Scandinavia

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The Swedish chemist Carl Vilhelm von Scheele's (1742-86) work on the light sensitivity of silver salts and, in 1777, discovery of the unequal darkening effects of the different colours of the spectrum, brought Scandinavia into the annals of photographic history. Later, excited reports following the announcement of Daguerre's process in Paris in January 1839 were published immediately in Scandinavian newspapers such as Aftonbladet (Stockholm) and Åbo Underrättelser (Turku). By September, the Dane Christian Tuxen Falbe (1791-1849), sponsored by Prince (later King) Christian Frederik, had produced daguerreotypes in Paris. By December, Daguerre's manual, published in late August, had been translated into Swedish, and its publication, by Albert Bonnier, supported by importing daguerreotype kits. A Danish edition appeared in early 1840.

The pioneering Swedish daguerreotypist Lars Jesper Benzelstierna (1809-80) arranged for his own equipment to be brought from Paris in 1839 by the Swedish ambassador, Carl Gustaf Löwenhielm. Collaborating in early 1840 with two employees of the Stockholm Royal Opera, Georg Albert Müller (1803-64) and Ulrik Emanuel Mannerhjerta (1775-1849), Benzelstierna held a first exhibition in September with ‘views of Stockholm … in which even the minutest details could be observed with a microscope’, according to a contemporary newspaper. Similar shows were arranged the same year in Christiania (Oslo), Copenhagen, and Turku. An 1842 daguerreotype by a Finnish pioneer, the physician Henrik Cajander (1804-48), of the Nobel-house in Turku, may be the oldest surviving Scandinavian daguerreotype.

There were also Scandinavian inventions. Hans Thøger Winther (1786-1851), an enterprising Christiania publisher, invented a direct-positive method in June 1839. His 1845 handbook, presenting three paper processes, encouraged the development of amateur photography; Amund Larsen Gulden's (1823-1901) 1846 calotype of his homestead is a fine example.

During the daguerreotype era, photographers were predominantly Scandinavian amateurs—scientists, officers, artists—or enterprising foreign itinerants. The latter toured the region well into the 1870s, even after permanent studios were established in most cities. In 1842, the daguerreotypist Mads Alstrup (1809-76) opened Copenhagen's first photography studio. Johan Wilhelm Bergström (1812-81), perhaps the most aesthetically refined of Scandinavian daguerreotypists, ran the leading studio in Stockholm 1844-54. His portraits of the chemist Berzelius, and of his own wife at her spinning wheel, are among his masterpieces.

Photography now spread rapidly, with portrait studios established in Helsinki, Viborg, Odense, Bodö, Helsingborg, and other cities. In the 1850s, with the wet-plate process supplanting the daguerreotype and the appearance of the carte de visite, the process accelerated. By the mid-1860s, Stockholm counted over 60 permanent studios, Copenhagen over 80, although neither had more than c. 100, 000 inhabitants. Despite a recession in the 1870s, Stockholm continued to have c. 40 studios for the rest of the century.

Many 19th-century studio photographers were female—c.30 per cent, for example, in Denmark. Bertha Valerius (1824-95) and Rosalie Sjöman (1833-19), active from 1860, were among Stockholm's photographic elite. Valerius rose to become a court photographer, well known for a 72-piece photo-mosaic of Parliament and popular composite-printed ‘double’ photographs. Smaller places also saw women joining the new profession: Conda Forssell (1899-1953) in Gumboda in the northern province of Västerbotten, Sweden, Hilda Sjölin (1835-1915) in Malmö, Marie Høeg (1866-1949) in Horten, Norway, Frederikke Federspiel (1839-1913) in Aalborg, Denmark, were locally renowned portraitists. The amateur Lotten von Düben (1828-1915) travelled widely and created early documents of Sami (Lapp) culture.

Photography remained an international enterprise throughout its first century. Of new entrepreneurs in Finland, for example, 40 per cent were outsiders. Similar figures are found across Scandinavia. In 1877, the young Norwegian Daniel Nyblin (1856-1933) opened a studio in the heart of Helsinki. Still in operation, it is Scandinavia's oldest. Itinerants from France, Germany, Russia, and Poland remained common into the late 19th century. While photographers' core clientele was dominated by the upper and middle classes, subject matter continuously expanded. In Aalborg Heinrich Tønnies (1856-1903) documented occupations in carefully staged group portraits; Victor Barsokevitsch (1863-1933) recorded a remarkable cross-section of citizens in Kuopio; and Norwegian- born Mathias Hansen (1823-1905) became Sweden's first court photographer. Johannes Jaeger (1832-1908), Carl de Shàrengrad, and many others exemplified the capable early entrepreneur producing and/or distributing photographs of royalty, actors, city views, or notable events, and expanding the market as they did so.

Scandinavian photographers also worked successfully abroad, including the father of documentary and reformist photography Jacob Riis; John Andersson (1869-1948), who made intimate and powerful portraits of the Sioux in Rosebud, Montana, over a period of 50 years; and the Victorian art photographer Oscar Rejlander. Guillaume Berggren was a prominent photographer in Constantinople, Otto Wegener (1849-1922) in Paris.

Other genres besides portraiture developed. Into Konrad Inha, prospecting for Karelian views, discovered photography as a means of representing Finnish culture. Knud Knudsen's stark yet romantic photographic survey of Norway was matched by Axel Lindahl's (1832-1906) equally encyclopedic project to record the immense vistas of the north, and the vitalist landscape work of Anders Beer Wilse (1865-1949). In Sweden, the topographical work of Gösta Florman and, later, the photographers promoted by Svenska Turistföreningen (Swedish Tourism Association, f. 1895), such as Severin Nilsson (1846-1918) and the amateur Johan Emanuel Thorin (1863-1940), encompassed landscape studies, pastoral scenes, and folkloric and vernacular imagery. The next generation, especially the prolific Carl Gustaf Rosenberg (1883-1957) and the nature photographer Carl Fries (1895-1982), continued to explore the landscape and sites of national significance; as, indeed, did many photographers in the wake of rapid modernization: for example, Axel Rydin (1837-1912) capturing images of Stockholm or Borg Mesch tracing northern Sweden's evolving frontier. Nils Thomasson and Marja Vuorelainen (1911-90) recorded Sami culture from the inside. On a different note, the Dane Mary Willumsen (1884-1961) founded her own postcard genre with her playful seaside photographs of her circle of female friends.

Photography's relationship with the other arts was multi-faceted. Leading fin de siècle artists—Edvard Munch, August Strindberg, Anders Zorn (1860-1920), Hugo Simberg (1873-1917), Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931), and others—were all closely involved with photography, using photographs both as independent means of expression and as material for other works.

Amateur and professional organizations, and photographic periodicals, began appearing from the 1880s onwards, including Dansk Fotografisk Förening (1879), Fotografiska Föreningen (for amateurs, 1888), Svenska Fotografernas Förbund (1895); Nordisk Tidskrift för Fotografi (1888) and Fotografisk Tidskrift (1888).

Dry plates and other late 19th-century innovations strengthened amateur photography. News photography expanded and photographs in the press, with the adoption of the half-tone process, gradually proliferated in the 1890s. Older journals such as Ny Illustrerad Tidning, illustrated by engravings based on photographs, were supplanted by magazines such as the progressive Hver 7 dag. Carl Sandels (1845-1919) and Matti Pitkänen (b. 1930) were among the pioneers of Scandinavian photojournalism.

