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137-491: Charles XII , sometimes Carl XII ( Swedish : Karl XII ) or Carolus Rex (17 June 1682 – 30 November 1718 O.S. ), was King of Sweden (including current Finland ) from 1697 to 1718. He belonged to the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken , a branch line of the House of Wittelsbach . Charles was the only surviving son of Charles XI and Ulrika Eleonora the Elder . He assumed power, after
274-445: A common gender with the definite suffix -en and the definite article den , in contrast with the neuter gender equivalents -et and det . The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number . By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to
411-470: A guttural or "French R" pronunciation in the South Swedish dialects ; consequently, these dialects lack retroflex consonants . Swedish is a stress-timed language, where the time intervals between stressed syllables are equal. However, when casually spoken, it tends to be syllable-timed . Any stressed syllable carries one of two tones , which gives Swedish much of its characteristic sound. Prosody
548-571: A Norwegian-British historian, in some of those letters Charles expressed his desire for a peace treaty which would be defensible in the future Swedish generations' eyes. However, he emphasized that only a greater respect for Sweden in Europe would enable him to achieve such a peace treaty. Meanwhile, the Swedish Council of State (government) and Estates/Diet (Parliament) tried to keep the beleaguered Sweden somehow organized and independent. Eventually, in
685-613: A Russian army twice the size. The campaign ended with disaster when the Swedish army suffered heavy losses to a Russian force more than twice its size at Poltava . Charles had been incapacitated by a wound prior to the battle, rendering him unable to take command. The defeat was followed by the Surrender at Perevolochna . Charles spent the following years in exile in the Ottoman Empire before returning to lead an assault on Norway, trying to evict
822-522: A change from tauþr into tuþr . Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long, close ø , as in the Old Norse word for "island". By the end of the period, these innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish-speaking area as well, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas. Old Swedish (Swedish: fornsvenska )
959-518: A conversation. Due to the close relation between the Scandinavian languages, a considerable proportion of speakers of Danish and especially Norwegian are able to understand Swedish. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries , but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish ), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as
1096-451: A decisively devastating victory by Swedish forces under general Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld over a combined army of Saxony and Russia at the Battle of Fraustadt . Russia was now the sole remaining hostile power. Charles's subsequent march on Moscow met with initial success as victory followed victory, the most significant of which was the Battle of Holowczyn where the smaller Swedish army routed
1233-598: A further 12,500 under Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt marching from Livonia. Charles left the homeland with a defense force of approximately 28,800 men, with a further 14,000 in Swedish Finland, as well as other garrisons in the Baltic and German provinces. After securing his "favorite" victory in the Battle of Holowczyn , despite being outnumbered over three to one by the new Russian army, Charles opted to march eastwards on Moscow rather than try to seize Saint Petersburg , founded from
1370-677: A group. According to the 2000 United States Census , some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on the degree of language proficiency. Similarly, there were 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Although there are no certain numbers, some 40,000 Swedes are estimated to live in the London area in the United Kingdom. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. In
1507-609: A large proportion of the remaining 100,000 in the Scandinavian countries, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia. Over three million people speak Swedish as a second language, with about 2,410,000 of those in Finland. According to a survey by the European Commission , 44% of respondents from Finland who did not have Swedish as a native language considered themselves to be proficient enough in Swedish to hold
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#17328453270691644-477: A marriage with Denmark which could have caused a family rift between those who dynastically favoured Holstein-Gottorp. Historians such as Blanning and Montefiore believe he was in fact homosexual . Certainly a letter from Reuterholm suggested that Charles had indicated a closeness to the Elector Prince of Saxony, Maximilian Emanuel of Württemberg-Winnental , whom Charles described as "very pretty". But writing in
1781-470: A monarch, the King's interests included mathematics, and anything that would be beneficial to his warlike purposes. He is credited with having invented an octal numeral system , as well as a more elaborate one with the base 64, which he considered more suitable for war purposes because all the boxes used for materials such as gunpowder were cubic. According to a report by contemporary scientist Emanuel Swedenborg ,
1918-425: A more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e. g., jag måste tvätta hår et ("I must wash my hair"). Adjectives are inflected in two declensions – indefinite and definite – and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are usually created by adding
2055-407: A nearby soldier tired of the siege and wanting to put an end to the war, to an assassin hired by Charles's own brother-in-law, who profited from the event by subsequently taking the throne himself as Frederick I of Sweden , that person being Frederick's aide-de-camp, André Sicre . Sicre confessed during what was claimed to be a state of delirium brought on by fever but later recanted. Others suspect
2192-435: A noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in
2329-421: A plot to kill Charles by a group of wealthy Swedes who would benefit from blocking a 17% wealth tax that Charles intended to introduce. The Varberg Fortress museum displays a lead-filled brass button of Swedish origin that some claim was the projectile that killed the king. Another odd account of Charles's death comes from Finnish writer Carl Nordling, who states that the king's surgeon, Melchior Neumann, dreamed
2466-544: A seven-month caretaker government , at the age of fifteen. In 1700, a triple alliance of Denmark–Norway , Saxony – Poland–Lithuania and Russia launched a threefold attack on the Swedish protectorate of Holstein-Gottorp and provinces of Livonia and Ingria , aiming to draw advantage as the Swedish Empire was unaligned and ruled by a young and inexperienced king, thus initiating the Great Northern War . Leading
