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Swedish Culture
The Culture of Sweden is characterised by its art, music, dance, literature, traditions, religious practices and more. It is similar to but distinct from the cultures of neighboring countries. Sweden's modern history has a well-established tradition of science, technology and cultural creativity. Swedes have made significant contributions to biology and chemistry, as well as cinema, art, music, literature and the video game industry. The Nobel Prize, Nobel laureates for physics, chemistry, medicine and literature are chosen by Swedish academies. History Swedish culture is an offshoot of the Norse culture which dominated southern Scandinavia in Prehistoric Sweden, prehistory. Sweden was the last of the Scandinavian countries to be Christianised, with pagan resistance apparently strongest in Svealand, where Uppsala was an old and important ritual site as evidenced by the tales of Uppsala temple. Like the rest of Scandinavia, Sweden had significant artistic, musical and literary trad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dalahäst I Avesta
A Dala horse () or Dalecarlian horse is a traditional carved, painted wooden statue of a horse originating in the Swedish province of Dalarna (Dalecarlia). The Dala horse has been widely used as a toy for children. It has also become a symbol of Dalarna, as well as of Sweden in general. Several types of Dala horses are made with distinguishing features common to the locality of the site where they are produced. One particular style has, however, become much more common and widespread than others. It is stoutly carved and was traditionally painted Iron oxide red at first. Now it is usually reddish orange with details and a harness in white, green, yellow and blue. History The carving of Dala horses as a livelihood is thought to have started in the village of in central Sweden, though the nearby "horse" villages of , Vattnäs, and Nusnäs were also centres of horse-making. The villages were involved in the art of furniture and clock-making, and it is likely the leftover ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustav I Of Sweden
Gustav Eriksson Vasa (12 May 1496 – 29 September 1560), also known as Gustav I, was King of Sweden from 1523 until his death in 1560. He was previously self-recognised Protector of the Realm ('' Riksföreståndare'') from 1521, during the ongoing Swedish War of Liberation against King Christian II of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Gustav rose to lead the Swedish War of Liberation following the Stockholm Bloodbath, where his father was executed. Gustav's election as king on 6 June 1523 (the National Day of Sweden) and his triumphant entry into Stockholm eleven days later marked Sweden's final secession from the Kalmar Union. During his reign, Gustav initiated the Protestant reformation in Sweden, transformed the country from an elective to a hereditary monarchy and established a standing army and navy. Early life Gustav Eriksson, a son of Cecilia Månsdotter Eka and Erik Johansson Vasa, was probably born in 1496. The birth most likely took place in Rydboholm Castle, nor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jenny Lind
Johanna Maria Lind (Madame Goldschmidt) (6 October 18202 November 1887) was a Swedish opera singer, often called the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and undertook an extraordinarily popular Jenny Lind tour of America, 1850–52, concert tour of the United States beginning in 1850. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music from 1840. Lind became famous after her performance in ''Der Freischütz'' in Sweden in 1838. Within a few years, she had suffered vocal damage, but the singing teacher Manuel García (baritone), Manuel García saved her voice. She was in great demand in opera roles throughout Sweden and northern Europe during the 1840s, and was closely associated with Felix Mendelssohn. After two acclaimed seasons in London, she announced her retirement from opera at the age of 29. In 1850, Lind went to the United States at the invitation of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Red Room (Strindberg Novel)
''The Red Room'' () is a Swedish novel by August Strindberg that was first published in 1879.Meyer, Michael. 1985. ''Strindberg: A Biography''. Oxford Lives ser. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987. . A satire of Stockholm society, it has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel. In this novel, Strindberg reflects on his own experiences of living in poverty while writing this novel during February to November 1879. While receiving mixed reviews in Sweden, it was acclaimed in Denmark, where Strindberg was hailed as a genius. As a result of ''The Red Room'', Strindberg became famous throughout Scandinavia. Edvard Brandes wrote that it "makes the reader want to join the fight against hypocrisy and reaction." A young idealistic civil servant, Arvid Falk, leaves the drudgery of bureaucracy to become a journalist and author. As he explores various social activities—politics, publishing, theatre, philanthropy, and business—he finds more hypocrisy and political corruption th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg (; ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics during his career, which spanned four decades. A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout his life, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, and historical plays to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques. From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition. He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature and his '' The Red Room'' (1879) has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel. In Sweden, Strindberg is known as an essayist, painter, poet, and especially noveli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fredrika Bremer