Pictorialism emerged as photographers aimed for artistic status, and remained dominant well into the 20th century, cultivated by skilled practitioners such as Ferdinand Flodin (1863-1935), Henry Buergel Goodwin (1878-1931), and Anna Marie Knudstrup (1884-1959). As late as 1930, the Danish society Danske Kamera Piktorialister was founded, crusading against modernist tendencies while promoting photography's status as an art form. Herman Hamnqvist (1865-1946) wrote and lectured tirelessly on behalf of the movement. Helmer Bäckström, less involved in ideological causes, pioneered Nordic photographic history, penning numerous articles in Nordisk Tidskrift för Fotografi. Only in the post-war period was he followed by other major figures—Sven Hirn (b. 1925) in Finland, Björn Ochsner (1910-89) in Denmark, and Robert Meyer (b. 1945) in Norway.

Reactions against pictorialism nevertheless appeared in the 1930s and 1940s. Emil Heilborn's (1900-2003) industrial and advertising work in the 1930s transposed Neue Sachlichkeit and Russian productivism/Constructivism into a Scandinavian context prepared by contemporary faith in technology. Eino Mäkinen (1908-87) introduced the soaring diagonal and the high-angle shot to Finland, as did Arne Wahlberg (1905-95) in Stockholm. Keld Helmer-Petersen (b. 1922), a Bauhaus student and pioneer modernist, moved towards abstraction and minimalism in his influential portfolio 122 Colour Photographs (1948).

Movements and opportunities elsewhere in Europe attracted many Scandinavian photographers in the post-war period. Christer Strömholm and Kåre Kivijärvi (1938-91) were drawn to Otto Steinert's fotoform in Saarbrücken, though without losing their own well-formed identities. Tore Johnsson (1928-80), the photojournalist and photohistorian Rune Hassner, and others, chose Paris. In the 1950s and 1960s, New York replaced Paris as the magnet for upcoming photographers. In 1949 Stockholm's Young Photographers circle (Hassner, Johnsson, Sven Gillsäter (b. 1921), Hans Hammarskiöld (b. 1925)) saw themselves as speaking the new international language of photography. Lennart Nilsson also began there, before turning to scientific photography. The Danish Delta Photos (Jesper Høm (1931-2000), Gregers Nielsen (1931-2002), and others), formed in 1950, defended the idea of a specifically photographic aesthetic.

The backbone of Scandinavian photography in this period was a strong, internationally orientated but personally inflected photojournalism: for example, the work of Georg Oddner (b. 1923), Caj Bremer (b. 1929), Ben Kaila (b. 1949), and Krass Clement, the last uncompromisingly confrontational and emotive. A parallel, documentary strand included the writer Ivar Lo-Johansson (1901-90), who produced his ‘social photobooks’ with a group of photographers (Sven Järlås (1913-70), Gunnar Lundh (1896-1960), Tore Johnsson, Anna Riwkin). In 1955 the Sju Fotografer group, led by Sune Jonsson, ethnographer at Västerbottens regional museum, reformulated the very idea of documentary. Jonsson's vast, remarkable oeuvre offered a refined and suggestive documentary model that was inspired by independent image makers like Matti Saanio (b. 1925) or Ismo Hölttö (b. 1940). A more overtly politicized documentary, especially in Sweden and Denmark, dominated the 1960s and 1970s: Jens S. Jensen (b. 1946), Jean Hermansson (b. 1938), Stig T. Karlsson (b. 1930), Pål-Nils Nilsson (b. 1929), Jefferik Stocklassa (b. 1948), and groups such as Ragnarok, 2 May, or Bildaktivisterna. ‘Dig where you are’, a contemporary motto, asserted the photographer's duty to capture the local and the everyday, in particular the workplace. In American Pictures (1977), Jacob Holdt (b. 1947) recapitulated Jacob A. Riis's campaign for social justice. Anders Petersen's (b. 1944) Café Lehmitz (1978), photographed in 1968-9, offered an intimate, sometimes raw picture of life at the margins of society. Likewise, Krass Clement's work seemed to bring photographer and subject disconcertingly close together. Lars Tunbjörk (b. 1956) turned to the middle class and its ennui in his ironic The Country beside Itself. Anders Kristensson (b. 1958) produced large colour portraits of immigrants that undermined the official Swedish and Nordic self- image. Henrik Duncker (b. 1963) and Yrjö Tuunanen (b. 1964) staged documentary photographs of the new Finnish farmer. Jorma Puranen adopted a multi-layered approach to Sami culture and the Arctic landscape.

Landscape photography has remained vital throughout the modern period, although from the 1970s a more topographical approach replaced the classical landscape and nature work of practitioners like Svante Lundgren (1913-88); examples include Gerry Johansson (b. 1945), Sven Westerlund (b. 1955), Per Berntsen (b. 1953), Johan Sandborg, Kirsten Klein (b. 1945), and Taneli Eskola's (b. 1958) photography of the Aulanko region, a Finnish national heritage site. Japo Knuutila (b. 1953) has reworked the landscape in his careful poetic arrangements. Nationalist romanticism has been interrogated by Torbjørn Rødland (b. 1970). Arno Rafael Minkkinen, inserting his own body in the landscape, has evolved an aesthetic of his own. Pentti Sammalahti, a road and landscape photographer inspired by the expanses of Russia, has renewed photographic print-and bookmaking.

Institutions developed slowly in the 20th century. Although discussion of a Swedish photography museum began in the 1940s, the department of photography at Moderna Museet in Stockholm did not materialize until the 1970s. Helmer Bäckström's collection, including his vast library, and the so-called Helmut Gernsheim Duplicate Collection, are the foundation of the museum's holdings. A Finnish museum of photography, Suomen Valokuva Taidemuseo, was founded in 1971, after a preliminary exhibition at the Kluuvi Gallery in 1969. The Norwegian Leif Preuss Fotomuseum was established as a private museum in 1976 and as a federal museum in 1999. The Danish Museet for Fotokunst in Odense opened in 1987. In 1999 the Royal Library of Copenhagen's collection of 10 million pictures became the Nationale Fotomuseum. The year 1975 brought the opening of the important Camera Obscura gallery in Stockholm, which became the venue for an imaginative and varied range of exhibitions and other events. Other galleries included the Fotograficentrum in Stockholm, focusing on documentary photography, Galleri Image in Århus (1977), Fotogalleriet in Oslo, and the Cable Factory Photography Gallery in Helsinki (2004).

The development of a photographic infrastructure has run parallel to photography's assimilation into the wider art scene. In the late 1970s, Gunnar Smoliansky (b. 1933) and Dawid began to explore photographic materials and processes, reviving toning and other methods of enhancing the image, viewed first and foremost as a work of art. Dawid's ROST portfolio of 1983, a remarkable journey to the foundations of the medium, was a catalyst for a new generation: Tuija Lindström (b. 1950), manipulating portraits and landscapes, Timo Kelaranta (b. 1951), close-ups of nature, Per Bak Jensen (b. 1949), the archive photograph, Nanna Bisp Büchert (b. 1937), the family-based tableau. The exhibition Nordisk Fotokunst in Odense in 1985 was the first manifestation of a generation of photographic artists working from within the visual arts: Dag Alveng (b. 1953); Jim Bengston (b. 1953), master portraitist Hans Gedda (b. 1942); Ulla Jokisalo; and Martti Kapanen (artist name: Kapa, b. 1949) were among the most influential.

In the 1990s, polarization between photography and ‘fine’ art was no longer an issue. The generation emerging in this decade was fully part of the world of the visual arts. Elina Brotherus (b. 1972), Miriam Bäckström (b. 1967), Annika von Hausswolff, Jan Kaila (b. 1957), Annica Karlsson-Rixon (b. 1962), Marjaana Kella (b. 1961), Maria Miesenberger (b. 1965), Esko Männikkö and Martin Sjöberg (b. 1955) are leading visual artists, their output not limited to the photographic medium. Like their predecessors in the 1980s probing materials and techniques, they have expanded photographic practices: formally, via the outsize image or installation; thematically by addressing issues like gender, identity politics, and globalization.

