Scandinavism

Scandinavism (also called Pan-Scandinavianism) and Nordism are literary and political movements that support various degrees of cooperation among the Scandinavian or Nordic countries. Scandinavism and Nordism are interchangeable terms for the literary, linguistic and cultural movement that focuses on promoting a shared Nordic past, a shared cultural heritage, a common Scandinavian mythology and a common linguistic root in Old Norse, and which led to the formation of joint periodicals and societies in support of Scandinavian literature and languages. However, political Scandinavism and political Nordism are two distinct political movements which emerged at different times.

Political Scandinavism paralleled the 19th-century unification movements of Germany and Italy. As opposed to the German and Italian counterparts, the Scandinavian state-building project was not successful and is no longer pursued. It was at its height in the mid-19th century and supported the idea of Scandinavia as a unified region or a single nation, based on the common ethnic, linguistic, political and cultural heritage of the Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway and Sweden. (These three countries are referred to as "three brothers" in the sixth stanza of the national anthem of Norway.)

The movement was initiated by Danish and Swedish university students in the 1840s, with a base in Scania. In the beginning, the political establishments in the two countries, including the absolute monarch Christian VIII and Charles XIV with his "one man government", were suspicious of the movement. The police in Denmark therefore kept the proponents of Scandinavism under close watch.

Hans Christian Andersen became an adherent of Scandinavism after a visit to Sweden in 1837, and committed himself to writing a poem that would convey the relatedness of Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians. It was in July 1839, during a visit to the island of Funen, that Andersen first wrote the text of his poem, Jeg er en Skandinav ("I am a Scandinavian"). Andersen composed the poem to capture "the beauty of the Nordic spirit, the way the three sister nations have gradually grown together", as part of a Scandinavian national anthem. Composer Otto Lindblad set the poem to music, and the composition was published in January 1840. Its popularity peaked in 1845, after which it was seldom sung. Andersen spent two weeks at the Augustenborg Palace in the autumn of 1844.

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