Showing posts with label Bernadotte bicentenary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bernadotte bicentenary. Show all posts

Monday, 14 March 2011

New books: The election of a crown prince

The story of how Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of the French Empire and Sovereign Prince of Pontecorvo, became Crown Prince of Sweden in 1810 is one of those stories which seem almost too fantastic to be true. Thus it is no wonder that it has been told many times. In connection with last year’s bicentenary the Swedish Parliament chose to tell the story in a new way, i.e. by publishing the primary sources themselves in the book När svenskarna valde tronföljare – Handlingar från riksdagen i Örebro 1810, edited by Nina Sjöberg.
Following the loss of Finland in 1809, Gustaf IV Adolf had been deposed and sent into exile and his childless, frail uncle, Carl XIII, had been elected king. Prince Christian August of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg was elected heir to the throne, but had barely arrived in Sweden before dying suddenly in May 1810. The Four Estates thus had to be called together once again, this time in the small provincial town of Örebro, partly because of the unrest in Stockholm which had reached its climax with the public slaying of the Marshal of the Realm, Axel von Fersen, during the Crown Prince’s funeral, and partly out of fear of Russian attacks on Stockholm or other cities on the east coast.
Most of this book is made up of source material, but there are also short chapters on the background, how the Four Estates worked and about the main players. There is also a presentation of the main candidates for the Swedish throne: ex-Crown Prince Gustaf, the son of the deposed Gustaf IV Adolf, who was favoured by the Gustavians and by Queen Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotta; Duke Frederik Christian of Augustenburg, the brother of the late Crown Prince; King Frederik VI of Denmark, who offered himself as a candidate and whom Napoléon I would have liked to see elected; Marshal Bernadotte; and Prince Regent Peter of Oldenburg, who was Carl XIII’s first cousin and could thus be said to be the next male in line of the House of Holstein-Gottorp (Peter is misidentified in this book as Duke of Oldenburg, a Danish duke and the brother-in-law of the Emperor of Russia; he was in fact not yet Duke of Oldenburg, but “administrator” of the duchy in place of his mentally incapacitated cousin, he was German and it was his second son who was Alexander I of Russia’s brother-in-law). Prince Christian Frederik of Denmark, who was seen by some as a more acceptable alternative to Frederik VI, is not included in the list of candidates here.
Through the documents reproduced in this book one sees how King Carl XIII and the cabinet early on agreed on the Duke of Augustenburg and how eleven of the twelve members of the parliamentary committee dealing with the issue voted in favour of the Duke on 8 August (the twelfth member voted for Peter of Oldenburg).
What turned everything around was that the young lieutenant Carl Otto Mörner, one of the messengers sent to Emperor Napoléon I in Paris to inform him formally of the Crown Prince’s death and to request the most powerful man on earth’s advice on who should be the new heir, took it upon himself to ask Marshal Bernadotte to stand for election.
Three days after the parliamentary committee had agreed upon the Duke of Augustenburg, the former French Vice-Consul in Gothenburg, Jean-Antoine Fournier (grandfather of Edouard Manet), arrived in Örebro and presented himself as a representative of Bernadotte, carrying no formal authorisation to act on his behalf but possessing a toothpick case with miniature portraits of Bernadotte’s wife and son which was considered proof of his attachment to Bernadotte. Fournier was able to convince the Swedes that Bernadotte was Napoléon’s favoured candidate (which he was in fact not) and that he was able to offer Sweden significant financial benefits.
This changed the minds of the Swedes and the documents show how one now managed to convince oneself that the Duke of Augustenburg might turn down the offer if elected in order not to upset his brother-in-law King Frederik VI. There were reservations about Bernadotte’s religion (he eventually converted in Denmark just before crossing Øresund to Sweden) and his inability to master the Swedish language (which he never learnt to speak), but in a remarkably short time the Swedish parliamentarians turned around entirely, rejected Duke Frederik Christian and on 21 August voted unanimously for Bernadotte and eventually passed the Act of Succession which remained in force until 1980.
Throughout most of this book the documents, which are transcribed in their entirety (and translated if originally in French), are allowed to speak for themselves, which is an interesting way to read the story as it gives an insight into the views held by and the arguments used by the main actors. By having made these primary sources readily available as a book the Swedish Parliament has made a valuable addition to the literature on the Swedish monarchy, the House of Bernadotte and the history of nineteenth-century Sweden.

