Historisk Tidskrift. Utgiven av Svenska historiska föreningen
  Hem Aktuellt Tidigare nummer Bli Medlem Annonsera Om Historisk Tidskrift För skribenter Föreningen In English
 

Historisk tidskrift 125:3 • 2005

Innehåll (Contents) 2005:3

Uppsatser (Articles)

Stockholmsliv – Riksdagsumgänge och identitetsformering under frihetstiden

Karin Sennefelt

Fulltext (pdf)

Summary:

Stockholm Life – Diet Sociability and the Formation of Identity in the Age of Liberty

Eighteenth-century parliamentary sociability in Sweden is a curiously understudied area of political history. This is not due to the lack of knowledge of social events in Stockholm during the diets. Rather, historians have regarded diet sociability as a backdrop for party politics at best, or as a shameful episode in Swedish political history better left unmentioned at worst. This article demonstrates the significance of Stockholm in political life in the Age of Liberty and of sociability in the city during the meetings of the diet. A study of diet sociability in Stockholm can shed light upon the social boundaries of this sphere, its networks of information, its ideology, and the political opportunities afforded by sociability.

The continuity in manners and in forms and sites of sociability in Stockholm meant that also members of the lower orders could learn to master political life. Members of the diet met in coffeehouses, wine-shops and in members’ lodgings, and political issues of national importance were prepared and discussed in companies made up by representatives from different estates. Supporters of the parties or a particular vote were mobilised and information on diet votes and policies were offered to anyone interested.

Sociability at the diet was unique in that it transcended the estates – social occasions with representatives from the nobility and the peasantry were not uncommon. Often social hierarchy was manifested in audience-like arrangements. Over the period studied it is clear, however, that a mastery of more informal salon manners was a road to inclusion into higher circles where inherited status was less important. Another apparent change is the lower orders’ appropriation of elite manners. Even on social occasions exclusive to peasants, consumption and conduct took on the marks of elite sociability, such as drinking wine and wearing political signs on one’s clothing. Political loyalties became increasingly important in social life at the expense of social standing.

Diet sociability altered political identities, especially among the lower orders. When looking for the causes of the social upheaval in the later part of the Age of Liberty we should not only study parliamentary sessions or the press, but look closer at the informal meeting places where social divisions had long been questioned.