The Trade-Raid Empire |The Animated History of Sweden

this episode is supported by curiosity stream head to curiositystream.com sweeney and also get access to my streaming service nebula now streamy nominated that's a pretty sweet deal right there quick update i used to make these videos in parts i now no longer do so the original part of this video will now be unlisted but you can still get access to it as a perk on patreon maybe get yourself a free pin while you're at it this video will be from scratch no need to thank me it only took eight long months to make no biggie three magic ingredients are needed to make an empire food to sustain a population technology to access the resources you have and the means of acquiring the resources you don't okay there's more to it than that but we're trying to be thematic here in the age of the nation-state empire can be seen as pretty antiquated but for most of human history empire was the rule not the exception you have to figure out a way to get the resources and food you need because sometimes pickled herring just won't cut it ice receded from this part of the world at the end of the last glacial period successive waves of fishing hunter-gatherers farmers and eventually migrating step herders called these lands home the latter of which brought the indo-european language family and bronze to scandinavia these would soon develop into the proto-germanic people their farming technology was pretty sophisticated however one thing you'll notice about sweden is that it's bloody cold and heavily forested meaning farmland wasn't exactly easy to come by so settlements tended to be modest fishing villages these coastal towns made it far easier to fish obviously but perhaps more importantly easier to trade over the baltic grains and vegetables that couldn't be grown could now be easily transported from markets further south thus fulfilling all three ingredients and sustaining a growing population welcome to the sweeney channel where trade is fun now these weren't the only settlers of fenoscandia no no from the other direction arrived a completely separate group in at least two successive migrations bringing with them the phenoeucric languages these were herders who followed the reindeer migration patterns and lived a primarily nomadic life similar to their ancestors they would become the sami and their land is called sapmi they are distantly related to their cousins the finns and although they sometimes got lumped together with names like finns or lapper in swedish that's now fallen mostly out of favor because of its association with folks of you know a more colonial persuasion anyway by this point you've probably realized that there's a problem if you're almost completely reliant on trade then what happens in times of famine or poor harvests well as is human nature during harsh times the only option you really have is to raid and plunder for the food you need and on the coasts this means hopping in your boat pillaging the neighboring village or otherwise succumbing to starvation and then they would have to hop in their boats and do the same thing and pretty soon a culture of raiding became very important to survival magnify this out on a larger scale and it should start to sound familiar that's because it's exactly what characterized the viking age centuries later and yes hunting and fishing played a role here too but the technology that allows you to actively both fish trade and raid is the boat ship building was immensely important to these folks almost deity-like and it represents an overwhelming majority of the stone carvings we have from this era now let's just be really clear for a second rating didn't replace trade here it merely acted to supplant the resource deficits in times when it was needed and so in a way the two worked in tandem to supply their population rather than relying on just one and we can see examples of this throughout the written record the roman empire collapsed at the hands of the germanic invasions famously during the late antiquity ice age when access to food was becoming a bigger problem and germanic tribes eventually scaled up these raids in response to those increased pressures the great migration period you'll probably remember one of those tribes the goths also called the gates and possibly also the jutes but not all of them were off pillaging rome most of them in fact stayed in their homeland sweden forming one of its first political structures during the iron age a brief lull occurred after these migrations which makes sense sometimes called the vendel period probably a time when norse religion and poetry was becoming more like what we know it today but as the population rose and the sphere tribe consolidated in the north the need to raid came again this was the viking age now i know it may seem as though the viking age sort of came out of nowhere but that's not really the case at all the preceding centuries had seen these old norse people creating immense trade routes through the baltic even all the way down to the lands of byzantium the viking raiders were merely following these already established routes expanding them and taking advantage of undefended villages wherever they could these swedish vikings became known to the slavs as the ruse meaning rowing men and they came to absolutely dominate the peoples they encountered raiding trading plundering settling building you name it byzantine emperors even hired them as bodyguards called varangians which means something like sworn mercenary and shows the great diversity of viking professions and these vikings got super wealthy it's all part of the reason we have this brutal viking caricature in our pop culture because at the end of the day these pillagers were in fact pagans raiding christian lands and so tales and myth persisted of their tyranny both in norse sagas and runestones and in christian records the vikings were more than happy to feed into that narrative because really it made their job easier if it meant that they could get their plunder without a fight the myth was kind of the point we do have elaborate viking burials which shows just how important being a warrior was to these people but most norsemen were merchants not vikings and your average viking themselves would just as often turn to stealth extortion bribery or good old-fashioned hired wages to get the loot they wanted why risk