Saturday, 12 March 2011

New books: Bernadottes in Helsingborg and Scania

“Scania is not a province, it is a kingdom”, Carl XIV Johan is supposed to have said. Many Scanians would probably agree with him and Scania (Skåne), the southernmost county of Sweden, has played a rather prominent role in the history of the dynasty which Carl Johan founded.
On 20 October last year his Swedish and Danish descendants gathered in Helsingborg to commemorate the bicentenary of their ancestor’s stepping ashore in that town two months after his election to Crown Prince of Sweden. The links between the dynasty and the city were later strengthened when the future King Oscar II and Queen Sophia built their summer palace Sofiero on the outskirts of Helsingborg, which was also where their grandson Gustaf VI Adolf came to spend his summers for nearly seventy years. (Gustaf VI Adolf, like his great-uncle Carl XV, had been Duke of Scania and both kings eventually died in that county).
As part of the bicentenary celebrations the City of Helsingborg commissioned the historian Jan Berggren (the husband of the city’s Director of Communications, which caused some controversy) to write the book Bernadotterna och Helsingborg – 200 år sedan Karl XIV Johan landsteg i Helsingborg. Although the links between the Bernadottes and Helsingborg are at the centre of the book, the author has also chosen to include the county of Scania at large.
He relates the background for the events which led to Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Sovereign Prince of Pontecorvo and Marshal of the French Empire, being elected heir to the Swedish throne and tells of his arrival in Helsingborg in 1810, at that time a small town of a few thousand inhabitants.
In 1824 the local newspaper Helsingborgs Posten claimed that the King planned to build a summer palace outside Helsingborg, but although this never happened Carl Johan came quite frequently to Scania in the years following his arrival in Sweden (1816, 1819, 1820, 1821, 1824, 1832 and 1837). To a certain extent this can be explained by military manoeuvres taking place in the county, but Berggren also sees the frequent visits in the early years as a sign of Carl Johan’s distrust of the Scanians – the county had after all only been part of Sweden for some 150 years at that time and the King was, according to Berggren, suspicious of Danish sympathies still to be found in Scania.
The proximity to Denmark also meant that Helsingborg came to play a small role in what is called Scandinavianism, the popular movement which in the mid-19th century aimed at a closer association between the three Scandinavian kingdoms, perhaps even a union. In 1846 the Swedish-Norwegian royal family hosted King Christian VIII and the extended Danish royal family in Helsingborg, a visit which Berggren sees in relation to Scandinavianism but also in relation to the need for repairing relations between the two royal houses, who had been at war as recently as 1814. It was after all Christian VIII himself who had led the Norwegian rebellion that year and been elected King of Norway before being ousted by Carl Johan, whose widow Desideria he now encountered in Helsingborg.
The book is at its best in its first half, where Berggren weaves together the story of tje links between the Bernadottes and Scania with the greater picture and thus succeeds in putting the events in the relevant context. The second half tastes a little more of local history, focusing on summers at Sofiero and listing several notable visitors to the summer palace and Helsingborg (but not the visit paid to Sofiero by Prince Carl and Princess Maud of Denmark as late as 5 October 1905, slightly more than a month before they were elected King and Queen of Norway in succession to the deposed Oscar II).
There is also a chapter on Folke Bernadotte and his White Busses action, whereby thousands of prisoners were rescued from the concentration camps (transit was through Helsingborg) and traces of the Bernadottes in Helsingborg (artworks, names of streets, monuments, etc) before the book is rounded off with a brief interview with Count Carl Johan Bernadotte af Wisborg, the 94-year-old former prince who lives in nearby Båstad. Carl Johan Bernadotte tells two brief anecdotes of no greater significance and one could perhaps be forgiven for thinking that the author might have done more out of this interview, for example by letting the Count talk about his memories from Sofiero and incorporating such fresh recollections into the text rather than repeating what he wrote in his memoirs nearly thirty years ago.
Some factual mistakes might also be pointed out, such as King Haakon VII and Queen Maud being described as “the first King and Queen of independent Norway” or the claim of King Carl XIV Johan arriving in Scania “from the continent” for one of the visits during his reign, which is impossible given that the King never set his foot outside Sweden and Norway after 1814.
But all in all this is a good overview of the role Helsingborg and Scania have played in the history of the Bernadottes and the role the Bernadottes have played in Helsingborg and Scania.

Sunday, 5 December 2010

New books: Establishing the Bernadotte dynasty

In connection with the bicentenary of the Bernadotte dynasty’s arrival in Sweden the jubilee foundation of the National Bank of Sweden has financed an interdisciplinary research project titled “The Making of a Dynasty”. As previously mentioned the project released its second publication in June, a book titled En dynasti blir till – Medier, myter och makt kring Karl XIV Johan och familjen Bernadotte, edited by Nils Ekedahl and published by Norstedts.
The book, like the project, aims to investigate by which means one made Carl XIV Johan and his family known to the people and how one created an imagined community between the people and the new dynasty. This should be seen as a multimedia show, the authors argue, where the variety of media used strengthened the message. Music, architecture, poetry and painting are the art forms considered by the authors contributing to this book, to which are added investigations of the use of ceremonial and the press.
I shall not dwell upon each and every chapter, but, as with all anthologies, some contributions are more interesting than others. Among those I found most interesting is the chapter by the historian Mikael Alm, who looks at the ceremonial which unfolded in connection with key events in the life of Carl Johan. The events were not only staged as “plays”, he argues, thus giving spectators the chance to observe and take part, but detailed accounts of the ceremonial were printed and distributed around the country so that the population outside the capital could also take part. Similarly, Nils Ekedahl, associate professor of rhetoric, looks at the panegyrics dedicated to the royals, which were also often printed in the newspapers and spread throughout the country.
The art historian Solfrid Söderlind, Director General of the National Museum, deals with those personages to whom Carl Johan felt it natural to compare himself. Of his predecessors on the Swedish throne, Gustaf II Adolf was the obvious choice, as both of them could be said to have led Sweden in playing a major role in events on the Continent. Napoléon I was obviously another ruler to whom it was natural to compare Carl Johan and Söderlind argues that Carl Johan’s famous words on his deathbed, “No-one has fulfilled a career comparable to mine”, was directed directly at his adversary.
Among the most interesting contributions to this anthology is also the art historian Britt-Inger Johansson’s chapter on Carl Johan’s physical environments, i.e. the palaces in which he lived and their importance for the staging of the new dynasty. In this Johansson is able to offer some interesting new interpretations. It has been rather common to say that Carl Johan showed little interest in the older Swedish palaces, except the Royal Palace itself. On the contrary Johansson shows that he gave orders for general inventories to be carried out for all of them, but that the Swedish Parliament was not willing to grant the funds he requested for renovating them.
However, in this chapter I miss a more thorough consideration of the Royal Palace in Oslo, which was the only major palace Carl Johan had the chance to build from scratch, a process in which he played an active and significant role. Despite being arguably the most important building created by Carl Johan, Oslo Palace is accorded only a short paragraph (in which there are four factual mistakes) and Johansson thus fails to use the opportunity given her to look at Carl Johan in the role as builder of a palace.
As I have commented on on several occasions it is an unfortunate trend that Swedish writers almost entirely tend to ignore the Norwegian side of the history of the Bernadottes. Sweden and Norway were indeed two independent countries in a personal union, but as the royal family was mutual (and in fact the only mutual institution besides the Foreign Service) it means that one misses out on half the story when only one of the countries is considered. In this case it means that the book gives an incomplete picture of the reception of the new dynasty.
Henrik Wergeland is the sole Norwegian mentioned in Nils Ekedahl’s chapter on panegyrics, while Cecilia Rosengren does not offer the Norwegian media a single thought in her chapter on the press. Considering the successful Swedish-Norwegian history project “Project 1905” a few years ago it is altogether more surprising that one has chosen to make this project an entirely Swedish one. Among the contributors to this book the historian Per Sandin comes closest to subjecting Norway to an equally thorough treatment as Sweden.
Sandin is currently about to complete his doctoral dissertation on the first two generations of the dynasty’s relations to civilian society and in his chapter, based on his coming dissertation, he argues that the usual image of an old, reactionary king ruling his kingdoms from his bedchamber has blocked posterity’s understanding of the interaction between monarchy and society. Sandin finds that Carl XIV Johan, particularly when compared to other contemporary monarchs, appears to have been a monarch with an unusually benevolent attitude to civil associations, which members of the royal family in several cases actively supported.
The too narrow Swedish approach is a drawback for this book, but its strength is that it brings together leading scholars in different fields who are able to offer new insights and new interpretations, which in combination give the reader a better understanding of why and by which means the Bernadottes succeeded in establishing themselves as a new dynasty. 200 years after their arrival in Sweden and 192 years after Carl XIV Johan’s accession to the throne they are the longest reigning dynasty in the country’s history. Certainly few would have expected that when Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Sovereign Prince of Pontecorvo and Marshal of the French Empire, was surprisingly elected Crown Prince by the General Estates in August 1810.

