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132-510: In the place name Šoutjärv’ one can see the sound change *l > u , which has occurred in Veps throughout (cf. Finn. kolme ~ Veps koum ‘three’). When considered together with the testimony of old Russian maps, it is clear that the earlier Veps name has been *Šoltjärvi . Thus this place name has nothing to do with the Finnish word soutaa (‘to row’), and the frequently used Finnish form Soutjärvi

264-563: A UN-mandated no-fly zone over Libya during the Arab Spring . In addition, there was extensive cooperation with other European countries in the area of defence technology and defence industry; some Swedish-made weaponry was used by Coalition militaries in Iraq. In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine , Sweden moved to formally join NATO, alongside Finland. After many months of delays caused by

396-441: A fiscal crisis in the early 1990s. Sweden's GDP declined by around 5%. In 1992, a run on the currency caused the central bank to briefly increase interest rates to 500%. The response of the government was to cut spending and institute a multitude of reforms to improve Sweden's competitiveness, among them reducing the welfare state and privatising public services and goods. A referendum passed with 52.3% in favour of joining

528-507: A military campaign against Norway on 27 July 1814, ending in the Convention of Moss , which forced Norway into a personal union with Sweden under the Swedish crown, which lasted until 1905. The 1814 campaign was the last time Sweden was at war. The Swedish East India Company began in 1731. The obvious choice of home port was Gothenburg at Sweden's west coast, the mouth of Göta älv river

660-566: A personal union , a union which lasted until 1905. Sweden is a highly developed country ranked fifth in the Human Development Index . It is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy, with legislative power vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag . It is a unitary state , divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities . Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides universal health care and tertiary education for its citizens. It has

792-803: A "j", e.g. vesj [vesʲ] "water", cf. standard vesi [vesi] . The first known written account in Helsinki slang is from the 1890 short story Hellaassa by young Santeri Ivalo (words that do not exist in, or deviate from, the standard spoken Finnish of its time are in bold): Kun minä eilen illalla palasin labbiksesta , tapasin Aasiksen kohdalla Supiksen , ja niin me laskeusimme tänne Espikselle , jossa oli mahoton hyvä piikis . Mutta me mentiin Studikselle suoraan Hudista tapaamaan, ja jäimme sinne pariksi tunniksi, kunnes ajoimme Kaisikseen . There are two main registers of Finnish used throughout

924-549: A Latin-script alphabet derived from the Swedish alphabet, and is phonemic to a great extent. Vowel length and consonant length are distinguished, and there are a range of diphthongs , although vowel harmony limits which diphthongs are possible. Finnish belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family ; as such, it is one of the few European languages that is not Indo-European . The Finnic branch also includes Estonian and

1056-468: A considerable influence upon the spoken word, because illiteracy is nonexistent and many Finns are avid readers. In fact, it is still not entirely uncommon to meet people who "talk book-ish" ( puhuvat kirjakieltä ); it may have connotations of pedantry, exaggeration, moderation, weaseling or sarcasm (somewhat like heavy use of Latinate words in English, or more old-fashioned or "pedantic" constructions: compare

1188-508: A few minority languages spoken around the Baltic Sea and in Russia's Republic of Karelia . The closest relative of Finnish is either Ingrian , or depending on the definition, Karelian . Finnic languages form a dialect continuum, where for instance Finnish and Estonian are not separated by any single isogloss that would separate dialects considered "Finnish" from those considered "Estonian", despite

1320-609: A garment which covers one side of the body and leaves a hand free. Each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife, and keeps each by him at all times. The swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish sort. The actions of these Swedish Vikings are commemorated on many runestones in Sweden, such as the Greece runestones and the Varangian runestones . There was also considerable participation in expeditions westwards, which are commemorated on stones such as

1452-455: A language of administration, journalism, literature, and science in Finland, along with Swedish. In 1853 Daniel Europaeus published the first Swedish-Finnish dictionary, and between 1866 and 1880 Elias Lönnrot compiled the first Finnish-Swedish dictionary. In the same period, Antero Warelius conducted ethnographic research and, among other topics, he documented the geographic distribution of

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1584-470: A long line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC. The runic script was in use among the south Scandinavian elite by at least the second century AD, but all that has survived from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions demonstrating that the people of south Scandinavia spoke Proto-Norse at the time, a language ancestral to Swedish and other North Germanic languages . In

1716-468: A more systematic writing system. Along the way, Finnish lost several fricative consonants in a process of sound change . The sounds [ð] and [θ(ː)] disappeared from the language, surviving only in a small rural region in Western Finland. In the standard language, however, the effect of the lost sounds is thus: Modern Finnish punctuation, along with that of Swedish, uses the colon (:) to separate

1848-445: A north–south split as well as an east–west split. The northern dialects of Proto-Finnic, from which Finnish developed, lacked the mid vowel [ ɤ ] . This vowel was found only in the southern dialects, which developed into Estonian , Livonian , and Votian . The northern variants used third person singular pronoun hän instead of southern tämä (Est. tema ). While the eastern dialects of Proto-Finnic (which developed in

1980-488: A rapid population growth. These innovations included government-sponsored programmes of enclosure , aggressive exploitation of agricultural lands, and the introduction of new crops such as the potato. The Swedish farming culture began to take on a critical role in Swedish politics, which has continued through modern times with modern Agrarian party (now called the Centre Party). Between 1870 and 1914, Sweden began developing

2112-497: A separate taxonomic " Finno-Samic " node is controversial. The Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , United States, classifies Finnish as a level III language (of four levels) in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers. Finnish is spoken by about five million people, most of whom reside in Finland. There are also notable Finnish-speaking minorities in Sweden, Norway, Russia, Estonia, Brazil, Canada, and

2244-551: A stronger state. According to the Legend of Saint Erik and the Erik's Chronicle , Swedish kings conducted a series of Crusades to pagan Finland and started conflicts with the Rus' , who by then had no further connections with Sweden. The Swedish colonisation of the coastal areas of Finland began in the 12th and 13th centuries. By the 14th century, this colonisation became more organised, and by

