Ingrid is studying WW1 at school, and her teacher had recommended the class to visit the Army Museum to learn more. She asked for company, so I went with her to the museum.
The permanent exhibition was much smaller than I had expected given the teacher’s express recommendation. And it was very much about the army and its experience of the war, rather than about the bigger picture, the whys and the wherefores. Still, well presented and rather interesting, and we learned things. About the breakneck pace of technical innovation during the war, for example. And that guns are heavy.
We breezed through the rest of the 20th century and didn’t visit the section about older history at all. What we did spend time on, though, was a very topical temporary exhibition about historical relationships between Sweden and Ukraine.
I had no idea that there were such close ties between the royal families, and important political alliances. Starting Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter of a Swedish king, marrying the Grand Prince of Kiyv, which I had never heard about. Then Karl XII allying with Ukrainian leader Ivan Mazepa against Peter I of Russia – what I remember about the Great Northern War from my years in Swedish school is all about Sweden warring against Russia, with Ukraine coming up only tangentially as the place where the battle of Poltava took place. (And the parts of GNW that were discussed during my Estonian schooling were mostly those that took part in Estonia, i.e. the battle of Narva, and the fact that it brought with it the end of the “good old Swedish days” and the passing of Estonian territory from Swedish rule to Russian.)
I also (re-)learned that Gammalsvenskby, an old village in Ukraine of people of Swedish heritage, was originally settled by Estonian Swedes from Dagö/Hiiumaa. Sadly most of the village has been destroyed now in the war.