For all historical consciousness has subject a strong ability to bring dramatic events to life. The Mannerheim Museum in Helsinki is a telling example. Sweden has a less dramatic history in that the core country has been largely untouched by war and revolution over the past 500 years. Stockholm is – apart from Bern – the only European capital that has not experienced revolution, hostile attack or occupation during that period. This means that the objects and buildings bearing history in Sweden are far more numerous than in most other European countries.
But there is another side to the matter. Because national survival has so rarely been questioned, the inspiration from the historical objects has also become weaker. We do not need the heroes of 1718 from Oxdjupet near Vaxholm in the same way that Poland needs the heroes from Westerplatte in 1939.
One of the many lesser-known historical objects is the Poltava Lime from 1700, now in Slätthög. It belonged to the Kronoberg Regiment when it was stationed in the city of Wismar, which became Swedish through the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The North German areas that then became Swedish were part of an international great power game in which Sweden, as an ally of France, could balance the Habsburg sphere of power with a second front. To support this balancing act, the main naval station was moved first to Kalmar-Kvarnholmen and after the Peace of Roskilde in 1658 to Karlskrona.
The Kronoberg regiment – soldiers in the trenches! – was stationed in Wismar because Sweden was the guarantor of Holstein-Gottorp's limited independence. Holstein-Gottorp was a separate duchy but was under Danish suzerainty.
This is where the regiment's communion chalice came into being, with its leather casket still preserved to this day.
The peace with Denmark on 18 August of the same year freed the regiment to participate in the long war against King August of Poland, which ended with the peace of Altranstädt on 14 September 1706.
Throughout this long campaign, the communion chalice was with and used by the regiment's chaplains. One of them is known by the name: Abraham Imberg.
On New Year's in 1707, the regiment broke out against Russia, which had already participated on August's side in the war and had also attacked Finland and the Swedish parts of the Baltics.
The initially successful Swedish attack ended with the Battle of Poltava on 27 June 1709. The Kronoberg regiment celebrated communion with the chalice under the command of Abraham Imberg before the battle. The regiment's task was to protect the main force from attacks and sallies from the city of Poltava, and the Kronobergs also saved the defeated Swedish army's retreat to Perevolochna in a fierce final battle.
Abraham Imberg was killed, but the surviving battalion chaplain took care of the communion chalice. On June 30, the army surrendered at Perevolotchna.
Russia has a high archival culture, and through the documents preserved there, one can follow the fates of the prisoners. Many were taken to Siberia, where Tobolsk – then the capital of Siberia – became a central location.
The treatment of prisoners of war at that time rarely involved detention in guarded prison camps. Most often, the prisoners were allowed to move freely within the place of exile, they were allowed to support themselves and could start families. In Tobolsk, the governor Prince Gagarin gave the Swedish prisoners considerable freedom, which also cost him his life.
In Europe, and especially in Germany, the fate of the imprisoned Carolingians aroused strong interest. Funds and books were sent through Dutch banking firms in Moscow. One book that became particularly important for the prisoners in Tobolsk was Johann Arndt's True Christianity, which had been printed in many editions starting in 1609. This book, one of the most widespread in the Christian revival that came to be called Pietism, became an inspiration among the captive Carolingians. Those who had sent the books and support from Germany were themselves Pietists, and their support even reached the captive Swedish chancellor Carl Piper in his harsh captivity at Nöteborg.
The assistant regimental chaplain, Lars Högberg, was the one who took responsibility for the chalice, and he had been taken to Tobolsk with the other prisoners. There they were allowed to build a church for themselves and the captive women and children, and there he used the chalice when he celebrated communion with them.
Lars Högberg died in Tobolsk in 1712 and was succeeded by Johan Fornell, who survived until the end of the war in 1721 and walked home to Sweden and Småland with the chalice in his knapsack. According to the Carolingian army instructions, he was never allowed to put it down. After returning to Växjö, he returned the chalice to the regiment.
But already during the first years when Johan Fornell and the others had been prisoners, the regiment had been re-established in Sweden with full equipment, including new banners and a new communion chalice. It was this new regiment that took part in the Battle of Helsingborg in 1710, and was then transferred to Pomerania and took part in the victory at Gadebusch on 9 December 1712. Due to lost supplies, Stenbock withdrew into Holstein-Gottorp's well-fortified capital of Tönningen, where he was forced to surrender on 8 May 1713. Together with the rest of the army, the new Kronoberg regiment was now taken prisoner of war until 1718.
The Swedish possessions in northern Germany meant that Sweden was repeatedly drawn into continental conflicts, but the Congress of Vienna in 1814–1815 meant that Pomerania was exchanged for a union with Norway for Sweden. Thus began a long period of peace, and the Kronoberg regiment sold the Poltava chalice to the Slätthög parish in 1826. It is still there and has been used for 200 years at the parish's high masses. On 26 June 2009, a field service with communion was held in the church park in memory of Poltava.