Maxims of a Queen, Christina of Sweden

by Christina of Sweden (Creator)

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46 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1680

About the author

Christina, Queen of Sweden (Drottning Kristina). A member of the House of Vasa, she succeeded her father Gustavus Adolphus (Gustav II Adolf) of Sweden at the age of five.

Reviews

[JHM · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very short book, but as someone who loves Queen Christina, I found it totally enjoyable. As the title makes clear, it's simply a series of "maxims" -- short reminders to herself and statements of belief -- but together they portray a woman who takes her sovereignty, her faith, her duty, and the pursuit of excellence with great seriousness.

Christina has often been portrayed as flighty and/or a deeply romantic figure. The real queen may have been eccentric and unorthodox in many ways -- but she was also a woman of serious intellectual and religious thought.

[Lulu Joanis · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Sapphic, androgynous, a-spec scholar who tried to end wars so she could open a bunch of art venues, and eventually abdicated to start a book club in Rome--she seemed like my kind of gal, and she absolutely is. Plus, she'd probably listen to Swedish death metal like Katatonia and Opeth if she were alive today which makes my heart flutter!

I just wish more primary sources of hers were translated into English; maybe when I grow old in some cloister I'll learn one of her languages, and read about how, in her Autobiography, she celebrated being queer.

These Maxims are a compilation of her aphorisms, only some of which survive after (like Kafka) she ordered them in her will to be burned. Many of the ideas are contradictory, but you get a sense of her thoughts changing according to the events around her--her nervous breakdown, her public shaming for being an autism-spectrum intersex lesbian pacifist, her conversion, her debates with such figures as Descartes who flocked to her and not vise versa--as she abandons certain ideas or doubles down on others. It's touching, and I plan on revisiting them to save some choice quotes in my archive: it's just not what I was looking for.