— Jan-Erik Lundström

Bibliography

• Ochsner, B., Fotografiet i Danmark, 1840-1940: en kulturhistorisk billedbog (1974).
• The Frozen Image: Scandinavian Photography (1982).
• Rittsel, P., and Söderberg, R., Den Svenska Fotografins Historia, 1840-1940 (1983).
• Kukkonen, J., and Vuorenmaa, T.-J. (eds.), Valoa: Otteita Suomalaisen Valukovan Historiaan 1839-1999 (1999).
• Erlandsen, R., Pas nu paa! Nu tar jeg fra Hullet: Norsk fotohistorie, 1839-1940 (2003).
• Sandbye, M. (ed.), Dansk Fotografihistorie (2004)

The region in northern Europe containing Norway, Sweden, and Denmark and the peninsulas they occupy. Through cultural, historical, and political associations, Finland and Iceland are often considered part of Scandinavia.

[For the early history of occultism in Scandinavia, see the entry on the Teutons. ]

Witchcraft

In medieval times, Scandinavian examples of the witchcraft persecutions that arose in much of Europe were rare, but in 1669-70 a great outbreak against witchcraft commenced in Sweden, in the villages of Mohra and Elfdale in the district of Elfdale. In 1669 a strange report was circulated that the children of the neighborhood were carried away nightly to a place they called Blockula, where they were received by Satan in person. The children themselves, who were responsible for the report, pointed out numerous women, who, they said, were witches and carried them there.

The alarm and terror in the district became so great that a report was at last made to King Charles XI, who nominated commissioners, partly clergy and partly laymen, to inquire into the extraordinary circumstances that had been brought to his notice. These commissioners arrived in Mohra and announced their intention of opening proceedings on August 13, 1670.

One day preceding, the commissioners met at the parson-age-house and heard the complaints of the minister and several people of the upper class, who told them of the miserable condition they were in. They gravely told the commissioners that by the help of witches, hundreds of their children had been drawn to Satan, who had been seen to go in a visible shape through the country and to appear daily to the people. They said that the poorer people had been seduced by him feasting them with meat and drink.

The commissioners entered upon their duties the next day with the utmost diligence, and the result of their misguided zeal formed one of the most remarkable examples of cruel and remorseless persecution that stains the annals of sorcery. No fewer than 70 inhabitants of the village and district of Mohra, 23 of whom made confessions, were condemned and executed. One woman pleaded that she was with child, and many denied their guilt, but they were sent to Fahluna, where most of them were put to death.

Among those who suffered death were 15 children, and 36 more, of different ages between nine and sixteen, were forced to run a gauntlet and be scourged on the hands at the church door every Sunday for one year. Twenty more, who had been drawn into these practices more unwillingly, and were very young, were condemned to be scourged with rods upon their hands for three successive Sundays at the church door. Some 300 children were accused in all.

It appears that the commissioners began by taking the confessions of the children, and then they confronted them with the witches, whom the children accused as their seducers. Most of the latter, to use the words of the authorized report, had "… children with them, which they had either seduced or attempted to seduce, some seven years of age, nay, from four to sixteen years." "Some of the children complained lamentably of the misery and mischief they were forced sometimes to suffer of the devil and the witches." Being asked, if they were sure that they were at any time carried away by the devil, they all replied in the affirmative. "Hereupon the witches themselves were asked, whether the confessions of those children were true, and admonished to confess the truth, that they might turn away from the devil unto the living God." One account noted, "At first, most of them did very stiffly, and without shedding the least tear, deny it, though much against their will and inclination. After this the children were examined every one by themselves, to see whether their confessions did agree or no, and the commissioners found that all of them, except some very little ones, which could not tell all the circumstances, did punctually agree in their confessions of particulars.

"In the meanwhile, the commissioners that were of the clergy examined the witches, but could not bring them to any confession, all continuing steadfast in their denials, till at last some of them burst into tears, and their confession agreed with what the children said; and these expressed their abhorrence of the fact, and begged pardon. Adding that the devil, whom they called Locyta, had stopped the mouths of some of them, so loath was he to part with his prey, and had stopped the ears of others. And being now gone from them, they could no longer conceal it; for they had now perceived his treachery."

The witches asserted that the journey to "Blockula" was not always made with the same kind of conveyance. They commonly used humans, animals, and even spits and posts, according to opportunity. They preferred, however, riding upon goats, and if they had more children with them than the animal could conveniently carry, they elongated its back by means of a spit annointed with their magical ointment.

It was further stated that if the children did at any time name the names of those, either man or woman, that had been with them and had carried them away, they were again carried by force, either to "Blockula" or the crossway, and there beaten, insomuch that some of them died of it, "and this some of the witches confessed, and added, that now they were exceedingly troubled and tortured in their minds for it."

One thing was lacking to confirm these confessions: the marks of the whip could not be found on the bodies of the victims, except on one boy, who had some wounds and holes in his back that were given him with thorns; but the witches said they would quickly vanish.

As described in the court records, the mysterious "Blockula" was situated in a large meadow, like a plain sea, "wherein you can see no end." The house they met at had a great gate painted with many different colors. Through this gate they went into a little meadow distinct from the other, and here they turned their animals to graze. When they had used men for their beasts of burden, they set them up against the wall in a state of helpless slumber, and there they remained until needed for the homeward flight. In a very large room of this house stood a long table, at which the witches sat down, and adjoining this room was another chamber, where there were "lovely and delicate beds."

As soon as they arrived at the ritual site, the visitors were required to deny their baptism and devote themselves body and soul to Satan, whom they promised to serve faithfully. Here-upon the devil cut their fingers, and they wrote their names with blood in his book. He then caused them to be baptized anew, by priests appointed for that purpose.

Upon this the devil gave them a purse, wherein there were filings of clocks, with a big stone tied to it, which they threw into the water, and said, "As these filings of the clock do never return to the clock, from which they were taken, so may my soul never return to heaven!"

Since few of the children had any marks on their fingers to show where they had been cut, another difficulty arose in verifying their statement. But here again the story was helped by a girl who had hurt her finger, and who declared that because she would not stretch out her finger, the devil in anger had wounded it.

When the ceremonies were completed, the witches sat down at the table, those whom the devil esteemed most being placed nearest to him, but the children were made to stand at the door, where he himself gave them meat and drink. The food with which the visitors to "Blockula" were regaled consisted of "broth, with coleworts and bacon in it, oatmeal bread spread with butter, milk and cheese." They said that the food sometimes tasted very good, and sometimes very bad.

After meals, they danced, and it was one peculiarity of these northern witches' sabbaths that the dance was usually followed by fighting. Those of Elfdale confessed that the devil used to play upon a harp before them. Another peculiarity of these northern witches was, it was said, that children resulted from their intercourse with Satan, and these children, having married together, became the parents of toads and serpents.

The witches of Sweden appear to have been less noxious than those of most other countries, for, whatever they confessed, there seems to have been no real evidence of mischief done by them. They confessed that they were obliged to promise Satan that they would do all kinds of mischief and that the devil taught them to "milk" in the following manner. They used to stick a knife in the wall and hang a kind of label on it, which they drew and stroked, and as long as this lasted, the persons they had power over were miserably plagued. The beasts that were milked like this sometimes died.

One woman confessed that the devil gave her a wooden knife, with which, going into houses, she had the power to kill anything she touched. However, there were few that could confess that they had hurt any man or woman. Being asked if they had murdered any children, they confessed that they had indeed tormented many, but did not know whether any of them died of these plagues. They also said that the devil had showed them several places where he had power to do mischief.

