Swedes () are a
Scandinavian people, mostly inhabiting
Sweden and the other
Nordic countries, with descendants living in a number of countries.
Until the 9th century, the Scandinavian people lived in small
Germanic kingdoms and chiefdoms known as petty kingdoms. The Germanic tribe of the
Swedes (;
Old Norse:
svíar) lived in
Svealand, bordering the
Geats to the south. The
consolidation of Sweden was a long process, and later, as Sweden's borders fluctuated over the centuries, so did the use of the
Swedish language as well as Swedish self-identification.
The
Swedish-speaking minority in
Finland trace back to the many centuries when Finland was an integral part of Sweden. Their identity and relation towards Swedish and
Finnish identities is a subject of discussion. Other groups have acquired Swedish identity; until 1658, when Scania became a possession of the Swedish Crown, the
Scanians were a people of the Eastern Province of Denmark speaking a dialect belonging to the East-Danish dialect group. Similarly, groups like the
Walloons settled in Sweden already in the 17th century, followed by many other groups in later periods. There are also several million people with (partly) Swedish ancestry in the
United States following the large-scale emigration of the late 19th and early 20th century.
Geography
The largest area inhabited by Swedes, as well as the earliest known original area inhabited by their linguistic ancestors, is in the country of Sweden, situated on the eastern side of the
Scandinavian Peninsula and the islands adjacent to it, situated west of the
Baltic Sea in
northern Europe. The Swedish-speaking people living in near-coastal areas on the north-eastern and eastern side of the Baltic Sea also have a long history of continuous settlement, which in some of these areas possibly started about a
millennium ago. These people include the Swedish-speakers in
mainland Finland - speaking Swedish dialect commonly referred as
Finland Swedish (finlandssvenska which is part of East-Swedish dialect group) and the almost exclusively Swedish-speaking population of the
Åland Islands speaking in a manner closer to the adjacent dialects in Sweden than to adjacent dialects of Finland Swedish. Smaller groups of historical descendants of 18th-20th century Swedish emigrants who still retain varying aspects of Swedish identity to this day can be found in the
Americas (especially
Minnesota and
Wisconsin, see
Swedish Americans) and in
Ukraine.
Historically, the Kingdom of Sweden has been much larger than nowadays, especially during the "The Era of Great Power" (
Swedish Empire) in 1611 - 1718. Finland belonged to Sweden until 1809. Since there was no separate Finnish nationality at those times, it is not unusual that sources predating 1809 refer both to Swedes and Finns as "Swedes". This is particularly the case with
New Sweden, where some of the "Swedish" settlers were actually of Finnish origin.
Origin
The ancient
Germanic tribe of the
Suiones, sometimes called
Svear in academic works, were at the roots of Swedish statehood and contemporary with the
Geats and the
Daner in
Scandinavia. The roman
bureaucrat and
historian,
Jordanes mentions in his work "
Scandza" that these tribes are "the tallest of all men". He later mentions other Scandinavian tribes as being of the same height. He also mentions that the Swedes outmatched the others in class: "Suetidi, cogniti in hac gente reliquis corpore eminentiores". Notably, in modern
Scandinavian languages, with the exception of
Icelandic, there is a distinction between
svenskar and
svear (as between
danskar and
Daner), since the latter term does not include the
Geats and the
Gotlanders and whose descendants became a part of the Swedish ethnicity.
According to recent genetic analysis, both mtDNA and Y chromosome polymorphisms showed a noticeable
genetic affinity between Swedes and central Europeans, especially Germans (conclusions also valid for Norwegians). For the global genetic make-up of the Swedish people and other peoples (see also and ). Another detailed nuclear genetic study has also implied that Swedes largely share genetics with
Finns.
