TheSwedish diaspora consists of emigrants and their descendants, especially those that maintain some of the customs of theirSwedish culture.[1] Notable Swedish communities exist in theUnited States,Argentina,[2]Australia,Canada,New Zealand,Brazil, and theUnited Kingdom as well as others.
The New Sweden Companyestablished a colony on theDelaware River in 1638, naming itNew Sweden. The colony was lost to the Dutch in 1655.[3]
Between 1846 and 1930, roughly 1.3 million people, about 20% of the Swedish population, left the country.[4][5]
In the United States members of the diaspora had access to Swedish films starting in 1922 withThe Treasure of Arne which was shown inMinneapolis, Minnesota. Some films were made just for theSwedish American diaspora community such asThe Film About Sweden andThe Old Land of Dreams.[6]
The first recognition by Sweden of the 19th century emigration to the United States occurred in 1923 with a visit byNathan Söderblom and the 1926 visit by thecrown prince, who would later rule asGustaf VI Adolf of Sweden.[7][8] He would visit again in 1938.[9]
Swedish expatriates inManhattan celebrateMidsummer as "a particularly grand example of the Swedish diaspora's ability to hold on to its culture while fully integrating on a global scale."[10]
TheSwedish-speaking Finns orFinland-Swedes form aminority group in Finland. The characteristic of this minority is debated: while some see it as an ethnic group of its own[11] some view it purely as a linguistic minority.[12] The group includes about 265,000 people, comprising 5.10% of the population of mainland Finland, or 5.50%[13] 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 presented that the ethnic group can also be perceived as a distinct Swedish-speaking nationality in Finland.[14] There are also 9,000 Swedish citizens living in Finland.[15]
Approximately 23,000 Swedes live in Germany.[16]
The presence of Swedish-speaking permanent residents in the area of present-day Estonia (Estonian Swedes,Swedish:estlandssvenskar) was first documented in the 14th century, and possibly dates back to theViking Age. There were an estimated 12,000 Swedes resident in Estonia in 1563, mainly distributed alongthe coastal regions and islands. Estonia came under Swedish rule from 1558 to 1710, after which Stockholm ceded the territory to Russia in the 1721Treaty of Nystad and the area became theReval Governorate. In 1781, 1,300 Estonian Swedes of the island ofHiiumaa (Dagö) were forced to move toNew Russia (todayUkraine) byCatherine II of Russia, where they formedGammalsvenskby (Old Swedish Village). Some Estonian Swedes made careers in theRussian Tsarist system, likeAdam Johann von Krusenstern.[17]
According to the 1934 Estonian census, 7,641 Swedes (Swedish speakers, 0.7% of the population) lived in Estonia, making Swedes the third-largestnational minority in Estonia (after Russians and Germans). From 1943, during World War II, almost the entire community of Estonian Swedes fled to Sweden. Today there are, at most, a few hundred Estonian Swedes living in Estonia and a few hundred in Russia and Ukraine, with the estimates varying widely depending on who identifies, or can be identified, as a Swede. Many of them live innorthwestern mainland Estonia and on adjacent islands and on the island ofRuhnu (Runö) in theGulf of Riga.
In anationalist context, the ethnic Swedes living outside Sweden are sometimes called 'East-Swedes' (Swedish:östsvenskar), to distinguish them from the ethnic Swedes living in Sweden proper, calledrikssvenskar.
Many Swedes spend their holidays in France especially in the South of France, small towns and villages. altogether totaling 20,000 to 25,000.[18] They live inIle-de-France,Nord-Pas-de-Calais,Languedoc-Rousillon,Midi-Pyrenees,Brittany,Poitou-Charentes,Picardy,Upper Normandy,Lorraine,Alsace,Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur,Aquitaine,Pays de la Loire,Centre-Val de Loire and in the Gallic country.[18]
Many Swedes spend theirholidays inPortugal and many Swedish pensioners have moved to the country in recent years. Official statistics suggest that 5,486 foreigners holding Swedish nationality (thus not taking into account 36 Swedes who have acquired Portuguese nationality since 2008 and descendants of immigrants, as well as people of more distant ancestry) live in Portugal. They live especially in the South (Algarve) and inLisbon Region. Other estimates suggest that as many as 8,000 Swedes may be living in the country[19][20][21][22] NotableLuso-Swedes include filmmakerSolveig Nordlund.
There are numerous Swedish descendants in places like the United States and Canada (i.e. Swedish Americans andSwedish Canadians), including some who still speak Swedish.
The majority of the early Swedish immigrants to Canada came via the United States. It was not until after 1880 that significant numbers of Swedes immigrated to Canada. From WWI onwards, almost all of the Swedish immigrants entered Canada coming directly from Sweden. In addition to Swedish immigrants from south-central part of Sweden, a relatively large number of Swedish immigrants came from Stockholm and northern Sweden. The newcomers played an important role in the development of the Canadian prairies.
Swedish Canadians can be found in all parts of the country, but the largest population resides inBritish Columbia. Many Swedish social, cultural, political, business and welfare organizations, both religious and secular, can be found in all major Canadian cities and some of the smaller towns and rural communities. Some of the Swedish traditions, such as Midsummer, Walpurgis, and St Lucia are still celebrated by the community today.[23]
Swedes settled mainly in Argentina.[24] Numerous communities can be found in South America, especially in theMisiones Province andBuenos Aires, in Argentina, in theSouth andSoutheast of Brazil, and there are some Swedish communities in Uruguay.
Many Swedes settled in Australia and New Zealand. Organized immigration from Sweden occurred during the 19th century when Queensland and Tasmania invited immigrants to take up farming leases. Many people of Swedish descent can be found in these countries.
Thailand has about 15,000 Swedes residing there permanently.[25]
Scandinavian migration to Britain is a phenomenon that has occurred at different periods over the past 1,200 years.
the movement, migration, or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland ... people settled far from their ancestral homelands.
As a comparison to these issues, and in order to see what happened to Swedishness in the diaspora, I am going to explore how the Swedish-Americans in special exhibitions used Swedish film to remember their home country and to construct their cultural identity as Swedish ...
These trips inaugurated an official recognition of what, from a Swedish point of view, now was a Swedish diaspora. ...