The minister of Elfdale declared that one night these witches were, to his thinking, on the crown of his head, and that from this he had a long-continued headache. One of the witches confessed that the devil had sent her to torment the minister, and that she was ordered to strike a nail into his head, but his skull was so hard that the nail would not penetrate it and merely produced that headache. The minister said further that one night he felt a pain as if he were torn with an instrument used for combing flax, and when he awoke, he heard somebody scratching and scraping at the window, but could see nobody. One of the witches confessed that she was the person who had disturbed him.

The minister of Mohra also claimed that one night one of these witches came into his house and so violently took him by the throat that he thought he would choke. Upon awaking, he saw the person that did it, but did not recognize her, and for some weeks he was not able to speak or perform divine service. An old woman of Elfdale confessed that the devil had helped her make a nail, which she stuck into a boy's knee, of which stroke the boy remained lame a long time. She added that before she was burned or executed by the hand of justice, the boy would recover.

Another circumstance confessed by these witches was that the devil gave them a beast, about the shape and size of a cat, which they called a "carrier," and a bird as big as a raven, but white, and these they could send anywhere, and wherever they went, they took away all sorts of victuals, such as butter, cheese, milk, bacon, and all sorts of seeds, and carried them to the witches.

What the bird brought, they kept for themselves, but what the carrier brought they took to "Blockula," where the archfiend gave them as much of it as he thought good. The carriers, they said, often filled themselves so full that they were forced to disgorge by the way, and what they thus rendered fell to the ground, and was found in several gardens where coleworts grew, and far from the houses of the witches. It was of a yellow color like gold and was called witches' butter.

Such were the details, as far as they can now be obtained, of this extraordinary occurrence, the only one known to have occurred in the northern part of Europe during the age of the witchcraft trials. In other countries, we can generally trace some particular cause that gave rise to great persecutions of this kind, but here, as the story is told, we see none, for it is hardly likely that such a strange series of accusations should have been the mere involuntary creation of a party of little children.

Suspicion is excited by the peculiar part the two clergymen of Elfdale and Mohra played in this affair, and perhaps they were not altogether innocent of fabrication. They seem to have been weak, superstitious men, and perhaps they had been reading the witchcraft books of the south until they imagined the country around them to be overrun with witches. Perhaps the two clergymen themselves became alarmed, but one thing seems certain, that the moment the commission was revoked and the persecution ceased, no more witches were heard of.

The proceedings at Mohra caused so much alarm throughout Sweden that prayers were ordered in all the churches for delivery from the snares of Satan, who was believed to have been let loose in that kingdom. A new edict of the king suddenly put a stop to the whole process, and the matter was brought to a close rather mysteriously. It is said that the witch prosecution was increasing so much in intensity that accusations began to be made against people of a higher class in society, and then a complaint was made to the king, and the mania brought to a close.

Spiritualism

In 1843, an epidemic of "preaching" occurred in southern Sweden, which provided Joseph Ennemoser with material for an interesting passage in his History of Magic (1854). The manifestation of this was similar in character to outbreaks described elsewhere. A writer in the London Medium and Daybreak of 1878 states, "It is about a year and a half since I changed my abode from Stockholm to this place, and during that period it is wonderful how Spiritualism has gained ground in Sweden. The leading papers, that used in my time to refuse to publish any article on Spiritualism excepting such as ridiculed the doctrine, have of late thrown their columns wide open to the serious discussion of the matter. Many a Spiritualist in secret, has thus been encouraged to give publicity to his opinions without standing any longer in awe of that demon, public ridicule, which intimidates so many of our brethren.

"Several of Allan Kardec's works have been translated into Swedish, among which I may mention his Evangile selon le Spiritisme as particularly well-rendered in Swedish by Walter Jochnick. A spiritual Library was opened in Stockholm on the 1st of April last, which will no doubt greatly contribute to the spreading of the blessed doctrine. The visit of Mr. Eglinton to Stockholm was of the greatest benefit to the cause. Let us hope that the stay of Mrs. Esperance in the south of Sweden may have an equally beneficial effect.

"Notwithstanding all this progress of the cause in the neighbouring country, Spiritualism is looked upon here as something akin to madness, but even here there are thin, very thin rays, and very wide apart, struggling to pierce the darkness."

In Norway, Spiritualism as known to modern Europe, did not seem to have become existent until about 1880. A writer in a number of the Dawn of Light published in that year states, "Spiritualism is just commencing to give a sign of its existence here in Norway. The newspapers have begun to attack it as a delusion and the 'expose' of Mrs. C., which recently took place at 38 Great Russell St., London, has made the round through all the papers in Scandinavia. After all, it must sooner or later take root as in all other parts of the world. Mr. Eglinton, the English medium, has done a good work in Stockholm, showing some of the great savants a new world; and a couple of years ago Mr. Slade visited Copenhagen. The works of Mr. Zollner, the great astronomer of Leipzig, have been mentioned in the papers and caused a good deal of sensation.

"Of mediums there are several here, but all, as yet, afraid to speak out. One writes with both hands; a gentleman is developing as a drawing medium. A peasant, who died about five years ago, and lived not far from here, was an excellent healing medium; his name was Knud, and the people had given him the nickname of Vise Knud (the wise Knud); directly when he touched a patient he knew if the same could be cured or not, and often, in severe cases, the pains of the sick person went through his own body. He was also an auditive medium, startling the people many times by telling them what was going to happen in the future; but the poor fellow suffered much from the ignorance and fanaticism around him, and was several times put in prison. I am doing all I can to make people acquainted with our grand cause."

A second and more hopeful letter of 1881, addressed to the editor of the Revue Spirite, was as follows: "My dear Brothers, Here our science advances without noise. An excellent writing medium has been developed among us, one who writes simultaneously with both hands; while we have music in a room where there are no musical instruments; and where there is a piano it plays itself. At Bergen, where I have recently been, I found mediums, who in the dark, made sketches—were dessinateurs—using also both hands. I have seen, also, with pleasure that several men of letters and of science have begun to investigate our science spirite. The pastor Eckhoff, of Bergen, has for the second time preached against Spiritualism, 'this instrument of the devil, this psychographie'; and to give more of eclat to his sermon he has had the goodness to have it printed; so we see that the spirits are working. The suit against the medium, Mme. F., in London, is going the rounds of the papers of Christiania; these journals opening their columns, when occasion offers, to ridicule Spiritualism. We are, however, friends of the truth, but there are scabby sheep among us of a different temperament. From Stockholm they write me that a library of spiritual works has been opened there, and that they are to have a medium from Newcastle, with whom séances are to be held."

In the London Spiritual Magazine of May 1885, is a long and interesting paper on Swedish Spiritualism by William Howitt, in which he gives quite a notable collection of narratives concerning the "Phenomenal Spiritual Manifestations in Sweden," most of which were furnished by an eminent and learned Swedish gentleman—Count Piper. Howitt stated that the public had become so thoroughly sated with tales of hauntings, apparitions, previsions, etc., that Piper's narrations would present few, if any, features of interest, save in justification of one assertion, that Spiritualism was rife in human experience everywhere, although it might not take the form of a public movement, as it had in America and England.

As early as 1864, the Afton Blad, one of the most popular journals circulated in Sweden, published a number of excellent leading articles commending the belief in spiritual ministry, and the study of such phenomena that would promote communion between the "two worlds."

Psychical Research and Parapsychology

Scandinavia has produced some notable psychical researchers, including Sydney Alrutz (1868-1925) of Uppsala University; Chr. Winther of Copenhagen, who was president of the Danish Society for Psychical Research (Selskapet for Psykisk Forsking) and experimented with the medium Anna Rasmussen; and Aage Slomann (died 1970), a full-time parapsychologist and president of the Danish Society. Professor Jaeger and Thornstein Wereide (who edited the Oslo Psykisk Tidsschrift) led the effort in Norway, and in Iceland could be found Harald Nielsson (died 1928), who wrote books on theological and psychic subjects; Gudmundur Hannesson of the University of Reykjavik; and Einar Hjorleifsson Kvaran (1859-1938), who founded the Icelandic Society for Psychical Research in 1918.

