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HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL LINKS BETWEEN LITHUANIA AND SWEDEN

The first facts mentioned in written sources

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 (Grobia), and forced Apuol to pay ransom for it (Skuodas region, Lithuania). Apuol thus became the first place of Lithuania, mentioned in written sources (Life of Anskar by Rimbert).

Possibly the oldest mention about Lithuanians in Swedish records is in the Erics Chronicles written in the 14th century. The chronicles include a story about Junker Carl. The story goes that Junker Carl, a rival of Earl Birger in Sweden, set out on a crusade, fought at the Battle of Durbe in 1260 and was killed by the Lithuanians. This fact was recorded in the context of Swedens participation in the Crusades to Christianize pagan Lithuania.

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.

Sigismund III Vasa (15871632)

As Wadysaw 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 .

Wadysaw IV Vasa (16321648)

Jan Kazimierz Vasa (16481668)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 SigismundPolishSwedish War of 16001611PolishSwedish War of 16201625PolishSwedish War of 16261629Northen Wars in 16551661

During one of these wars, according to the Treaty of Kdainiai 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 Radziwis.

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 Polish-Lithuanian 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

The remarkable story of a pioneering Swedish pilot who fought for Lithuanias 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 LihuaniaA Foreigner Fights for Freedom

Cultural relations 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

Ignas einius

(1889 - 1959)

The life and writing career of Ignas einius 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.einius was a representative of the Lithuanian Central Committee to support the war victims in Stockholm, Sweden. There I.einius 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.einius 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.einius 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.einius completely. From 1940 he wrote mainly in Swedish.I.einius was an exceptional figure in Lithuanias 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 einius, son of the writer Ignas Jurknas-einius, 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.

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