2376-440: A total amount of Finnish-speakers roughly between 7,200 and 15,600. In the latest census , around 1000 people in Russia claimed to speak Finnish natively; however, a larger amount of 14,000 claimed to be able to speak Finnish in total. There are also forms of Finnish spoken by diasporas outside Europe, such as American Finnish , spoken by Finnish Americans , and Siberian Finnish , spoken by Siberian Finns . Today, Finnish

2508-486: Is a Finnic language of the Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland, alongside Swedish . In Sweden , both Finnish and Meänkieli (which has significant mutual intelligibility with Finnish ) are official minority languages . Kven , which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish,

2640-503: Is abbreviation of word-final vowels, and in many respects they resemble Estonian. The Tavastian dialects ( hämäläismurteet ) are spoken in Tavastia . They are closest to the standard language, but feature some slight vowel changes, such as the opening of diphthong-final vowels ( tie → tiä , miekka → miakka , kuolisi → kualis ), the change of d to l (mostly obsolete) or trilled r (widespread, nowadays disappearance of d

2772-470: Is based on an incorrect etymology. Clearly the name means either literally "salt lake", or alternatively " yellow lake", from Finnic root words such as kelta- and kolla- for "yellow". Shyoltozero was mentioned for the first time in 1453 by the Archbishop of Novgorod. Originally it was situated 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) to the southwest of the present location, by the lake which on older Russian maps

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2904-449: Is covered with forests. The highest population density is in the Öresund Region in southern Sweden, along the western coast up to central Bohuslän, and in the valley of lake Mälaren and Stockholm. Gotland and Öland are Sweden's largest islands ; Vänern and Vättern are its largest lakes. Vänern is the third largest in Europe, after Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega in Russia. Combined with

3036-591: Is one of two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish), and has been an official language of the European Union since 1995. However, the Finnish language did not have an official status in the country during the period of Swedish rule , which ended in 1809. After the establishment of the Grand Duchy of Finland , and against the backdrop of the Fennoman movement , the language obtained its official status in

3168-727: Is popular) and the personal pronouns ( me: meitin ('we: our'), te: teitin ('you: your') and he: heitin ('they: their')). The South Ostrobothnian dialects ( eteläpohjalaismurteet ) are spoken in Southern Ostrobothnia . Their most notable feature is the pronunciation of "d" as a tapped or even fully trilled /r/ . The Central and North Ostrobothnian dialects ( keski- ja pohjoispohjalaismurteet ) are spoken in Central and Northern Ostrobothnia . The Lapland dialects ( lappilaismurteet ) are spoken in Lapland . The dialects spoken in

3300-508: Is showns as Shyoltozero. At some point, the inhabitants moved to where Shyoltozero is now located, while the original site became known as Kodijär’v (Veps for "home lake"). Before the 1920s, Shyoltozero and neighboring villages formed the Shyoltozero pogost , which was a part of Petrozavodsky Uyezd . With the advent of the Soviet state, the pogost became a part of Shyoltozersky District , which

3432-479: Is sometimes considered as the foundation of modern Sweden . Shortly afterwards the new king rejected Catholicism and led Sweden into the Protestant Reformation . The term riksdag was used for the first time in the 1540s, although the first meeting where representatives of different social groups were called to discuss and determine affairs affecting the country as a whole took place as early as 1435, in

3564-624: Is spoken in the Norwegian counties of Troms and Finnmark by a minority of Finnish descent. Finnish is typologically agglutinative and uses almost exclusively suffixal affixation . Nouns , adjectives , pronouns , numerals and verbs are inflected depending on their role in the sentence . Sentences are normally formed with subject–verb–object word order, although the extensive use of inflection allows them to be ordered differently. Word order variations are often reserved for differences in information structure . Finnish orthography uses

3696-614: Is unknown. Determining its age depends mostly on whether Sweden is considered a nation when the Svear (Swedes) ruled Svealand or when the Svear and the Götar (Geats) of Götaland were united under a single ruler. In the former case, Svealand was first mentioned as having one single ruler in the year 98 by Tacitus, but it is almost impossible to know for how long it had been this way. The epic poem Beowulf describes semi-legendary Swedish-Geatish wars in

3828-402: Is very wide and has the county's largest and best harbour for high-seas journeys. The trade continued into the 19th century, and caused the little town to become Sweden's second city. Between 1750 and 1850, the population in Sweden doubled. According to some scholars, mass emigration to America became the only way to prevent famine and rebellion; over 1% of the population emigrated annually during

3960-494: The 2013 Stockholm riots . In response to these violent events, the anti-immigration opposition party, the Sweden Democrats , promoted their anti-immigration policies, while the left-wing opposition blamed growing inequality caused by the centre-right government's socioeconomic policies. Sweden was heavily affected by the 2015 European migrant crisis , eventually forcing the government to tighten regulations of entry to

4092-542: The Baltic Sea and Gulf of Bothnia , providing a long coastline, and forms the eastern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula . To the west is the Scandinavian mountain chain ( Skanderna ), a range that separates Sweden from Norway. Finland is located to its north-east. It has maritime borders with Denmark, Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania , Latvia and Estonia , and it is also linked to Denmark (south-west) by

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4224-504: The Battle of Nördlingen in 1634, Sweden's only significant military defeat of the war, pro-Swedish sentiment among the German states faded. These German provinces broke away from Swedish power one by one, leaving Sweden with only a few northern German territories: Swedish Pomerania , Bremen-Verden and Wismar . From 1643 to 1645, during the last years of the war, Sweden and Denmark-Norway fought

4356-710: The Continuation War , it was the home of Dmitry Tuchin and his wife Mariya, who accommodated Soviet partisans in their house. Also a woman of Finnish extraction, Sylvi Paaso , lived in this house for eight months and radioed information on the movements of the Finnish troops to the Soviet military . The novel The Operation in the Vacuum Zone by Oleg Tikhonov tells about this period. Finnish language Finnish ( endonym : suomi [ˈsuo̯mi] or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li] )