In 1942, the Swedish Sällskapet för Parapsykologisk Forskning (Society for Parapsychological Research) was founded in Stockholm. Well-known members included Gosta Rodhe, Rolf Evjegärd, Eric Uggla, and Eva Hellström (who was also clairvoyant). The engineer Haakon Forwald (1897-1978) carried out valuable studies in psychokinesis. Other Swedish parapsychologists include Martin Johnson and Nils Olof Jacobson.

In Norway, there is the Norsk Parapsykologist Selskap, under Kirsten Pauss (Dahlsgt. 33, Oslo 3). The dramatist Wiers Jensen (1866-1925) made notable contributions to the study of the "vardo / gr" or "projected double" phenomenon, and also edited the journal Norsk Tiddesskrift for Psykisk Forskning from 1922 to 1925.

In Finland there has also been much activity in parapsychological research, which has received favorable notice from such scientists as Sven Segerstrå;le, professor of biology; Sven Krohn, professor of philosophy and former president of Parapsykologinen Tutkimusseura; Väinö Auer, famous geologist; and Uuno Saarnio, philosopher and mathematician. The Finnish Society for Psychical Research was established as early as 1907 under the name Sällskapet för Forsking i Finland-Suomen Psyykkinen Tutkimusseura. The psychical researcher Jarl Fahler was president for a number of years, and also experimented with ESP and psychokinesis; a later president was Stefan Talqvist. In 1938, the Parapsykologinen Tutkimusseura was established and has been active ever since. In 1965, an Institute of Parapsychology was established in Helsingfors, directed by Jarl Fahler, who is also president of the Society for Hypnosis in Finland. Another parapsychological organization is Tampereen Parapsykologinen Tutkimusseura, in Tammersfors, under the presidency of Gunnar Strömmer.

For other uses, see Scandinavia (disambiguation).

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Scandinavia^[1] is a region in northern Europe that includes Denmark, Norway and Sweden, though Finland is often considered a Scandinavian country in common English usage, with Iceland and the Faroe Islands sometimes also included.^[2] It is named after the province of Scania in southern Sweden.

Scandinavia extends to north of the arctic circle, but has relatively mild weather for its latitude due to the Gulf Stream. Much of the Scandinavian mountains have alpine tundra climate. There are many lakes and moraines, legacies of an ice age about 10,000 years ago. The northern regions of Scandinavia are home to the indigenous Sami people.

Scandinavia has, despite many wars over the years since the formation of modern nation-states in the 10th century, been politically and culturally close. The constellations and alliances have shifted over the centuries however. For all of the 15th century, Scandinavia was united in the Kalmar Union. In the 19th century a new political union was proposed, but it did not take place when Denmark was denied key military support in a conflict with Prussia. Today, the nations cooperate mainly in the European Union or the Nordic Council. The Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish languages form a dialect continuum and are known as the Scandinavian languages—all of which share a degree of mutual intelligibility with each other.

Contents 1 Terminology and usage 1.1 Finland 1.2 Cultural and tourism promotional organizations 2 Use of Nordic countries vs. Scandinavia 3 Etymology 3.1 Pliny the Elder's descriptions 3.2 Germanic reconstruction 3.3 Sami etymology 3.4 Other etymologies 4 Geography 5 Languages in Scandinavia 5.1 Continental Scandinavian languages 5.2 Sami languages 5.3 Finland and Scandinavia 6 History 6.1 Scandinavian unions 7 Political Scandinavism 7.1 Historical political structure 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

Terminology and usage

     The three monarchies that compose Scandinavia according to the strictest definition      The possible extended usage      The maximal extended usage that takes Scandinavia as synonymous to the Nordic countries

In English, casual and unofficial usage is to include the countries of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and often Finland and Iceland in the term Scandinavia,^[3][4][5] but the term is usually used to only mean Denmark, Norway and Sweden within those countries creating some ambiguity in even English reference sources.^[6][7][8]

The larger region that some English-speaking nations refer to as "Scandinavia" is known by the countries concerned as Norden, or the Nordic countries,^[9] a political entity as well as cultural region where the ties between the countries are not merely historical and cultural, but based on official membership in the Nordic Council. Some American-English dictionaries, such as Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, do not include the names "Nordic countries" or "Nordic Council". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary instead defines Nordic as an adjective dated to 1898 with the meaning "of or relating to the Germanic peoples of northern Europe and especially of Scandinavia."^[10]

The use of the name Scandinavia as a convenient general term for the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden is also fairly recent; according to some historians, it was adopted and introduced in the 18th century, at a time when the ideas about a common heritage started to appear and develop into early literary and linguistic Scandinavism.^[11] Before this time, the term Scandinavia was familiar mainly to classical scholars through Pliny the Elder's writings, and was used vaguely for Scania and the southern region of the peninsula.^[11]

As a political term, "Scandinavia" was first used by students agitating for Pan-Scandinavianism in the 1830s.^[11] The popular usage of the term in Sweden, Denmark and Norway as a unifying concept became established in the 19th century through poems such Hans Christian Andersen's "I am a Scandinavian" of 1839. After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism and in a letter describing the poem to a friend, he wrote: "All at once I understood how related the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians are, and with this feeling I wrote the poem immediately after my return: 'We are one people, we are called Scandinavians!'".^[12] The historic popular usage is also reflected in the name chosen for the shared, multi-national airline, Scandinavian Airlines System, a carrier originally owned jointly by the governments of the three countries, along with private investors.

Finland

The clearest example of the use of the term "Scandinavia" as a political and cultural construct is the unique position of Finland, based largely on it having been part of Sweden, thus to much of the world properly associating Finland with all of Scandinavia. But the creation of a Finnish identity is unique in the region in that it was formed in relation to two different imperial models, the Swedish^[13] and the Russian,^[14][15] as described by the University of Jyväskylä based editorial board of the Finnish journal Yearbook of Political Thought and Conceptual History;^{[16][dubious – discuss]}

“

The construction of a specific Finnish polity is the result of successful decolonization. The politico-cultural location of Finland is a moving one. It has shifted from being a province in the Swedish Empire to an autonomous unit in 'Eastern' Europe, then to an independent state in 'Northern' Europe or 'Scandinavia. After the joining European Union, Finland has recently been included in 'Western Europe'.[14]

”

The term is, therefore, often defined according to the conventions of the cultures that lay claim to the term in their own usage.^[17]

Cultural and tourism promotional organizations

Various promotional agencies of the Nordic countries in the United States (such as The American-Scandinavian Foundation, established in 1910 by the Danish-American industrialist Niels Poulsen) serve to promote market and tourism interests in the region. Today, the five Nordic Heads of State act as the organization's patrons and according to the official statement by the organization, its mission is "to promote the Nordic region as a whole while increasing the visibility of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in New York City and the United States."^[18] The official tourist boards of Scandinavia sometimes cooperate under one umbrella, such as the Scandinavian Tourist Board.^[19] The cooperation was introduced for the Asian market in 1986, when the Swedish national tourist board joined the Danish national tourist board to coordinate international promotions of the two countries. Norway entered one year later. All five Nordic countries participate in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Board of North America.^[20]

Use of Nordic countries vs. Scandinavia

Main article: Nordic countries

While usage of the term Scandinavia is not always strictly defined, the Nordic countries is used unambiguously for Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland, including their associated territories (Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and the Åland Islands).^[9] Scandinavia can thus be considered a subset of the Nordic countries.

