Introduction

The exhibition “FROM SWEDISH TOWN TO RUSSIAN CAPITAL (What the maps and plans of XVII-XVIII centuries talk about)” is dedicated to the most interesting pages of Russo-Scandinavian history of the Neva and Ladoga lands. The history unites Russia and Scandinavia from the legendary times and creates the necessary prerequisites for the common future.

It is no coincidence that Saint-Petersburg came into existence on these lands. Here the Old Russian statehood was born. Ladoga (IX c.) – Novgorod (late IX c. – 1478) – Saint-Petersburg (1703-1918) is the line of Russian capital significance of this region. For more than one thousand years of the Russian statehood it is in the north-west of Russia, in the Ladoga and Neva area, that the only Russian capital or the second metropolitan centre was located.   

The largest nations striving for these territories were Scandinavians and Finns. The Swedish presence here meant the Varangians (Vikings), who lived in the ancient towns of Ladoga and Novgorod, in the watch settlements on the trade routs; it is the construction of Landskrona Fortress (1300) to keep watch on the Neva, it is expansion of Swedish Kingdom’s territory to Sister River (by the 1323 Oreshek-Nöteborg peace treaty between Novgorod and Sweden), it’s capture of Neva lands from 1580s and foundation of the Swedish Province Ingermanland and construction of Swedish trade town of Nyen and Nyenskans Fortress.

                Two waves of settling form the Finnish population of the Neva land. From the first centuries A.D. ancient Ugro-Finnish tribes Vod, Chud, Ves, Izhora, Karela came here. In X-XII centuries they became a part of the Russian State and adopted Orthodox Church. The second wave of settling was connected with the mass resettlement from Finland of tens of thousands of Finns carried out by the Swedish government in 1630 – 1640s. At that time new people Finno-Ingermanlanders was formed.

                The XVII century brought in new changes. Unique in its speed and large-scale construction of the new Russian capital had attached these territories to Russia.

In spite of the peripeteia of the political and military struggle the development of the Neva and Ladoga lands remained a united and uninterrupted process. Up to XIV- XV centuries they were densely populated. In the boundaries of the present-day Big Saint-Petersburg there were c 1000 settlements. Many of them have remained to our time; many roads have centuries-old history.

                This unity and centuries-old continuity (in the XV- first half of the XX centuries at least) showed in different ways. For example, in XVIII c. while lotting the lands and tracing the roads Russian builders used XVII Swedish land-surveying. The mapping of St-Petersburg and Vyborg provinces continues the experience of the XVII mapping of Swedish Ingermanland. Hydrographic survey of the Ladoga, Neva and Gulf of Finland by Russian hydrographers in XVIII c. continues straight the XVII works of Swedish hydrographers.    .

Many documents that fix this centuries-old unity were found in collections in different countries. Manuscript origins are most frequent documents among them.  But of no less importance are the graphic materials- geodetic and hydrographic maps, plans of towns, settlements, fortresses and buildings, projects of fortification and architectural structures.

The maps, drawings and projects of Swedish time (XVII c.) have been kept in Sweden. But most part of them was given to Russia in 1725, 1825 and later. They are kept in a number of Saint-Petersburg and Moscow archives. Many unique Swedish maps and plans were copied and used in Russian cartography, hydrography, in history researches.

But many projects and drawings of St-Petersburg were found in Stockholm. From 1960s architects knew about “Bergholtz’ collection”, which consists of architectural drawings worked out in late 1730s - early 1740s and taken out to Stockholm. But in Stockholm archives the unique town-planning projects of St-Petersburg of the first half of XVIII c. has been kept also.

The exhibition and catalogue include six parts: Nyen and Nyenskans (16 plans of XVII- XVIII centuries), Swedish and Russian Ingermanland (11 maps of XVII-XVIII centuries), military actions of 1703-1705 (3 maps), Saint-Petersburg (13 plans of the first half of XVIII c.), Kronstadt (4 plans of XVIII c.), Ladoga canal (3 maps of the early XVIII c.).

Made by the up-to-date technologies the copies of unique XVII and XVIII centuries documents from the Krigsarkivet and Kungliga Biblioteket (Stockholm), from the Russian State Naval Archives (Saint-Petersburg), from the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Saint-Petersburg), allow to interpret in a new fashion the history of the region.

The exhibition and catalogue were realized on initiative and financing of the Swedish Institute, Stockholm. The exposition and catalogue were prepared by the Travel and Culture Centre Eclectica, by the Institute of Researches of St-Petersburg and Northwest Region and by the Saint-Petersburg Union of Architects.

The authors thank all the organizations for taking part in the exhibition and hope that it will be another page in comprehension of the unity of the historical development of the Neva lands, Ingermanland and Saint-Petersburg, of all the centuries-old history of Russia and Sweden.

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