4488-661: The England runestones . The last major Swedish Viking expedition appears to have been the ill-fated expedition of Ingvar the Far-Travelled to Serkland , the region south-east of the Caspian Sea . Its members are commemorated on the Ingvar runestones , none of which mentions any survivor. During the early stages of the Viking Age, a centre of trade in northern Europe developed at Birka on

4620-594: The Finnish Diet of 1863. Finnish also enjoys the status of an official minority language in Sweden . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Finnish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. However, concerns have been expressed about

4752-573: The House of Bernadotte , taking the regnal name of Charles XIV. Sweden's role in the Battle of Leipzig gave it the authority to force Denmark–Norway, an ally of France, to cede Norway to the King of Sweden on 14 January 1814 in exchange for the northern German provinces, at the Treaty of Kiel . The Norwegian attempts to keep their status as a sovereign state were rejected by the Swedish king, Charles XIII . He launched

4884-723: The Kalmar Union . However, Margaret's successors, whose rule was centred in Denmark, were unable to control the Swedish nobility. In 1520, King Christian II of Denmark , who attempted to restore the Union of Kalmar through military force, ordered the massacre of Swedish nobles in Stockholm, an event known as the " Stockholm Bloodbath ." This atrocity incited the Swedish nobility to renew their resistance, and on 6 June 1523 (now celebrated as Sweden's National Day ), they made Gustav Vasa their king. This

5016-654: The Marshall Plan and participated in the OECD. During most of the post-war era, the country was governed by the Swedish Social Democratic Party largely in co-operation with trade unions and industry. The government actively pursued an internationally competitive manufacturing sector of primarily large corporations. Sweden was one of the founding states of the European Free Trade Area (EFTA). During

5148-639: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in multiple conflicts. During the Thirty Years' War, Sweden conquered approximately half of the Holy Roman states and defeated the Imperial army at the Battle of Breitenfeld in 1631. Gustavus Adolphus planned to become the new Holy Roman Emperor , ruling over a united Scandinavia and the Holy Roman states, but he was killed at the Battle of Lützen in 1632. After

5280-549: The Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe . It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At 450,295 square kilometres (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the largest Nordic country and the fifth-largest country in Europe. The capital and largest city is Stockholm . Sweden has a population of 10.6 million, and a low population density of 25.5 inhabitants per square kilometre (66/sq mi); 88% of Swedes reside in urban areas. They are mostly in

5412-776: The Swedes ", which excluded the Geats in Götaland . The contemporary English variation was derived in the 17th century from Middle Dutch and Middle Low German . As early as 1287, references are found in Middle Dutch referring to a lande van sweden ("land of [the] Swedes"), with swede as the singular form. In Old English the country was known as Swéoland or Swíoríce , and in Early Modern English as Swedeland . Some Finnic languages , such as Finnish and Estonian , use

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5544-472: The Torstenson War . The result of that conflict and the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War helped establish postwar Sweden as a major force in Europe. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 granted Sweden territories in northern Germany. In the middle of the 17th century, Sweden was the third-largest country in Europe by land area. Sweden reached its largest territorial extent under the rule of Charles X after

5676-468: The Uppsala Synod in 1593 which officially confirmed the modern Church of Sweden as Lutheran . Following his deposition in 1599, Sigismund attempted to reclaim the throne sparing no expense, and hostilities between Poland and Sweden continued for the next hundred years. Sweden rose to prominence on a continental scale during the reign of king Gustavus Adolphus , seizing territories from Russia and

5808-521: The Ural Mountains region and/or the bend of the middle Volga . The strong case for Proto-Uralic is supported by common vocabulary with regularities in sound correspondences, as well as by the fact that the Uralic languages have many similarities in structure and grammar. Despite having overlapping geographical distributions, Finnic languages and Sami languages are not closely related, and the hypothesis of

5940-553: The Varangian Guard . The Swedish Vikings, called Rus are believed to be the founders of Kievan Rus' . The Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan described these Vikings saying: I have seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys and encamped by the Itil . I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy; they wear neither tunics nor caftans, but the men wear

6072-681: The World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The name for Sweden is generally agreed to derive from the Proto-Indo-European root * s(w)e , meaning "one's own", referring to one's own tribe from the tribal period. The native Swedish name, Sverige (a compound of the words Svea and rike , first recorded in the cognate Swēorice in Beowulf ), translates as "realm of

6204-506: The stem of a word and its grammatical ending in some cases, for example after acronyms , as in EU:ssa 'in the EU'. (This contrasts with some other alphabetic writing systems, which would use other symbols, such as e.g. apostrophe, hyphen.) Since suffixes play a prominent role in the language, this use of the colon is quite common. In the 19th century Johan Vilhelm Snellman and others began to stress

6336-563: The treaty of Roskilde in 1658, following Charles X's crossing of the Danish Belts . The foundation of Sweden's success during this period is credited to Gustav I's major changes to the Swedish economy in the 16th century, and his introduction of Protestantism . One-third of the Finnish population died in the devastating Great Famine of 1695–1697 that struck the country. Famine also hit Sweden, killing roughly 10% of Sweden's population. In

6468-634: The world's 14th highest GDP per capita and ranks very highly in quality of life , health , education , protection of civil liberties , economic competitiveness, income equality , gender equality and prosperity . Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and NATO on 7 March 2024. It is also a member of the United Nations , the Schengen Area , the Council of Europe , the Nordic Council ,

6600-408: The Öresund Bridge . Its border with Norway ( 1,619 km long) is the longest uninterrupted border within Europe. Sweden lies between latitudes 55° and 70° N , and mostly between longitudes 11° and 25° E (part of Stora Drammen island is just west of 11°). At 449,964 km (173,732 sq mi), Sweden is the 55th-largest country in the world, the fifth-largest country in Europe, and

6732-419: The Øresund channel, thus closing it to Allied shipping, and allowing the Germans to use Swedish facilities and the Swedish cipher to transmit secret messages to their overseas embassies. Sweden also allowed volunteers to fight alongside the Germans for the White Guards against the Red Guards and Russians in the Finnish Civil War , and briefly occupied Åland in cooperation with the German Empire. As in