Friday, 5 November 2010

My latest article(s): Carl Johan, Norway and Oslo

While I have been having a break Sweden has marked the 200th anniversary of the future King Carl XIV Johan’s arrival to the country as newly elected crown prince, a bicentenary which was celebrated in Helsingør and Helsingborg on 20 October in the presence of King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia, Queen Margrethe, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Benedikte, Carl Johan and Gunnila Bernadotte, and Michael Bernadotte.
“With the election of Bernadotte to heir to the Swedish throne begins the modern history of Norway”, wrote the historian Sverre Steen nearly sixty years ago. Carl Johan was the architect of the personal union between Norway and Sweden which was founded in 1814 and, following the death of his adoptive father Carl XIII in 1818, he reigned as King of both Norway and Sweden for 26 years.
Yet surprisingly little has been written about Carl XIV Johan in his role as King of Norway. His many biographers have been mostly concerned with his astonishing career before he came to the throne and if they have included his long and eventful reign, Norway has mostly been relegated to the background.
The bicentenary of his arrival to Scandinavia was a good occasion to do something about this and in the current issue of Historie (no 3-2010) I have written a 21-page article about Carl Johan’s Norwegian reign. The article focuses mainly on his struggles with the Norwegian Parliament and shows how his intermittent attempts at strengthening the King’s powers eventually led to their being weakened.

One of the reasons why most biographies of Carl Johan are rather incomplete is obviously that the King played a role in so many different areas that it is almost impossible to include it all in a book. Another aspect of his work about which little has been written is city-planning and architecture, an area where Carl Johan came to play a greater part in Norway than in Sweden.
His reign saw the transformation of provincial Christiania (now Oslo) into a capital worthy of an independent kingdom, a process in which the King himself played no little role. This is the topic of another article I have written in connection with the bicentenary and which is due to be published in the next issue of St. Hallvard. In the meantime I have written a shorter article (external link) on the same topic, which was published in the newspaper Aften on the day of the bicentenary.

The photo shows Brynjulf Bergslien’s equestrian statue of King Carl Johan in the Palace Square in Oslo.

Wednesday, 29 September 2010

Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel in the footsteps of Carl XIV Johan

As previously announced Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden have been visiting France this week as part of the bicentenary of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte’s election to Crown Prince of Sweden, a trip which is also their first official visit abroad following their wedding this summer.
The crown princessly couple have visited both Paris and Pau. In the southern town Pau they visited the house in which the future Carl XIV Johan was born in 1763, which is now the Musée Bernadotte. Judging by the photos they received a warmer welcome than King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia when they arrived unexpectedly at the museum two or three years ago and were turned away at the door as the museum was about to close for the lunch break. (The mayor of Pau was not happy when she heard about it).
In Paris the Crown Princess and Prince Daniel called on President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Élysée Palace. Given that the future Carl XIV Johan was (and is) considered a traitor by many Frenchmen there are not that many reminders of him to be found in the French capital. His name can be found on the Arc de Triomphe with the other generals of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, but he is one of the few marshals for whom a Parisian street has not been named.
However, the Crown Princess and Prince Daniel paid a visit to the town hall in suburban Sceaux, where the then General Bernadotte married Désirée Clary in 1798, and were shown the entry in the book recording the marriage. The General and his wife spent their first years as a married couple in Sceaux, which was not to Désirée’s liking as she found it too far from Paris – I guess this goes quite a way in explaining why she considered Stockholm too far from Paris!
The crown princessly couple also made a visit to Château de la Grange la Prévôte in Savigny-le-Temple, some forty kilometres from central Paris. This estate was acquired by the Bernadottes in 1800 and, according to the art historian Britt-Inger Johansson’s interesting chapter on the Bernadotte residences in a recent anthology on the dynasty, Bernadotte had an existing building demolished and a new small palace built. As the architecture of la Grange is quite typical of the revolutionary era this seems not unlikely and, if correct, means that la Grange should be added to the list of palaces built by Carl XIV Johan, which otherwise consists of only Rosendal Palace in Stockholm and the Royal Palace in Oslo.
When Bernadotte became Crown Prince of Sweden and joined the enemies of France, ownership of the estate was transferred to his wife’s brother, Count Nicolas Clary, so as to avoid confiscation as enemy property. It remained in the Clary family until 1915 and is now owned by local authorities and used for conferences.
When they return to Sweden, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel will soon embark on a second official visit, this time to Beijing and Shanghai between 11 and 14 October. Later they will visit their duchy, Westrogothia, from 21 to 23 October, before making a third official trip abroad, this time to Finland on 1 and 2 November.
Here in Oslo we can meanwhile expect King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia, who will join the King and Queen of Norway in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Swedish-Norwegian conference centre Voksenåsen on Friday. Queen Silvia will stay on until Sunday, when she will attend mass at the Swedish Margareta Church together with Queen Sonja. This means that the Queen of Sweden will be in town during the State Opening of Parliament on Saturday, but there is no tradition for foreign dignitaries to attend this ceremony.