2603-440: A severe winter storm . While in the trenches close to the perimeter of the fortress on 30 November (11 December New Style ), 1718, Charles was struck in the head by a projectile and killed. The shot struck the left side of his skull and exited from the right. He died instantly. The definitive circumstances around Charles's death remain unclear. Despite multiple investigations of the battlefield, Charles's skull and his clothes, it
2740-667: A special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok , a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and Sweden. From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia , particularly on
2877-713: A strong religious faith. Charles himself suggested in conversation with Axel Löwen that he actively resisted any match until peace could be secured and was in some sense "married" to the military life. But that he was "chaste" occasioned speculation in his lifetime. Much later speculation that he was a hermaphrodite was quelled in 1917 when his coffin was opened and he was shown to have beard growth. In his conversations with Löwen, he also stated that he did not lack taste for beautiful women, but that he held in his sexual desires for fear that they would get out of control if unchecked, and that if he committed to something like that, it would be forever. Some historians suggest that he resisted
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#17328453270693014-442: A suffix ( -t or -a ) to the common form of the adjective, e. g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs"). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e. g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). Swedish pronouns are similar to those of English. Besides
3151-413: A village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak a Swedish dialect and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although their dialect is most likely facing extinction. From 1918 to 1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as
3288-505: A war with Russia , which ended in defeat and the Russian tsarina Elizabeth getting Adolf Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp instated following the death of the king. Whilst being the only Swedish monarch called Frederick, he was Frederick I of Hesse-Kassel and thus Frederick I also of Sweden, though other Swedish monarchs with non-repeating names (such as Birger , Sigismund and Frederick's successor: Adolf Frederick) had not been enumerated. He
3425-654: Is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family , spoken predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland . It has at least 10 million native speakers, making it the fourth most spoken Germanic language , and the first among its type in the Nordic countries overall. Swedish, like the other Nordic languages , is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during
3562-862: Is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages . In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages , together with Danish , separating it from the West Scandinavian languages , consisting of Faroese , Icelandic , and Norwegian . However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian (Faroese and Icelandic), and Continental Scandinavian (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish), based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particularly Danish) on Norwegian during
3699-481: Is generally not seen as a success. Indeed, he did concentrate more on Sweden, and due to his negotiated, compromise-like ascension to the throne there, he and his court had a very low income. The money for that very expensive court, then, since the 1730s came from wealthy Hesse , and this means that Frederick essentially behaved like an absentee landlord and drained Hessian resources to finance life in Sweden. Also, Frederick's father, Charles I of Hesse-Kassel , had been
3836-477: Is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible. Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. Capitalization during this time
3973-605: Is his large Royal Swedish paraph (FR) over the old door of the University of Marburg 's former riding hall, now the Institute of Physical Education. On 31 May 1700, he married his first wife, Luise Dorothea , Princess of Prussia (1680–1705), daughter of Frederick I of Prussia (1657–1713) and Elisabeth Henriette of Hesse-Kassel (1661–1683). Luise Dorothea died in childbirth in December 1705. His second wife, whom he married in 1715,
4110-538: Is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles . The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative , a highly variable consonant phoneme . Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number . Nouns are of common gender ( en form) or neuter gender ( ett form). The gender determines
4247-405: Is not known where and when he was hit, or whether the shot came from the ranks of the enemy or from his own men. There are several hypotheses as to how Charles died, though none have strong enough evidence to be deemed true. Although there were many people around the king at the time of his death, there were no known witnesses to the actual moment he was hit. A likely explanation has been that Charles
Charles XII of Sweden - Misplaced Pages Continue
4384-563: Is often one of the most noticeable differences between dialects. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages , V2 , which means that the finite verb (V) appears in the second position (2) of a declarative main clause . Swedish morphology is similar to English; that is, words have comparatively few inflections . Swedish has two genders and is generally seen to have two grammatical cases – nominative and genitive (except for pronouns that, as in English, also are inflected in
4521-613: Is one of the official languages of the European Union , and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for interpretation or translation costs. The Swedish Language Council ( Språkrådet )
4658-405: Is quoted by Voltaire as saying upon the outbreak of the war: "I have resolved never to start an unjust war but never to end a legitimate one except by defeating my enemies". With the war consuming more than half his life and nearly all his reign, he never married and fathered no children. He was succeeded by his sister Ulrika Eleonora , who in turn was coerced to hand over all substantial powers to
4795-521: Is said about him, that although a lot of great achievements in the country's development happened during his reign, he never had anything to do with them himself. When he died, Carl Gustaf Tessin said about him: Under the reign of King Frederick, science has developed – he never bothered to read a book. The merchant business has flourished – he has never encouraged it with a single coin. The Stockholm Palace has been built – he has never been curious enough to look at it. Neither did he have anything to do with
