Why a podcast called A Flatpack History of Sweden?
A Flatpack History of Sweden started life in London in early 2020. We are a long form history podcast, which goes through Swedish history chronologically, looking at the story of this Nordic nation from when the first humans arrived here, all the way up to the modern day. For example, it took over 40 regular episodes to get to the end of the 1200s. We moved to Stockholm in the autumn of 2020 and so now have access to a lot more historical documents, sites and places to include in our episodes!
We release an episode every other Sunday and take our time going through each decade, period or era in detail, summarising current and past historical research in a light-hearted way. We don’t cover just one ruler or battle in an episode, the scope of each release varies with how much we have to talk about each week. However, we try to keep the episodes between 35 and 70 minutes long if we can!
There are certainly a lot of funny instances and stories to laugh about along the way! These include battle cows taking to the field in a conflict between Viking kings, arrogant rulers taking a lot for granted, and ridiculous stories of exaggerated revenge in the land of the Rus. That is before we start counting some of the more embellished historical accounts or Sagas of the earlier periods.
Occasionally we release special episodes on one off events or themes from more modern Swedish history, focusing on the last 100 years or so. These are things we come across in our every day lives in Sweden or something that comes up because of recent anniversaries, such as the 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. We cover these things on an adhoc basis, whenever we find something interesting! We release these as we go, seeing as it will quite likely be a number of years or decades until we reach the 20th century in our main narrative…
Please note, this is a free podcast with no adverts or Patreon/Patron programme. We currently have no plans to introduce either of the above and our special episodes are released on the regular feed.
GET IN TOUCH!
We love it when people get in touch, about a Swedish phrase of the week, a story they enjoyed, something they would like to see covered or even with questions about what we have talked about!