Vasa (ship) - Legacy

Legacy

Vasa has become a popular and widely recognized symbol for a historical narrative about the Swedish stormaktstiden ("the Great Power-period") in the 17th century, and about the early development of a European nation state. Within the disciplines of history and maritime archaeology the wrecks of large warships from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries have received particularly widespread attention as perceived symbols of a past greatness of the state of Sweden. Among these wrecks, Vasa is the single most well-known example, and has also become recognized internationally, not least through a deliberate use of the ship as a symbol for marketing Sweden abroad. The name Vasa itself has in Sweden become synonymous with sunken vessels that are considered to be of great historical importance, and these are usually described, explained and valued in relation to Vasa itself. The Swedish maritime archaeologist Carl-Olof Cederlund, who has been active in the various Vasa-projects, has described the phenomenon as regalskepps-syndromet, "the royal ship syndrome" (after the archaic term used for the largest warships named after the regalia of the Swedish kings). He associates the "syndrome" to a nationalist aspect of the history of ideas and traditional perceptions about hero-kings and glory through war. The focus of this historical theory lies on the "great periods" in "our history" and shares many similarities with the nationalist views of Viking era in the Nordic countries and the praising of Greek and Roman Antiquity in the Western world in general. Cederlund has stressed the ritualized aspects of the widely publicized salvage in 1961 and has compared the modern Vasa Museum with "a temple in the Classical sense of the word". The placement of the museum on Djurgården, traditional crown property, and its focus on "the King's ship" has led him to suggest a description of it as "The Temple of the Royal Ship".