4932-475: Is termed nusvenska (lit., "Now-Swedish") in linguistics, and started in the last decades of the 19th century. It saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written form that approached the spoken one. The growth of a public school system also led to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally, "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With
5069-517: Is the predominant language; in 19 municipalities , 16 of which are located in Åland , Swedish is the sole official language. Åland county is an autonomous region of Finland. According to a rough estimation, as of 2010 there were up to 300,000 Swedish-speakers living outside Sweden and Finland. The largest populations were in the United States (up to 100,000), the UK, Spain and Germany (c. 30,000 each) and
5206-450: Is the regulator of Swedish in Sweden but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French . However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up
5343-407: Is the sole official language of Åland (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland), where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland as a whole, Swedish is one of the two "national" languages, with the same official status as Finnish (spoken by the majority) at the state level and an official language in some municipalities . Swedish
5480-621: Is the term used for the medieval Swedish language. The start date is usually set to 1225 since this is the year that Västgötalagen ("the Västgöta Law") is believed to have been compiled for the first time. It is among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script and the oldest Swedish law codes . Old Swedish is divided into äldre fornsvenska (1225–1375) and yngre fornsvenska (1375–1526), "older" and "younger" Old Swedish. Important outside influences during this time came with
5617-457: The Gustav Vasa Bible , a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri . The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to
Charles XII of Sweden - Misplaced Pages Continue
5754-568: The Akershus fortress there. Due to a lack of heavy siege cannons he was unable to dislodge the Norwegian forces inside. After suffering significant losses of men and materiel, Charles was forced to retreat from the capital on 29 April. In the following mid-May, Charles invaded again, this time striking the border town of Fredrikshald , now Halden , in an attempt to capture the fortress of Fredriksten . The attacking Swedes came under heavy cannon fire from
5891-456: The Battle of Narva (November 1700). The Russians outnumbered the Swedish army of ten thousand men by almost four to one. Charles attacked under cover of a blizzard, effectively splitting the Russian army in two and won the battle. Many of Peter's troops who fled the battlefield drowned in the Narva River . The total number of Russian fatalities reached about 10,000 at the end of the battle, while
6028-523: The Battle of Speyerbach , but participated the next year in the great victory in the Battle of Blenheim . In 1706 he was again defeated by the French in the Battle of Castiglione . At the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709 he commanded the Dutch cavalry. In 1712, in absence of Count Tilly , he assumed the command of the Dutch army. Both in 1716 and 1718 he joined the campaign of Charles XII of Sweden against Norway, and
6165-463: The French vous (see T-V distinction ). Ni wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du , the singular second person pronoun, used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these class distinctions became less important, and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though
6302-526: The Great Northern War , and the abdication of his wife, Charles's sister and successor Ulrika Eleonora , after she had to relinquish most powers to the Riksdag of the Estates and thus chose to abdicate. His powerless reign and lack of legitimate heirs of his own saw his family's elimination from the line of succession after the parliamentary government dominated by pro- revanchist Hat Party politicians ventured into
6439-570: The Ottoman Empire were covered by the Ottoman state budget, as part of the fixed assets ( Demirbaş in Turkish), hence his nickname Demirbaş Şarl (Fixed Asset Charles) in Turkey. Eventually, a small village named Karlstad ( Varnița ) had to be built near Bender to accommodate the ever-growing Swedish population there. Gülnuş Sultan convinced her son to declare war against Russia , as she thought that Charles
6576-466: The Ottoman Empire with a small entourage, and set up camp at Bender with some 1,000 of his Caroleans ("Karoliner" in Swedish). The remainder of the army surrendered days later at Perevolochna under Lewenhaupt's command, most of them (including Lewenhaupt himself) spending the rest of their days in Russian captivity. The Swedish defeat at Poltava marked the downfall of the Swedish Empire , as well as
6713-722: The Riksdag of the Estates and opted to surrender the throne to her husband Friedrich of Hesse-Kassel, who became King Frederick I of Sweden . His title in full as the king of Sweden was as follows: The Sovereign and Supreme Lord , His Majesty , Charles XII, by the Grace of God , King of Sweden, the Goths and the Wends , Grand Prince of Finland , Duke of Scania , Estonia , Livonia , Karelia , Bremen and Verden , Stettin , Pomerania , Rostock , of Kashubia and of Wenden , Prince of Rügen , Lord of Ingria and Wismar ; Count Palatine of
6850-503: The Swedish army against the alliance, Charles won multiple victories despite being significantly outnumbered. A major victory over a Russian army some three times the size in 1700, at the Battle of Narva , compelled Peter the Great to sue for peace , an offer that Charles subsequently rejected. By 1706, Charles, now 24 years old, had forced all of his foes into submission including, in that year,
6987-511: The United States , particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a significant Swedish-speaking immigrant population. This was notably true in states like Minnesota , where many Swedish immigrants settled. By 1940, approximately 6% of Minnesota's population spoke Swedish. Although the use of Swedish has significantly declined, it is not uncommon to find older generations and communities that still retain some use and knowledge of
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#17328453270697124-572: The Viking Age . It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish , although the degree of mutual intelligibility is dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker. Standard Swedish , spoken by most Swedes , is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century, and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties and rural dialects still exist,
