ABSTRACT
When Charles, Duke of Södermanland, deposed his nephew King Sigismund from the throne of Sweden in 1599, the implications of this action were much broader than merely a family dispute. Instead, the strategies used by Charles, who became Charles IX, the progression of specific events, and the discourse surrounding these events were crucial elements in the formation of a national Swedish identity with regard to political culture, religion, and even foreign relations. This chapter focuses on an analysis of how exactly an intra-dynastic conflict in the Vasa family led to this construction of national identity, and places it in the wider context of the events in Sweden and Poland-Lithuania of the 1590s. In a time when distinct national identities were beginning to form in the various dynastic states across Europe, the Swedish Charles (IX) had succeeded in ousting the equally Swedish Sigismund from the throne of Sweden by making use of these forces to represent his nephew as a foreigner in his own realm.