fighting when losing even one battle could be a death sentence vikings often had rivalries with other vikings so you kind of had to pick your battles the whole thing was like a multitude of mafia gangs roaming the seas and rivers now obviously raiding and pillaging wasn't exactly rainbows and sunshine even if it was exaggerated a bit and the vikings did basically control the slave trade at this time but the picture we paint should use all colors norse men were among the most learned of their peers at the time they spoke multiple languages had a higher literacy rate and were instrumental with spreading faith in customs throughout the land among the first converts to christianity were raiders and traders and our days of the week to this day are still named after norse gods that being the case their homeland was eventually christianized around the turn of the millennium probably advanced by the vast political and economic incentives and around the same time the beginnings of statehood were showing up too three loose political entities came to be the most powerful ostrogothia westerogothia and sphereland further south in scania was at the time inhabited by the stinky danes so as not to offend any swedes we won't be talking about them in this episode each of these kingdoms had their own murky pseudo-histories that probably began in the nordic iron age but the sphere or swedes in english surprise surprise is what would eventually dominate politically with its core around the strategic lake melarin olaf skirt-kerning is believed to be the first king of a united sweden as a christian himself he along with denmark made war on norway because these two kingdoms can't agree on much but where they do is a shared disdain for pesky norwegians the battle of svalda was the viking ages biggest as well as last naval battle look it up sometime it's an absolute riot now when you're a christian and can't go viking around the continent willy-nilly you have to find other ways to maintain a growth in trade you gotta do it the civilized way now and go on a crusade okay this is because taking land as a christian comes with its own set of rules you gotta use a flare for justification and that means taking over lands that the pope deems to be terra nullius which is latin for up for grabs so finland pope sweden two birds meet stone beer yayal a powerful regent of this period is also credited for founding the city of stockholm and beginning the settlement of sapmi you see the gulf of bothnia this bit here was where most of the lucrative fur trade originated so by settling further north on the coastline sweden could expand that market while the sami do all the hard work of fur trapping this became a loose bureaucracy known as the burqars now something curious about sweden's monarchy is that it never developed into feudalism and there's many theories as to why that is the average swede was pretty individualistic like their viking ancestors and were resistant to overreaching of the king they preferred him to be more focused on foreign affairs like crusading and what results is that the very core of the swedish monarchy is one of expansion and not much else building an empire is kind of the only power you really have at that point the king was far more like a ceo than a divinely appointed landlord like other estates of the middle ages and if you're not renting the king's land then you don't really have a way of instituting feudalism so for the time being kings just did what they could do and conquered more finnish territory zooming out for a second and you'll notice that sweden wasn't the only one expanding into terra nullius the thing about crusading is that it's just as easy for rival kingdoms to use the same justification that you're using for conquering more land it's a free-for-all unless you're a heathen of course soon sweden was losing a lot of its trade strength to the hanseatic league in particular an alliance of cities in the holy roman empire i hope by now you can see that this was a major problem sweden's entire unity and monarchy as a state relied on that trade and it could all come apart if they lost control and cracks did begin to show magnus iv was elected of both sweden and norway and was such a weak and ineffective ruler that he basically lost both of his kingdoms before his death and the system came under tremendous strain due to catastrophic losses to the black death but with high population losses this also meant that more swedes were inheriting land which may have been why indented servitude and serfdom never really took off i mean hey silver linings right this brief lull in growth leads to a period i like to call the great danish pause which is neither a dog nor a pastry the danes were similarly choked by the rise of the hanseatic league so when swedish nobles ousted their king queen margaret of denmark executed a sneaky plan unite all three kingdoms she controlled into one under a common monarch called the kalmar union so as to better compete with the hanza each kingdom could theoretically keep its own laws and customs while theoretically benefiting from the union win win win but the sneaky danes actually had bigger ambitions over time seeking to dominate the union which made the swedes break away in a series of rebellions first under a noble named engelbrecht and then under a royal region named carly eighth they returned when christopher of bavaria was elected in kalmar despite the fact that he liked to wear funny clothes christopher died a hot second later so sweden went in for a pound and just elected carl instead karl was then ousted by a grumpy archbishop christian the first of denmark taking his place but they didn't think he was much better and asked kyle to come back for a second stint as king he was then right back where he started at war with the original archbishop who had deposed him in the first place what came next you guessed it he was ousted one more time invited back and ruled as king a third and final time as you can see swedish politics are a teensy bit temperamental car left stands due to the elder as regent after his death and he became a swedish hero when he repelled an invasion of christian the first later since due to the younger some relation was defeated in battle on the frozen lake asundun by the forces of christian ii some relation when a group of the studio supporters were then publicly executed at the