The history of Europe seen from the North

Abstract

The Nordic or Scandinavian countries represent variations on general European patterns of state and nation-building and political culture. Denmark and Sweden rank among the oldest and most typical of nation-states together with France, Britain and Spain and should be studied with the same questions in mind. Today, however, a sort of trans-state common Nordic identity coexists with independent national identifications among the Scandinavians. Nordic unity is regarded as a viable alternative to European culture and integration by large numbers of the populations. There has never existed a ‘Scandinavian model’ worthy of the name ‘model’. Because of a series of changes in great power politics in the 18th and 19th centuries, the major conflicts in Europe were relocated away from Northern Europe. This resulted in a virtual ‘neutralization’ of the Scandinavian countries north of the Baltic Sea. Today, the much promoted ‘Nordic identity’ reveals itself only through the nation-states. The ‘Association for Nordic Unity’ (Foreningerne Norden) was set up in 1919 only after all five Nordic countries had achieved independent nationhood: Norway in 1905, Finland in 1917, and Iceland in 1918 (the latter only as home rule to be followed by independence in 1944). The very different roads to independent nationhood among the Nordic countries and the idea of a common Nordic identity can be traced back to its beginnings in the 19th century