Early modern Swedish state-building in Swedish and Finnish historiography

Abstract

This chapter contributes to a historiographical debate concerning early modern Swedish state-building that has raged in Sweden and Finland for decades. It seems today that historians are in general agreement that the development of the state is one of the principal processes of historical transformation in European history. The chapter focuses on historiography of the early modern Swedish realm in terms of (1) the relationship between the Swedish Crown and its subjects, which has been studied from the point of view of both coercion (military state) and interaction; and (2) its territorial characteristics in relation to state-building. Besides the epistemological military state–interaction duality, national perspectives on the historiography of early modern Swedish state-building diverge, despite the fact that Sweden and Finland have a shared governmental and political history until 1809. In the twenty-first century, the aim to bring ethno-cultural perspectives into the interpretation of early modern Swedish state-building has become more obvious.