7261-581: The nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies , dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän , Dalsland , western Värmland , western Dalarna , Härjedalen , Jämtland , and Scania , could be described as intermediate dialects of
7398-410: The object form) – although it is debated if the genitive in Swedish should be seen as a genitive case or just the nominative plus the so-called genitive s , then seen as a clitic . Swedish has two grammatical numbers – plural and singular . Adjectives have discrete comparative and superlative forms and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness . The definiteness of nouns
7535-478: The 150th anniversary of Charles's death) and Gustaf Cederström 's painting Karl XII:s likfärd ("Funeral procession of Charles XII", 1878). The date of Charles's death was chosen by a student association in Lund for annual torch marches beginning in 1853. In his 1901 play Karl XII , August Strindberg broke with the heroization practice by showing an introverted Charles XII in conflict with his impoverished subjects. In
7672-399: The 1950s, when their use was removed from all official recommendations. A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen . Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr." or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs." or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was considered
7809-405: The 1960s, Hatton argues that Württemberg was very much heterosexual and the relationship is just as likely to have been that of teacher-pupil. Exceptional for abstaining from alcohol and sex, he felt most comfortable during warfare. Contemporaries report of his seemingly inhuman tolerance for pain and his utter lack of emotion. His brilliant campaigning and startling victories brought his country to
7946-526: The 19th century's romantic nationalism Charles XII was viewed as a national hero. He was idealized as a heroic, virtuous young warrior king, and his fight against Peter the Great was associated with the contemporary Swedish-Russian enmity. Examples of the romantic hero idolatry of Charles XII in several genres are Esaias Tegnér 's song Kung Karl, den unge hjälte (1818), Johan Peter Molin 's statue in Stockholm 's Kungsträdgården (unveiled on 30 November 1868,
8083-478: The 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse , evolved into Old Norse. This language underwent more changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects: Old West Norse (Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden). The dialects of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish , while
8220-631: The Danish king from the war once more in order to aim all his forces at the Russians. Two campaigns met with frustration and ultimate failure, concluding with his death at the Siege of Fredriksten in 1718. At the time, most of the Swedish Empire was under foreign military occupation, though Sweden itself was still free. This situation was later formalized, albeit moderated in the subsequent Treaty of Nystad . The result
8357-444: The Great . The English man of letters Samuel Johnson wrote of Charles in his poem "The Vanity of Human Wishes": On what Foundation stands the warrior's pride, How just his hopes let Swedish Charles decide; A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, No dangers fright him, and no labours tire; O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain; No joys to him pacific sceptres yield; War sounds
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#17328453270698494-471: The King had sketched a model of his thoughts on a piece of paper and handed it to him at their meeting in Lund in 1716. The paper was reportedly still in existence a hundred years later but has since been lost. Charles fascinated many in his time. In 1731, Voltaire wrote a biography of Charles XII, History of Charles XII . Voltaire portrays the Swedish king in a positive light, against the brutal nature of Peter
8631-653: The King played chess and studied the Ottoman Navy and the naval architecture of the Ottoman galleons. His sketches and designs eventually led to the famous Swedish war ships Jarramas (Yaramaz) and Jilderim (Yıldırım). Meanwhile, Russia and Poland regained and expanded their borders. Great Britain, an adversary of Sweden, defected from its alliance obligations while Prussia attacked Swedish holdings in Germany. Russia occupied Finland (the Greater Wrath 1713–1721). After defeats of
8768-464: The Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative [ʃ] and later into [ɧ] . There was also the gradual softening of [ɡ] and [k] into [j] and the fricative [ɕ] before front vowels . The velar fricative [ɣ] was also transformed into the corresponding plosive [ɡ] . The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today
8905-718: The North: Charles XII, King of Sweden . Charles XII figures quite prominently in Robert Massie 's magnum opus Peter the Great . He is referred to in the anime Legend of the Galactic Heroes as the Swedish Meteor; whose similarity to Reinhard von Lohengramm may portend the dynasty dying out without a successor. August Strindberg's 1901 play Carl XII is about him. Swedish language Swedish ( endonym : svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] )
9042-750: The Ottoman Empire, but they had to wait several years before that happened. According to the prevailing church law in Sweden at that time, all who lived in the country, but were not members of the Swedish state church, would be baptized. In order for the Jewish and Muslim creditors to avoid this, Charles wrote a "free letter" so that they could practice their religions without being punished. The soldiers chose to remain in Sweden instead of difficult trips home. They were called "Askersson" (the word asker in Turkish means soldier). However, there are accounts implying that following
9179-559: The Rhine , Duke in Bavaria , of Jülich , Cleves and Berg . The fact that Charles was crowned as Charles XII does not mean that he was the 12th king of Sweden by that name. Swedish kings Erik XIV (1560–1568) and Charles IX (1604–1611) gave themselves numerals after studying a mythological history of Sweden. He was actually the 6th King Charles. Around 1700, the monarchs of Denmark–Norway , Saxony (ruled by elector August II of Poland , who
9316-587: The Russian army, using the effectively organized Swedes and other European armies as role models. Russian forces managed to penetrate Ingria , where they established a new city, Saint Petersburg . Charles planned an invasion of the Russian heartland , allying himself with Ivan Mazepa , Hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks . The size of the invading Swedish army was peeled off as Charles left Leszczyński with some 24,000 German and Polish troops, departing eastwards from Saxony in late 1707 with some 35,000 men, adding