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6864-419: The 17th century, Sweden was engaged in many wars, for example with Poland–Lithuania, with both sides competing for territories of today's Baltic states . The Polish–Swedish War (1626–1629) ended with a ceasefire in Stary Targ ( Truce of Altmark ) on 26 September 1629 that was in favour of the Swedes, to whom Poland ceded the larger part of Livonia together with its important port of Riga . The Swedes also got

6996-423: The 1880s. It is thought that between 1850 and 1910 more than one million Swedes moved to the United States . Nevertheless, Sweden remained poor, retaining a nearly entirely agricultural economy even as Western European countries began to industrialise. Despite the slow rate of industrialisation into the 19th century, many important changes were taking place in the agrarian economy due to constant innovations and

7128-417: The 1960s the EFTA countries were often referred to as the Outer Seven, as opposed to the Inner Six of the then- European Economic Community (EEC). Like many industrialised countries, Sweden entered a period of economic decline and upheaval following the oil embargoes of 1973–74 and 1978–79. In the 1980s several key Swedish industries were significantly restructured. Shipbuilding was discontinued, wood pulp

7260-463: The 2002 Census, it was reported that the population was 1,039, but in a study conducted in the mid-1990s, it was found that the population was ca. 970, of which 61% were Veps or of Veps descent, 7% were other Baltic Finnic ethnicities, and 32% were Russians and other East Slavic ethnicities. The Lonin Museum of Veps Ethnography in Shyltozero was founded in 1967 by a resident of Shyoltozero, sovkhoz worker Ryurik Lonin (1930–2009), who

7392-439: The 20th century, people gradually moved into cities to work in factories and became involved in socialist unions. A communist revolution was avoided in 1917, following the re-introduction of parliamentarism , and the country was democratised . Sweden was officially neutral during World War I . However, under pressure from the German Empire , they did take steps which were detrimental to the Allied powers – most notably, mining

7524-409: The EU on 13 November 1994. Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995. In a 2003 referendum the Swedish electorate voted against joining the Euro currency. Sweden held the chair of the European Union from 1 July to 31 December 2009. On 28 September 1994, the MS Estonia sank as the ship was crossing the Baltic Sea, en route from Tallinn, Estonia, to Stockholm, Sweden. The disaster claimed

7656-404: The Finnish dialects. The most important contributions to improving the status of Finnish were made by Elias Lönnrot . His impact on the development of modern vocabulary in Finnish was particularly significant. In addition to compiling the Kalevala , he acted as an arbiter in disputes about the development of standard Finnish between the proponents of western and eastern dialects, ensuring that

7788-570: The First World War, Sweden remained officially neutral during World War II , although its neutrality has been disputed. Sweden was under German influence for much of the war, as ties to the rest of the world were cut off through blockades. The Swedish government unofficially supported Finland in the Winter War and the Continuation War by allowing volunteers and materiel to be shipped to Finland. However, Sweden supported Norwegian resistance against Germany, and in 1943 helped rescue Danish Jews from deportation to Nazi concentration camps . During

7920-437: The Hanseatic League, and entered its golden era, the fact that the peasantry had traditionally been free meant that more of the economic benefits flowed back to them rather than going to a feudal landowning class. The end of the 16th century was marked by a final phase of rivalry between the remaining Catholics and the new Protestant communities. In 1592, Gustav Vasa's Catholic grandson and king of Poland , Sigismund , ascended

8052-450: The Nazis' war efforts. Sweden was officially a neutral country and remained outside NATO and Warsaw Pact membership during the Cold War , but privately Sweden's leadership had strong ties with the United States and other western governments. Following the war, Sweden took advantage of an intact industrial base, social stability and its natural resources to expand its industry to supply the rebuilding of Europe. Sweden received aid under

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8184-488: The Russian army at Poltava. The defeat meant the beginning of the end for the Swedish Empire. In addition, the plague raging in East Central Europe devastated the Swedish dominions and reached Central Sweden in 1710. Returning to Sweden in 1715, Charles XII launched two campaigns against Norway in 1716 and 1718, respectively. During the second attempt, he was shot to death during the siege of Fredriksten fortress. The Swedes were not militarily defeated at Fredriksten, but

8316-401: The Swedish throne. He pursued to strengthen Rome's influence by initiating Counter-Reformation and created a dual monarchy that temporarily became known as the Polish-Swedish Union . His despotic rule, strongly characterised by intolerance towards the Protestants, sparked a civil war that plunged Sweden into poverty. In opposition, Sigismund's uncle and successor, Charles Vasa , summoned

8448-473: The United States. The majority of the population of Finland (90.37% as of 2010 ) speak Finnish as their first language . The remainder speak Swedish (5.42%), one of the Sámi languages (for example Northern , Inari , or Skolt ), or another language as their first language. Finnish is spoken as a second language in Estonia by about 167,000 people. The Finnic varities found in Norway's Finnmark (namely Kven ) and in northern Sweden (namely Meänkieli ) have

8580-456: The area of present-day Sweden and 50,000 from the Finnish part of Sweden . Executive power was historically shared between the King and an aristocratic Privy council until 1680, followed by the King's autocratic rule initiated by the commoner estates of the Riksdag. As a reaction to the failed Great Northern War, a parliamentary system was introduced in 1719, followed by three different flavours of constitutional monarchy in 1772, 1789 and 1809,

8712-421: The beginning of the 19th century, with one third of the population dying between 1349 and 1351. During this period, the cities began to acquire greater rights and were heavily influenced by German merchants of the Hanseatic League , active especially at Visby . In 1397, Queen Margaret I of Denmark (the former daughter-in-law of Magnus Eriksson) established the personal union of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark through

8844-474: The border created between Sweden and Finland in 1809 when Russia annexed Finland. This caused the speakers of Meänkieli to be isolated from the developments of standard Finnish and instead be influenced by the Swedish language. However, it is still mutually integible with Finnish, and is thus sometimes considered a dialect of the Finnish language. The Kven language is spoken in Finnmark and Troms , in Norway. Its speakers are descendants of Finnish emigrants to

