Scandinavia
| This article is part of the Scandinavia series |
| Viking Age |
| Ting |
| Kalmar Union |
| Denmark-Norway |
| Sweden-Norway |
| Monetary Union |
| Defense union |
| Languages |
| Mountains |
| Peninsula |
| Varangian |
| Viking |
| History of Sweden |
| History of Norway |
| History of Denmark |
Scandinavia is the cultural and historic region of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The Scandinavian countries are Norway, Sweden and Denmark, which mutually recognize each other as parts of Scandinavia. The collective label "Scandinavia" reflects the cultural similarity between these countries despite their political independence.
The usage and meaning of the term outside Scandinavia is somewhat ambiguous:
- Finland and Iceland are occasionally counted as parts of Scandinavia.
- In a German mindset, Norway, Sweden and Finland are usually included, but Denmark is not.
- In a British mindset it includes Norway and Sweden, and is sometimes included with the Baltic region.
The term the Nordic countries is used unambiguously for Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.
| Table of contents |
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2 History 3 Etymology |
Languages
(Main article: North Germanic languages)
The languages of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible and may be considered one single language. The reason they are traditionally viewed as different languages is that they each have their "army and a navy", being spoken in separate countries. They are related to, but not intelligible with, the other North Germanic languages, Icelandic and Faroe language. All diverged from Old Norse, but Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are since mediaeval times more influenced by Low Saxon.
The Scandinavian languages are entirely unrelated with Finnish, which is linguistically related to Hungarian. This is another reason that Finns do not consider themselves "Scandinavian".
Scandinavia as a 19th century political vision
The modern use of the term Scandinavia rises from the Scandinavist political movement, which was active in the middle of the 19th century, chiefly between the First war of Schleswig (1848-1850), in which Sweden-Norway contributed with considerable military force, and the Second war of Schleswig (1864) when Sweden's parliament denounced the King's promises of military support.
The movement proposed the unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a single united kingdom. The background for this was the tumultous events during the Napoleonic wars in the beginning of the century leading to the partition of Sweden (the eastern part becoming the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809) and Denmark (whereby Norway, de jure in union with Denmark since 1387, although de facto merely a province, became independent in 1814 and thereafter was swiftly forced to accept a personal union with Sweden).
Finland being a part of the Russian Empire meant that it would have to be left out of any equation for a political union between the Nordic countries. A new term also had to be invented that excluded Finland from any such inspirations, and that term was Scandinavia. The geographical Scandinavia included Norway and Sweden, but the political Scandinavia was also to include Denmark. Politically Sweden and Norway were united in a personal union under one monarch. Denmark also included the dependent territories of Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the Atlantic ocean (which however historically had belonged to Norway, but unintentionally remained by Denmark according to the Treaty of Kiel).
The end of the Scandinavian political movement came when Denmark was denied military support from Sweden-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. That was 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.
Map
Even if a Scandinavian political union never came about there was a Scandinavian Monetary Union established in 1873, with the Krona/Krone as the common currency, and which lasted until World War I.
The modern Scandinavian cooperation after World War I also came to include the independent Finland and Scandinavian as a political term came to be replaced by the term Nordic countries, and eventually by the Nordic Council institution, in 1952.
The name of the Scandinavian mountain range, Skanderna in Swedish, is artificially derived from Skandinavien in the 19th century, in analogy with Alperna for the Alps. The commonly used names are KÃÂölen "the Keel" or fjÃÂällen "the fells, the mountains".
History
Etymology
The name Scandinavia is most probably derived from the Germanic *Skathin- meaning "danger" (cf. English scathing and unscathed) and *awjo meaning "island". It may have referred to the dangerous banks around SkanÃÂör-Falsterbo in Scania in southernmost Scandinavia. Scandinavia appears in Roman texts, as Scadinavia, and in Jordanes' history of the Goths (551 CE) as Scandza their original home, separated by sea from the land of Europe (chapter 1, 4). In Beowulf we meet the form Skedenige.