SWEDEN 21 Aug 2010 Sweden celebrates 200th anniversary of House of Bernadotte

On 21 Aug 1810, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, a celebrated marshal of France under Napoleon, was elected crown prince of Sweden. Regarded as a traitor by France, he took the name Charles XIV, King of Sweden and Norway. The dynasty he founded still reigns in Sweden. All Sweden will celebrate the bicentenary of the election. A Norwegian source speculates that Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia will attend the main celebration on Aug 21 in Örebro, where the election took place.

The House of Bernadotte reigned in both Sweden and Norway until 1905. Oslo, the capital of the other Bernadotte kingdom, plans bicentenary celebrations, according to Norwegian historian Trond Noren Isaksen. He says that Pau, the French town where Bernadotte was born in 1763, also plans to celebrate the bicentenary.

An art exhibition featuring some 400 works of art depicting various Bernadotte rulers begins at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm on Sep 29. After the show closes in Sweden in Jan 2011, it travels to Fontainebleau Palace outside Paris and to the State Hermitage in St Petersburg.

Several Bernadotte palaces will be opened to the public for the bicentenary, and an exhibition that focuses on the election, “Bernadotte och Örebro,” began in Örebro on May 15.

TV4 recently announced that their documentary series on the Bernadotte dynasty, made by Gregor Nowinski, will be broadcast in six parts starting in April 2010. The series begins with the Crown Princess and her now husband and then travel backwards in time through the dynasty’s 200 years, according to historian Isaksen. (Last updated Jul 2010)

RELATED READING:

Bernadotte biography (Napoleon.org)
http://www.napoleon.org/en/reading_room/biographies/files/bernadotte.asp

Bicentenary events (Trond Noren Isakson)
http://trondni.blogspot.com/2009/09/more-on-bernadotte-bicentenary.html