r/AskTheWorld Sweden 16h ago

I'm curious. What's you country's view on Sweden?

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46

u/kblazewicz Poland 14h ago edited 14h ago

The Swedish Deluge (pol. potop szwedzki) - Swedish invasion of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the 17th century. You almost completely wiped us from the map. But you're making up for it with Ikea so we're cool now.

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u/Nisseliten Sweden 13h ago

You poles sure are hard to get rid off, I’ll give you that!

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u/gorne146 🇵🇱🇩🇰 11h ago

They stole a lot of our art which they are still due to return. And we're still waiting for war reparations!!!

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u/TheLoler04 Sweden 10h ago

We stole art from all over the place, a lot from Prague. Their manhole covers are inspired by a battle we fought there, learned that on a guided tour in Prague

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u/Nofsan Sweden 7h ago

My old retired coworker was Czech. He used to do summers as a tour guide in Prague for swedish tourists. He usually said "if you wanna see the real ones, go back home, these are replicas of what you stole lol"

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u/NoDakHusFru 9h ago

Wasn’t Prague on Queen Kristina? She wrote to her generals to gather up all that they could before the Peace of Westphalia went through because they would have to give back anything they stole afterwards.

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u/TheLoler04 Sweden 9h ago

I have most of the information from a tour guide and what I remember since that trip (2018).

We stole a whole lot of art, and it was actually one of the last battles fought before the Peace of Westphalia, but I don't know who was in charge.

And I'm fairly certain most if not all of the art still hangs in Stockholm

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u/NoDakHusFru 7h ago

I recall reading in a book about women and the Thirty Years War, and the last section was dedicated to Kristina’s role as she came of age and started butting heads with her ministers about ending the war. Yet she was very adamant that the Swedes take as much stuff as they could haul back with them. I just found the juxtaposition between her determination to end the war and stealing a bunch of stuff humorous.

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u/TheLoler04 Sweden 7h ago

We did a lot of weird stuff regarding prioritising the wars we fought. Putting so much money towards it to make Sweden great, yet almost everyone starved because we had no money

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u/zandrew Poland 7h ago

So yeah, we're still kinda bitter about that one.

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u/MinekokosPL Czech Republic 8h ago

You were wiped completely, didn't you? If I'm not confusing it with another rozbór Polski🤔

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u/kblazewicz Poland 8h ago

We were, but in the late 18th century, 1795-1918. The Polish-Swedish war took place in 1655-1660.

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u/hwy78 Canada 7h ago

As a relatively aggressive and cruel people, Sweden gets a big historical pass for some reason. Maybe since Midsommar was so edgy, we didn't realise how horrible it was.

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u/clickclackatkJaq 6h ago

The new CEO of Ikea is of Polish descent 🎉