9453-584: The Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the spelling dictionary Svenska Akademiens ordlista ( SAOL , currently in its 14th edition) and the dictionary Svenska Akademiens Ordbok , in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Although the dictionaries have a prescriptive element, they mainly describe current usage. In Finland,
9590-485: The Swedish army, consisting mainly of Finnish troops in the Battle of Helsinki (1713) , the Battle of Pälkäne 1713 and the Battle of Storkyro 1714 , the military, administration and clergymen escaped from Finland, which fell under Russian military regime. During his five-year stay in the Ottoman Empire, Charles XII corresponded with his sister (and eventual successor), Ulrika Eleonora. According to Mrs. Ragnhild Marie Hatton,
9727-457: The Swedish colony at Bender and Charles had to defend himself against the mobs and the Ottoman janissaries involved. This uprising was called "kalabalık" (Turkish for crowd) which afterward found a place in Swedish lexicon referring to a ruckus . The janissaries did not shoot Charles during the skirmish at Bender , but captured him and put him under house-arrest at Dimetoka (nowadays Didimoticho ) and Constantinople. During his semi-imprisonment
9864-510: The Swedish forces lost 667 men. Charles did not pursue the Russian army. Instead, he turned against Poland-Lithuania, which was formally neutral at this point, thereby disregarding Polish negotiation proposals supported by the Swedish parliament. Charles defeated the Polish king Augustus II and his Saxon allies at the Battle of Kliszow in 1702 and captured many cities of the Commonwealth. After
10001-493: The Swedish town of Nyenskans five years earlier. Peter the Great managed, however, to ambush Lewenhaupt's army at Lesnaya before Charles could combine his forces, thus losing valuable supplies, artillery and half of Lewenhaupt's men. Charles' Polish ally, Stanisław Leszczyński, was facing internal problems of his own. Charles expected the support of a massive Cossack rebellion led by Mazepa in Ukraine, with estimates suggesting Mazepa
10138-498: The administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of speakers remain. Swedish dialects have either 17 or 18 vowel phonemes , 9 long and 9 short. As in the other Germanic languages, including English, most long vowels are phonetically paired with one of
10275-482: The autumn of 1714, their warning letter reached him. In it, those executive and legislative bodies told the absentee King that unless he quickly returned to Sweden, they would independently conclude an achievable peace treaty with Russia, Poland and Denmark. This stark admonition prompted Charles to rush back to Sweden. Charles traveled back to Sweden with a group of Ottomans, soldiers such as escorts and businessmen to whom he promised to repay his debts during his stay in
10412-468: The beginning of his 31-year reign. But after the aristocracy had regained power during the wars with Russia , he became not so much powerless as uninterested in affairs of state. In 1723, he tried to strengthen royal authority, but after he failed, he never had much to do with politics. He did not even sign official documents; instead a stamp of his signature was used. He devoted most of his time to hunting and love affairs. His marriage to Queen Ulrika Eleonora
10549-498: The colloquial spoken language of its day, it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography . It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden, which
10686-403: The declension of the adjectives . For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a noun of common gender ( en fisk ) and can have the following forms: The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix ( -en , -n , -et or -t ), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den , det , and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of
10823-545: The deposition of Augustus as king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , Charles XII put Stanisław Leszczyński as his puppet on the Polish throne (1704). While Charles won several decisive battles in the Commonwealth and ultimately secured the coronation of his ally Stanisław Leszczyński and the surrender of Saxony , the Russian Tsar Peter the Great embarked on a military reform plan that improved
10960-527: The dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish . The dialects are described as "runic" because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet . Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which had only 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes , such as
11097-454: The end of autocratic kingship in Sweden, and the subsequent Age of Liberty saw a shift of power from the monarch to the parliament of the estates. Historians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries viewed Charles' death as the result of an aristocratic plot, and Gustav IV Adolf , the king who refused to settle with Napoleon Bonaparte , "identified himself with Charles as a type of righteous man struggling with iniquity" ( Roberts ). Throughout
11234-401: The fatal wound? Or hostile millions press him to the ground? His fall was destined to a barren strand, A petty fortress , and a dubious hand; He left the name, at which the world grew pale, To point a moral or adorn a tale. Swedish author Frans G. Bengtsson and Professor Ragnhild Hatton have written biographies of Charles XII of Sweden. In 1938 E. M. Almedingen wrote The Lion of
11371-540: The firm establishment of the Christian church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, Middle Low German became very influential. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of Low German -speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their native languages into
11508-511: The first time, Sweden found itself in a defensive war. Charles' plan was to attack Denmark by striking at her possessions in Norway. It was hoped that by cutting Denmark's Norwegian supply lines the Danes would be compelled to withdraw their forces from Swedish Scania. Charles invaded Norway in 1716 with a combined force of 7,000 men. He occupied the capital of Christiania , (modern Oslo), and laid siege to
11645-416: The fortress of Fredriksten overlooking the town of Fredrikshald. Charles was shot in the head and killed during the siege, while he was inspecting trenches. The invasion was abandoned, and Charles' body was returned to Sweden. A second force, under Carl Gustaf Armfeldt , marched against Trondheim with 10,000 men but was forced to retreat. In the march that ensued, many of the 5,800 remaining men perished in
11782-515: The fortress and were forced to withdraw when the Norwegians set the town of Fredrikshald on fire. Swedish casualties in Fredrikshald were estimated at 500 men. While the siege at Fredrikshald was underway, the Swedish supply fleet was attacked and defeated by Tordenskjold in the Battle of Dynekilen . In 1718, Charles once more invaded Norway. With a main force of 40,000 men, he again laid siege to
