*kings

That typo was a regrettable mistake. Not as regrettable as the world longest-running ethnic cleansing programme so I guess I can have some perspective on the whole typogate thing.

Oh, yeah, since these soldiers died in WWII, it would do to point out that they were saving your ass from Nazi occupiers.

“The Swedish government felt that it was in no position to openly contest Germany, and therefore collaborated with Hitler. Swedish volunteers in Nazi SS units were among the first to invade the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Sweden also supplied steel and machined parts to Germany throughout the war.”

Wow, I’m sorry, TWO of the world’s most successful ethnic cleansing programmes. My bad.

Sorry? What’s that? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of Sweden’s long record of ethnic cleansing and Nazi collaboration.

OK Here’s my brief e-history of Sweden:

1) The least significant vikings. While the Danes and Norwegians were taking over goddamn Europe the Swedes were carving their names onto combs and rocks. But somehow not as impressively as the Danes:
home.no.net/ahrunes/de-rune-jellinge-big.jpg
Now that’s a fucking runestone. Compare that to the monkey-like etchings the Swedes produced.

2) Sweden finds its level in the Kalmar Union and is dominated by Denmark for centuries. Rightfully. It is commonly agreed that with their Danish overlords to help them along, this is one of the few instances Sweden thrived (the other involved Nazi overlords).

3) Independence from Denmark. Sweden embarks on a pointless crusade to undo the work of Hanseatic/Dutch merchants and destroys Nothern/Eastern Europe’s economy. Sweden’s reign of hilarious incompetence is interrupted by Peter the Great, who kicks their ass back to Stockholm and has one of his petty footsoldiers kill Sweden’s king.

4) Ethnic cleansing/nazi collusion

5) Propped up by EU/Danish economic support. No longer has the ability to wage ethnic cleansing and begins to act all preachy towards the rest of the world because of a clean two-decade track record that has more to do with impotence than anything.

Behold, the story of the greatest failure of any country on Earth.

Actually, Rurik, legendary founder of Kievan Rus’ (actually not related to Russia and mainly located outside of what’s now Russia), if he existed at all, was probably a Dane.

Nestor’s chronicle – which I’ve read many times, and written on – much like probably more Swedish history or history in general than you even know exists – was written hundreds of years after Rurik may or may not have lived. While we have a lot of outside info on Oleg, for example, everything we know about Rurik comes from that one page. And if you read it, it’s very very very vague. You could interpret that (what is probably) a folk legend any way you wanted.

The only kind of evidence he even existed is that some Danish noble with a similar name went missing right around the same time. There are also a few Sagas that refer to Rurik, but they quite likely borrowed directly from Nestor’s version of events.

I’d say Sweden has an Ok history. Certainly not as cool as Denmark or Finland or even – to be frank – Estonia. But it did exist so that is something.

Early Russian history is actually really fun, because of all the Soviet Propaganda, pre-Soviet ‘pan-slavic’ propaganda, and the counter-propaganda out of Germany and the US.

Go find a book about Novgorod – or as they call it now the Novgorod Republic for some insane anachronistic non-factual reason. Read it. Absorb it in awe, then go read the Novgorod chronicle and realize how many centuries of at-best speculation and at-worst making shit up has been squeezed out of certain key especially non-descript and non-specific sentences.

Now, Russia, there’s a country with an interesting history.