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- Sandin, Per, 1962-
(författare)
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Ett kungahus i tiden : Den bernadotteska dynastins möte med medborgarsamhället c:a 1810–1860
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this dissertation is to describe and analyze how the Royal House of Bernadotte maintained and strengthened its legitimacy in the united kingdoms of Sweden and Norway during the first half of the 19th century. Sweden’s repeated military setbacks during the first decade of that century had undermined the last vestiges of the autocratic monarchy’s legitimacy, and as a consequence King Gustav IV Adolf was deposed in a military coup in March 1809. In June parliament adopted a written constitution and the deposed king’s uncle, Prince Charles, ascended the throne as Charles XIII. Since Charles had no children, parliament in August 1810 elected Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of the French Empire and Prince of Pontecorvo, as heir to the Swedish throne.Bernadotte, who in Sweden used the name Charles John and was adopted by Charles XIII, immediately became the country’s regent due to the king’s poor health. In that capacity he managed to restore the country’s bruised military confidence and dampen domestic political tensions. In 1813 he led the Northern Army that helped depose his former brother in arms and relative, Emperor Napoleon I. As a sign of appreciation, Sweden was awarded Norway that since the 1300s had been united with Denmark. When Charles XIII died in 1818, the former revolutionary general was proclaimed Charles XIV, king of Sweden and Norway.In older history writing, Charles John’s rule has been described as conservative, even reactionary. This dissertation is linked to research in recent decades that shows that this picture is oversimplified, and partly misleading. This thesis, which also comprises the reign of Oscar I, describes and analyzes how the first two Bernadotte kings interacted with the new societal formation – the civic society that during the 19th and 20th centuries gradually replaced the older elite-ruled society, first in Norway and later in Sweden. This is done through three substudies. The first shows how the royal house used the royal court as a meeting place and invited civic society representatives there. The second substudy describes how the royal house entered civic society by getting involved in so-called voluntary civic associations. The third, and final, substudy depicts how the heirs to the throne Oscar (I) and Charles (XV) and their siblings were readied for encounters with civic society. The dissertation ties in with two international research trends. On the one hand, the modern research on monarchies where British historian Peter Burke is one of the prominent advocates; and on the other, the interdisciplinary research closely linked to the German sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas, which studies and describes various aspects of the emergence and expression of modern civic society. The dissertation’s overall conclusion is that the Royal House of Bernadotte, seen in an international context, during the period 1810–1860 appeared to be notably civic-minded with a clear civic profile.
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| 2. |
- Tunefalk, Martin, 1985-
(författare)
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Äreminnen : Personmedaljer och social status i Sverige, cirka 1650–1900
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this dissertation is to study the waning of premodern ideas about society by investigating the ways in which social status was conceived. Analyses of linguistic expressions and negotiations of status are used to study changes in how different social groups related and acted on one another, what changed, and what remained constant as premodernity gave way to modernity.The shifting conceptions of social status are studied through the medium of commemorative medals. These small and exclusive objects – made in precious metals such as gold, silver, or bronze – were made with the explicit purpose of recording the good qualities and desirable actions of ‘great men’ for posterity. The medium’s inherent bias makes it an ideal source for studying attributes that were highly valued at a certain time and by a certain group. The study concentrates on medals of private, non-royal individuals. All the medals of private individuals issued in Sweden, from the very first in the early seventeenth century to the mid nineteenth century, are included in the study. The methods used are both quantitative and qualitative: the quantitative approach makes it possible to establish what was representative, while close studies are adopted to identify its expression. To understand the medals as part of a discourse, a contextual approach has been applied.Conceptions of social status from 1650 to 1900 underwent a constant change from exclusion to argument. The conceptualisation of status went from being ascribed, uniform, and collective in the seventeenth century to being achieved, diverse, and individual in the nineteenth century. Rather than replacing old modes of expression and groups of people, new ones supplemented them, making the discourse increasingly diverse. The study offers three major arguments about how and way premodern ideas about society were superseded. These ideas concern the causality, anatomy, and chronology of change. The study demonstrates that linguistic expressions many times preceded political reorganisations and should be regarded as performative; it shows that change came about through overwriting of expressions from established groups, with large quantities of symbolic capital, to less well-established groups and contexts they found relevant; and it demonstrates, through its the study focus on a long perspective, that important cultural and social changes did not necessarily coincide with political transformation. The degree of continuity over time and the constant negotiations between various groups, points to the fallacy of dividing history into distinct periods. Modernity should not be seen as a contrast to premodernity. Rather, it was its elongation.
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