Scandinavia – a historical perspective

Scandinavia – a historical perspective

This is the story of a small, unpopulated region of the world called Scandinavia 1 . It is not a long story, so it will not take so much. Again, the events of a region cannot be studied in isolation, but as part of a major globe history. After the Ice Age was finished, the flat lands of Denmark and the south of Sweden became inhabitable. Tribal reindeer hunters occupied the region, making the most of the forests. Farming and cattle herding began in the Neolithic period. Isolated from the world, the Bronze Age began fairly late in Scandinavia. Iron was on found 500 BC, much later than in other regions. In the year 9 AD, the Roman expansion towards north was stopped in the forests of North-West Germany. A Germanic tribal confederation annihilated the Roman army, hurting it’s prestige. The borders between Germany, Scandinavia and the Roman Empire went between the Rhine and the Donau rivers. This situation encouraged Scandinavian migrations and military campaigns southwards, in what were know are the “Germanic invasions”, a threat to the northern borders of the roman empire. The Key to the story is this: the border drawn between the Germanic region and the Roman empire. These two very different schemes maintain their cultural differences, even today. In the period until the year 800, the population grew rapidly in the Germanic region, giving start to the Viking age. 

The Viking age spread from the year 800 – 1100. The Vikings were people from Scandinavia, modern day Norway, Sweden and Denmark who sailed around the North Atlantic and occasionally the Baltic region and North America, raiding, trading and spreading their influence during the Viking Age, between 750 and 1100. They were great seamen; they were able to cross the Atlantic without the aid of a compass or triangular sails. They were fearsome warriors, although their reputation as bloodthirsty wild men was exaggerated. In Norse mythology though, you are supposed to die in battle as a courageous warrior in order to reach Valhalla. In order to become “fearless”, Viking consumed mushrooms which has a narcotic effect which made them enter a sort of “berserk” state when going into battle. I would assume that is where they got their “violent” reputation from. Viking expeditions were a mixture of raiding for booty, trading for goods, and eventually searching for land to settle on. They were primarily agriculturalists, and when they settled in places like Iceland or Greenland it was to grow crops and raise cattle. The Icelanders sagas describe Viking travels and adventures in the 10th and 11th centuries. At the beginning of the Viking age, the Vikings’ primary interaction with the rest of Europe was through raiding, primarily on the coast. The city of Bergen was actually Norway’s main city until the 1800s, when Christiania (now Oslo), took it’s place. The earliest recorded Viking targets were often monasteries, since they were filled with treasures and were unguarded. The goal was gaining wealth in the form of usable agricultural land, since there wasn’t enough back home. In England, where the Vikings established a territory called the Danelaw, there was a hybridization between the Britons and the Scandinavians, whereas in Normandy and Russia were Vikings were a minority they blended with the dominant culture. In Greenland and Iceland, Scandinavian culture came to dominate. Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands and Scandinavia were all tied together by trade. Dublin was turned into a centre of trade, until the Dubliners kicked the Vikings out of the region. Due to the lack of female population in Iceland, the Icelanders often travelled to Ireland and Scotland, kidnapped women and took them as slaves. The eventual success and influence of the Vikings was really about settlements and the exchange of goods and in the process, the exchange of cultures. However open they could appear when outside their region, Scandinavian culture has never received outsiders well. Scandinavian tribes are ruled in a sort of “ancient tribal democracy”. Decisions are made by consensus but take a long time. A person that is a leader in a circle becomes like everybody else in another context. This cultural behaviour is maintained even today.

The Viking age ended with the appearance of Christianity in the 1100s. The period from 1100 – 1349 was extreme good for Norway and Scandinavia. The bible was 2 introduced in Danish, although only noble people and priests could read. The spoken language was still Icelandic (Old Norse), which is what the dialects in the west coast are based on. But in 1349 the Black Pest whipped out almost half of the population. Because they lived in the cities and had contact with the sick, the priests and noble men were the most affected. It was then that Norway became a land of “farmers”, meaning the people who survived the Black Pest were people living in farms herding cattle. Since Norway had no means to sustain itself, it underwent a union with Denmark. This was known as the Kalmar union, a series of personal unions that united Denmark, Norway and Sweden under a single monarch. The countries had given up their sovereignty but not their independence. It was dissolved in 1523. Norway continued until Danish rule, whereas Sweden followed it’s own path. The Protestant Reformation came to Scandinavia in the 1530s, and Scandinavia became a Lutheran region. 

Sweden expanded it’s territories through several wars with Poland, Denmark, Norway and German countries. An influx of immigrants from Germanic countries helped Stockholm develop in the 1600s. Not so big in size, the Swedish navy was ultra-effective being able to counter the larger polish army. Sweden expanded itself all the way into Finland, which is why West Finland is even today Swedish influenced and partly Swedish speaking.

 In 1814, Norway broke it’s union with Denmark, when the first constitution was signed. However, it could not yet become independent, entering a union with Sweden. The Norwegian constitutional rights were kept, but the monarchy in place was Swedish. Finally, in 7 June 1905, Norway became independent. The new King was Danish though, and became to be known as Haakon VII. The region of Finland went into war against Sweden and separated from them, but became the Grand Duchy of Finland within the Imperial Russia. Only in 1917 did it become independent. Many Scandinavians emigrated to Canada, the United States, Australia, Africa, and New Zealand during the later nineteenth century. The main wave of Scandinavian emigration occurred in the 1860s lasting until the 1880s, although substantial emigration continued until the 1930s. The vast majority of emigrants left from the countryside in search of better farming and economic opportunities. Together with Finland and Iceland, almost a third of the population left in the eighty years after 1850. Part of the reason for the large exodus was the increasing population caused by falling death rates, which increased unemployment. Norway had the largest percentage of emigrants and Denmark the least. Between 1820 and 1920 just over two million Scandinavians settled in the United States. One million came from Sweden, 300,000 from Denmark, and 730,000 from Norway. The figure for Norway represents almost 80% of the national population in 1800. A least known fact is that thousands of Scandinavian migrated as well to South America. Countries like Argentina received thousands of swedes and danes, but also norwegians. They established themselves in Lutheran communities, achieving high levels of integration with the locals. All three countries developed social welfare states in the early to mid-20th century. This came about partially because of the domination of the social-democrats in Sweden and Denmark, and the Labour party in Norway. The Nordic countries established the Nordic Council in 1952 and the Nordic passport union two years later. After a 1972 referendum, Denmark became the first Scandinavian member of the European Economic Community, which later paved the way for the EU, in 1973. Sweden joined the EU in 1995, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Norway remains outside the European Union to this day after referendums on membership in 1972 and 1994, although it is a signatory of the Schengen treaty and a member of the European Economic Area. None of the Scandinavian countries (except Finland) have joined the Euro. We can see how the European Union has not even come together yet as a region, and the Nordics have never yet quite joined it. We can also now easily understand the “three Europes”, which I am constantly mentioning: “Roman Europe”, which is the countries that were at some point under the influence of the Roman Empire; “Germanic Europe”, which started as Germanic tribes in the Germanic region which later occupied Scandinavia; and “Slavic Europe”, which spreads through parts of central Europe and Eastern Europe, including the Russian Empire and countries that speak Slavic languages. With this historical overview, it will be easier to understand the goal of my research.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Scandinavia
http://freya.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/?page_id=481