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The Academy of Turku During the Last Century of Swedish Rule (1720–1809)

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The chapter begins by describing the University of Turku as an academic community in the estate-based society of the Kingdom of Sweden, which had lost its status as a Great Power. The author explains the kinship system, born in the seventeenth century, which served to strengthen academic communities both ideologically and economically. Ties of kinship increased ideological cohesion and the sense of a scholarly community both in good and in bad: they were the channel through which books, clothes, and traditions were passed on; however, the kinship system also increased the risk of closedness and inbreeding.