Karlskrona

Karlskrona
Fredrikskyrkan in Karlskrona, at the market square
Coat of arms
Country	Sweden
Municipality	Karlskrona Municipality
County	Blekinge County
Province	Blekinge
Charter	1680
Area
• Total	21.36 km2 (8.25 sq mi)
Population  (2007-09-30)
• Total	62.318
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)

Naval Port of Karlskrona

UNESCO World Heritage Site
Criteria	Cultural: ii, iv
Reference	871
Inscription	1998 (22nd Session)

Karlskrona is a city in south-eastern Sweden. It is the seat of Karlskrona Municipality and of Blekinge County. Karlskrona is known as Sweden's only baroque city and is host to Sweden's only remaining naval base.

Geography

The city centre is located on the islet of Trossö. The islet of Stumholmen was formerly property of the Navy and today it houses the National Naval Museum.

History

The city was founded in 1680 when the Royal Swedish Navy was relocated there. Its name is derived from King Charles XI of Sweden and means Charles's Crown.

Heliga Trefaldighetskyrkan (Holy Trinity Church), or Tyska Kyrkan (The German Church), also at the market square

The buildings that were built at the foundation of Karlskrona in the 17th and early 18th century are still standing. Fredrikskyrkan (The Frederick church) was designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, who was influenced by European architecture. The foundation of that church were laid in 1720, and it was inaugurated in 1744. It differs from usual Swedish churches in its yellow color and its adornment.

The church Heliga Trefaldighetskyrkan (Church of Holy trinity), also called The German Church, was built between 1697-1709, following Tessin's drawings. It is likewise located at the market square in the centre core. The dome-shaped roof takes its influence from Italian architecture and is rarely seen on Swedish churches.

The third city church is the Karlskrona Admiralty Church (Amiralitetskyrkan). The church was built in 1685 in red-painted wood. Outside the church there is a well-known statue called "Rosenbom".

The shipyard in Karlskrona was established almost at the same time as the city. It was a necessity because of the heavy losses the Swedish Navy had suffered in 1689. In 1711, the shipyard was Sweden's largest industrial employer with 1,100 workers. In 1750, Karlskrona had about 10,000 inhabitants, a high number for a Swedish city at that time. The oldest dock, the Polhem dock, is cut in the cliff itself and is still in use today. It also got its name from Christopher Polhem ("The Swedish DaVinci", a man with several inventions still in use to day that originate from his designs).

The city has also kept its street structure since its foundation. Since the streets all follow a vertical/horizontal pattern the winds can blow freely from the ocean right into the heart of the city.

The naval installations there has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 1981 the Soviet submarine U137 stranded in the archipelago just outside Karlskrona. This triggered a serious situation between Sweden and the Soviet Union at the time. Despite speculation the incident was most likely caused by heavy alcohol consumption.

Today

The most important day in Karlskrona is the day before midsummers eve. On that day a big fair takes place and attracts tens of thousands to visit Karlskrona. The fair is called Lövmarknaden (The Leaf fair) and is very popular among the locals.

The main square of Karlskrona is the biggest in Scandinavia, and actually the second biggest in Europe, after the Red Square of Moscow.

Every year in late July/early August a popular festival called The Sail takes place in the harbor of Karlskrona. Usually it is a place where families go to have something to eat and drink, and perhaps watch the sailing boats lined up at the pier. During the sail, the seascouts of Karlskrona will row a boat carrying torches along the docks while playing the national anthems for the visiting ships.

Parishes

• Karlskrona City Parish (from 10 August 1680)
• Karlskrona German Parish (from 10 August 1680 to 1 November 1846)
• Karlskrona Prisoner's Parish (from 1808 to 4 July 1866)
• The Mosaic Parish in Karlskrona (around 1785 to 1994)
• Royal Karlskrona Admiralty Parish (from 1681, a non-territorial parish)

The Mosaic Parish in Karlskrona, Mosaiska församlingen i Karlskrona, were founded in 1785 by the jewish merchant and facory owner Fabian Philip. He had arrived to Karlskrona in 1779 or 1780 via Stockholm from his native town of Bützow in Germany. Jews were not allowed to settle in Sweden until 1779 and 1782 the Comercial College of the Swedish Governement stated that Jews were only allowed to settle in the three major citys of Stockholm, the Capital, Gothenburg, the principal naval trade city, and Norrköping, the principal industrial city. But Fabian Philip were situated in Karlskrona, the principal naval base, and the second largest city of Sweden. He had made an offer to the Head of the Swedish navy and the Archipelago fleet, Supreem Admiral Henric af Trolle, that Fabian Philip could build a factory in Karlskrona and produce sails for the Navy, cheaper than what the navy in the precence bought the sails from Gothenburg. Trolle liked the idea and proposed it for the king Gustav III, who gave his promission for the jew Fabian Philip to stay in Karlskrona even though the law did not approve it. Henric af Trolle died in 1784 and the merchants in Karlskrona tried to get rid of Fabian Philip by writing to the king, but the successor of Trolle, Supreem Admiral Carl August Ehrensvärd, were of the same oppinion as his late predecessor. From 1785 thanks to that Fabian Philip had fullfilled his agreement with the Navy and founded and built the Sail factory in Karlskrona, more exactly in Lyckeby 10 kilometers north of the city, there were a public exeption for Fabian Philip and his family to stay in Karlskrona from Comercial Colleges statement of where jews were allowed to stay in Sweden. The Mosaic Parish of Karlskrona was the fourth Jewish parish in Sweden after three first approved settlement citys. The first name of the parish was the Jewish parish, but when the jews living in Sweden were made Swedish citicens of the Mosaic faith, they were not considered as jews by the Governement any more, all the jewish parishes in Sweden were renamed Mosaic Parishes. 1951 when it was made allowed in Sweden by law to be unorganised according to faith, most Mosaic Parishes in Sweden was by own will renamed Jewish Parishes, but not the parish in Karlskrona, wich kept the old name of the Mosaic Parish in Karlskrona. In the year of 1994 it was decided that the Mosaic Parish in Karlskrona should not be closed but placed in a mode of resting, though the members had become old and it was hard gather a Minjan. But when the day comes and there are jews enough to gather a Minjan and there's a will of obtaining a Parish, the Mosaic Parish of Karlskrona can be brought back from it's state of resting.

Education

• Blekinge Institute of Technology
• Hyper Island

See also

• U 137
• Swedish Coast Guard

The Mosaic Parish of Karlskrona

Mosaiska församlingen i Karlskrona under senare delen av 1800-talet - en församling i förändring by Harry R:son Svensson, 2001

'Familjen har aldrig assimilerats, den har alltid varit en del av Karlskrona' - Det karlskronitiska samhället och dess invånare av judisk härkomst 1779-1945 - en annan assimilationshistoria by Harry R:son Svensson, 2007

External links

• Karlskrona Municipality - Official site
• Mitt Karlskrona Local news, weather forecast, events and TV-guide.
• The Naval City of Karlskrona
• The Naval Port of Karlskrona
• The Karlskrona site in the Swedish Wikipedia
• Template:Sv icon article Karlskrona (from online version of Nordisk familjebok)

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