Tuesday, 28 September 2010

Several exhibitions on royal history this autumn

I have just returned from Stockholm, where the National Museum was busy getting everything in place for their grand exhibition “Härskarkonst – Napoleon, Karl Johan, Alexander” (“Staging Power – Napoleon, Karl Johan, Alexander”), which will be opened by King Carl Gustaf tomorrow in the presence of former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
The exhibition is expected to be the highlight of the Bernadotte bicentenary and will look at Emperor Napoléon I of France’s, King Carl XIV Johan of Sweden and Norway’s and Emperor Alexander I of Russia’s relations to art and how they used the arts to strengthen their own positions. More than 400 works of art – paintings, costumes, jewellery, furniture and more – are included in this exhibition.
Some examples worth mentioning are Jacques-Louis David’s iconic painting of Napoléon crossing the Alps, a leaf from the golden wreath with which Napoléon crowned himself emperor and the magnificent emerald necklace which was given to Stéphanie de Beauharnais when she married the future Grand Duke of Baden in 1805.
A richly illustrated catalogue, in Swedish and English versions, is available from the National Museum from this week. The exhibition will last until 23 January and will thereafter be shown in a modified version at the State Hermitage in St Petersburg.
The National Museum’s exhibition of Bernadotte portraits, “Bernadotter i svart och vitt” (“The Bernadottes in Black and White”), which opened in June, also remains open until 23 January, but on the coming Sunday some of the exhibited photos will be replaced with others (for preservation reasons).
It was earlier reported that the Royal Collection would show an exhibition on Carl XIV Johan’s family life at the Royal Palace in Stockholm from 1 October, but this has been postponed to 2 December.
There will however be several other exhibitions related to royal history to be seen this autumn. The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace has just extended their magnificent “Victoria & Albert: Art & Love”, which was due to close on 31 October, to 5 December.
As earlier mentioned the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Palace in Copenhagen will stage an exhibition to mark the 350th anniversary of the introduction of absolute monarchy in Denmark-Norway, while Rosenborg Palace in Copenhagen will hold the exhibition “Pomp og pragt - Kongemagt og enevælde” (“Pomp and Splendour - Royal Power and Absolute Monarchy”) on the same topic. The exhibition at Frederiksborg will run from 16 October to 20 February, while Rosenborg’s lasts from 16 October to 27 February.
A book related to these two exhibitions has also just been published by Gads Forlag of Copenhagen. Magt og pragt – Enevælde 1660-1848 is written by the noted historians Thomas Lyngby, Søren Mentz and Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen.
On the coming Saturday the Amalienborg Museum in Copenhagen will inaugurate their new exhibition “Den elegante fornyer” (“The Elegant Reformer”), which is a belated commemoration of the centenary of Queen Ingrid’s birth in March. This exhibition will close on the late Queen’s birthday, 28 March 2011. The Danish Royal Collection has by the way just got a new website (external link), which is a significant improvement on the old one.
In Antwerp one will soon be able to see the exhibition “Voor eer en glorie - Napoleon en de juwelen van het Keizerrijk” (“For Honour and Glory - Napoleon and the Empire’s Jewels”) at the Diamond Museum in Queen Astrid Square. This exhibition on the jewellery of the Napoleonic age will be open from 1 October to 31 December.
Here in Oslo the exhibition “Slottet og Linstow – Den nye hovedstadens grunnstein” (“The Palace and Linstow – The Cornerstone of the New Capital”) at the National Museum’s architecture department is now in its closing days. The exhibition, which is the first since 1922 to be devoted to Hans D. F. Linstow, the city planner and architect of the Royal Palace, will close on 10 October.
Meanwhile another branch of the National Museum, the National Gallery, last week opened “Sakrale skatter fra Kreml-museene i Moskva” (“Sacral Treasures from the Kremlin Museums in Moscow”), which shows some 90 icons, textiles and ritual and liturgical objects used in the imperial cathedrals of Russia. This is said to be the most valuable exhibition ever held at the National Museum. It will stay open until 16 January.
The photo show Grand Duchess Stéphanie Napoléon’s emerald necklace, which is normally kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The press photo is copyright the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Thursday, 9 September 2010

Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel to visit Paris and Pau

The Swedish royal court has now confirmed the rumours that Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel will visit France this autumn as part of the Bernadotte bicentenary celebrations. The crown princessly couple will visit Paris and Pau, the town where the future Carl XIV Johan was born, on 27 and 28 September.
King Gustaf VI Adolf and Queen Louise made a similar visit in 1963, when the 200th anniversary of Carl Johan’s birth was marked. The King and Queen then made a day-trip to Pau at the end of their state visit to Paris. There they met with Baron Henry Bernadotte, the last agnatic male descendant of Carl Johan’s brother, whose death three years later brought to an end the baronial Bernadotte line. (Bernadottes currently living in Pau descend from André Bernadotte, a brother of Carl Johan’s grandfather).
It could be added that as of yesterday Princess Madeleine is back working with the World Childhood Foundation in New York, which means that she has cancelled her attendance at the celebrations taking place in Helsingborg on 20 October to mark the 200th annivesary of the newly-elected Crown Prince’s stepping ashore in Sweden.

