Guðmundur HálfdanarsonHistory of the Nordic World:

from Competition to Cooperation

India International Centre, Delhi5 March 2010

What is “Norden”?

• Five independent states– Denmark– Finland– Iceland– Norway – Sweden

• Three self-governing regions– Åland Islands– Faeroe Islands– Greenland

India vs “Norden”

India• 3.3 million sq. km• 1,177 million inhabitants

“Norden”• 1.3 million sq. km

– 3.5 million sq. km with Greenland

• 25 million inhabitants– Denmark 5.5 million– Finland 5.0 million– Iceland 0.3 million– Norway 4.7 million– Sweden 9.2 million

From Vikings to the Thirty-Years-War(ca. 800-1650)

“Vikings” Gustav Adolf, king of Sweden

The Two Scandinavian MonarchiesAround 1700

Denmark-Norway

Sweden

The Two Scandinavian MonarchiesEarly 19th century

Denmark

Sweden-Norway

19th Century

• Sense of weakness• Romantic nationalism• Democratic ideologies

Oehlenschläger and Tégner

The Nordic Bard:

“The time of disunity is over because discord has no place in the infinite world of the free spirit”

Esaias Tégner, 1829

“The Nordic Spirit”, anno 1848

“Blood brothers! Not only in the banquet halls, but also where steel and lead speak to the Nordic world!”

Symbols of Nordic National Identities: Kalevala

Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Lemminkäinen’s Mother

Symbols of Nordic National Identities: Icelandic Manuscripts

Manuscript of Jónsbók, from around 1600 (Reykjabók)

The Nordic Area: the 20th Century

“The Nordic Spirit” – from the bottom up

A meeting of Danish and Swedish students (1895)

The Road towards Nordic Cooperationfrom the top down

• 1919: First Nordic societies• 1952: The Nordic Council

(Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden)

• 1954-55: Nordic Passport Union• 1955: Finland joins the Nordic

council• 1955: The Nordic Social

Convention• 1960s: NORDEK, Nordic

economic cooperation fails• 1971: The Nordic Council of

Ministers

The Nordic Countries and the European Integration

• 1960: Denmark, Norway and Sweden, founding members of EFTA

• 1970: Iceland joins EFTA• 1973: Denmark joins

the EEC• 1994: EEA agreement• 1995: Finland and

Sweden join EU

“The Nordic Tree”

“The aim of the Nordic spirit is to allow all of these [branches] to develop according to their own nature and character, in order for them to form collectively a rich and productive crown, where each twig and each leaf has its own distinctive feature but all of them are, at the same time, so similar to each other that they could never belong to any other tree but the one to which they are attached.”

Svend Grundtvig 1824-1883

Olaus Magnus, Carta marina (1539)