State-formation, Public Resistance and Nation-building in Scandinavia in the Era of Revolution and Napoleon, 1789–1815

Abstract

The revolutionary era in Europe, beginning with the age of Enlightenment and the War of American Independence, culminated with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic epoch (1789–1815). In this period the map of Scandinavia, together with northern Europe, changed fundamentally. Modern Europe, as we know it today, was beginning to take shape. For the Nordic countries and peoples, this era of state formation and nationbuilding was of crucial importance and its structural effects remain with us to this day. In 1809–10 following the loss of Finland to Russia, Sweden elected a Danish prince, Karl August, as heir-apparent in an attempt to form a greater Scandinavian state. The Scandinavian dream collapsed, however, when Karl August died suddenly in 1810 and events took another course. Instead, Scandinavia emerged in 1815 as four Nordic nations ruled by three monarchs: Sweden and Norway, Denmark, and Finland under the Russian Tsar. The established dynasties of the Vasas and Oldenburgs were replaced in Sweden/Norway and Finland with the Bernadottes and Romanovs respectively, though the Oldenburgs weathered the storm in Denmark.