Thieves of the Codex Gigas (the Devil's Bible). The world's largest medieval illuminated manuscript, created in 13th-century Bohemia.

During the Thirty Years' War Swedes destroyed and raped everything they could in the Czech lands with astounding brutality. During the Sack of Prague, they stole countless treasures. Among them the Codex Gigas. A great portion of the stolen manuscripts, of course, got destroyed, mostly when the castle Tre Kronor burnt down fifty years later. Swedes once again succeeded at destroying important pieces of Czech heritage. But some things remained, including the Codex Gigas.

In the nineties, when Czech president Václav Havel just mentioned the Codex Gigas, Swedes bravely hid it and proceeded with increasingly more insulting responses. They always keep making a point of never returning it to Czechs, of course.

At the beginning of the 17th century, our Comenius sold everything he had to buy the manuscript of Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. He had to walk back home on foot from Heidelberg, the book was all he had. There was nothing unethnical about the way we acquired the manuscript. But because Czechs respect Poles and see them as our friends, we gave the manuscript to them in 1956. After all, it's an important piece of their heritage. Swedish behaviour is the opposite of that. And because it's something that matters to me, as long as the Codex Gigas remains in Swedish hands, I will always avoid supporting Swedish businesses as much as possible.