Famous Swedes
Swedes of international renown include
Gustavus Adolphus Dag Hammarskjöld and
Anders Nygren, film directors
Ingmar Bergman and
Victor Sjöström, actors
Greta Garbo,
Stellan Skarsgård,
Alexander Skarsgård,
Ingrid Bergman,
Erland Josephson Max von Sydow and
Tove Jansson entrepreneurs
Gustaf Dalén,
Lars Magnus Ericsson,
Bertil Hult,
Gustav de Laval,
Ingvar Kamprad,
Ivar Kreuger,
Anders Winroth,
Alfred Nobel,
Erling Persson,
Ruben Rausing,
Axel Wenner-Gren and
Niklas Zennström, musicians
In Flames,
Hammerfall,
Opeth,
Pelle Almqvist,
Björn Ulvaeus,
Benny Andersson,
Agnetha Fältskog,
Jussi Björling,
Birgit Nilsson,
Charlotte Perrelli,
Neneh Cherry,
Per Gessle,
Jenny Lind and
Nina Persson, scientists
Hannes Alfvén,
Arvid Carlsson,
Carolus Linnaeus,
Carl Wilhelm Scheele,
Kai Siegbahn and
Anders Jonas Ångström, sportspeople
Peter Forsberg,
Daniel Sedin,
Henrik Sedin,
Björn Borg,
Jesper Parnevik,
Fredrik Ljungberg,
Lennart Skoglund,
Ingemar Stenmark,
Mats Sundin,
Annika Sörenstam,
Sven Tumba,
Jan-Ove Waldner and
Mats Wilander, and writers
Selma Lagerlöf,
Vilhelm Moberg,
August Strindberg and
Hjalmar Söderberg.
Ethnic Swedes and Swedish speakers outside of Sweden
In Finland
The
Swedish-speaking Finns or
Finland-Swedes form a
minority group in Finland. The characteristic of this minority is debated: while some see it as an ethnic group of its own some view it purely as a linguistic minority.. The group includes about 265,000 people, comprising 5.10% of the population of mainland Finland, or 5.50 % if the 26,000 inhabitants of Åland are included (there are also about 60,000 Swedish-speaking Finns currently resident in Sweden). It has been the presented that the ethnic group can also perceived as distinct Swedish-speaking nationality in Finland. There are also 9,000 Swedish citizens living in Finland.
In Estonia and Ukraine
The presence of Swedish speaking permanent residents in what is now Estonia (
Estonia-Swedes) was first documented in the 14th century, and possibly dates back to the
Viking Age. There were an estimated 12,000 Swedes resident in Estonia in 1563 . Estonia was under Swedish rule 1558–1710, after which the territory was ceded to Russia in the 1721
Treaty of Nystad. In 1781, 1,300 Estonia-Swedes of the island of
Hiiumaa (
Dagö) were forced to move to
New Russia (today
Ukraine) by
Catherine II of Russia, where they formed
Gammalsvenskby (Old Swedish Village). According to the 1934 census there were 7,641 Estonia-Swedes (Swedish speaking, 0.7% of the population in Estonia), making Swedes the third largest
national minority in Estonia, after Russians and Germans. During
World War II almost the entire community of Estonia-Swedes fled to Sweden. Today there are, at most, a few hundred Estonia-Swedes living in Estonia and a few hundred in Ukraine, with the estimates varying widely depending on who identifies, or can be identified, as a Swede. Many of them are living in
northwestern mainland Estonia and on adjacent islands and on the island of
Ruhnu (
Runö) in the
Gulf of Riga.
The majority of the 'Estonia-Swedes' who reside in Estonia and most 'Ukraine-Swedes' do not speak Swedish any more, but may be considered ethnic Swedes. In a
nationalist context, the ethnic Swedes living outside Sweden are sometimes called 'East-Swedes' (in Swedish:
östsvenskar), to distinguish them from the ethnic Swedes living in Sweden proper, called
rikssvenskar or
västsvenskar ('Western-Swedes'), reflecting
irredentist sentiments.
Other
The
Varangians, Vikings mostly from Sweden, were instrumental in the formation of the first
Russian state. These vikings called "
Rus" (because of their origin from
Roslagen) were described by the arabic traveller
Ibn Fadlan: "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".
Swedish soldiers taken prisoner during the
Great Northern War were sent in considerable numbers to
Siberia. They numbered perhaps 25 % of the population of
Tobolsk, the capital of Siberia, and some settled permanently.
There are numerous ethnic Swedes in places like the
US and
Canada (i.e. Swedish Americans and
Swedish Canadians), descendants of 19th and 20th century immigrants, including some who still speak Swedish. There are also Swedes located in
St Petersburg,
Russia and in Siberia.
See also
Swedish diasporaEthnic groups in SwedenVarious