The Nordic countries consist of:

• Denmark (a sovereign monarchy, independent since 8th century)
• Finland (a sovereign republic, independent since 1917)
• Iceland (a sovereign republic, independent since 1918)
• Norway (a sovereign monarchy, independent since 1905)
• Sweden (a sovereign monarchy, independent since 1524)

and

• Faroe Islands (an autonomous region of Denmark since 1948)
• Greenland (a self-governing Danish territory since 1979)
• Åland (an autonomous province of Finland since 1920)
• Jan Mayen (an integrated geographical body of Norway)
• Svalbard (under Norwegian sovereignty since 1920)

Estonia has applied for membership in the Nordic Council, referring to its cultural heritage and close linguistic links to Finland, although normally Estonia is regarded as one of the Baltic countries. All Baltic states have shared history with the Nordic countries, including Scandinavia, over the centuries.

Etymology

Satellite photo of the Scandinavian Peninsula, February 2003

Late Baltic Ice Lake around 10,300 years BP, with a channel near Mount Billingen through what is now central Sweden. (Political boundaries added).

Scandinavia and Scania (Skåne) are considered to have the same etymology. Both terms are thought to be derived from the Germanic root *Skaðin-awjō, which appears later in Old English as Scedenig and in Old Norse as Skáney.^[21] The earliest identified source for the name Scandinavia is Pliny the Elder's Natural History, dated to the 1st century AD.

Various references to the region can also be found in Pytheas, Pomponius Mela, Tacitus, Ptolemy, Procopius and Jordanes. It is believed that the name used by Pliny may be of West Germanic origin, originally denoting Scania.^[22] According to some scholars, the Germanic stem can be reconstructed as *Skaðan- meaning "danger" or "damage" (English scathing, German Schaden).^[23] The second segment of the name has been reconstructed as *awjo, meaning "land on the water" or "island". The name Scandinavia would then mean "dangerous island", which is considered to be a reference to the treacherous sandbanks surrounding Scania.^[23] Skanör in Scania, with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem (skan) combined with -ör, which means "sandbanks".

In the reconstructed Germanic root *Skaðin-awjō (the edh represented in Latin by t or d), the first segment is sometimes considered more uncertain than the second segment. The American Heritage Dictionary^[24] derives the second segment from Proto-Indo-European *akwa-, "water", in the sense of "watery land". Gothic saiws, "lake" is one of the Germanic groups which include English sea and German See.^[25] However, according to the Indo-European Dictionary (IEED), a research project of the Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University, the second segment may not have an Indo-European etymology. The IEED states that Uralic evidence has long been recognized for this segment, namely the Finnic saivo ("'transparent place in the sea'") and the Norwegian-Lappish saivvƒ ("'(holy) lake, idol'").^[25] Some scholars have found a parallel between the Uralic evidence and the area's old mythology and belief systems, where the soul of mankind is believed to dwell in water until birth and return there after death.^[25] IEED lists a Germanic reconstruction that indicates a similar connection to metaphysics, namely *saiwa-lō ("soul"), appearing as saiwala in Gothic and sēle in Old Frisian.

Pliny the Elder's descriptions

Pliny's descriptions of Scatinavia and surrounding areas are not always easy to decipher, even though his writing of geography was what he considered a "clarior fama" ("a clearer story"). Writing in the capacity of a Roman admiral, he introduces the northern region by declaring to his Roman readers that there are 23 islands "Romanis armis cognitae" ("known to Roman arms") in this area. According to Pliny, the most "clarissima" ("famous") of the region's islands is Scatinavia, of unknown size. There live the Hilleviones. The belief that Scandinavia was an island became widespread among classical authors during the first century and dominated descriptions of Scandinavia in classical texts during the centuries that followed.

Pliny begins his description of the route to Scatinavia by referring to the mountain of Saevo (mons Saevo ibi), the Codanus Bay (Codanus sinus) and the Cimbrian promontory.^[26] The geographical features have been identified in various ways; by some scholars "Saevo" is thought to be the mountainous Norwegian coast at the entrance to Skagerrak and the Cimbrian peninsula is thought to be Skagen, the north tip of Jutland, Denmark. As described, Saevo and Scatinavia can also be the same place.

Pliny mentions Scandinavia one more time: in Book VIII he says that the animal called achlis (given in the accusative, achlin, which is not Latin), was born on the island of Scandinavia.^[27] The animal grazes, has a big upper lip and some mythical attributes.

The name "Scandia", later used as a synonym for Scandinavia, also appears in Pliny's Naturalis Historia, but is used for a group of Northern European islands which he locates north of Britannia. "Scandia" thus does not appear to be denoting the island Scadinavia in Pliny's text. The idea that "Scadinavia" may have been one of the "Scandiae" islands was instead introduced by Ptolemy (c.90 – c.168 AD), a mathematician, geographer and astrologer of Roman Egypt. He used the name "Skandia" for the biggest, most easterly of the three "Scandiai" islands, which according to him were all located east of Jutland.^[23]

Neither Pliny's nor Ptolemy's lists of Scandinavian tribes include the Suiones mentioned by Tacitus. Some early Swedish scholars of the Swedish Hyperborean school^[28] and of the 19th-century romantic nationalism period proceeded to synthesize the different versions by inserting references to the Suiones, arguing that they must have been referred to in the original texts and obscured over time by spelling mistakes or various alterations.^[29][30]

Germanic reconstruction

The Latin names in Pliny's text gave rise to different forms in medieval Germanic texts. In Jordanes' history of the Goths (AD 551) the form Scandza is used for their original home, separated by sea from the land of Europe (chapter 1, 4).^[31] Where Jordanes meant to locate this quasi-legendary island is still a hotly debated issue, both in scholarly discussions and in the nationalistic discourse of various European countries.^[32][33] The form Scadinavia as the original home of the Langobards appears in Paulus Diaconus' Historia Langobardorum^[34]; in other versions of Historia Langobardorum appear the forms Scadan, Scandanan, Scadanan and Scatenauge.^[35] Frankish sources used Sconaowe and Aethelweard, an Anglo-Saxon historian, used Scani.^[36][37] In Beowulf, the forms Scedenige and Scedeland are used, while the Alfredian translation of Orosius and Wulfstan's travel accounts used the Old English Sconeg.^[37]

The first segment in "Scandinavia" is also sometimes attributed to Norse mythology, namely the Scandinavian giantess Skaði (Skade).

Sami etymology

Hunting ski goddess, or Sami woman hunting on ski, from Olaus Magnus, 1555

The earliest Sami yoik texts written down refer to the world as Skadesi-suolo (north-Sami) and Skađsuâl (east-Sami), meaning "Skaði's island" (Svennung 1963). Svennung considers the Sami name to have been introduced as a loan word from the North Germanic languages;^[38] "Skaði" is the giant stepmother of Freyr and Freyja in Norse mythology. It has been suggested that Skaði to some extent is modeled on a Sami woman. The name for Skade's father Thjazi is known in Sami as Čáhci, "the waterman", and her son with Odin, Saeming, can be interpreted as a descendent of Saam the Sami population (Mundel 2000),^[39] (Steinsland 1991).^[40] Older joik texts give evidence of the old Sami belief about living on an island and state that the wolf is known as suolu gievra, meaning "the strong one on the island". The Sami place name Sulliidčielbma means "the island's threshold" and Suoločielgi means "the island's back".

