Sweden, the country of...

[Alfonia]

Well Red and Whites did a thread like this about Denmark, so since I am pretty bored, I have decided to steal his idea (well actually his thread wasn't the first of the type, but I think it still counts as his idea), and make a thread like his, only that it's about Sweden. Ask anything you want, anything. I'll answer if I can. I can translate stuff as well, I guess.

...and no grammar questions please. lol just kidding^^

[Serconea]

Sweden, the country of Sven Goran Eriksson (the England football manager)!

Who's the current Swedish football manager? How's he doing?

[Alfonia]

Yeah got to love Sven Göran Eriksson^^
Somehow I think he inspired David Beckham a lot... perhaps a bit too much?

The current Swedish coach is mr. Lars Lagerbäck and the assisting coach is mr. Roland Andersson.

The current coach, Lars Lagerbäck has been very successful. Up until Euro 2004, the swedish national team was coached by mr. Tommy Söderberg and Lars Lagerbäck, but after the tournament Tommy Söderberg decided that he wanted to do something else so now Sweden has only one coach. The Swedish national team has been one of the best in the world in the World cup and European championship quali rounds, but unfortunately not that good in the tournaments.
The team is actually pretty good, since we have a healthy mix of young and old players. The biggest stars ( I guess we only have three big ones... but hey, we're not Brazil) are Henrik Larsson (Barcelona), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Juventus) and Fredrik Ljungberg (Arsenal).
Sweden is not known for it's individual skill but rather for it's very tactical play based on a 4-4-2 formation, Sweden has become a more offensive team than it used to be, but that just rocks if you ask me.

Last game: 04-09-05 Sweden vs. Malta, ended 7 - 0
Next Game: Today Sweden vs. Croatia

[Hockeynutville]

Heh, alright Alfonia, here's a question for Sweden. With all that offensive talent the Swedes supposedly had, why'd they get demolished in the World Cup of Hockey semis 6-1 by the Czechs?

[Parthini]

Nuff of that wannabe football/soccer .

What was Sweden's history like? Wasn't it like a major power at one time?

GPP

[Alfonia]

Well, for starters, it turned out that Näslund wasn't so great in this tournament after all^^
No, seriously I actually don't know why, they played horribly, and this year, the first year since -94 that we have a team that actually could match Canada, they do this. The coach will most probably keep his job, but everyone pretty much blames him. Luckily I'm not that much into hockey.
And Croatia won the soccer game as well Oh dear, don't give me any sports questions right now, because then I might go berserk on my keyboard.

To answer Parthini: Here you go, the history of sweden, in a much simplified form. by: me I guess^^

The earliest history of sweden dates back to the stone age, but I'll pretty much skip that part, and the bronze age as well, since they were much like your standard stone- and bronze age cultures, perhaps with the exception that they were a little backwards when compared to their continental cousins.
There are some evidence that the romans might have visited sweden during the iron age, the romans did most certainly know that the land areas that would become sweden existed, their name for it meant something like "beyond the end of the world".

Things start to get interesding from a historian's point of view during the 8th to 9th centuries as the viking cultures become more advanced. Christianity was introduced in the 9th century, but it wasn't a success. Why play the harp, flying on a cloud after your death when you have the option of Valhall where the oceans of mead were endless and where you could fight all day?

So... back to the vikings... while the Danish vikings are probably most known for the occupation of England, and the norwegian (norse) vikings are most known for their discovery of America and their Icelandic settlements, the Swedish vikings are more known for their journeys into eastern europe and trade with the arabs and the eastern roman empire. In fact, in the Hagia Sofia in Istambul there are some viking graffitti that's at least a 1000 years old. Some of the vikings served in the emperor's army, where they were known as "The axe-bearing warriors" or something like that (don't remember exactly). And while the middle-eastern peoples regarded the northmen as powerful warriors, their attitude to bathing and alcohol must have shocked them. Especially the muslims I guess. Sweden, was not Sweden at the time however, but it was rather a federation made up of three states.

However, in the 11th to 12th centuries christianity was finally successfull in scandinavia. This, plus the fact that more modern military tactics had been developed in europe made the vikings virtually disappear from the coasts of europe in less than a century.
During the 12th century Sweden appears as a unified nation for the first time in history, the map was a bit different, however, as the southern and west parts of modern Sweden belonged to Denmark and Norway. Finland didn't exist as an independant state, it was a part of Sweden. Sweden now became a classic medieval state, but of course since it was a bit backwards when compared to its continental neighbours (back to the stone age again?). Also the capital was changed from Birka to Stockholm.

So in 1397 a union was formed between the three scandinavian kingdoms, but in reality, the danes had most of the power (since at this point, they had always been the scandinavian "superpower"). However tension between Sweden and Denmark lead to open war in the 15th century, and this would continue off and on for a long time. In the earlier part of the 16th century, a dane, Kristian II became the king of Sweden. He is still known as Kristian the Tyrant in sweden, because directly after he assumed power he started to massacre the swedish nobility, despite promises that he wouldn't do so. These murders and executions lead to a revolution in Sweden, lead by a man named Gustaf Eriksson Vasa. The revoulution was successfull and Vasa was appointed head of state. He is generally considered modern Swedens founding father and hero, perhaps our version of Robert the Bruce?