8976-502: The canal. Sweden also has plenty of long rivers draining the lakes. Northern and central Sweden have several wide rivers known as älvar , commonly sourced within the Scandinavian Mountains. The longest river is Klarälven - Göta älv , which originates in Trøndelag in central Norway, running 1,160 kilometres (720 mi) before it enters the sea at Gothenburg . In southern Sweden, narrower rivers known as åar are also common. The vast majority of municipal seats are set either on

9108-402: The central and southern half of the country. Sweden's urban areas together cover 1.5% of its land area. Sweden has a diverse climate owing to the length of the country, which ranges from 55°N to 69°N . Sweden has been inhabited since prehistoric times , c.  12,000 BC . The inhabitants emerged as the Geats (Swedish: Götar ) and Swedes ( Svear ), which together constituted

9240-425: The colloquial language) ei kö teillä ole e(i) ks teil(lä) oo "don't you (pl.) have (it)?" (compare eiks to standard Estonian confirmatory interrogative eks ) Sweden – in Europe  (green & dark grey) – in the European Union  (green)  –  [ Legend ] Sweden , formally the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country located on

9372-401: The country. Some of the asylum restrictions were relaxed again later. On 30 November 2021, Magdalena Andersson became Sweden's first female prime minister. The September 2022 general election ended in a narrow win to a bloc of right-wing parties. On 18 October 2022, Ulf Kristersson of the Moderate Party became the new Prime Minister. Situated in Northern Europe, Sweden lies west of

9504-404: The country. One is the "standard language" ( yleiskieli ), and the other is the " spoken language " ( puhekieli ). The standard language is used in formal situations like political speeches and newscasts. Its written form, the "book language" ( kirjakieli ), is used in nearly all written texts, not always excluding even the dialogue of common people in popular prose. The spoken language, on

9636-478: The difference between saying "There's no children I'll leave it to" and "There are no children to whom I shall leave it"). More common is the intrusion of typically literary constructions into a colloquial discourse, as a kind of quote from written Finnish. It is quite common to hear book-like and polished speech on radio or TV, and the constant exposure to such language tends to lead to the adoption of such constructions even in everyday language. A prominent example of

9768-517: The early 18th century. During this era Sweden controlled much of the Baltic Sea . Most of the conquered territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries. The eastern half of Sweden, present-day Finland, was lost to Imperial Russia in 1809. The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Sweden by military means forced Norway into

9900-445: The effect of the standard language is the development of the consonant gradation form /ts   : ts/ as in metsä : metsän , as this pattern was originally (1940) found natively only in the dialects of the southern Karelian isthmus and Ingria . It has been reinforced by the spelling "ts" for the dental fricative [θː] , used earlier in some western dialects. The spelling and the pronunciation this encourages however approximate

10032-637: The eighth century to the 11th century. It is believed that Swedish Vikings and Gutar mainly travelled east and south, going to Finland, Estonia, the Baltic countries , Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, the Black Sea and even as far as Baghdad . Their routes passed through the Dnieper south to Constantinople , on which they carried out numerous raids. The Byzantine Emperor Theophilos noticed their great skills in war, and invited them to serve as his personal bodyguard, known as

10164-582: The end of the century, several of the coastal areas of Finland were inhabited mostly by Swedes. Except for the provinces of Scania, Blekinge, and Halland in the southwest of the Scandinavian peninsula, which were part of the Kingdom of Denmark during this period, feudalism never developed in Sweden as it did in much of Europe. As a result, the peasantry remained largely a class of free farmers throughout most of Swedish history. Slavery , also known as thralldom ,

10296-615: The first battles of the Great Northern War , the Russian army was so severely devastated that Sweden had an open chance to invade Russia. However, Charles XII did not pursue the Russian army, instead turning against Poland and defeating the Polish king, Augustus II the Strong , and his Saxon allies at the Battle of Kliszów in 1702. This gave Russia time to rebuild and modernise its army. After

10428-551: The formal. However, in signalling the former in writing, syncope and sandhi – especially internal – may occasionally amongst other characteristics be transcribed, e.g. menenpä → me(n)empä . This never occurs in the standard variety. he mene vät ne mene e "they go" loss of a number contrast on verbs in the 3rd person ( menee is 3rd person singular in the formal language) ( minä) o le n mä o o n "I am" or "I will be" and no pro-drop (i.e., personal pronouns are usually mandatory in

10560-586: The four lands of Sweden . Saint Ansgar is traditionally credited with introducing Christianity to Sweden in 829, but the new religion did not begin to fully replace paganism until the 12th century. During that century, Sweden was undergoing dynastic struggles between the Erik and Sverker clans. The conflict ended when a third clan married into the Erik clan, founding the Bjälbo dynasty, which gradually consolidated Sweden into

10692-446: The future status of Finnish in Sweden, for example, where reports produced for the Swedish government during 2017 show that minority language policies are not being respected, particularly for the 7% of Finns settled in the country. The Uralic family of languages, of which Finnish is a member, are hypothesized to derive from a single ancestor language termed Proto-Uralic , spoken sometime between 8,000 and 2,000 BCE (estimates vary) in

10824-456: The grammatical and phonological changes also include the most common pronouns and suffixes, which amount to frequent but modest differences. Some sound changes have been left out of the formal language. For example, irregular verbs have developed in the spoken language as a result of the elision of sonorants in some verbs of the Type III class (with subsequent vowel assimilation ), but only when

10956-501: The industrialised economy that exists today. Strong grassroots movements sprang up in Sweden during the latter half of the 19th century (trade unions, temperance groups, and independent religious groups), creating a strong foundation of democratic principles. These movements precipitated Sweden's migration into a modern parliamentary democracy, achieved by the time of World War I. As the Industrial Revolution progressed during

11088-595: The island of Björkö , not far from where Stockholm was later constructed, in mid-latitude Sweden. Birka was founded around 750 AD as a trading port by a king or merchants trying to control trade. Birka was the Baltic link in the Dnieper Trade Route through Ladoga ( Aldeigja ) and Novgorod ( Holmsgard ) to the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate . It was abandoned c.  AD 975 , around

