Queen Silvia of Sweden explained

Consort:yes
Silvia
Succession:Queen consort of Sweden
Reign:19 June 1976 – present
Issue:
Birth Name:Silvia Renate Sommerlath
Father:Walther Sommerlath
Mother:Alice Soares de Toledo
Birth Date:23 December 1943
Birth Place:Heidelberg, Germany
Signature:Signature of Queen Silvia of Sweden.png

Silvia (born Silvia Renate Sommerlath; 23 December 1943) is Queen of Sweden as the wife of King Carl XVI Gustaf. She has held this title since her marriage to Carl Gustaf in 1976. The king and queen have three children: Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Carl Philip, and Princess Madeleine.

Childhood and parentage

Silvia Renate Sommerlath was born in Heidelberg, Germany, on 23 December 1943,[1] the only daughter of Alice (née Soares de Toledo) and Walther Sommerlath. Her father was German and her mother was Brazilian.[2]

She has one older brother: Ralf Sommerlath (born 1929). Her other brothers were Walther Sommerlath, who died in 2020, and Jörg Sommerlath, who died in 2006. The Mother-Child House Jörg Sommerlath in Berlin, operated by Queen Silvia's World Childhood Foundation,[3] is named after her brother.

She attended grammar school in Düsseldorf, finishing her Abitur in 1963; and attended the Munich School of Interpreting from 1965 to 1969, majoring in Spanish.[1]

She has some fluency in Swedish Sign Language, a national sign language used by the deaf community in Sweden.[4] She is a trained interpreter and Swedish is her sixth language. She speaks her native German, her mother's language of Portuguese, as well as French, Spanish, and English.

Marriage and family

See main article: Wedding of Carl XVI Gustaf and Silvia Sommerlath.

During the 1972 Summer Olympics, Silvia Sommerlath met Crown Prince Carl Gustaf. At the time, she was leading a marketing campaign for the city of Munich. Sommerlath and the other Olympic hostesses wore sky-blue dirndls to promote Bavarian cultural identity.[5] [6] [7] [8] After the death of King Gustaf VI Adolf on 15 September 1973, Carl XVI Gustaf succeeded to the throne.

He and Silvia announced their engagement on 12 March 1976 and were married three months later, on 19 June 1976 in Stockholm Cathedral ("Storkyrkan Cathedral") in Stockholm.[9] It was the first marriage of a reigning Swedish monarch since 1797. The wedding was preceded, the evening before, by a Royal Variety Performance, where the Swedish musical group ABBA performed "Dancing Queen" for the very first time, as a tribute to Sweden's future queen.

The King and Queen of Sweden have three children and eight grandchildren:

In February 2021, Silvia was taken to hospital after she fractured her right wrist in a fall.[10]

Father's Nazi links

In July 2002, the Queen became the subject of international curiosity when an article published in the syndicalist newspaper Arbetaren reported that German state archives record that the Queen's father, Walther Sommerlath, joined the Nazi party's foreign wing, the NSDAP/AO, in 1934, when he was living in Brazil and working for a German steel company.[11] In December 2010, Queen Silvia wrote a letter of complaint to Jan Scherman, the CEO of TV4, the network that had aired a documentary about her father's alleged Nazi past.[12]

Queen Silvia commissioned a report from World War II expert Erik Norberg, a choice that was criticised due to Norberg having ties to the royal family. In his report, Norberg argued that the Queen's father had in fact helped the owner of the steel-fabrication plant, a Jewish businessperson, escape from Germany by taking over the factory.[13] In a December 2011 interview for Sweden's public service broadcaster Sveriges Television, Silvia called the media's handling of the information about her father "character assassination".[14]

Charity involvement

Queen Silvia established Mentor International in 1994 in collaboration with the World Health Organization. Her vision was to offer mentoring as inspiration, empowerment, and motivation for young people to make healthy life choices and view their futures more positively. Mentor's work has been recognized by the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime, the Organization of American States, and the Council of Europe. She is now an honorary board member of Mentor Foundation.[15]