11919-887: The founding of the Russian Empire . The Ottomans initially welcomed the Swedish king when he went to Abdurrahman Pasha , commander of Özü Castle, as he was about to fall into the hands of the Russian army, and he was able to take refuge in the castle at the last moment. Afterward, he settled in Bender at the invitation of its governor, Ağa Yusuf Pasha . In the meantime, Charles sent Stanisław Poniatowski and Thomas Funck [ sv ] as his messengers to Constantinople . They managed to indirectly contact Gülnuş Sultan , mother of Sultan Ahmed III , who became intrigued by Charles, and took an interest in his cause, and even corresponded with him in Bender. His expenses during his long stay in
12056-675: The founding of the first Swedish speaking theater at Bollhuset during his reign. One of his few important policies was the banning of duels . On 23 February 1748 Frederick I instituted the three Swedish royal orders of the Seraphim , of the Sword and of the North Star , the three principal Swedish orders of chivalry . Frederick became Landgrave of Hesse only in 1730, ten years after becoming King of Sweden. He immediately appointed his younger brother William governor of Hesse. As Landgrave, Frederick
12193-430: The industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature . Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the emerging national language, among them prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding , Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg . It
12330-547: The islands (e. g., Hiiumaa , Vormsi , Ruhnu ; in Swedish, known as Dagö , Ormsö , Runö , respectively) along the coast of the Baltic , communities that today have all disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament , and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine , where they founded
12467-439: The king had told him that he was not shot from the fortress but from "one who came creeping". Charles's body has been exhumed on three occasions to ascertain the cause of death; in 1746, 1859 and 1917. The 1859 exhumation found that the wound was in accordance with a shot from the Norwegian fort. In 1917, his head was photographed and x-rayed. Peter Englund asserted in his essay "On the death of Charles XII and other murders" that
12604-484: The language, particularly in rural communities like Lindström and Scandia . Swedish is the official main language of Sweden. Swedish is also one of two official languages of Finland. In Sweden, it has long been used in local and state government, and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language with no official status in law until 2009. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by
12741-480: The last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars from the 16th to 18th centuries, and
12878-487: The long stay for Charles to repay his debts, they got paid and left the country. Charles agreed to leave Constantinople and returned to Swedish Pomerania . He made the journey on horseback, riding across Europe in just fifteen days. He traveled across the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary to Vienna and arrived at Stralsund . A medal with Charles on horseback, his long hair flying in the wind, was struck in 1714 to commemorate
13015-555: The long-drawn-out campaigns of Karl XII" (Scott). In the 1930s, the Swedish Nazis held celebrations on the date of Charles XII's death, and shortly before the outbreak of World War II , Adolf Hitler received from Sweden a sculpture of the king at his birthday. In the late 20th century, Swedish nationalists and neo-Nazis had again used 30 November as a date for their ceremonies, however these were regularly interrupted by larger counter-demonstrations and were abandoned. Apart from being
13152-587: The mortal wound sustained by the King, with a smaller exit wound than entry wound, would be consistent with being hit by a bullet with a speed not exceeding 150 m/s, concluding that Charles was killed by stray grapeshot from the nearby fortress. A 2022 study also found that iron grapeshot was likely to have killed the king, citing evidence from ballistic experiments as well as the absence of lead fragments in Charles's skull. Academic research from University of Oulu and University of Helsinki concluded that Charles XII
13289-511: The narrowest possible margin (145–147) due to a pairing-off failure. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag , and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Swedish
13426-421: The national standard languages. Swedish pronunciations also vary greatly from one region to another, a legacy of the vast geographic distances and historical isolation. Even so, the vocabulary is standardized to a level that make dialects within Sweden virtually fully mutually intelligible. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish In
13563-424: The north. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é , as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin . There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as
13700-441: The only acceptable way to begin conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni —the standard second person plural pronoun)—analogous to
13837-402: The original Germanic three- gender system. Nouns , adjectives , pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the extant nominative , there were also the genitive (later possessive ), dative and accusative . The gender system resembled that of modern German , having masculine, feminine and neuter genders. The masculine and feminine genders were later merged into
13974-486: The pinnacle of her prestige and power, although the Great Northern War resulted in Sweden's defeat and the end of the empire within years of his own death. In his youth, renowned Russian general Alexander Suvorov considered Charles XII his hero together with Julius Caesar . Like Charles XII, Suvorov adopted an aggressive style of tactics and campaigning, seemingly inspired by the Swedish king. Charles's death marked
14111-480: The reform was not an act of any centralized political decree, but rather the result of sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years, from the late 1960s to early 1970s. The use of ni as a polite form of address is sometimes encountered today in both the written and spoken language, particularly among older speakers. Swedish is the sole official national language of Sweden , and one of two in Finland (alongside Finnish ). As of 2006, it
14248-472: The reign of his spouse. Some historians have suggested that the bullet which killed his brother-in-law Charles XII of Sweden in 1718 was actually fired by Frederick's aide André Sicre . Charles had been an authoritarian and demanding ruler; one reason the Swedish Estates elected Frederick was because he was taken to be fairly weak, which indeed he turned out to be. Frederick succeeded Ulrika Eleonora on