11220-470: The language, which he based on Swedish, German, and Latin. The Finnish standard language still relies on his innovations with regard to spelling, though Agricola used less systematic spelling than is used today. Though Agricola's intention was that each phoneme (and allophone under qualitative consonant gradation ) should correspond to one letter, he failed to achieve this goal in various respects. For example, k , c , and q were all used for

11352-564: The largest country in Northern Europe. The lowest elevation in Sweden is in the bay of Lake Hammarsjön, near Kristianstad , at −2.41 m (−7.91 ft) below sea level. The highest point is Kebnekaise at 2,111 m (6,926 ft) above sea level . Sweden has 25 provinces or landskap . While these provinces serve no political or administrative purpose, they play an important role in people's self-identity . The provinces are usually grouped together in three large lands , parts,

11484-500: The last year of the war, Sweden began to play a role in humanitarian efforts, and many refugees, among them several thousand Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe, were rescued thanks to the Swedish rescue missions to internment camps and partly because Sweden served as a haven for refugees. The Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and his colleagues ensured the safety of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews. Nevertheless, both Swedes and others have argued that Sweden could have done more to oppose

11616-548: The latter granting several civil liberties. Already during the first of those three periods, the 'Era of Liberty' (1719–72) the Swedish Rikstag had developed into a very active Parliament, and this tradition continued into the nineteenth century, laying the basis for the transition towards modern democracy at the end of that century. In the 18th century, Sweden did not have enough resources to maintain its territories outside Scandinavia, and most of them were lost, culminating with

11748-423: The lifetime task of Charles X's son, Charles XI , to rebuild the economy and refit the army. His legacy to his son, the coming ruler of Sweden, Charles XII , was one of the finest arsenals in the world, a large standing army and a great fleet. Russia, the most serious threat to Sweden at this time, had a larger army but lagged far behind in both equipment and training. After the Battle of Narva in 1700, one of

11880-731: The lives of 852 people (501 of them were Swedes ), being one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century. Until 2022, Sweden generally remained non-aligned militarily, although it participated in some joint military exercises with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and some other countries, stationed its troops under NATO command in Afghanistan , took part in EU-sponsored peacekeeping operations in Kosovo , Bosnia and Herzegovina , and Cyprus , and helped enforce

12012-558: The loss in 1809 of eastern Sweden to Russia, which became the highly autonomous Grand Principality of Finland in Imperial Russia . In interest of re-establishing Swedish dominance in the Baltic Sea, Sweden allied itself against its traditional ally and benefactor, France, in the Napoleonic Wars . However, in 1810, a French Marshal, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte , was chosen as heir presumptive to Charles XIII ; in 1818, he established

12144-415: The main cultural and political centres. The standard language, however, has always been a consciously constructed medium for literature. It preserves grammatical patterns that have mostly vanished from the colloquial varieties and, as its main application is writing, it features complex syntactic patterns that are not easy to handle when used in speech. The colloquial language develops significantly faster, and

12276-411: The modern-day eastern Finnish dialects, Veps, Karelian, and Ingrian) formed genitive plural nouns via plural stems (e.g., eastern Finnish kalojen < * kaloi -ten ), the western dialects of Proto-Finnic (today's Estonian, Livonian and western Finnish varieties) used the non-plural stems (e.g., Est. kalade < * kala -ten ). Another defining characteristic of the east–west split

12408-607: The most part, the dialects operate on the same phonology and grammar. There are only marginal examples of sounds or grammatical constructions specific to some dialect and not found in standard Finnish. Two examples are the voiced dental fricative found in the Rauma dialect , and the Eastern exessive case . The Southwest Finnish dialects ( lounaissuomalaismurteet ) are spoken in Southwest Finland and Satakunta . Their typical feature

12540-419: The need to improve the status of Finnish. Ever since the days of Mikael Agricola, written Finnish had been used almost exclusively in religious contexts, but now Snellman's Hegelian nationalistic ideas of Finnish as a fully-fledged national language gained considerable support. Concerted efforts were made to improve the status of the language and to modernize it, and by the end of the century Finnish had become

12672-592: The northern Norrland, the central Svealand and southern Götaland. The sparsely populated Norrland encompasses almost 60% of the country. Sweden also has the Vindelfjällen Nature Reserve , one of the largest protected areas in Europe, totaling 562,772 ha (approx. 5,628 km ). About 15% of Sweden lies north of the Arctic Circle . Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, with increasing forest coverage northward. Around 65% of Sweden's total land area

12804-453: The objections of Turkey and Hungary, Sweden became a NATO member on 7 March 2024. In recent decades Sweden has become a more culturally diverse nation due to significant immigration; in 2013, it was estimated that 15% of the population was foreign-born, and an additional 5% of the population were born to two immigrant parents. The influx of immigrants has brought new social challenges. Violent incidents have periodically occurred including

12936-453: The original pronunciation, still reflected in e.g. Karelian /čč   : č/ ( meččä : mečän ). In the spoken language, a fusion of Western /tt   : tt/ ( mettä : mettän ) and Eastern /ht   : t/ ( mehtä : metän ) has resulted in /tt   : t/ ( mettä : metän ). Neither of these forms are identifiable as, or originate from, a specific dialect. The orthography of informal language follows that of

13068-596: The other hand, is the main variety of Finnish used in popular TV and radio shows and at workplaces, and may be preferred to a dialect in personal communication. Standard Finnish is prescribed by the Language Office of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland and is the language used in official communication. The Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish ( Nykysuomen sanakirja 1951–61), with 201,000 entries,

13200-447: The phoneme / k / . Likewise, he alternated between dh and d to represent the allophonic [ ð ] (like th in English this ), between dh and z to represent / θː / (like th in thin , but longer in duration), and between gh and g to represent the allophonic [ ɣ ] . Agricola did not consistently represent vowel length in his orthography. Others revised Agricola's work later, striving for