Saturday, 21 August 2010

What to see: The Carl XIV Johan monument, Örebro






200 years ago on this very day Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of the French Empire and Sovereign Prince of Pontecorvo, was elected crown prince of Sweden by the four estates assembled in the Church of St Nicolai in Örebro and today King Carl Gustaf, Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Daniel, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Madeleine take part in the celebrations in Örebro, including a celebratory mass in that church. The day began with a visit to Stjernsund Palace in the rain. For Prince Daniel these are his first public engagements after his wedding and very appropriately they bring him back to the town where both he and the Bernadotte dynasty were born.
The celebrations will include a speech by King Carl Gustaf at the Iron Square, close to the monument to his ancestor Carl XIV Johan which stands on the edge of the Central Park outside Örebro Castle.
The statue was erected following a 1913 initiative of Erik B:son Lilliehöök, who had hoped it could be unveiled in February 1918, a century after Carl Johan succeeded to the thrones of Sweden and Norway. It was however not until sixteen months later that the monument was unveiled.
Four of Sweden’s most prominent sculptors – Carl Milles, Christian Eriksson, Teodor Lundberg and C. J. Eld – had been invited to take part in a competition for the monument, but thirteen other artists also entered the contest, which was in the end won by an equestrian statue by Teodor Lundberg and the architect Aron Johansson. Yet the commission was eventually given to the artist who had come fourth in the competition – the comparatively little-known, virtually autodidact Alfred Ohlsson (1868-1940).
The monument is made of Vätö granite and was carved in Roslagen, arriving in Örebro by train in early June 1919. It was unveiled on 12 June 1919 by King Gustaf V, who had come to Örebro accompanied by his brothers Prince Carl and Prince Eugen (who was Duke of Nerike, the landscape in which Örebro is located), Prime Minister Nils Edén, Foreign Minister Johannes Hellner and other notabilities.
The monument is in my opinion one of the best statues of Carl XIV Johan. It shows the King standing, wearing military uniform and a cloak. With his left hand he holds the royal crown at hip level, while the right hand clutches his sword to his chest, symbolising that Carl Johan, unlike most kings, owed his elevation to the status of a monarch not to his ancestry but to his military deeds.
This morning it was discovered that someone during the night has vandalised the plinth by spraying the words “Opposition? That is treason!” onto it. King Carl Johan is famously alledged to have said “Opposition, that is conspiracy!” so this also appears to be a misquote.

Sunday, 1 August 2010

What to see: Church of St Nicolai, Örebro





The Church of St Nicolai, the main church of the town of Örebro, holds a special place in Swedish history as the “birthplace” of the Bernadotte dynasty 200 years ago this month.
Believed to have been begun in the second half of the 13th century and completed around 1350, the church’s nave is separated into three sections by columned arches in the Romanesque style. The church’s Gothic exterior is mostly a result of renovations carried out in the 19th century.
The altar is by probably the German-born sculptor Markus Hebbel and was presented to the church in 1661. It shows the crucifixion and burial of Jesus as well as the dove representing the Holy Spirit and is also adorned with portraits of the four evangelists as well as St Peter, St Paul and several disciples.
Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson, hero of one of the greatest Swedish rebellions (against the union king Erik of Pomerania in the 15th century), was buried in the Church of St Nicolai following his murder in May 1436 and soon began to attract pilgrims. King Gustaf I’s youngest son, Duke Carl (IX), who governed Nerike, Wermlandia and Sudermania, disapproved of the cult and had Engelbrekt’s remains disinterred and removed (to this no-one knows to where, but some maintain that they were hidden away in the thick walls of Örebro Castle). In 1865 a statue of the freedom fighter was erected in the Great Square behind the church.
The greatest event in the history of the Church of St Nicolai came in the summer of 1810. Following the sudden death of Crown Prince Carl August King Carl XIII called another parliament to elect a new heir to the throne. Stockholm was considered too chaotic to host a meeting of the General Estates – the Marshal of the Realm, Count Axel von Fersen, had been dragged from his carriage and lynched by an angry mob during the Crown Prince’s funeral procession – and Örebro, a small town with 1,303 inhabitants, was chosen instead. It was situated within reasonable distance from Stockholm (the journey then took two days by carriage and now two hours by train) and too far from the coast to risk a Russian attack.
While King Carl XIII and Queen Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotta set up their residence at Örebro Castle, the four estates met in different buildings in town. The Church of St Nicolai was however used as the Hall of State, i.e. where the plenary sittings of all four estates took place. Thus it was in this church that the Estates on 21 August – to the surprise of anyone, themselves included – unanimously elected the Sovereign Prince of Pontecorvo, Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Crown Prince of Sweden.
On 21 August this year there will be bicentenary celebrations in Örebro all day long, with the most formal event being a mass in the Church of St Nicolai. The celebrations will be attended by the royal family, including Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel, who will then make one of their first public appearances after returning from their honeymoon (they are currently reported to be in the USA).
For Prince Daniel it will be some sort of homecoming, as it was at the then Regional Hospital in Örebro on 15 September 1973 that he was born. It would have been an interesting coincidence if he had been christened in the church where the dynasty he has now married into was founded. He was however christened in the 800-year-old Almby Church in southern Örebro, near Björkrisvägen 2, where the Westlings were living at the time.
(Another coincidence is of course that he was born on the very day his future father-in-law succeeded his grandfather on the Swedish throne. It would be interesting to know in which reign he was born; the change happened at 8.35 p.m., but as far as I know no information about what time of the day the future prince was born has been made public).

Monday, 28 June 2010

Updated information on the Bernadotte bicentenary

With the Swedish royal wedding safely behind us it is perhaps time for an update on the many exhibitions and other events which are held this year to mark the other great royal occasion in Sweden, namely the bicentenary of the Bernadotte dynasty’s arrival in Sweden, which happened on 20 October 1810 after Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of the French Empire and Prince of Pontecorvo, had been elected Crown Prince of Sweden on 21 August 1810. Here is a calendar of some of the events:

6 May-11 July: The exhibition “Sigvard Bernadotte – Inspiratör, entreprenör, designdirektör” is shown at the Swedish Institute in Paris.