14385-463: The rune for the vowel u , which was also used for the vowels o , ø and y , and the rune for i , also used for e . From 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark, creating a series of minor dialectal boundaries, or isoglosses , ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland , Österbotten and northwestern Finland in
14522-444: The short /e/ (transcribed ⟨ ɛ ⟩ in the chart below). There are 18 consonant phonemes, two of which, / ɧ / and /r/ , vary considerably in pronunciation depending on the dialect and social status of the speaker. In many dialects, sequences of /r/ (pronounced alveolarly) with a dental consonant result in retroflex consonants ; alveolarity of the pronunciation of /r/ is a precondition for this retroflexion. /r/ has
14659-428: The short vowels, and the pairs are such that the two vowels are of similar quality , but with the short vowel being slightly lower and slightly centralized. In contrast to e.g. Danish, which has only tense vowels, the short vowels are slightly more lax, but the tense vs. lax contrast is not nearly as pronounced as in English, German or Dutch. In many dialects, the short vowel sound pronounced [ɛ] or [æ] has merged with
14796-407: The so-called Strindberg feud (1910–1912), his response to the "Swedish cult of Charles XII" (Steene) was that Charles had been "Sweden's ruin, the great offender, a ruffian, the rowdies' idol, a counterfeiter." Verner von Heidenstam however, one of his opponents in the feud, in his book Karolinerna instead "emphasized the heroic steadfastness of the Swedish people in the somber years of trial during
14933-448: The solitary coast, And Winter barricades the realms of Frost; He comes, not want and cold his course delay; - Hide, blushing Glory, hide Pultowa's day : The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands, And shows his miseries in distant lands; Condemned a needy supplicant to wait, While ladies interpose, and slaves debate. But did not Chance at length her error mend? Did no subverted empire mark his end? Did rival monarchs give
15070-453: The speedy ride. It reads Was sorget Ihr doch? Gott und Ich leben noch. (What worries you so? God and I live still.). After five years away, Charles arrived in Sweden to find his homeland at war with Russia, Saxony, Hannover, Great Britain and Denmark. Sweden's western enemies attacked southern and western Sweden while Russian forces traveled across Finland to attack the Stockholm district. For
15207-610: The state's most successful ruler, rebuilding the state over his decades-long rule by means of economic and infrastructure measures and state reform, as well as tolerance , such as attracting, for economic purposes, the French Huguenots . His brother the governor, who would succeed Frederick as Landgrave William VIII of Hesse-Kassel , though by background a distinguished soldier, was likewise a great success locally. There are very few physical remainders of Frederick in Hesse today; one of them
15344-439: The subject in a clause, a trait that is restricted to North Germanic languages: Frederick I of Sweden Frederick I ( Swedish : Fredrik I ; 28 April 1676 – 5 April 1751) was King of Sweden from 1720 until his death, having been prince consort of Sweden from 1718 to 1720, and was also Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel from 1730. He ascended the throne following the death of his brother-in-law absolutist Charles XII in
15481-549: The support of England and the Netherlands, both maritime powers concerned with Denmark's threats too close to the Sound . Leading a force of 8,000 and 43 ships in an invasion of Zealand , Charles rapidly compelled the Danes to submit to the Peace of Travendal in August 1700, which indemnified Holstein. Having forced Denmark–Norway to make peace within months, King Charles turned his attention upon
15618-456: The throne upon her abdication in his favor in 1720, elected by the Swedish Estates. The defeats suffered by Charles XII in the Great Northern War ended Sweden's position as a first-rank European power . Under Frederick, this had to be accepted. Sweden also had to cede Estonia , Ingria and Livonia to Russia in the Treaty of Nystad , in 1721. Frederick I was a very active and dynamic king at
15755-430: The trump , he rushes to the field; Behold surrounding kings their power to combine, And one capitulate, and one resign; Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain; "Think nothing gained", he cries, "till nought remain, On Moscow 's walls till Gothic standards fly, And all be mine beneath the polar sky." The march begins in military state, And nations on his eye suspended wait; Stern Famine guards
15892-526: The two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ – and sometimes as a' – though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a , and "oe" became o . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä , å and ö . The first time the new letters were used in print
16029-517: The two natural genders han and hon ("he" and "she"), there are also the two grammatical genders den and det , usually termed common and neuter . In recent years, a gender-neutral pronoun hen has been introduced, particularly in literary Swedish. Unlike the nouns, pronouns have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form. Hon , for example, has the following nominative, possessive, and object forms: Swedish also uses third-person possessive reflexive pronouns that refer to
16166-469: The two other powerful neighbors, King August II (cousin to both Charles XII and Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway) and Peter the Great of Russia, who also had entered the war against him, ironically on the same day that Denmark came to terms. Russia had opened their part of the war by invading the Swedish-held territories of Livonia and Estonia . Charles countered this by attacking the Russian besiegers at
16303-439: The vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration, general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. The League also brought a certain measure of influence from Danish (at the time Swedish and Danish were much more similar than today). Early Old Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and also retained
16440-518: The written language is uniform and standardized . Swedish is the most widely spoken second language in Finland where its status is co- official language . Swedish was long spoken in parts of Estonia , although the current status of the Estonian Swedish speakers is almost extinct. It is also used in the Swedish diaspora , most notably in Oslo , Norway, with more than 50,000 Swedish residents. Swedish
16577-411: Was Ulrika Eleonora , Princess of Sweden (1688–1741), daughter of Charles XI of Sweden (1655–1697) and of Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark (1656–1693). Ulrika suffered two miscarriages, one in 1715 and another in 1718, after which there are no further recorded pregnancies. Frederick I had three extramarital children with his mistress Hedvig Taube : After the death of Hedvig Taube, his official mistress