In recent substrate studies, Sami linguists have examined the initial cluster sk- in words used in Sami and concluded that sk- is a phonotactic structure of non-native origin.^[41]

Other etymologies

Scadin- can be segmented various ways to obtain various Indo-European meanings: scand- or scad-in-, scan- or sca-din, scandin or scadin-. These segmentations have resulted in a number of possible etymologies, such as "climbing island" (*scand-), "island of the Scythian people", "island of the woodland of *sca-".^{[citation needed]}

Another possibility is that all or part of the segments of the name came from the indigenous Mesolithic people inhabiting the region.^[42] Today Scandinavia is a peninsula, but between approximately 10,300 BP and 9,500 BP, the southern part of Scandinavia was an island separated from the northern peninsula, with water exiting the Baltic Sea through the area where Stockholm is now located.^[43]

Some Basque scholars have presented the idea that the segment sk that appears in *Ska∂inaujàin is connected to the name for the Euzko peoples, akin to Basques, that populated Paleolithic Europe. According to some of these intellectuals, the Scandinavians share some genetic markers with the Basque people.^[42]

The name of the Scandinavian mountain range, Skanderna in Swedish, was artificially derived from Skandinavien in the 19th century, in analogy with Alperna for the Alps. The commonly used names are bergen or fjällen; both names meaning "the mountains".

Geography

Scandinavia, Fennoscandia, and the Kola Peninsula.

See also: Geography of Denmark, Geography of Finland, Geography of Iceland, Geography of Norway, and Geography of Sweden

The geography of Scandinavia is extremely varied. Notable are the Norwegian fjords, the Scandinavian Mountains, the flat, low areas in Denmark, and the archipelagos of Sweden and Norway. Sweden, and to an even greater extent Finland, has many lakes and moraines, legacies of the ice age.

The climate varies from north to south and from west to east; a marine west coast climate (Cfb) typical of western Europe dominates in Denmark, southernmost part of Sweden and along the west coast of Norway reaching north to 65°N, with orographic lift giving more than 2000 mm/year precipitation (<5000 mm) in some areas in western Norway. The central part - from Oslo to Stockholm - has a humid continental climate (Dfb), which gradually gives way to subarctic climate (Dfc) further north and cool marine west coast climate (Cfc) along the northwestern coast. A small area along the northern coast east of the North Cape has tundra climate (Et) due to lack of summer warmth. The Scandinavian Mountains block the mild and moist air coming from the southwest, thus northern Sweden and Finnmarksvidda plateau in Norway receive little precipitation and have cold winters. Large areas in the Scandinavian mountains have alpine tundra climate.

The warmest temperature ever recorded in Scandinavia is 38.0 °C in Målilla (Sweden) ^[44]. The coldest temperature ever recorded is −52.6 °C in Vuoggatjålme (Sweden) ^[45]. The warmest month on record was July 1901 in Oslo, with a mean (24hr) of 22.7 °C, and the coldest month was February 1985 in Vittangi (Sweden) with a mean of -27.2 °C.^[45].

Southwesterly winds further warmed by foehn wind can give warm temperatures in narrow Norwegian fjords in winter; Tafjord has recorded 17.9 °C in January and Sunndal 18.9 °C in February.

Languages in Scandinavia

Main articles: Scandinavian languages, Sami languages, Finnic languages, and Scandoromani

There are two language groups that have coexisted on the Scandinavian peninsula since prehistory—the North Germanic languages (Scandinavian languages) and the Sami languages.^[46] The majority languages on the peninsula, Swedish and Norwegian, are today, along with Danish, classified as Continental Scandinavian.^[47]

The North Germanic languages of Scandinavia are traditionally divided into an East Scandinavian branch (Danish and Swedish) and a West Scandinavian branch (Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese),^[48][49] but because of changes appearing in the languages since 1600, the East Scandinavian and West Scandinavian branches are now usually reconfigured into Insular Scandinavian (ö-nordisk/øy-nordisk) featuring (Icelandic and Faroese)^[50] and Continental Scandinavian (Skandinavisk), comprising Danish, Norwegian and Swedish.^[47] The modern division is based on the degree of mutual comprehensibility between the languages in the two branches.^[51] Note that skandinavisk(a) may also refer to a way of speaking one scandinavian language in a way intended to be more easily understood by speakers of the other scandinavian languages.

Apart from Sami and the languages of minority groups speaking a variant of the majority language of a neighboring state, the following minority languages in Scandinavia are protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Yiddish, Romani Chib, Romanes and Romani.

Continental Scandinavian languages

Distribution of the North Germanic languages:
     Continental Scandinavian languages      Insular Scandinavian languages

The dialects of Denmark, Norway and Sweden form a dialect continuum and are mutually intelligible. The populations of the Scandinavian countries, with a Scandinavian mother tongue, can – at least with some training – understand each other's standard languages as they appear in print and are heard on radio and television. The reason why Danish, Swedish and the two official written versions of Norwegian (Nynorsk and Bokmål) are traditionally viewed as different languages, rather than dialects of one common language, is that they each are well established standard languages in their respective countries. They are related to, but not mutually intelligible with, the other North Germanic languages, Icelandic and Faroese, which are descended from Old West Norse. Danish, Swedish and Norwegian have, since medieval times, been influenced to varying degrees by Middle Low German and standard German. A substantial amount of that influence was a by-product of the economic activity generated by the Hanseatic League.

Norwegians are accustomed to variation, and may perceive Danish and Swedish only as slightly more distant dialects. This is because they have two official written standards, in addition to the habit of strongly holding on to local dialects. The people of Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark, have the greatest difficulty in understanding other Scandinavian languages.^[52] In the Faroe Islands learning Danish is mandatory. This causes Faroese people to become bilingual in two very distinct North Germanic languages, making it relatively easy for them to understand the other two Mainland Scandinavian languages.^[53]

The Scandinavian languages are (as a language family) entirely unrelated to Finnish, Estonian and Sami languages which as Finno-Ugric languages are distantly related to Hungarian. Due to the close proximity, there is still a great deal of borrowing from the Swedish and Norwegian languages in the Finnish, Estonian and Sami languages.^[54] The long history of linguistic influence of Swedish on Finnish is also due to the fact that Finnish, the language of the majority in Finland, was treated as a minority language while Finland was part of Sweden. Finnish-speakers had to learn Swedish in order to advance to higher positions.^[55] Although Iceland was under the political control of Denmark until a much later date (1918), very little influence and borrowing from Danish has occurred in the Icelandic language.^[56] Icelandic remained the preferred language among the ruling classes in Iceland; Danish was not used for official communications, most of the royal officials were of Icelandic descent and the language of the church and law courts remained Icelandic.^[57]

Sami languages

Historically verified distribution of the Sami languages — (legend)

The Sami languages are indigenous minority languages in Scandinavia.^[58] They belong to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family and are unrelated to the North Germanic languages other than by limited grammatical (particularly lexical) characteristics resulting from prolonged contact.^[54] Sami is divided into several languages or dialects^[59] Consonant gradation is a feature in both Finnish and northern Sami dialects, but it is not present in south Sami, which is considered to have a different language history. According to the Sami Information Centre of the Sami Parliament in Sweden, southern Sami originated in an earlier migration from the south into the Scandinavian peninsula.^[54]

Finland and Scandinavia

Finland is officially bilingual, with Finnish and Swedish having mostly the same status at national level. Native Swedish speakers constitute a small, but rather influential, minority. Children are taught the other official language at school; for Swedish-speakers, this is Finnish (usually from the 3rd grade), and for Finnish-speakers, Swedish (usually from the 7th grade).

Finnish speakers constitute a language minority in Sweden, Norway and Russian Federation. There are also Finnic languages different from standard Finnish, known as Meänkieli in Sweden and Kven in Norway.

History

Main article: History of Scandinavia

The traditional lands of Sweden (Finland was a part of Sweden, called Österland, until 1809)

During a period of Christianization and state formation in the 10th-13th centuries, three consolidated kingdoms emerged in Scandinavia:

• Denmark, forged from the Lands of Denmark (including Jutland, Zealand and Scania (Skåneland) on the Scandinavian Peninsula.^[60] The island Gotland in modern-day Sweden was initially also part of the Danish realm.)
• Sweden, forged from the Lands of Sweden on the Scandinavian Peninsula (excluding the provinces Bohuslän, Härjedalen, Jämtland and Idre & Särna, Halland, Blekinge and Scania of modern-day Sweden)
• Norway (including Bohuslän, Härjedalen, Jämtland and Idre & Särna on the Scandinavian Peninsula, and its island colonies Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Shetland, the Orkneys, Isle of Man and the Hebrides.)

