Remembering a past princess : Catherine Jagiellon and the construction of national narratives in Sweden and Finland

Abstract

This chapter tackles the role a Jagiellonian princess, Catherine Jagiellon, has been given in Swedish and Finnish history culture. It illustrates how her figure has entered the historical-cultural memory of both countries, forging and re-forging their national self-image from the end of the sixteenth century through the Cold War, and into contemporary school history teaching. The chapter highlights the differences as well as the similarities of collective memory and history culture associated with Catherine Jagiellon in two Nordic countries with a shared history. It focuses on largely on physical sites of memory such as archives, museums, cathedrals, chapels, castles, commemorative monuments, emblems, basic texts, and symbols. Gripsholm Castle is located less than forty miles west from Stockholm and is nowadays one of the most popular tourist attractions in Sweden. The national Swedish history curriculum for basic education puts special emphasis on the history of the Baltic Sea from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.