stockholm bloodbath a son of one of the murdered nobles gustav vassa led an uprising that would expel the danes from sweden once and for all and with that the great danish pause came to an end with its newfound freedom sweden could now finally return to its old plan of becoming the master of the baltic but this got off to a rough start during the northern seven years war all of its neighbors joined forces against them and after seven years no surprise there it resulted in status quo antebellum which is latin for we're all tired let's go home but on the other hand the freedom now also allowed them to stick it to the catholic church which means it's time for a protestant side note the reformation was relatively simply in sweden gustav had already been pretty friendly to luther's ideas but sigismund who was also king of poland lithuania well not so much sigismund was basically a catholic despot who cracked down heavily on protestants in both of his realms which led gustav's grandson dukal a devout protestant to overthrow his nephew in 1599. sigismund would however remain king of poland which had the effect of splitting the house of vasa in two and creating a rivalry between the two kingdoms a real honest-to-goodness medieval royal blood feud whoever said history was boring a mere 19 years later religious tensions in europe broke out into all-out war protestant king gustavus adolphus a master strategist naturally took the side of the pro-protestant alliance this pitted them against their rival poland who was in control of livonia at the time so catholic vassars livonian expansion two birds meet stone this protestant catholic vasa blood feud would continue to perhaps its lowest point during the second northern war sweden would take advantage of cossack uprising in modern day ukraine to invade and commit horrific atrocities in poland during an event described as a deluge a moment of national mourning in poland even to this day the invasion was ultimately considered a failure with an alliance of northern states that forced their retreat but they did come out on top against their long-time rivals denmark in an amazing campaign which involved marching an army across the frozen danish straits the swedes completely caught the danes off guard anyone noticing a pattern of battles on ice anyway the conclusion of this war although costly was that sweden would gain control of the three southern provinces of scania representing a third of denmark's population and territory and striking a major blow to danish pride since the city of malmo had once been the center of the danish reformation the vasa era would also include a huge migration wave to sapmi by promising swedes tax benefits and huge tracts of land to colonize the area to the detriment of the sami themselves the empire seemed unstoppable carl the tenth the first in the witselbach dynasty was the one that came up with the march in ice earlier carl the 11th repelled an attack by the danes attempting to retake scania and carl xii would be perhaps sweden's finest military commander not only was carl a brilliant tactician and leader but also a shrewd politician who just really enjoyed sticking it to his neighbors against overwhelming odds battle after battle during the great northern war but you can only really go so long trampling over your neighbors time and time again before they're gonna get pretty sick of it and start lusting for victory at any cost there had been a shift recently in the power dynamic of europe and the strong nations were the ones who had access to the sea and overseas colonies so control of the baltic was something all these kingdoms coveted especially russia for all his success in battle carl never really learned to quit while he was ahead and was notorious for ejecting offers of peace from his enemies his luck would eventually run out against his rival peter the great on the fields of poltava that would finally end carl's dominant position in the war a lesson in hubris and arrogance of truly timeless proportions leaving russia with far more than just a bruised ego carl was killed the way he lived in a battle against norway in 1718 which some say marks the beginning of the end of the swedish empire blood feud concluded with poland now russia is my new best enemy you see from this moment forward it wasn't loss of territory or military defeat that would cause the empire's decline but by no longer having unwavering control of the three ingredients an empire needs to grow surrounding herself with enemies and expanding its baltic holdings at the expense of those enemies is not a recipe for long-term success what follows a military peak is usually a lull in swedish history this was the age of liberty the rix tag or parliament took control from the monarchy and reduced it to a figurehead roll which if you ask me is not that bad a deal when the alternative is chopping your king's head off so i think they got off pretty lucky the parliament did attempt to regain some territory but just ended up losing even more during the hatz war so called because they wore hats the napoleonic wars would continue the trend the rix tag had chosen its kings from the house of oldenburg and one of them gustav iii hey at least it's not another carl initiated a successful uh self coup to reclaim his power as king gotta love the swedes coming up with a self coup anyway the guy was obviously pretty chuffed with himself and supported his deposed buddy louis xvi during the french revolution like hey man haven't you ever heard of a self coup anyway sweden didn't exactly come out all that great in its wars with napoleon it lost control of its german provinces were forced to join the continental system and fought one last epic battle with russia in a futile attempt at regaining some lost prominence but instead losing finland thus bringing an end to nearly seven centuries of swedish rule gustav iv was then recouped or i guess they just uncoored his father's self coup anyway the point is that gustav was deposed in 1809 and replaced as crown prince rather oddly with one of napoleon's own generals jean bernadotte as the new constitutional monarch crowned as carl xiv because clearly they didn't have enough cars yet during his time as regent he fought one last war against napoleon's allied denmark and took control of norway just to really annoy the danes one last time retreat home and never fight another