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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.
Sergey Sementsov, Olga
Krasnikova, Tamara Mazur, Igor Voyevodsky
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