Humanitär stormakt? Det lokala flyktingmottagandet i Sverige, 1700-1730

During the Great Northern War (1700–1721), 20–30.000 refugees fled from Swedish territories around the Baltic Sea to Sweden.

This 3-year-project aims to analyse how local communities and refugees in this situation negotiated the responsibility to protect refugees with the need to provide security for locals.

A lack of first-hand sources from refugees has led to a power imbalance, where our understanding of the early modern refugee experience is limited to that of the privileged few, or state and city authorities’ narratives.

Current refugee studies has found that reception practices are best understood as ongoing, contingent interactions on a local level between recipient communities and refugees.

By triangulating sources emanating from the central royal power, local authorities and communities, and the unique Swedish refugee supplications, this project provides crucial knowledge of the degree to which early modern communities accepted, articulated, and/or delegated the responsibility to protect refugees and how refugee responses to protection and security measures influenced the process.The project focuses on four case studies (Härnösand, Stockholm and Uppsala (who received most refugees), and Linköping (who received almost no refugees)).

It will provide a historical understanding of the ramifications of the fact that state directives regarding refugee reception are by necessity enacted by local authorities and communities, who have opposing objectives.