She was also a co-founder of the World Childhood Foundation in 1999, having been inspired by her work as Patron of the first World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children held in Stockholm.[16] She has also been involved in the Global Child Forum, which she helped initiate, as a keynote speaker in several forums.[17] [18]

Her commitment to the work with dementia and the care of the elderly at the end of life is also well known and respected. On her initiative, Silviahemmet was established in Stockholm. It works to educate hospital personnel in how to work with people suffering from dementia, and also initiates research in the area.[19]

She chairs the Royal Wedding Fund, which supports research in sports and athletics for disabled young people[20] and the Queen Silvia Jubilee Fund for research on children and disability.[20]

Queen Silvia holds honorary positions in the Swedish Amateur Athletic Association, the Children's Cancer Foundation of Sweden and Save the Children Sweden.[20]

Honours and arms

See also: List of honours of the Swedish Royal Family by country.

National

Royal Name:Queen Silvia
Dipstyle:Her Majesty
Offstyle:Your Majesty

Foreign

Awards

Honorary doctorates

Queen Silvia has been awarded a number of honorary doctorates, most recently for her work on dementia.

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Biography – Sveriges Kungahus. Kungahuset.se. 9 February 2012. sv. 11 January 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20120111105209/http://www.kungahuset.se/royalcourt/royalfamily/hmqueensilvia/biography.4.396160511584257f2180002273.html. dead.
  2. News: Weinraub . Bernard . Swedish King's Fiancee: Silvia Renate Sommerlath . The New York Times . 10 January 2021 . March 15, 1976.
  3. Web site: Startpage. Childhood. 9 February 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20120209200840/http://www.childhood.org/eng/. 9 February 2012. dead.
  4. Web site: Essener LVR-Schule zu Gast bei Königin Silvia von Schweden. 8 April 2009. 7 April 2010. de. Students of an LVR School in Essen visit Queen Silvia of Sweden. https://web.archive.org/web/20100425002047/http://www.taubenschlag.de/meldung/4478. 25 April 2010. dead.
  5. News: Dirndl, Dress of Past, Makes a Comeback in Bavaria. Eddy. Melissa. The New York Times. 28 September 2013. 9 May 2020. en-US.
  6. News: Die Macht der Tracht. Gerlach. Franziska. Süddeutsche Zeitung. 4 September 2015. 13 August 2020. de.
  7. News: The Devil Wears a Dirndl. Horn. Heather. The Atlantic. 20 September 2015. 13 May 2020. en-US.
  8. News: Typisch Oktoberfest? Darum gehört ein Dirndl eigentlich nicht auf die Wiesn. Strassmair. Michaela. www.focus.de. September 2019. 2020-05-09. de.
  9. News: Swedish Monarch Marries German as 150,000 Turn Out . Kilborn . Peter . 20 June 1976 . The New York Times . 26 April 2017 . 3 .
  10. Web site: Queen Silvia of Sweden injured after accident at home. Hello!. Danielle. Stacey. 15 February 2021. 17 February 2021.
  11. News: Swedish queen's family 'made fortune from Jewish factory seized by Nazis'. https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/8174045/Swedish-queens-family-made-fortune-from-Jewish-factory-seized-by-Nazis.html . 12 January 2022 . subscription . live. Berlin. Allan Hall in. The Daily Telegraph . en. 23 January 2017.
  12. News: Silvia klagade på naziprogram – i brev till TV 4:s vd. Aftonbladet. 31 December 2010.
  13. News: Swedish queen's report denies father had Nazi links. BBC News. 9 August 2011. 7 April 2016.
  14. Åter med kungafamiljen, SVT, 29 December 2011.
