Chapter 5: The Swedish Era (1561-1710)



A map showcasing the conquests of Sweden in this region.

This era is called the Stormaktstiden or the Great Power Era in Sweden, as the country emerged as the dominant power in Northern Europe.

Sweden at this time was not a unitary state. There were big differences between the “core” (modern day Sweden and Finland) and the newly conquered territories (including, but not limited to Estonia). The new provinces were called “oversea provinces”.

As Sweden found it much easier to not worry about opposing the local Baltic-German nobility, and thus making them resentful or even rebellious, the old privileges were not revoked. The old order remained, all old laws and so on remained put. Estonian territories did not have a representation in the Swedish parliament, and Swedish laws did not extend here. The Swedish representative in local affairs was the governor, who had to deal with local provincial defence, collecting taxes, and dealing with school and church matters. To impose new taxes or laws, the governor had to reach an agreement with the local knighthoods and city representatives.

A change happened in the 1680s, when the absolutist king Karl XI declared that the other estates had no right to decide state affairs and as such began a campaign against the power of local nobles, including nationalising manors (more on that in the next chapter). When the local knighthoods disagreed with that, the king dissolved the self-government institutions of the local nobility and the leader of the Estonian Knighthood, Johann von Patkul, was sentenced to death. Stockholm started to prepare imposing Swedish laws in Estonia, for example, the Swedish church law went into effect in 1686, which unified the local provincial churches with the larger Swedish Church to create an unified organisation. Swedish started to slowly replace German as the language of local affairs. This caused heavy resentment amongst local Baltic-Germans, which would have consequences later.

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