The Nordic Countries Face a Colonial Reckoning

Abstract

In recent years, all four Scandinavian countries have been urged to reckon with their histories of dominion over and injustices committed against Arctic Indigenous Peoples and Finnic-speaking minorities on their territories. Within the past six years, truth commissions and historical inquiries have been set up in all four. With a special focus on public history and different parts of the former Danish colonial realm, this article examines both the long-term and short-term histories of injustices in Scandinavia and Greenland, and how indigenous and minority representatives have pushed governments and parliaments to act.