Russia annexes Sweden (Young Caps)

OK I was reading a general history of Europe and came across the assertion that there were very real fears for a while in Sweden that Russia intended to annex them, having foisted its claimant on them as king, and working towards some Russificiation through heavy subsidies to those in the estates who favoured them.

How could this have advanced until Russia did actually annex Sweden, even if it follows a longer term road of puppetising them first a la Poland?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
I think an annexation is unlikely - the peasants fear Russian serfdom more than anything, the priests reject orthodoxy and there are quite a few who want territory back from the Russians among the nobility.

You have to remember that the French were funding the Hat party on the other side, and that there were independent members of the Riksdag (Anders Chydenius being a notable such riksdagsman).

I suspect the Russians would try to control the government like they did in Poland, and that a coup along the lines of Gustav III's will happen, and that a war will result. If the Swedes manage to fight the Russians to a standstill, like OTL, the Russians will look elsewhere.
 
Yes, that is wrong. While a small minority of the army wanted it (as a way to achieve a quick and easy peace), and the Stora Daldansen peasants and mountainmen partially attached themselves to it when they rose in revolt, it was a small clique that wanted it - he was never officially named heir - and the whole thing died out immediately when he became the heir in Russia. The revolters then attached themselves to Fredrik (later Fredrik V of Denmark).
 
What little information I have at hand says that he was chosen successor by all four estates in Sweden in October 1742, and that this became impossible only because he, by time he was informed, had converted from Lutheranism to Greek/Russian Orthodoxy, due to being appointed Russian successor.

If the Swedes had disregarded the Lutheran stuff, they could have chosen the Russian Czar for Swedish King in 1809, instead. He was brother in law to the just deposed king, and also a descendant of Charles XI, and recently elected Grand Duke of Finland, so he already held part of Sweden.
 
There might have been negotiations for it - but there was no official gathering of the estates to proclaim it.
 
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