important today.
After Lithuania regained its independence, Sweden
recognized it on 27 August 1991, and diplomatic relations
were reestablished next day. The Swedish Embassy was one
of the first embassies to open in Vilnius. Lithuanian
community in Sweden helped to revive cultural links
between independent Lithuania and Sweden.
Some of its more active members were Irvis Šeinius, son
of the writer Ignas Jurkūnas-Šeinius, Juozas Lingis, an
ethnologist, historian and lecturer of Lithuanian at the
universities of Stockholm and Uppsala, as well as Jonas
Pajaujis, an architect. Swedish-Lithuanian society, which
was reestablished in Stockholm in 1990 and chaired by
Leif Windmar, made a significant contribution too. The
society arranged celebrations on 16th February, the
anniversary of the declaration of independence of
Lithuania in 1918. In September 1991, a Lithuanian Week
was organized at the Museum of Ethnography in
Stockholm with the help of local Lithuanian community.