In the 1645 Treaty of Brömsebro, Denmark–Norway ceded the Norwegian provinces of Jämtland, Härjedalen and Idre & Särna, as well as the Baltic Sea islands of Gotland and Ösel (in Estonia) to Sweden. The Treaty of Roskilde, signed in 1658, forced Denmark–Norway to cede the Danish provinces Scania, Blekinge, Halland, Bornholm and the Norwegian provinces of Båhuslen and Trøndelag to Sweden. The 1660 Treaty of Copenhagen forced Sweden to return Bornholm and Trøndelag to Denmark–Norway, and to give up its recent claims to the island Funen.^[61]

Scandinavian unions

Denmark–Norway until 1814.

The three Scandinavian kingdoms were united in 1397 in the Kalmar Union by Queen Margaret I of Denmark. Sweden left the union in 1523 under King Gustav Vasa. In the aftermath of Sweden's secession from the Kalmar Union, civil war broke out in Denmark and Norway. The Protestant Reformation followed. When things had settled down, the Norwegian Privy Council was abolished—it assembled for the last time in 1537. A personal union, entered into by the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway in 1536, lasted until 1814. Three sovereign successor states have subsequently emerged from this unequal union: Denmark, Norway and Iceland.

Denmark–Norway is the historiographical name for the former political union consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, including the Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The corresponding adjective and demonym is Dano-Norwegian. During Danish rule, Norway kept its separate laws, coinage and army, as well as some institutions such as a royal chancellor. Norway's old royal line had died out with the death of Olav IV,^[62] but Norway's remaining a hereditary kingdom was an important factor to the Oldenburg dynasty of Denmark–Norway in its struggles to win elections as kings of Denmark.

The Dano-Norwegian union was formally dissolved at the 1814 Treaty of Kiel. The territory of Norway proper was ceded to the King of Sweden, but Norway's overseas possessions were kept by Denmark. However, widespread Norwegian resistance to the prospect of a union with Sweden induced the governor of Norway, crown prince Christian Frederick (later Christian VIII of Denmark), to call a constituent assembly at Eidsvoll in April 1814. The assembly drew up a liberal constitution and elected him to the throne of Norway. Following a Swedish invasion during the summer, the peace conditions specified that king Christian Frederik had to resign, but Norway was to keep its independence and its constitution within a personal union with Sweden. Christian Frederik formally abdicated on August 10 1814 and returned to Denmark. The parliament Storting elected king Charles XIII of Sweden as king of Norway on November 4.

The union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved in 1905, after which Prince Charles of Denmark was elected king of Norway under the name of Haakon VII.

Political Scandinavism

Main article: Scandinavism

See also: Politics of Denmark, Politics of Finland, Politics of Iceland, Politics of Norway, and Politics of Sweden

Scandinavia as a 19th century political vision (Scandinavism)

The modern usage of the term Scandinavia has been influenced by Scandinavism (the Scandinavist political movement), which was active in the middle of the 19th century, mainly between the First war of Schleswig (1848–1850), in which Sweden and Norway contributed with considerable military force, and the Second war of Schleswig (1864). In 1864, the Swedish parliament denounced the promises of military support made to Denmark by Charles XV of Sweden. The members of the Swedish parliament were wary of joining an alliance against the rising German power.

The Swedish king also proposed a unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a single united kingdom. The background for the proposal was the tumultuous events during the Napoleonic wars in the beginning of the century. This war resulted in Finland (formerly the eastern third of Sweden) becoming the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809 and Norway (de jure in union with Denmark since 1387, although de facto treated as a province) becoming independent in 1814, but thereafter swiftly forced to accept a personal union with Sweden. The dependent territories Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, historically part of Norway, remained with Denmark in accordance with the Treaty of Kiel. Sweden and Norway were thus united under the Swedish monarch, but Finland's inclusion in the Russian Empire excluded any possibility for a political union between Finland and any of the other Nordic countries.

The end of the Scandinavian political movement came when Denmark was denied the military support promised from Sweden and Norway to annex the (Danish) Duchy of Schleswig, which together with the (German) Duchy of Holstein had been in personal union with Denmark. The Second war of Schleswig followed in 1864, a brief but disastrous war between Denmark and Prussia (supported by Austria). Schleswig-Holstein was conquered by Prussia, and after Prussia's success in the Franco-Prussian War a Prussian-led German Empire was created, and a new power-balance of the Baltic sea countries was established.

Even if a Scandinavian political union never came about at this point, there was a Scandinavian Monetary Union established in 1873, lasting until World War I, with the Swedish krona as the common currency.

Historical political structure

Century	Scandinavia and the Nordic Countries
21st	Denmark (EU)	Faroes	Iceland	Norway	Sweden (EU)		Åland (EU)	Finland (EU)
20th	Denmark				Sweden		Åland	Finland
19th	Denmark			Sweden/Norway (Union)			Grand Duchy of Finland (Russia)
18th	Denmark/Norway (Union)				Sweden
17th
16th	Denmark/Norway (Union)					Sweden
15th	Denmark/Sweden/Norway (Union)
14th	Denmark	Norway				Sweden
13th
12th		Faroes	Icelandic CW	Norway	Jämtland
Peoples	Danes	Faroese¹	Icelanders¹	Norwegians	Jamts²	Swedes		Finns
Minorities	Germans	Celts/Picts		Sami	Sami	Finns/Sami	Finns	Swedes/Sami

• 1: The original settlers of the Faroes and Iceland were of Nordic (mainly Norwegian) origin, with a considerable element of Celtic or Pictish origin (from Ireland and Scotland).

• 2: The settlers of Jämtland are of Norwegian—more specifically Trøndish—origin and their ancestors founded their own state similar to the Icelandic one governed by the Jamtamót assembly of free men.

See also

• Baltic region
• Nordic Council
• Nordic countries
• Nordic Cross Flag
• Northern Europe
• Scandinavian British
• Scandinavian colonialism
• Scandza
• Thule

References

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External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Scandinavia

• "Scandinavia: Official Website of the Scandinavian Tourist Boards in North America". Scandinavian Tourist Boards in North America, Globescope Internet Services, Inc.. 2005. http://www.goscandinavia.com. Retrieved 2008-09-05. 
• Nordic Council - Official site for co-operation in the Nordic region
• Nordregio - Site established by the Nordic Council of Ministers
• Scandinavia House - The Nordic Center in New York, run by the American-Scandinavian Foundation
• Scandinavia News - Scandinavia news and analysis of current events
• Historical atlas of Scandinavia - Personal web site of Örjan Martinsson
• ReRailEurope - A Railway map of Scandinavia (flash file)
• vifanord – a digital library that provides scientific information on the Nordic and Baltic countries as well as the Baltic region as a whole

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Common misspelling(s) of scandinavia

• scandanavia

Dansk (Danish)
n. - Skandinavien

Français (French)
n. - Scandinavie

Deutsch (German)
n. - Skandinavien

Português (Portuguese)
n. - Escandinávia

Español (Spanish)
n. - Escandinavia

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
斯堪的那维亚半岛

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 斯堪的那維亞半島

한국어 (Korean)
스칸디나비아(반도) (노르웨이와 스웨덴), 북유럽 (스웨덴, 노르웨이, 덴마크, 때로는 아이슬란드와 그 부근의 섬을 포함함)

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮סקנדינביה‬

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