Oscar II (Oscar Fredrik;[1] 21 January 1829 – 8 December 1907) wasKing of Sweden from 1872 until his death in 1907 andKing of Norway from 1872 to 1905.
Oscar was the son ofKing Oscar I andQueen Josephine. He inherited the Swedish and Norwegian thrones when his brother died in 1872. Oscar II ruled during a time when both countries were undergoing a period of industrialization and rapid technological progress. His reign also saw the gradual decline of theUnion of Sweden and Norway, which culminated in itsdissolution in 1905. In 1905, the throne of Norway was transferred to his grandnephew PrinceCarl of Denmark under theregnal name Haakon VII. When Oscar died in 1907, he was succeeded in Sweden by his eldest son,Gustaf V.
Prince Oscar entered theRoyal Swedish Navy as a midshipman at the age of 11, and was appointed junior lieutenant in July 1845. Later, he studied atUppsala University, where he distinguished himself in mathematics.[4] On 13 December 1848, was made an honorary member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Oscar II became King on 18 September 1872, upon the death of his brother,Charles XV who died without an heir. At his accession, he adopted ashis mottoBrödrafolkens väl /Broderfolkenes Vel ("The Welfare of the Brother Peoples"). Hiscoronation as Swedish monarch was celebrated inStorkyrkan in Stockholm on 12 May 1873, and hiscoronation as Norwegian monarch two months later in theNidaros Cathedral inTrondheim on 18 July 1873.[2] While the King, his family and theRoyal Court resided mostly in Sweden, Oscar II made the effort of learning to be fluent inNorwegian and from the very beginning realized the essential difficulties in the maintenance of theunion between the two countries.[4]
His acute intelligence and his aloofness from the dynastic considerations affecting most European sovereigns (both his paternal and maternal grandfathers were French military commanders who served underNapoleon I) gave the king considerable weight as an arbitrator in international questions. At the request of the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States in 1889, he appointed theChief Justice of Samoa under theTreaty of Berlin, and he was again called on to arbitrate inSamoan affairs in 1899.[4]
In 1897, he was empowered to appoint a fifth arbitrator if necessary in the Venezuelan dispute, and he was called on to act as umpire in the Anglo-American arbitration treaty that was quashed by theUnited States Senate. He won many friends in the United Kingdom by his outspoken and generous support of Britain at the time of theSecond Boer War (1899–1902), expressed in a declaration printed inThe Times of 2 May 1900, when continental opinion was almost universally hostile.[4]
He remained a strong supporter of the Navy throughout his life, and frequently visited ships of the fleet. When thecoastal defence shipOscar II was launched, he even signed his name on the vessel's aft main gun tower.[5]
The office ofPrime Minister of Sweden was instituted in 1876.Louis De Geer became the first head of government in Sweden to use this title. The most known and powerful first minister of the Crown during the reign of Oscar was the conservative estate ownerErik Gustaf Boström. Boström served as prime minister in 1891–1900 and 1902–1905. He was trusted and respected by Oscar II, who had much difficulty approving someone else as prime minister. Over a period of time, the King gave Boström a free hand to select his own ministers without much royal involvement. It was an arrangement (unintentional by both the King and Boström) that furthered the road to parliamentarism.
A distinguished writer and musical amateur himself, King Oscar did much to encourage the development of education throughout his dominions. In 1858, a collection of his lyrical and narrative poems,Memorials of the Swedish Fleet, published anonymously, obtained the second prize of theSwedish Academy. His "Contributions to the Military History of Sweden in the Years 1711, 1712, 1713", originally appeared in the Annals of the academy, and were printed separately in 1865. His works, which included his speeches, translations ofHerder'sCid andGoethe'sTorquato Tasso, and a play,Castle Cronberg, were collected in two volumes in 1875–76, and a larger edition, in three volumes, appeared in 1885–88.[4]
His Easter hymn and some other of his poems are familiar throughout the Scandinavian countries. His work onCharles XII of Sweden were translated into English in 1879. In 1881, he founded the world's firstopen-air museum, atBygdøy, located next to hissummer residence nearOslo (then known as Christiania). In 1885, he published hisAddress to the Academy of Music, and a translation of one of his essays on music appeared inLiterature in May 1900. He had a valuable collection of printed and manuscript music, which was readily accessible to the historical student of music.[4]
Being a theater lover, he commissioned a new opera house to be built byAxel Anderberg for theRoyal Swedish Opera which was inaugurated on 19 September 1898. It remains as the home of that institution.Oscar II once told playwrightHenrik Ibsen that hisGhosts was "not a good play". As he was dying, he requested that the theatres not be closed on account of his death. His wishes were respected.
