The project The Spoils of War: Swedish Looting of the Commonwealth in the 17th and 18th Centuries is funded by the Polish Ministry of Science through the National Program for the Development of the Humanities (NPRH). Project leader: Katarzyna Wagner, Warsaw University.

The course Polish Cultural Heritage in Swedish Collections (7,5 ECTS) is offered at the Department of Slavic and Baltic Studies, Finnish, Dutch and German, Stockholm University.  

Program

The event is open to all and can be attended on campus (K-rummet E439, Södra huset E) or via Zoom. The link will be available at:

https://www.su.se/institutionen-for-slaviska-och-baltiska-sprak-finska-nederlandska-och-tyska/kalender/symposium-dominium-maris-baltici-perspectives-from-the-other-shore-1.861924

9:15–9:30

Mingling and opening welcome 

9:30–9:45 Katarzyna Wagner (Warsaw University)

The Spoils of War: A Project Presentation on Swedish Plundering in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th and 18th Centuries

 9:45–10:00 Anna Kalinowska (Polish Academy of Sciences)

An Outside Perspective: Swedish–Polish Relations in the mid-17th Century and the London News Press

10:00–10:15 Wojciech Krawczuk (Jagiellonian University)

Spår av svenska flyktingar i Polen–Litauen under Sigismund Vasas regeringstid

10:15–10:30 Hubert Kowalski (Warsaw University)

The Spoils of War: Prologue

10:30–10:45 Franciszek Viscardi (Jagiellonian University)

From Collection to Battlefield: Provenance Studies of Polish–Lithuanian Military Banners in Sweden

10:45–11:00 Emilia Ström (Nationalmuseum)

Polnische Damen från Skoklosters slott

11:00–11:15 Joanna Zatorska-Rosén (Stockholm University)

Preserved by Plunder: Jan and Władysław Małachowski’s Book Collection at Skokloster Castle

11:15–11:45

Questions and discussion 

Abstracts 

Katarzyna Wagner (Warsaw University)

The Spoils of War: A Project Presentation on Swedish Plundering in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th and 18th Centuries

The aim of the project is to compile a catalogue—both online and printed—of war booty and trophies held in the collections of public cultural institutions in Stockholm and Uppsala, looted during the Deluge and the Great Northern War. At the same time, detailed research will be carried out in Swedish archives and museums with the aim to gather source materials on the organization of looting in the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the routes of exporting looted objects and their storage sites outside the Swedish capital, and to prepare documentation—both scholarly and photographic—of the identified spoils of war with the view of producing the catalogues and further expanding the database.

Anna Kalinowska (Polish Academy of Sciences)

An outside Perspective: Swedish–Polish Relations in the mid-17th Century and the London News Press

The first half of the 17th century was a turbulent period for Swedish–Polish relations, but also a time of unprecedented revolution in communication and news circulation, largely due to the development of the periodical news press. This presentation will examine how the booming newspaper industry in London reported and contextualized tensions between Sweden and Poland-Lithuania, with a particular focus on the 1650s, by analyzing both the news reports on the development of events in the Baltic and the English reactions to the changing situation.

Wojciech Krawczuk (Jagiellonian University)

Spår av svenska flyktingar i Polen–Litauen under Sigismund Vasas regeringstid 

Föredraget behandlar flyktingar från Sverige och Finland som tvingades lämna landet efter Sigismunds nederlag mot hertig Karl. Kung Sigismund etablerade ett vårdsystem för dessa människor i Polen och Litauen. Även om denna grupp försvann inom ett halvt sekel, finns spår av några av dem kvar än idag.

Franciszek Viscardi (Jagiellonian University)

From Collection to Battlefield: Provenance Studies of Polish–Lithuanian Military Banners in Sweden

This presentation examines Polish–Lithuanian military banners preserved in Swedish State Trophy Collections, with a focus on methodological approaches in provenance research. Captured as war trophies during the 17th and 18th centuries, these objects often lack complete contextual information: inscriptions may be partially lost, heraldic devices altered, and archival documentation fragmented.

Through selected case studies, the talk demonstrates how a combination of iconographic analysis, heraldic study, textile examination, and archival research can facilitate the identification of military units, regional affiliations, and historical contexts. It also considers the transformations these banners underwent upon entering Swedish collections, from objects of military significance to artefacts of display and curation.

Framing these objects within the perspective of the cultural biography of things, the presentation illustrates how provenance studies reveal not only individual histories but also broader patterns of cultural circulation, memory practices, and shifting meanings in early modern Northern Europe.

Emilia Ström (Nationalmuseum)

Polnische Damen från Skoklosters slott 

Presentationen undersöker två porträttmålningar från första hälften av 1600-talet ur Skoklosters slotts samlingar i Sverige. Det första analyserade objektet är ett porträtt av Johanna (1479–1555), drottning av Kastilien och Aragonien, utfört av en efterföljare till Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. Det andra är ett porträtt av en okänd polsk kvinna av en anonym målare verksam inom det polsk-litauiska samväldet.

Med objektbiografi som metodologiskt ramverk följs målningarnas skiftande itinerarier: hur de dokumenterades och användes, samt hur deras materialitet och betydelse förändrades efter att de blev en del av de svenska samlingarna och föremål för konsthistorisk expertis i sitt nya sammanhang. Frågor om hur verken införlivades i det svenska kulturarvet och hur de kom att användas i skapandet av en svensk nationell genealogi och en kultur- och historieskrivning behandlas.

Föredraget belyser betydelsen av att fastställa ett verks geografiska ursprung och det ansvar som vilar på de institutioner där krigsbyten från det polsk-litauiska samväldet förvaras idag.

Joanna Zatorska-Rosén (Stockholm University) 

Preserved by Plunder: Jan and Władysław Małachowski’s Book Collection at Skokloster Castle

The library at Skokloster Castle houses a number of books looted from private libraries of the nobility in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the war of 1655–1660. Among these is a group of volumes bearing the ownership mark of Jan and Władysław Małachowski. Our current understanding of early modern private noble libraries in the Polish-Lithuanian context remains fragmented, largely due to the extremely limited source material that has survived. It underscores the exceptional cultural value of the Małachowskis’ collection, which has remained intact since at least 1701, when the castle was established as an entailed estate (fidei commissum), which legally ensured that the castle collections would not be dispersed. 

To date, the Małachowskis’ collection has not been fully cataloged. I have conducted an inventory based on available printed and digital catalogs and databases, supplemented by a physical inspection of the books at Skokloster Castle. Through this process, I have identified 43 volumes bearing the Małachowskis’ ownership mark, comprising a total of 44 titles. This finding verifies and expands upon earlier scholarly claims, which maintained that only 20 items were marked with their ownership inscription. In my presentation, I will discuss the preliminary research findings regarding the thematic scope of the collection.

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Contact: Joanna Zatorska-Rosén, joanna.zatorska@slav.su.se