ABSTRACT
Sweden and Denmark-Norway experienced a degree of freedom of the press at the beginning of the 1770s that was quite unusual compared with much of continental Europe. But the context differed in the two countries. While the limited abolition of censorship in Sweden in 1766 was rooted in a political system in which the Diet played a major role, the unlimited abolition of censorship in Denmark-Norway was declared like a bolt from the blue in September 1770 during the reign of an absolute monarch, King Christian VII (1766-1808). The declaration of freedom of the press marked the beginning of a development that brought a deepening political crisis of absolutism in Denmark-Norway into the open.