Vasa was a somewhat eccentric man, but he was very intelligent, and, I dare to say a financial genious. He started to confiscate the riches the church had gathered, and when the pope got upset, he simply switched religion to the more economical Lutheran christianity. Also at this time sweden was developing greatly, especially the mining buisness, and skillful ironworkers from Belgium came to Sweden, also the military developed, and Sweden started to produce weapons ( a thing that was quite uncommon for a state to do, generally blades were imported from Solingen in Germany or toledo in Spain).

The army continued to develope and at the beginning of the 17th century, after successful wars against Russia, Poland and Denmark/Norway, Sweden could be considered a major power in europe. Soon came the great disaster in europe of the 17th century, the thirty Years war. Sweden Allied itself with France (the contract was that France would do the financial part and Sweden would do the Fighting part), and joined the protestant side in the war. Sweden was very successfull, due to modern tactics like mobile artillery, disciplined men, fine leadership and a good dose of patriotism and religious fanaticism. A great king of this era is Gustavus Adolphus (Gustaf II Adolf), who is known as "the father of modern warfare". Of course Sweden had its fair share of catastrophes, but finally emerged as one of the more important nations on the winning side.
Sweden was in crisis in 1697 when the fifteen-year old Charles XII was made king. He seemed weak to the neighbours, so they all attacked at the same time, things looked up at first, with Sweden beating the Russians at Narva (listed in the Guinness book of records as the most surprising military victory), but after some time Charles managed to get himself shot in Norway, and so Swedens time as a major power was over. Mainly Sweden was put in this position because of Charles tendency to see things from his view only... never the less he was a great soldier, and the fact that he preferred to sleep on the ground with his men, and was always fighting with them at the front made him a popular figure in the soldier's eyes.

During the 18th century culture blossomed in Sweden that was heavily influenced by France. Carolus Linnaeus "the father of modern biology" lived during this age, as well as Carl Michael Bellman, a famous poet and songwriter, whose songs are still extremely popular in sweden, and are said to be the very soul of sweden by some.
In 1809 Finland was lost to the Russians due to horrible leadership, the king was thrown out and a new king, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, was "imported" from france. Jean-Baptiste was an officer in napoleon's army, and his first task was to try to take finland back from the Russians. Jean-Baptiste was a wise man, so he didn't do it, however as Denmark sided with Napoleon during the Napoleonic wars, he saw his chance and declared war on Napoleon. For swedens efforts in the war, Norway was taken from Denmark and given to Sweden in 1814. This was the last war Sweden was involved in. The 19th century was no fun story, and Sweden was much like Ireland was at the time, we grew potatoes, and had major alcohol problems. Oh and we were dirt poor. A lot of people emigrated to the USA, and some to Brazil. The most famous Swede of the 19th century must be Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, and founder of the Nobel prize foundation.
In 1905 Norway was given its freedom, and in 1910 the last person was executed in Sweden, the method used was decapitation using a guillotine. Sweden stayed out of world war 1, and in 1921 Sweden became a modern democracy.

During World war 2, sweden managed to keep an armed neutrality, with the motto "the side that's winning is the good side". A bunch of Swedish volounteers (8000 of them I think) helped defend finland, the "brother country" when they were at war with the Soviet Union "the old enemy", but Sweden as a state was never involved. A limited number of German soldiers were allowed to pass through Sweden, and they always treated everyone with respect (because of Himmlers stupid opinion that Sweden was the home of the purest aryans around, I guess). Most people didn't like nazis however, and some people like diplomat Raol Wallenberg helped to save thousands of jews from being killed. So why didn't the germans invade? Well most probably because Sweden and Germany benefitted so much from eachother, they needed iron and ball bearings, we needed money.

Well after that it's all modern history stuff...

[Serconea]

Sweden, the country of King Gustav.

I'm correct in thinking that Sweden has a King called Gustav, aren't I? What's he like?

[Alfonia]

The king's name is Carl XVI Gustav, but we have had loads of kings named Gustav or Gustaf in the past.
The king is supposed to be a rather special person, and he has a great interest in hunting/fishing and wildlife stuff. He is a scout as well. Another thing that's a bit special about him is that he is a dyslectic. Over all he is a pretty good king I'd say, and is the first Swedish king to only have a ceremonial position.

[Heftig]

The country of:

[Alfonia]

;D ;D ;D

[Echolilia]

What kind of children's toys do you have there? Here on the west coast U.S., the best toys are German imports.

[Woonsocket]

Who is on the Swedish Bikini Team? Where can we find pictures?

[Free Guns For All]

If you don't mind, could you forward those to me?

[Echolilia]

Just post 'em

[La Vida De Sangre]

...Swedes?

[Anartonia]

Sweden, the country of blond hair, blue eyes, blindingly white skin, supermodels, Stockholm, the awesomest condom advertisements, and... Abba, right?

[Echolilia]

I don't think it's spelled Abba

[Ayunli]

Sweden, the country of socialism

[Swavea]

Meatballs

[Ayunli]

Sweden, the country of extreme liberals

[Louisistan]

Technically, extreme Liberalism would be Libertarianism, which ia distinctly not Sweden

[Ayunli]

liberals in a social issues sense

[Louisistan]

Which Sweden isn't either.

You mean Liberal in a U.S. sense

[Swavea]

snow

[Ayunli]

socialism

[Tanzoria]

liberal social democracy, ikea

[Shy Guy]

myself

[Klopstock]

Potatoes. A Swede once told me that a day without potatoes is like a day without the sun.

[Tuga Nation's Dragon]

... Swedish people?