13332-527: The provinces of Östergötland and Västergötland . The island of Gotland was contested by various groups, including the Danes, the Hanseatic League , and the local Gutes . Småland was of little interest at the time due to its deep pine forests, with only the city of Kalmar and its castle holding any significant importance. There were also Swedish settlements along the southern coastline of Norrland , one of

13464-763: The region in the 18th and 19th centuries. Kven is an official minority language in Norway. The Eastern dialects consist of the widespread Savonian dialects ( savolaismurteet ) spoken in Savo and nearby areas, and the South-Eastern dialects now spoken only in Finnish South Karelia . The South Karelian dialects ( eteläkarjalaismurteet ) were previously also spoken on the Karelian Isthmus and in Ingria . The Karelian Isthmus

13596-643: The right to tax Poland's trade on the Baltic (3.5% on the value of goods), and kept control of many of the cities in Royal and Ducal Prussia (including Piława ( Pillau ), Memel and Elbląg (Elbing). The Swedes later conducted a series of invasions into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, known as the Deluge . After more than half a century of almost constant warfare, the Swedish economy had deteriorated. It became

13728-461: The same time Sigtuna was founded as a Christian town some 35 km to the northeast. It has been estimated that the population in Viking Age Birka was between 500 and 1000 people. Archaeological finds indicate that Birka still was wealthy in the 9th and 10th centuries. Thousands of graves, coins, jewelry and other luxury items have been found there. The actual age of the kingdom of Sweden

13860-439: The sea, a river or a lake and the majority of the country's population live in coastal municipalities. Most of Sweden has a temperate climate , despite its northern latitude , with largely four distinct seasons and mild temperatures throughout the year. The winter in the far south is usually weak and is manifested only through some shorter periods with snow and sub-zero temperatures; autumn may well turn into spring there, without

13992-714: The sea-faring peoples known as the Norsemen . A unified Swedish state was established during the late 10th century. In 1397, Sweden joined Norway and Denmark to form the Scandinavian Kalmar Union , which Sweden left in 1523. When Sweden became involved in the Thirty Years' War on the Protestant side, an expansion of its territories began, forming the Swedish Empire , which remained one of the great powers of Europe until

14124-401: The second syllable of the word is short. The result is that some forms in the spoken language are shortened, e.g. tule-n → tuu-n ('I come'), while others remain identical to the standard language hän tulee "he comes", never * hän tuu ). However, the longer forms such as tule can be used in spoken language in other forms as well. The literary language certainly still exerts

14256-728: The sixth century, Jordanes names two tribes living in Scandza , both of which are now considered to be synonymous with the Swedes: the Suetidi and Suehans . The Suehans were known to the Roman world as suppliers of black fox skins and, according to Jordanes, had very fine horses, similar to those of the Thyringi of Germania ( alia vero gens ibi moratur Suehans, quae velud Thyringi equis utuntur eximiis ). The Swedish Viking Age lasted roughly from

14388-466: The sixth century. However, historians typically start the line of Swedish monarchs from when Svealand and Götaland were ruled under the same king, namely Erik the Victorious and his son Olof Skötkonung in the tenth century. These events are often described as the consolidation of Sweden , although substantial areas were conquered and incorporated later. In this context, "Götaland" primarily refers to

14520-636: The status of official minority languages, and thus can be considered distinct languages from Finnish. However, since these languages are mutually intelligible , one may alternatively view them as dialects of the same language . No language census exists for Norway, neither for Kven, standard Finnish, or combined. As of 2023, 7,454 first- or second-generation immigrants from Finland were registered as having Norwegian residency, while as of 2021, 235 Finns were registered as foreigners studying at Norwegian higher education. Great Norwegian Encyclopedia estimates Kven speakers at 2,000-8,000. Altogether, this results in

14652-575: The success of invading Poland, Charles XII decided to make an attempt at invading Russia , but this ended in a decisive Russian victory at the Battle of Poltava in 1709. After a long march exposed to Cossack raids, the Russian Tsar Peter the Great 's scorched-earth techniques and the extremely cold winter of 1709 , the Swedes stood weakened with a shattered morale and were enormously outnumbered against

14784-586: The terms Ruotsi and Rootsi ; these variations refer to the Rus' people who inhabited the coastal areas of Roslagen in Uppland and who gave their name to Russia. Sweden's prehistory begins in the Allerød oscillation , a warm period around 12,000 BC, with Late Palaeolithic reindeer -hunting camps of the Bromme culture at the edge of the ice in what is now the country's southernmost province, Scania . This period

14916-459: The third- and fourth-largest lakes Mälaren and Hjälmaren , these lakes take up a significant part of southern Sweden's area. Sweden's extensive waterway availability throughout the south was exploited with the building of the Göta Canal in the 19th century, shortening the potential distance between the Baltic Sea south of Norrköping and Gothenburg by using the lake and river network to facilitate

15048-511: The town of Arboga . During the Riksdag assemblies of 1527 and 1544, under King Gustav Vasa, representatives of all four estates of the realm (clergy, nobility , townsmen and peasants ) were called on to participate for the first time. The monarchy became hereditary in 1544. When Gustav Vasa broke the monopoly power of the Hanseatic League , he was regarded as a hero by the Swedish people. Furthermore, when Sweden did develop, freed itself from

15180-459: The travel journal, the words are those of a Finnish bishop whose name is unknown. The erroneous use of gelen (Modern Finnish kielen ) in the accusative case, rather than kieltä in the partitive, and the lack of the conjunction mutta are typical of foreign speakers of Finnish even today. At the time, most priests in Finland spoke Swedish . During the Middle Ages, when Finland

15312-422: The two standard languages being not mutually intelligible. Finnish demonstrates an affiliation with other Uralic languages (such as Hungarian and Sami languages ) in several respects including: Several theories exist as to the geographic origin of Finnish and the other Uralic languages. The most widely held view is that they originated as a Proto-Uralic language somewhere in the boreal forest belt around