16714-669: Was a man worth taking a risk for. Later on, the Ottomans and Russians signed the Treaty of the Pruth and Treaty of Adrianople to end the hostilities between them. The treaties dissatisfied the pro-war party supported by King Charles and Stanislaw Poniatowski, who failed to reignite the conflict. However, the Sultan Ahmed III's subjects in the empire eventually got tired of Charles' scheming. His entourage also accumulated huge debts with Bender merchants. Eventually, "crowds" of townspeople attacked
16851-544: Was able to muster about 40,000 troops. However, the Russians subjugated the rebellion and destroyed its capital, Baturin , before the arrival of the Swedish troops. The harsh climate took its toll as well, because Charles marched his troops to winter camp in Ukraine . By the time of the decisive Battle of Poltava , in July 1709, Charles had been wounded, one-third of his infantry was dead, and his supply train had been destroyed. The king
16988-415: Was also the king of Poland-Lithuania ) and Russia united in an alliance against Sweden, mainly through the efforts of Johann Reinhold Patkul , a Livonian nobleman who turned traitor when the "great reduction" of Charles XI in 1680 stripped much of the nobility of lands and properties. In late 1699, Charles sent a minor detachment to reinforce his brother-in-law Duke Frederick IV of Holstein-Gottorp , who
17125-438: Was appointed Swedish Generalissimus . He married his second wife, Princess Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden , in 1715. He was then granted the title Prince of Sweden , with the style Royal Highness , by the estates, and was prince consort there during Ulrika Eleonora's rule as queen regnant from 1718 until her abdication in 1720. He is the only Swedish prince consort there has been to date. Frederick I had much influence during
17262-542: Was attacked by Danish forces the following year. A Saxon army simultaneously invaded Swedish Livonia, and in February 1700 surrounded Riga , the most populous city of the Swedish Empire. Russia also declared war (August 1700), but stopped short of an attack on Swedish Ingria until September 1700. Charles's first campaign was against Denmark–Norway, ruled by his cousin Frederick IV of Denmark . For this campaign Charles secured
17399-447: Was childless, but he had several children by his mistress, Hedvig Taube . In 1723 Frederick rewarded the military inventor Sven Åderman with the estate of Halltorps on the island of Öland , for improving the rate of fire of the musket . As a king, he was not very respected. When he was crowned, it was said of him: "King Charles we recently buried, King Frederick we crown – suddenly the clock has now passed from twelve to one". It
17536-484: Was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography finally stabilized and became almost completely uniform, with some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish of today. The plural verb forms appeared decreasingly in formal writing into
17673-636: Was in Aff dyäffwlsens frästilse ("By the Devil's temptation") published by Johan Gerson in 1495. Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska ) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation . After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible . The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as
17810-415: Was incapacitated by a gunshot wound to the foot and was unable to lead the Swedish forces. With the numbers of Charles' army reduced to some 23,000, with many wounded or involved on the siege of Poltava, his general Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld had a clearly inferior force to face the fortified and modernized army of Tsar Peter, with some 45,000 men. The Swedish assault ended in disaster, and the king fled south to
17947-424: Was killed by Dano-Norwegians as he was within reach of their guns. There are two possibilities that are usually cited: that he was killed by a musket shot, or that he was killed by grapeshot from the nearby fortress. More theories claim he was assassinated: one is that the killer was a Swedish compatriot and asserts that enemy guns were not firing at the time Charles was struck. Suspects in this claim range from
18084-472: Was likely killed by an enemy projectile. Charles was succeeded to the Swedish throne by his sister, Ulrika Eleonora . As his duchy of Palatine Zweibrücken required a male heir, Charles was succeeded as ruler there by his cousin Gustav Leopold . Georg Heinrich von Görtz , Charles' minister, was beheaded in 1719. Charles never married and fathered no children of whom historians are aware. In his youth, he
18221-519: Was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface that was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often Antiqua ). Some important changes in sound during
18358-575: Was particularly encouraged to find a suitable spouse in order to secure the succession, but he would frequently avoid the subject of sex and marriage. Possible candidates included Princess Sophia Hedwig of Denmark , Louisa Maria Stuart and Princess Maria Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp – but of the latter he pleaded that he could never wed someone "as ugly as Satan and with such a devilish big mouth". Instead, he made it clear that he would marry only someone of his own choice, and for love rather than dynastic pressures. His lack of mistresses may have been due to
18495-484: Was the end of the Swedish Empire , and also of its effectively organized absolute monarchy and war machine, commencing a parliamentary government unique for continental Europe, which would last for half a century until royal autocracy was restored by Gustav III . Charles was an exceptionally skilled military leader and tactician as well as an able politician, credited with introducing important tax and legal reforms. As for his famous reluctance towards peace efforts, he
18632-476: Was the sole native language of 83% of Swedish residents. In 2007, around 5.5% (c. 290,000) of the population of Finland were native speakers of Swedish, partially due to a decline following the Russian annexation of Finland after the Finnish War 1808–1809. The Fenno-Swedish - speaking minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish
18769-733: Was the son of Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel , and Princess Maria Amalia of Courland . In 1692 the young prince made his Grand Tour to the Dutch Republic , in 1695 to the Italian Peninsula and later he studied in Geneva . After this he had a military career, leading the Hessian troops as Lieutenant General in the War of the Spanish Succession on the side of the Dutch. He was defeated in 1703 in
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