Oscar was also particularly interested in mathematics. In 1887, he set up a contest, to be awarded on the occasion of his 60th birthday in 1889, for "an important discovery in the realm of higher mathematical analysis".[6][7] The contest listed four potential areas of research, one of which was then-body problem incelestial mechanics, relevant to the stability of theSolar System.Henri Poincare, a professor at theUniversity of Paris, won by submitting an entry showing that even the 3-body problem was unstable, the seminal result in what is now calledchaos theory.[8][9]
King Oscar II was an enthusiast of Arctic exploration. Along with Swedish millionaireOscar Dickson and Russian magnateAleksandr Mikhaylovich Sibiryakov, he was the patron of a number of pioneering Arctic expeditions in the 1800s. Among the ventures the king sponsored, the most important areAdolf Erik Nordenskiöld's explorations to the Russian Arctic andGreenland, andFridtjof Nansen's Polar journey on theFram.[10]
Oscar was also a generous sponsor of the sciences and personally funded theVega Expedition, which was the first Arctic expedition to navigate through theNortheast Passage, the sea route between Europe and Asia through theArctic Ocean, and the first voyage to circumnavigate Eurasia.
The political events which led up to the peacefuldissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 could hardly have been attained but for the tact and patience of the king himself. He was dethroned on 7 June 1905 by theStorting and renounced theNorwegian throne on 26 October. He declined, indeed, to permit any prince of his house to become king of Norway, but better relations between the two countries were restored before his death.[4] Oscar II died inStockholm on 8 December 1907 at 9:10 am.[11]
His eldest son Gustaf was Duke ofVärmland and succeeded him as King Gustaf V of Sweden from 1907 until 1950, marriedPrincess Victoria of Baden and they had three sons. His second son, Prince Oscar, lost his rights of succession to the throne upon his unequal marriage in 1888 to a formerlady-in-waiting,Ebba Munck af Fulkila, and was granted the title ofPrince Bernadotte first in Sweden, and from 1892 inLuxembourg, where he also was createdCount of Wisborg as an hereditary title for his marital progeny (Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, was the half-brother of his mother, Queen Sophia). The other sons of Oscar II were Prince Carl, Duke ofVästergötland who marriedPrincess Ingeborg of Denmark; and Prince Eugén, Duke ofNärke, who was well known as an artist and remained a bachelor all his life.
Portrait of Oscar II wearing theCrown of Eric XIV and mantle, byOscar Björck. King Oscar II was the last crowned Swedish king and was known to enjoy the pomp and ceremony.
The name and portrait of Oscar II have been used as a trademark forKing Oscar sardines in Norway since 1902[41] (which remains the only brand to have once obtained his "royal permission"[42]) as well asgingerbread cookies (pepparkakor) and other bakery products made byGöteborgs Kex in Sweden.[43]
The culinary creationVeal Oscar was named in his honor supposedly for his fondness for its ingredients: veal cutlet, crab meat, Béarnaise sauce, and asparagus.[44]
^"Chaos",Chaos: An Introduction to Dynamical Systems, Textbooks in Mathematical Sciences, New York, NY: Springer New York, 1996, pp. 105–147,doi:10.1007/0-387-22492-0_3,ISBN978-0-387-94677-1,archived from the original on 9 July 2023, retrieved2 February 2022
^Aho, Maire (January 1999), "AE Nordenskiöld Collection included in the Unesco Memory of the World Program",Tietolinja News, FI: Helsinki, archived fromthe original on 7 July 2007.
^Anna Hofmann – varietéstjärna och filmregissör, catalogue of exhibition by that name atStockholms Stadsmuséum 1998 with essays by Åke Abrahamsson and Marika Lagercrantz/Lotte Wellton.
^Norlin, Arne (2015).Familjen Bernadotte: makten, myterna, människorna (in Swedish). Stockholm: Fischer & Co. pp. 218–220.ISBN9789186597962.SELIBR17803399.
^Bille-Hansen, A. C.; Holck, Harald, eds. (1907) [1st pub.:1801].Statshaandbog for Kongeriget Danmark for Aaret 1907 [State Manual of the Kingdom of Denmark for the Year 1907](PDF). Kongelig Dansk Hof- og Statskalender (in Danish). Copenhagen: J.H. Schultz A.-S. Universitetsbogtrykkeri. p. 3.Archived(PDF) from the original on 21 October 2020. Retrieved7 September 2020 – viada:DIS Danmark.
^Staatshandbuch für das Großherzogtum Sachsen / Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1864), "Großherzogliche Hausorden"p. 13Archived 30 August 2019 at theWayback Machine
1Also prince of Norway 2Also prince of Poland and Lithuania 3Lost his title due to an unequal marriage 4Not Swedish prince by birth, but created prince of Sweden
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