Oskar II (Sweden)

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Oskar II of Sweden and Norway (around 1900)

. Oskar II - born Prince Oscar Fredrik Bernadotte of Sweden and Norway, Duke of Östergötland - (* 21st January 1829 at the Stockholm Royal Palace , Stockholm , † 8. December 1907 ibid) out of the house Bernadotte was from 1872 to 1907 King of Sweden and King of Norway from 1872 to 1905 .

Life

Early years

Oskar as Crown Prince

Prince Oskar of Sweden was born on January 21, 1829 as the third of four sons of the Swedish Crown Prince Oskar (from 1844 Oskar I) and his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais , Duchess of Leuchtenberg in Stockholm Palace . At birth he received the title Duke of Östergötland . On January 28, the solemn baptism by Carl von Rosenstein , Archbishop of Uppsala, took place .

The ruling Swedish king had been his grandfather Karl XIV Johann , the founder of the Bernadotte family , from 1818 .

Between 1833 and 1837, the philosophy professor Christopher Jacob Boström was his tutor to the prince , at the age of eleven, Oskar entered the Swedish Navy and was made a lieutenant in July 1845 . He then studied at Uppsala University .

On December 13, 1848, he was made an honorary member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences . With the death of his older brother Prince Franz Gustaf in 1852, Oskar moved to the second position of the line of succession behind Prince Karl .

His father Oskar I introduced him to the  Freemason Lodge  Nordiska Första  . Until his accession to the throne, he was state grandmaster, then master of the order of the  Grand Lodge Grand Lodge of Sweden . In 1877, Oskar II brought the later King Gustav to Freemasonry . In 1882 his speeches appeared, which he gave as speaking master of the St. Eriks Lodge in Stockholm. In his opinion, Freemasonry was "a ground on which the spiritually superior can save himself from all the special positions and struggles of life, a holy asylum of peace where the purely human is recognized and taught in fraternal community."

Reign

Oskar was particularly interested in foreign policy. He admired Germany and especially Otto von Bismarck very much and worked towards a "Germanic-Scandinavian-Italian network" which Great Britain could also join. A certain Germanophilia was widespread in Sweden at the time , and since the queen was German, the ruling family had close ties to several German royal houses.

After the death of his brother Charles XV. on September 18, 1872 he succeeded him as Oskar II on the throne. On May 12, 1873 he was crowned King of Sweden in the Storkyrkan in Stockholm and on July 18, 1873 in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim he was crowned King of Norway. During his reign, Oskar was concerned with regaining the prestige of kingship that had suffered during his brother's time. This was only partially successful. The biggest question waiting to be resolved was the question of the right to vote. At that time, after the election of 1896, Hjalmar Branting was the first Social Democrat in the Reichstag . During his thirty-year reign, Oskar II changed State Minister 15 times, Foreign Minister ten times and no fewer than 112 times. In terms of foreign policy, he initiated a reorientation of Sweden away from traditional friendship with France and towards Germany.

Oskar II gained considerable weight as a mediator in international questions through his extensive family ties and his interest in foreign policy . In the Samoa Crisis in 1889, Great Britain, the United States and Germany requested him to appoint a chief judge on the South Sea islands disputed between the great powers ; In 1899 he mediated again in this conflict. In 1897/98 he was asked for help and mediation in the border conflict between British Guiana and Venezuela , which threatened to escalate because the USA, citing the Monroe Doctrine, backed Venezuela.

Literary interests

Oskar II, like his brothers Karl XV. and Gustav , great interest in literature and poetry . He was awarded a silver medal by the Swedish Academy in 1857 for an anonymously submitted manuscript. After that, his work remained less anonymous. But he still preferred to comment anonymously in the press on the current political debate; often signed with "O ****" or "Oskar Fredrik". He viewed himself as the high priest of Swedish literature since he ascended to the throne and made sure that writers he liked were amply rewarded with awards and contributions. But the greatest contemporary author, August Strindberg , and Oskar had little regard for each other: Oskar thought very badly of Strindberg because of his repeated criticism and hatred of the aristocracy, and Strindberg thought very badly of the establishment in general. Oskar raged against almost everything Strindberg wrote, for example Röda rummet (1879), Det nya riket (1882) and Giftas (1884).

Dissolution of the Union

The most decisive event of Oskar's reign was the dissolution of the union with Norway in 1905. This was not in the interests of the king, but neither did he stand in the way of a peaceful solution to the conflict. In his memoirs he later wrote that he had suffered greatly from the breach of the Union.

The End

In the period that followed, his health deteriorated. In 1906 and 1907 his ability to speak decreased noticeably, and the diagnosis was initially hardening of the arteries in the speech center. Oskar also suffered from prostate problems and chronic fatigue. On the morning of December 8, 1907, he died quietly at the age of 78. He is buried in Stockholm's Riddarholmskyrka .

Marriage and offspring

Sophia and Oskar II.

On June 6, 1857, Oskar married Sophia von Nassau , the youngest daughter of the German Duke Wilhelm I of Nassau and his second wife Pauline von Württemberg, at Biebrich Castle .

The marriage resulted in four sons:

ancestors

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Henri Bernadotte (1711–1780)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Charles XIV. John King of Sweden (1763–1844)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jeanne de Saint Vincent (1728–1809)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Oskar I, King of Sweden (1799-1859)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
François Clary (1725–1797)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Désirée Clary (1777-1860)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Françoise-Rose Somis (1737-1815)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Oskar II King of Sweden
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Alexandre de Beauharnais , (1760–1794)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Eugène de Beauharnais (1781-1824)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763-1814)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Joséphine de Beauharnais Jr. (1807–1876)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Maximilian I Joseph King of Bavaria (1756–1825)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Auguste of Bavaria (1788-1851)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Auguste Wilhelmine of Hessen-Darmstadt (1765–1796)
 
 
 
 
 
 

gallery

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner, Dieter A. Binder: Internationales Freemaurer Lexikon . 5th edition. Herbig Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-7766-2478-7 , p. 632.

Web links

Commons : Oskar II of Sweden  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Charles XV./IV. King of Sweden
1872–1907
Gustav V.
Charles XV./IV. King of Norway
1872–1905
Håkon VII.