  15. Web site: ECEB Mentoring – A mentoring programme in the spotlight: Mentor International. www.ecebmentoring.eu. 29 August 2019. 29 August 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190829135618/https://www.ecebmentoring.eu//pageid%3D2027/articleid%3D2014/A_mentoring_programme_in_the_spotlight_Mentor_International.html. dead.
  16. Web site: Startpage . Childhood . 9 February 2012 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120224051329/http://www.childhood.org/eng/pages.asp?r_id=14232 . 24 February 2012 .
  17. Web site: Queen Silvia of Sweden and HRH Princess Haya open Global Child Forum . Emirates News Agency . 23 January 2017 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20170202063402/http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates/1395272404388.html . 2 February 2017 .
  18. Web site: Queen Silvia of Sweden closes Global Child Forum. Persson. Joakim. 10 May 2016. ScandAsia. en-GB. 29 August 2019.
  19. Web site: History. Silvia Hemmet.
  20. Web site: Queen Silvia – Royal Engagements. Kungahuset. 28 July 2020. 24 October 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201024031411/https://www.kungahuset.se/royalcourt/royalfamily/hmqueensilvia/royalengagements.4.396160511584257f2180004096.html. dead.
  21. Web site: Reply to a parliamentary question about the Decoration of Honour. de. 551. 28 November 2012.
  22. Web site: Sveriges Kungahus – Sveriges Kungahus. www.kungahuset.se. sv. 29 August 2019.
  23. https://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeni/2013_07_84_1820.html Narodne
  24. Web site: Oversigt over modtagere af danske dekorationer . . Overview of recipients of Danish decorations . 18 February 2022 . da.
  25. Web site: Vabariigi President . President.ee . 7 April 2016.
  26. Web site: Vabariigi President . President.ee . 18 January 2011 . 7 April 2016.
  27. http://www.kungahuset.se/kungafamiljen/aktuellahandelser/2011/2011/galamiddagforestlandspresidentparpakungligaslottet.5.40e05eec12926f26304800021375.html Swedish Royal Website
  28. Web site: Bayerische Staatszeitung .
  29. http://www.royalcourt.se/kungafamiljen/aktuellahandelser/2008/2008arkiv/galamiddagpakungligaslottet.5.36df73941192994694f80005284.html Gala dinner
  30. Web site: Fálkaorðuhafar . Falkadb.forseti.is . 26 October 1981 . 7 April 2016 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160313142726/http://falkadb.forseti.is/orduskra/fal03.php?sub=leita&term=sylvia . 13 March 2016 .
  31. Italian Presidency website, S.M. Silvia la Regina di Svezia, Cavaliere di Gran Croce Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italian
  32. Web site: Par Atzinības krusta piešķiršanu – Latvijas Vēstnesis. vestnesis.lv. www.vestnesis.lv. lv. 29 August 2019.
  33. Web site: Lietuvos Respublikos Prezidentė . lt . Lrp.lt . 7 April 2016 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140419212238/http://www.lrp.lt/lt/prezidento_veikla/apdovanojimai/apdovanojimai_256/p40.html . 19 April 2014 .
  34. Web site: Lithuanian president: Swedish royal visit is consolidation of bonds between the countries – News in English – LRT . Lrt.lt . 8 October 2015 . 7 April 2016.
  35. http://www.kungahuset.se/kungafamiljen/aktuellahandelser/2008/2008aktuellt/galamiddagpakungligaslottet.5.36df73941192994694f80001449.html Swedish Royal website
  36. Web site: Visite d´Etat en Suède – Cour Grand-Ducale de Luxembourg – Avril 2008 . Monarchie.lu . 15 April 2008 . 7 April 2016.
  37. Web site: Semakan Penerima Darjah Kebesaran, Bintang, dan Pingat Persekutuan..