war again no seriously they were done with war they didn't even try stopping norway from leaving in 1905 they just basically didn't want denmark to have it gotta love a sibling rivalry sweden joined the handful of countries that became neutral nations in the 20th century preferring diplomacy to conflict which meant it was kept out of both world wars it became a regulated industrial and export nation which was a bit easier when all of its neighbors were off killing one another but also suffered a great famine in 1867 which may have helped spur the creation of a more humanist centric economy the government took on a role of caretaker providing for citizens in times of need such as the early unemployment that resulted from industrialization and the effects of the great depression its importance as a trade partner with nazi germany also may have kept it out of hitler's crosshairs since it was basically surrounded anyway and therefore not much of a threat the newly democratic nation wasn't without its own troubles with the far right heavily influenced by italian fascism and later the german third reich small movements sprang up in the form of local fascist or even outright domestic nazi political parties although being plagued with infighting and internal power struggles they still manage to maintain strong ties to its fascist counterparts down south even to the monarch king gustav v and its ideas would have a lasting impact long after its subsequent parties were disbanded mostly due to failing elections but what about today fascism has seen a worrying resurgence in the modern era after decades of living as a dormant pathogen within modern society which is extensively covered in the nebular original series the new f word by fellow creator second thought the series which is available right now on nebula delves into the origins of the new global fascist movements and why a mere couple of generations of separation from its destructive ideas has made it increasingly difficult to identify and even easy to ignore but what you may ask is nebula well we as creators teamed up to build our own streaming service free from ads sponsor reads like this one and youtube's heavy-handed demonetization policies that make videos like these risky youtube tends to reward safe content which for creators covering history and politics makes us weary of covering some very important topics for fear of being age restricted demonetized or even censored but nebula is a platform for creators by creators where we don't have to worry about those things because there is no content algorithm and there is no demonetization and you can watch my videos there without any ads as well as loads of other nebula originals like the new f word for free by signing up to curiosity stream curiosity stream is another platform which creates and hosts thousands of high budget non-fiction series and documentaries with topics on just about everything curiosity stream believes in nebula so much that we've worked out a deal with them to get both streaming services bundled together by signing up for curiosity stream you'll pay just 14.79 lower than their basic price for an entire year of curiosity stream membership and get nebula thrown in absolutely free it really is just as simple as that just two high quality streaming services for you to begin watching by using my link at curiositystream.com s-u-i-b-h-n-e once you're done checking out nebula why not head over to curiosity stream and watch the four-part series the vikings an amazingly well produced documentary covering the origins of the vikings from their religion and society to their weapons and tactics and why the vikings have left such a strong imprint on our history books as well as our pop culture you'll not only get both of these streaming platforms by using my link but also be helping out this channel to make better and more content in the future so check out that link in the description and start watching today sweden during the war period is certainly one of history's more interesting enigmas she is one of the few nations to have actually benefited from the conflict and was one of the first countries in the world to build a modern socialized democracy its labor movement gained a lot of momentum and its human-centered policies became very popular forging what is now known as the welfare state which aims to prioritize its citizens health work and happiness in its policy decisions probably don't need to tell you that this was quite uncommon during the cold war as for the sami who still represented a significant minority in the north successive waves of cultural and linguistic suppression in the 18th and 19th century has today given way to efforts in revitalization also underway in other parts of sapmi but if you'd like to know more i'd really recommend my internet friend kokido's video on this subject like with many minority groups the sami was subject to antiquated race science and atrocities committed against them and it's really worth being educated on sweden is no longer an empire although they are among the few nations to have kept their monarch power resides wholly in the constitution with the royal family remaining as symbolic figureheads and it's found its way to support itself and its economy through mutually beneficial relationships a closer tie with its nordic neighbors and making strides are changing the way a modern nation state views its roles in its citizens lives mastering the three ingredients of empire it seems is a good way to becoming the flat pack furniture capital of the world they can still keep the herring though well thank you all for watching um again these videos take a really long time to make so if it's in your ability to do so you can support the channel on patreon or you can buy something from the merch store they'll all be listed below i just want to say a special shout out to my patrons i really appreciate the support i couldn't i wouldn't be able to do this without your support i've got a few other projects in the works maybe one of them will be done by this point i'm not sure yet but keep on the lookout for that as well you can follow me on twitter or reddit to find out more alright guys until next time you

Channel: Suibhne

Views: 1,514,685

Keywords: Sweden, history, suibhne

Id: _i54q6j3rtc

Length: 26min 11sec (1571 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 22 2022