7 May-10 October: The National Museum – Architecture in Oslo shows the exhibition “The Palace and Linstow: The Cornerstone of the New Capital”, which deals with the palace built in Oslo for Carl XIV Johan and the architect he chose for that commission, Hans D. F. Linstow.

13 May-28 November: “Kronprinsessan Victoria och Bernadotterna på frimärken”, an exhibition about stamps bearing the images of Bernadottes, is shown at the Post Museum in Stockholm. Oscar II was the first of the family to appear on a Swedish stamp, in 1885.

15 May-16 January: Örebro was the city where the Four Estates met two centuries ago to elect a new crown prince and on the occasion of the bicentenary Örebro County Museum holds the exhibition “Folkets väl – folkets val? Bernadotte och Örebro 1810”, which deals with the events of that year and the town as it was 200 years ago.

15 May-31 August: The exhibition “Spåren av Karl XIV Johan” (“Traces of Carl XIV Johan”) is held at Stjernsund Palace in Askersund, which he bought as a resting place when travelling between his two capitals.

19 May-3 October: The Royal Armoury holds the exhibition “Bröllop för kung och fosterland” about Swedish royal weddings during the last five centuries. This summer there are also photo exhibitions about royal weddings at the palaces Ulriksdal and Strömsholm.

28 May-28 November: “Karl Johan och folket” (“Carl Johan and the People”) is a folk art exhibition at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm featuring five paintings from Dalarna made in the traditional local style.

30 May-31 August: Eidsvoll Manor at Eidsvoll (Norway) holds the exhibition “Kongelige gaver” (“Royal Gifts”), mostly consisting of jewellery given by Carl XIV Johan to Betzy Anker, a Norwegian noblewoman and courtier.

2 June-19 September: Another exhibition on the design works of the late Sigvard Bernadotte, titled “Design Bernadotte”, is shown at Örebro County Museum.

5 June-4 September: “Royal gifts – Carl XIV Johan’s Rapiers of Honour” is an exhibition held at Falkenberg Museum showing the beautifully crafted and decorated weapons of honour presented by the first Bernadotte monarch to deserving civilians and military men.

6 June-11 July: At Bohr Manor one can see the art exhibition “Bernadotte Rules!”, the artist Liselotte Kronkvist-Höglund’s paintings of the seven Bernadotte monarchs.

15 June-3 October: Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde in Stockholm holds an exhibition related to the Bernadottes, which will include several portraits of members of the dynasty as well as works by Prince Eugen and Princess Eugénie.

16 June-23 January: “Bernadotter i svart och vitt” is an exhibition of black and white portraits of members of the Bernadotte dynasty held at the National Museum in Stockholm.

21 August: The actual 200th anniversary of the election of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte will be commemorated in Örebro in the presence of King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Madeleine – possibly also the King of Norway and the President of France. There will be several events, including a mass in St Nicolai’s Church and King Carl Gustaf will make a speech at Järntorget (the Iron Square).

15 September-23 October: The exhibition “Sigvard Bernadotte – Inspiratör, entreprenör, designdirektör” will move from the Swedish Institute in Paris to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Pau.

30 September-23 January: The highlight of the bicentenary exhibitions will no doubt be “Staging Power: Napoleon, Alexander and Charles John”, a huge exhibition at the National Museum in Stockholm. The exhibition will be opened by King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia on 29 September and will later be shown at the State Hermitage in St Petersburg.

1 October-27 February (preliminary dates): “Hemma på slottet”, an exhibition on the private and family life of Carl XIV Johan, is held at the Royal Palace in Stockholm.

20 October: The 200th anniversary of the future King Carl XIV Johan’s arrival in Helsingborg will be marked in that city. The day will begin across the Sound in Helsingør (Elsinore) in Denmark with a visit to the Swedish consulate before the royals will go by boat to Helsingborg, where they will step ashore at 1 p.m.
The exhibition “Konsten att bli kung” (“The Art of Becoming a King”) will be opened at Dunker’s House of Culture and an artwork will also be unveiled at Sofiero Palace. A service will be held in Maria Church and a dinner held at Wärdshuset Gamlegård, as well as several events in the streets of the city.
While it was said earlier that Crown Princess Victoria and her brother Prince Carl Philip would represent the royal family, it has now been confirmed that they will be joined also by the King and Queen, Prince Daniel and Princess Madeleine. I understand Queen Margrethe has also made known her intention to attend the celebrations and Count Carl Johan Bernadotte af Wisborg, who lives in nearby Båstad, can certainly also be expected to attend.

Sunday, 20 June 2010

My latest article: Victoria’s heritage

Among my contributions to the coverage of the Swedish royal wedding in the Norwegian media is an article today in Aftenposten, Norway’s largest newspaper, titled “Victoria’s heritage” (external link), which deals with the development of the Swedish monarchy during the past two centuries or so.
As mentioned on several occasions before the Bernadottes celebrate the bicentenary of their arrival in Sweden this year. It was the Bernadottes who brought dynastic stability to Sweden – following the end of the Kalmar Union in 1523 four dynasties had sat on the throne of Sweden and it was quite rare for a king to be succeeded by a grown son on his death. Between 1718 and 1810 there were seven elections for monarch or crown prince and the years around 1800 saw three coup d’états, the assassination of one king and a marshal of the realm being lynched by a mob at a royal funeral.
The survival of the Bernadottes, the only remaining Napoleonic dynasty and long considered parvenus by other dynasties, has happened against most odds and in my article I chart the political and constitutional developments of the Swedish monarchy during the reign of the Bernadottes and take a closer look at some of the key events of its history – events which have led to the current powerless state of the King of Sweden, a situation which will be one of the challenges facing Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel in their future roles.
The photo shows the statue in Oslo of the founder of the Bernadotte dynasty, Carl XIV Johan, a few days ago.