Fredrika Bremer (17 August 1801 – 31 December 1865) was a Finland, Finnish-born Sweden and Norway, Swedish Swedish literature, writer and feminism in Sweden, reformer. Her ''Sketches of Everyday Life'' were wildly popular in Britain and the United States during the 1840s and 1850s and she is regarded as the Swedish Jane Austen, bringing the Literary realism, realist novel to prominence in Swedish literature. In her late 30s, she successfully petitioned Charles XIV John of Sweden, King Charles XIV for legal majority, emancipation from her brother's wardship; in her 50s, her novel ''Hertha (novel), Hertha'' prompted a social movement that granted all unmarried Swedish women legal majority at the age of 25 and established Högre Lärarinneseminariet, Sweden's first female tertiary school. It also inspired Sophie Adlersparre to begin publishing the ''Home Review'', Sweden's first women's magazine as well as the later magazine ''Hertha (magazine), Hertha''. In 1884, she became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of Norway. Bouvet Island, located in the Subantarctic, is a Dependencies of Norway, dependency, and not a part of the Kingdom; Norway also Territorial claims in Antarctica, claims the Antarctic territories of Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land. Norway has a population of 5.6 million. Its capital and largest city is Oslo. The country has a total area of . The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden, and is bordered by Finland and Russia to the northeast. Norway has an extensive coastline facing the Skagerrak strait, the North Atlantic Ocean, and the Barents Sea. The unified kingdom of Norway was established in 872 as a merger of Petty kingdoms of Norway, petty kingdoms and has existed continuously for years. From 1537 to 1814, Norway ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustav III
Gustav III (29 March 1792), also called ''Gustavus III'', was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of King Adolf Frederick and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden. Gustav was a vocal opponent of what he saw as the abuse of political privileges seized by the Swedish nobility, nobility since the death of King Charles XII of Sweden, Charles XII in the Great Northern War. Seizing power from the government in a coup d'état, called the Revolution of 1772, Swedish Revolution, in 1772, that ended the Age of Liberty, he initiated a campaign to restore a measure of royal autocracy. This was completed by the Union and Security Act of 1789, which swept away most of the powers exercised by the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates, Riksdag of the estates during the Age of Liberty, but at the same time it opened up the government for all citizens, thereby breaking the privileges of the nobility. A believer in enlightened absolutism, Gustav spent considerable pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louisa Ulrika
Louisa Ulrika of Prussia (; ; 24 July 1720 - 16 July 1782) was Queen of Sweden from 1751 to 1771. She was married to king Adolf Frederick and she was queen mother during the reign of king Gustav III. Background Louisa Ulrika was born in Berlin as the daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and his wife Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, and was thus a younger sister of both Wilhelmine of Bayreuth and Frederick the Great. She was given the Swedish name Ulrika because Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden had been her godmother. She exchanged letters with her godmother, and it was thought that she would marry a future son by Ulrika Eleonora, as Ulrika Eleonora herself had once been considered as a consort for Louisa Ulrika's father. However, Ulrika Eleonora remained childless. Louisa Ulrika was described as beautiful, intelligent, with a fierce temperament and a strong will. She was given an advanced education in accordance with the French Age of Enlightenment by the governess Marthe de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Michael Bellman
Carl Michael Bellman (; 4 February 1740 – 11 February 1795) was a Swedish songwriter, composer, musician, poet, and entertainer. He is a central figure in the Swedish song tradition and remains a powerful influence in Swedish music, as well as in Scandinavian literature, to this day. He has been compared to Shakespeare, Beethoven, Mozart, and Hogarth, but his gift, using elegantly rococo classical references in comic contrast to sordid drinking and prostitution—at once regretted and celebrated in song—is unique. Bellman is best known for two collections of poems set to music, '' Fredman's epistles'' (''Fredmans epistlar'') and '' Fredman's songs'' (''Fredmans sånger''). Each consists of about 70 songs. The general theme is drinking, but the songs "most ingeniously" combine words and music to express feelings and moods ranging from humorous to elegiac, romantic to satirical. Bellman's patrons included King Gustav III of Sweden, who called him a master improviser. Bell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as and, after his 1761 ennoblement, as . Linnaeus was the son of a curate and was born in Råshult, in the countryside of Småland, southern Sweden. He received most of his higher education at Uppsala University and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published the first edition of his ' in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 1760s, he co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swedish National Heritage Board
The Swedish National Heritage Board (; RAÄ) is a Swedish government agency responsible for World Heritage Sites and other national heritage monuments and historical environments. It is governed by the Ministry of Culture. The goals of the agency are to encourage the preservation and protection of historic environments and to promote the respect for and knowledge of historic environments. In order to do this, it tries to ensure that Swedish heritage is accessible to all citizens, to spread information about that heritage, and to "empower heritage as a force in the evolution of a democratic, sustainable society". History 17th and 18th century The National Heritage Board was founded in 1630. On the 20May that year, Johannes Bureus who was a prominent rune researcher and King Gustavus Adolphus' private teacher, was appointed the first ''riksantikvarien'' ("National Antiquarian"). Bureus' teachings had made the king interested in ancient monuments and national heritage sites ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
