Kalmar
Castle
HISTORY
RUNS DEEP IN KALMAR
by
Bruce Burnett
....
From here indeed
Shall we strike terror in the Swede;
And here a city, by our labor
Founded, shall gall our haughty neighbor;
Thus
declared Pushkin's character in The Bronze Horseman, written in
1833 about the founding of the city of St. Petersburg by Peter the Great
in 1703. The quote is indicative of the degree of suspicion and hostility
that had plagued the Baltic since the 11th century.
By the end of the 12th century the Swedes were building a string of fortresses
along their Baltic coast. Among these was the great round keep or "kastal"
which became the nucleus of Kalmar Castle.
The castle was built on a promontory or holm (in Swedish "kalm")
and a similar tower was built on the island of Oland across the strait.
Oland is now connected to the mainland by a six-kilometer (3.7 miles)
long bridge - the longest in Europe.
The towers did not make the settlements in the area impervious to attack.
The Icelandic bard Snorre Sturlason (1178-1241) who visited Sweden in
1219 tells of the Norwegian king Sigurd Jorsalfare who ravaged the "merchant
town of Kalmar" in 1123, forcibly converting the inhabitants to Christianity
and levying heavy taxes.
By the 16th century the castle was dilapidated and its defensive arrangements
obsolete. Gustav Vasa (1496-l560) who became King of Sweden in 1523 immediately
set about importing skilled craftsmen who equipped the castle with a strong
outer system of ramparts with bastions at the corners.
The moat was widened, a new drawbridge was built and the buildings around
the inner courtyard were strengthened. Gustav Vasa's two elder sons, Erik
(king 1560-69) and Johan 111 (king 1569-92) continued the rehabilitation
of the castle. During their reigns the emphasis was placed on the adornment
of the interior and Kalmar Castle became a Renaissance palace with costly
decorations in the spirit of the age.
In August 1611 during the Kalmar War the town was razed to the ground
and the castle surrendered to the Danes. In March 1613 the Swedes regained
possession of the castle and in 1629, following a visit to Kalmar, King
Gustavus Adolphus began restoring the castle to its former glory. In 1647
the town was again razed, this time by fire, and it was decided to move
the whole settlement away from the vicinity of the castle.
By the 18th century Swedish territory had expanded considerably to the
south and Kalmar and its castle lost its pivotal importance as "the
key to the kingdom." This once splendid palace of imperial Sweden
became successively a government warehouse, the country jail and, in the
reign of Gustav 111, a Crown distillery. The state apartments were used
as granaries and most of the glorious decorations were destroyed.
In 1810 a local Bishop proposed the demolition of Kalmar Castle, but luckily
there was a growing realization that this ancient monument was of great
value and should be saved from destruction.
Restoration began in the 1850s, but due to lack of funds a full-blown
renovation had to wait until 1919. When the work was completed in 1939
the castle was once again surrounded by its water-filled moat with drawbridge
and the courtyard was painted with imitation freestone blocks as it had
been at the end of the 16th century. Where possible the apartments were
restored to their former Renaissance glory.
During the latest refurbishments, which were completed in 1980, a few
new features were added including a 17th-century altarpiece replicated
after the Flemish painter Cornelis de Vos (1584-1651) on loan from the
National Gallery in Stockholm.
When in Kalmar, a visit to the Kalmar County Museum is essential, for
here you'll find a permanent exhibition of artifacts from the Royal Ship
Kronan.
Built in Stockholm between 1665 and 1672 the Kronan was 60 meters (197ft)
in length with a main mast measuring 50 meters (164ft) above the water
line. Her estimated displacement was 2,140 metric tons. The armament consisted
of 126 cannons on three decks.
Almost twice as big as the Royal Ship Wasa, which sank in Stockholm harbor
in 1628, the Kronan was then the third largest ship afloat. On May 30th,
1676, the Kronan turned sharply in a strong gale to face her enemy the
Danish-Dutch fleet in the waters between the mainland and the island of
Oland. None of her sails had been taken in and when she was heaved over
by the wind the sea gushed through the open gun ports on the lower deck.
What was probably a broken lantern ignited the powder magazine and a tremendous
explosion blew away the entire starboard side and part of the stern. The
Kronan sank very quickly. Of the 842 on board only 42 survived.
Unlike the Wasa, the Kronan lay too deep - 26 meters (85ft) - for salvage
at the time. The artifacts have been well preserved by the less corrosive
brackish waters of the Baltic and furnish us with a remarkably accurate
picture of life for the 17th-century mariner.
History indeed runs deep in Kalmar.
HISTORY
RUNS DEEP IN KALMAR
was first published in The Globe and Mail
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