Wednesday, 10 February 2010

An update on the Bernadotte bicentenary

As I wrote about in April and September the bicentenary of the Bernadotte dynasty in Sweden will be commemorated in many ways this year and here is an update on some of the major events:

April: TV4 will start broadcasting the six episodes of Gregor Nowinski’s documentary on the history of the Bernadotte dynasty.

6 May-11 July: The Swedish Institute in Paris will show an exhibition on Sigvard Bernadotte’s work as an industrial designer, titled “Sigvard Bernadotte – Inspiratör, Entreprenör, Designdirektör”.

7 May-10 October: The Norwegian National Museum’s department for architecture in Oslo will show the exhibition “Slottet og Linstow – Den nye hovedstadens grunnstein”, which will deal with the Royal Palace in Oslo, the only major palace built by Carl XIV Johan, and its architect Hans D. F. Linstow. The drawings from Linstow’s “Grand Composition” will be at the centre of the exhibition. I have earlier been told that a full-size replica of the famous Bird Room would be built, but the exhibition’s curator Nina Høye has now informed me that this is not correct.

15 May-31 December: Örebro County Museum will arrange the exhibition “Bernadotte och Örebro”, which takes a look at the events of 1810.

15 May-31 August: An exhibition titled “Spåren av Karl XIV Johan” will be shown at Stjernsund Palace, which the said King bought in 1823.

19 May-3 October: The Royal Armoury will hold the exhibition “Bröllop för kung och fosterland” about Swedish royal weddings during the last five centuries. The exhibition will be accompanied by a book written by Lena Rangström.

1 June-30 September: The Nordic Museum in Stockholm will host an exhibition dealing with the popular perception of Carl XIV Johan.

1 June-30 September: Örebro County Museum holds the exhibition “Design Bernadotte” about the design work of Sigvard Bernadotte and Prince Carl Philip.

6 June-11 July: An art exhibition called “Bernadotte rules!” will be shown at Lindesberg near Örebro.

10 June: The book En dynasti blir till – Medier, myter och makt kring Karl XIV Johan och familjen Bernadotte, edited by Nils Ekedahl, will be published by Norstedts. This book is the result of the research project “The Making of a Dynasty”.

15 June-3 October: Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde will mark the bicentenary by exhibiting some of Princess Eugénie’s drawings. As Prince Eugen took a great interest in the history of his family and particularly Carl XIV Johan, this sounds like a disappointingly modest contribution to the jubilee.

19 June: Crown Princess Victoria will marry Daniel Westling in the Cathedral of Stockholm.

21 August: The actual anniversary of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte’s election will be commemorated in Örebro, the city where the election took place. The King and Queen of Sweden, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Madeleine have confirmed that they will be present. It is not yet known if Crown Princess Victoria and her (by then) husband, who was himself born in Örebro, will be present. I understand that the King of Norway and the President of France have also been invited, but have not yet replied.

15 September-23 October: The Swedish Institute’s exhibition “Sigvard Bernadotte – Inspiratör, Entreprenör, Designdirektör” will be shown at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Pau.

30 September-9 January: The National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm will show their great exhibition “Härskarkonst – Napoleon, Alexander och Carl Johan” (“Staging Power – Napoleon, Alexander and Charles John”). The exhibition will be opened by the King and Queen of Sweden on 29 September and will later be shown at the State Hermitage in St Petersburg. The 320-page catalogue accompanying the exhibition will be published in both Swedish and English versions, edited by Magnus Olausson and contain essays by Mikael Alm, C. Beyeler, V. Fjodorov, Lars Ljungström, Odile Nouvel-Kammerer, Magnus Olausson, T. Préaud, T. Rappe, Per Sandin and Solfrid Söderlind.

1 October-27 February 2011: The exhibiton “Hemma på slottet”, dealing with the private and family life of Carl XIV Johan, will be shown at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. (The dates are preliminary).

20 October: The 200th anniversary of Carl Johan’s arrival in Sweden will be commemorated in Helsingborg in the presence of Prince Carl Philip. The quay where he stepped ashore was re-inaugurated some years ago by the former Prince Carl Johan, who lives in nearby Båstad and might also be present this year.


The drawing of Carl XIV Johan pictured above is in the Norwegian National Library and is (most likely wrongly), attributed to François Gérard.