  38. Portuguese Presidency Website, Orders search form : type "RAINHA SÍLVIA" in "nome", then click "Pesquisar"
  39. http://www.ordens.presidencia.pt/?idc=147&idi=169 Portuguese Presidency
  40. http://canord.presidency.ro/Ord.St.Rom..xls Recipients of Order of the Star of Romania (Excel file)
  41. http://www.ppe-agency.com/preview.php?start=15&id=20431&zoektype=2&search=11-03-2008%20Gala PPE Agency Photo
  42. Web site: III. Otras disposiciones . . 26058 . 9 November 1979 . 11 March 2024 . es.
  43. Web site: Real Decreto 1010/2021, de 16 de noviembre, por el que se concede la Gran Cruz de la Real y Distinguida Orden Española de Carlos III a Su Majestad la Reina Silvia de Suecia . . Royal Decree 1010/2021, of November 16, by which the Grand Cross of the Royal and Distinguished Spanish Order of Carlos III is awarded to Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden . 17 November 2021 . 2 December 2021 . es.
  44. ราชกิจจานุเบกษา, ประกาศสำนักนายกรัฐมนตรี เรื่อง พระราชทานเครื่องราชอิสริยาภรณ์แด่สมเด็จพระราชาธิบดีคาร์ลที่ ๑๖ กุสตาฟ และสมเด็จพระราชินีซิลเวียแห่งราชอาณาจักรสวีเดน, เล่ม 120, ตอน 4 ข, 7 มีนาคม พ.ศ. 2546, หน้า 1
  45. ราชกิจจานุเบกษา. เล่ม 126. ตอน 5 ข. หน้า 1. ประกาศสำนักนายกรัฐมนตรี เรื่อง พระราชทานเครื่องราชอิสริยาภรณ์อันเป็นสิริยิ่งรามกีรติ ลูกเสือสดุดีชั้นพิเศษ และเหรียญลุกเสือสดุดี ประจำปี ๒๕๕๑. https://web.archive.org/web/20090419035521/http://www.ratchakitcha.soc.go.th/DATA/PDF/2552/B/005/1.PDF. dead. 19 April 2009. 18 March 2009. 27 July 2019. th.
  46. Web site: Statsbesök från Tunisien – dag 1 – Sveriges Kungahus . Kungahuset.se . 7 April 2016 . 2 April 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160402203319/http://www.kungahuset.se/kungafamiljen/aktuellahandelser/aktuellt/statsbesokfrantunisiendag1.5.6c3e0b0f150a889bfed3f4.html . dead .
  47. http://zakon1.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/272/99 Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise
  48. Web site: Photographic image . JPG . Content.foreningshuset.se . 7 April 2016.
  49. Web site: Photographic image . JPG . Content.foreningshuset.se . 7 April 2016.
  50. Web site: Ehrenpreisträger | Deutscher Nachhaltigkeitspreis . https://web.archive.org/web/20161020080848/https://www.nachhaltigkeitspreis.de/category/preistraeger/006_ehrenpreistraeger/#intern . 20 October 2016 .
  51. Web site: Kunniatohtorit 1990. University of Turku. 2015-07-07. https://web.archive.org/web/20150709225649/http://www.utu.fi/fi/sivustot/promootio/kunniatohtorit/Sivut/kunniatohtorit-1990.aspx. 2015-07-09.
  52. Web site: Karolinska Institutet Medicine hedersdoktorer 1910-2013. Karolinska Institute. 2015-07-07 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150501122820/http://ki.se/sites/default/files/hedersdoktorer_130522.pdf. 2015-05-01.
  53. Web site: Hedersdoktorer vid Linköpings universitet . . 2015-07-07 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150707132308/https://www.liu.se/om-liu/akademiska-hogtider/tidigare-hedersdoktorer?l=sv . 2015-07-07.
  54. Web site: Fakta om hedersdoktorer. University of Gothenburg. 2015-07-07. https://archive.today/20150707080740/http://medarbetarportalen.gu.se/akademiska_hogtider/doktorspromotion/Hedersdoktorer/Fakta_om_hedersdoktorer/?skipSSOCheck=true&referer=https://www.google.com/. 2015-07-07.
  55. Web site: Queen of Sweden and former Mars CEO honoured by University of Stirling. University of Stirling. 2023-06-28. 2023-12-23.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Queen Silvia of Sweden".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.