15444-495: The use of Finnish through parish clerk schools, the use of Swedish in church, and by having Swedish-speaking servants and maids move to Finnish-speaking areas. The first comprehensive writing system for Finnish was created by Mikael Agricola , a Finnish bishop, in the 16th century. He based his writing system on the western dialects . Agricola's ultimate plan was to translate the Bible , but first he had to develop an orthography for

15576-492: The vicinity of the Ural Mountains . Over time, Proto-Uralic split into various daughter languages , which themselves continued to change and diverge, yielding yet more descendants. One of these descendants is the reconstructed Proto-Finnic , from which the Finnic languages developed. Current models assume that three or more Proto-Finnic dialects evolved during the first millennium BCE. These dialects were defined geographically, and were distinguished from one another along

15708-626: The western dialects preferred by Agricola retained their preeminent role, while many originally dialect words from Eastern Finland were introduced to the standard language, thus enriching it considerably. The first novel written in Finnish (and by a Finnish speaker) was Seven Brothers ( Seitsemän veljestä ), published by Aleksis Kivi in 1870. The dialects of Finnish are divided into two distinct groups, Western and Eastern. The dialects are largely mutually intelligible and are distinguished from each other by changes in vowels, diphthongs and rhythm, as well as in preferred grammatical constructions. For

15840-403: The western parts of Lapland are recognizable by retention of old "h" sounds in positions where they have disappeared from other dialects. One form of speech related to Northern dialects, Meänkieli , which is spoken on the Swedish side of the border is recognized in Sweden as its own distinct language, having its own standardized language separate from Finnish. This form of speech developed from

15972-445: The whole structure and organisation of the campaign fell apart with the king's death. Forced to cede large areas of land in the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, Sweden also lost its place as an empire and as the dominant state on the Baltic Sea. With Sweden's lost influence, Russia emerged as an empire and became one of Europe's dominant nations . As the war finally ended in 1721, Sweden had lost an estimated 200,000 men, 150,000 of those from

16104-492: Was a prescriptive dictionary that defined official language. An additional volume for words of foreign origin ( Nykysuomen sivistyssanakirja , 30,000 entries) was published in 1991. An updated dictionary, The New Dictionary of Modern Finnish ( Kielitoimiston sanakirja ) was published in an electronic form in 2004 and in print in 2006. A descriptive grammar (the Large grammar of Finnish , Iso suomen kielioppi , 1,600 pages)

16236-428: Was characterised by small clans of hunter-gatherers who relied on flint technology. Sweden and its people were first described by Publius Cornelius Tacitus in his Germania (98 AD). In Germania 44 and 45 he mentions the Swedes ( Suiones ) as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow at each end ( longships ). Which kings ( * kuningaz ) ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents

16368-505: Was dissolved in 1957 and became a part of Prionezhsky District . During the post-Soviet era, Shyoltozero functioned as the territorial center of Veps National Volost , which existed in 1994–2004. After the volost was dissolved, its inhabited localities became directly subordinated to Prionezhsky District. Municipally , they became a part of Shyoltozerskoye Rural Settlement within Prionezhsky Municipal District. During

16500-515: Was evacuated during World War II and refugees were resettled all over Finland. Most Ingrian Finns were deported to various interior areas of the Soviet Union. Palatalization , a common feature of Uralic languages, had been lost in the Finnic branch, but it has been reacquired by most of these languages, including Eastern Finnish, but not Western Finnish. In Finnish orthography, this is denoted with

16632-411: Was integrated into modernised paper production, the steel industry was concentrated and specialised, and mechanical engineering was robotised. Swedish GDP per capita ranking declined during this time. A bursting real estate bubble caused by inadequate controls on lending combined with an international recession and a policy switch from anti-unemployment policies to anti-inflationary policies resulted in

16764-416: Was not common in Sweden, and the institution gradually diminished due to the spread of Christianity, the difficulty of obtaining slaves from lands east of the Baltic Sea, and by the development of cities before the 16th century. Indeed, both slavery and serfdom were abolished altogether by a decree of King Magnus Eriksson in 1335. Sweden remained a poor and economically underdeveloped country, where barter

16896-514: Was originally from the village of Kaskesruchey . The museum was first housed in the library building, but then moved to a dedicated building. In the 1980s, the museum moved yet again, to its present location in a mid-19th century building, which is considered to be a monument of Karelian wooden architecture. The museum also includes the Tuchin House that is located behind the Melkin House. During

17028-545: Was published in 2004. There is also an etymological dictionary, Suomen sanojen alkuperä , published in 1992–2000, and a handbook of contemporary language ( Nykysuomen käsikirja ). Standard Finnish is used in official texts and is the form of language taught in schools. Its spoken form is used in political speech, newscasts, in courts, and in other formal situations. Nearly all publishing and printed works are in standard Finnish. The colloquial language has mostly developed naturally from earlier forms of Finnish, and spread from

17160-494: Was the primary means of exchange. In 1319, Sweden and Norway were united in a personal union under King Magnus Eriksson, the grandson of King Magnus Ladulås of Sweden and of King Haakon V of Norway. Magnus Eriksson also ruled Scania from 1332 to 1360. In the mid-14th century, Sweden was struck by the Black Death . The population of Sweden and most of Europe was decimated. The population did not reach its pre-1348 levels until

17292-543: Was the use of the reflexive suffix -(t)te , used only in the eastern dialects. The birch bark letter 292 from the early 13th century is the first known document in any Finnic language . The first known written example of Finnish itself is found in a German travel journal dating back to c.  1450 : Mÿnna tachton gernast spuho sommen gelen Emÿna daÿda (Modern Finnish: " Minä tahdon kernaasti puhua suomen kielen, [mutta] en minä taida; " English: "I want to speak Finnish, [but] I am not able to"). According to

17424-558: Was under Swedish rule , Finnish was only spoken . At the time, the language of international commerce was Middle Low German , the language of administration Swedish , and religious ceremonies were held in Latin . This meant that Finnish speakers could use their mother tongue only in everyday life. Finnish was considered inferior to Swedish, and Finnish speakers were second-class members of society because they could not use their language in any official situations. There were even efforts to reduce

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