Friday, 18 September 2009

More on the Bernadotte bicentenary

As mentioned before the 200th anniversary of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte’s election to Crown Prince of Sweden in August 1810 will be celebrated in many ways next year. On the date of the election, 21 August, there will be celebrations in Örebro, where the meeting of the estates which elected Bernadotte was held. It is hoped that the King and Queen of Sweden will attend.
There will also be many exhibitions linked to the bicentenary. The highlight will be the gigantic exhibition “Härskarkonst” about Carl XIV Johan, Alexander I and Napoléon I at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm, showing some 400 works of art. The dates for the exhibition are 29 September 2010-9 January 2011. Thereafter the exhibition will travel to the State Hermitage in St Petersburg.
In Stockholm there will also be an exhibition at the Royal Palace, titled “Hemma på slottet”, which will deal with the family life of King Carl Johan. The preliminary dates for this exhibition are 1 October 2010-27 February 2011.
The Nordic Museum in Stockholm will show an exhibition on how Carl XIV Johan was presented by his people in popular artworks. This exhibition will open on 1 June 2010 and close on 30 September the same year.
Back in Örebro, Örebro County Museum will arrange the exhibition “Bernadotte och Örebro”, dealing with the events of 1810, on show from 15 May and throughout the year. Between 1 June and 30 September the same museum will also have the exhibition “Design Bernadotte” about the design work of Sigvard Bernadotte and Prince Carl Philip.
At Stjernsund Palace outside Askersund, a palace which belonged to King Carl Johan, there will be an exhibition called “Spåren av Karl XIV Johan”, showing the traces of the King’s ownership, while the adjacent “Prince’s Pavilion”, which is not normally included in the guided tours, will be opened to show its interiors in Empire style, which in Sweden is known as “the Karl Johan style”.
There will also be events in Pau, where the future King was born in 1763, and in Oslo, the capital of his other kingdom. In Paris the Swedish House of Culture will do an exhibition on his great-great-great-grandson Sigvard Bernadotte’s design.
When opening Parliament on Tuesday, King Carl XVI Gustaf said: “Next year will [...] be a memorable year. 200 years will have passed since the French Marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte was elected Crown Prince of Sweden. And the present heir to the throne, Crown Princess Victoria, intends to enter into marriage with Mr Daniel Westling next year. 2010 will be a year to remember – particularly in my family”. Coincidentally Tuesday was not only the 36th anniversary of the King’s accession to the throne, but also the 36th birthday of Daniel Westling.
His and the Crown Princess’s wedding will take place in Stockholm’s Cathedral on 19 June, while the wedding of Princess Madeleine and her fiancé Jonas Bergström is expected to take place at the end of the year (or in early 2011), so it will be a hectic year for the Bernadottes.
TV4 recently announced that their documentary series on the Bernadotte dynasty, made by Gregor Nowinski, will be broadcast in six parts starting in April 2010. The series will begin with the Crown Princess and her fiancé and then travel backwards in time through the dynasty’s 200 years.
The photo above shows Brynjulf Bergslien’s equestrian statue of King Carl Johan outside Oslo’s Royal Palace on a December afternoon.

Monday, 3 August 2009

Bernadotte bicentenary exhibition

As I wrote about in April, there will be many events to celebrate the Bernadottes’ 200 years in Sweden next year, among them an exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm. The exhibition is entitled “Härskarkonst”, which may be translated both as “Art of Ruling” and “Rulers’ Art”.
It will deal with King Carl XIV Johan of Sweden and Norway, Emperor Napoléon I of the French and Emperor Aleksandr I of Russia and include some 400 works by Jacques-Louis David, François Gérard and other masters. Among the themes covered are “Visual manifestations of power”, “Great politics and dynastic family ties” and “Art collecting”, according to the museum’s website:
http://www.nationalmuseum.se/sv/Besoka-museet/Utstallningar1/Kommande1/Harskarkonst/
The exhibition will open at the National Museum in the autumn of 2010 and be shown until January 2011. From Stockholm it will continue to the Hermitage in St Petersburg. Shortly after the exhibition leaves the Swedish capital, the National Museum of Fine Arts will close down for renovation and be closed for an almost incomprehensible seven (!) years.
The picture shows a detail of David’s painting of the ceremony in 1804 when the newly proclaimed Emperor Napoléon presented the imperial eagles to his army. Carl Johan, or Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte as he then was, turns away. The painting hangs at Versailles Palace.

Tuesday, 7 April 2009

The Bernadotte bicentenary

In 2010 Sweden will celebrate not only the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling, but also the bicentenary of the Bernadotte dynasty. Although it did not actually come to the throne until 1818, it was at the meeting of the four estates in Örebro on 21 August 1810 that the French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Prince of Pontecorvo, was elected Crown Prince of Sweden. When adopted by King Carl XIII in November, the Crown Prince changed his name to Carl Johan, and the new heir to the throne soon became the real ruler of Sweden. In 1818 he succeeded as King Carl XIV Johan.
An exhibition in Örebro is being planned for next year and possibly the Musée Bernadotte in Pau, located in the house where Bernadotte was born in 1763, will also mark the bicentenary with an exhibition. An exhibition on Carl Johan, Emperor Napoléon I of France and Emperor Alexander I of Russia is also being planned – it will be shown at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm and at the Winter Palace in St Petersburg next year.
The journalist Herman Lindqvist, the author of many bestselling but not very reliable history books, has announced that he is writing a biography of King Carl Johan. Lindqvist will give a lecture in connection with the book at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on 3 October this year.
The Polish-born, Emmy-winning documentary maker Gregor Nowinski is currently at work on a documentary series on the Bernadotte dynasty. It will consist of three hour-long episodes and be broadcast on TV4 next winter. Nowinski has earlier made the much-acclaimed documentary on the powerful, secretive Wallenberg family and this spring TV4 will air his new documentary on the publishing family Bonnier. Information on the Bernadotte documentary and an interview with Nowinski can be found at TV4’s website:

http://www.tv4.se/1.730275/2008/11/24/atten_bernadotte_portratteras_i_ny_dokumentarserie

http://nyhetskanalen.se/1.734962/2008/11/24/tv4_dokumentar_om_kungafamiljen


On a more scholarly level, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation is funding an interdisciplinary research project called The Making of a Dynasty. Information about the project can be found at the following links:

http://www.nationalmuseum.se/sv/Forskning/Forskning-pa-Nationalmuseum/Pagaende-forskningsprojekt/En-dynasti-blir-till-Medier-myter-och-makt-kring-Karl-XIV-Johan/

http://www2.hist.uu.se/research/projekt.aspx?action=area&areaid=17

So far the project has published one book: Scripts of Kingship: Essays on Bernadotte and Dynastic Formation in an Age of Revolution (2008), edited by Mikael Alm and Britt-Inger Johansson, distributed by Swedish Science Press in Uppsala.

http://www.ssp.nu/nyheter/opuscula/scripts.htm

http://www.hist.uu.se/Forskning/Publikationer/Opuscula/H%C3%A4ften%C3%A5ren2001/Opuscula37/tabid/1780/language/sv-SE/Default.aspx

An article summarising the history of the Bernadotte dynasty was published by the magazine Populär Historia last year and can also be found online (in Swedish):

http://www.popularhistoria.se/o.o.i.s?id=54&vid=266

The picture above shows Brynjulf Bergslien's equestrian statue of King Carl XIV Johan outside the Royal Palace in Oslo.