Abstract
This chapter discusses the relationship between historiography, ideology and politics. Its starting point is Scandinavian historiography in general and the historiography of Scandinavianism in particular. It is shown how both are marked by methodological nationalism and a Scandinavian variant of the ‘Whig interpretation of history’. Moreover, it is argued that the master narrative within the historiography on political Scandinavianism is highly politicalized. It has been shaped by the arguments and rhetoric of the opponents of Scandinavianism, the so-called anti-Scandinavianists. The combination of political bias and a failed ideology project that does not fit into the national narratives explains the negative press that Scandinavianism has had within Scandinavian historiography. The ideology has not been seen as a possible future past, but rather as a project that was doomed to fail. After this discussion of Scandinavian history-writing, the attention is turned to a discussion of nineteenth-century European nationalism. Nationalism is in general understood as an ideology that strives for the creation or the maintenance of nation states. In this chapter, it is argued that this definition of nationalism does not capture much of nineteenth-century nationalism. Here, many national movements only sought limited autonomy or tied their aspirations to pan-nationalist or federalist projects. This suggests that Eric Hobsbawm may have been right in claiming that liberal nationalism between 1830 and 1880 was characterised by a ‘threshold principle’. A principle which affirmed that only states of a certain size could survive. This may explain why many nationalist movements prior to 1880 were defined by unification nationalism and pan-nationalism. These movements that flourished in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars were to an extent motivated by an existential fear. This explains why many within the elites of Scandinavia became Scandinavists and saw a united Scandinavia as a possible future.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Berger (2016).
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
For early research, see Clausen (1900, 36, 38, 69–70, 219), Koht (1908, 249 ff.), Hallendorff (1914, 30–31, 131–138), Munch (1901, 252), Bååth-Holmberg (1906, 13, 35, 85). For more recent research, see e.g. Rerup (1994, 83), Berg (2001, 170), Mørch (2004, 41), Vammen (2011, 173 ff.), Becker-Christensen (1981), Stråth (2005, 212, 2012, 104 ff.), Burman (2002, 251), Østergård (1997, 38).
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
Leerssen (2018, 19 ff), Hobsbawm (1995 [1962], 132–133), Recchia and Urbinati (2009, 2–5), Smith (1994, 12), Körner (2000, 13), Recchia and Urbinati (2009, 39 ff.), Glenthøj (2014, 38), Holmberg (1946, 62), Alm (1856, 1–2), Afzelius (1846, 25–26), Westrem (1865, 21–25, 52, 59–60), Atterbom (1845, 10).
- 13.
Kedourie (1985 [1960], 9).
- 14.
For the abbreviated form, see Gellner (2002 [1983]), 1), Hobsbawm (2002 [1992]), 9), Langewiesche (2009, 142). Dominance of this definition see Berger and Storm (2019, 12), Breuilly (2019, 62). On aggression and chauvinism, see Kedourie (1985 [1960], 18), Vick (2002, 174), Berger and Storm (2019, 2, 5, 7), Hroch (2019, 54), Hobsbawm (2002 [1992], 9), Langewiesche (2004, 19–40). For generations within nationalism studies, see Brincker (2020).
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
Vick (2002, 1–2, 141, 162–171).
- 20.
Hobsbawm (2002 [1992], 33, 42).
- 21.
Mearsheimer (2001, xi–xii, 1–5, 30 ff, 45–46 (quotations pages 2 and 5)).
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
Rath (2015, 2).
- 25.
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
Vick (2002, 72 ff., 176 ff).
- 29.
Frevert (2020, 10–11).
- 30.
- 31.
- 32.
- 33.
- 34.
- 35.
- 36.
- 37.
- 38.
Spencer (1864, 444 (quotation)).
- 39.
- 40.
- 41.
- 42.
Graaf (2020, 449).
- 43.
Mill (1996, 44).
- 44.
- 45.
Petri (2018, 18–19, 28–30, 101–106).
- 46.
Petri (2018, 107–108).
- 47.
- 48.
Hegel (1894, 150).
- 49.
- 50.
Rozdolski (1986).
- 51.
Özkirimli (2017, 20).
- 52.
- 53.
Hobsbawm (2002 [1992], 31–32).
- 54.
- 55.
- 56.
- 57.
Kohn (1960, 73ff).
- 58.
Kohn (1960, 22 (quotation)).
- 59.
Kohn (1960, 75).
- 60.
- 61.
- 62.
Snyder (1984, 5, 6, 17, 247–254).
- 63.
Maxwell (2022, 3 ff).
- 64.
Vasilev (2019, 502).
- 65.
- 66.
Bibliography
Literature
Afzelius, Arvid August, Blad ur en Dagbok under Studentfärden til Köpenhamn i Juni Månad 1845 (Stockholm, 1846)
Alesina, Alberto and Enrico Spolaore, Size of Nations (Cambridge, MA, 2003)
Alm, L., Det Skandinaviska Student-tåget 1856 (Stockholm, 1856)
Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Edition (London and New York, 2000 [1983])
Atterbom, Per Daniel Amadeus, Om Den skandinaviske Forening og det paa tænkte Studentertog Upsala til Kjøbenhavn om Vaaren 1844. Oversat efter andet gjennemseede og forøgede Oplag (Lillehammer, 1845)
Baár, Monika, Historians and Nationalism (Oxford, 2010)
Baár, Monika, ‘History-writing’, in Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe, ed. Leerssen, Joep (Amsterdam, 2018)
Becker-Christensen, Henrik, Skandinaviske drømme og politiske realiteter. Den politiske skandinavisme i Danmark 1830–1850 (Aarhus, 1981)
Becker-Christensen, Henrik, ‘The idea of Scandinavianism’, in The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, 2 vols, eds Kouri, E.I. and Jens E. Olesen (Cambridge, MA, 2016), vol. 2
Bell, David A., The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know it (Boston, MA, 2007)
Berg, Roald, Norsk forsvarshistorie, bd. 2. Profesjon—union—nasjon, (Bergen, 2001), vol. 2
Berger, Stefan, ‘Nordic National Histories in Comparative European Perspective’, Historisk Tidsskrift (Norway) 95 (2016)
Berger, Stefan, ‘National histories and the promotion of nationalism in historiography—the pitfalls of ‘methodological nationalism”, in Writing the History of Nationalism, eds Berger, Stefan and Eric Storm (London, 2019)
Berger, Stefan and Eric Storm, ‘Introduction: Writing the History of Nationalism—in what way, for whom and by which means?’, Writing the History of Nationalism, eds Berger, Stefan and Eric Storm (London, 2019)
Bjørgo, Narve et al., Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie, x vols (Oslo, 1995), vol. 1 Selvstendighet og union. Fra middelalderen til 1905
Breuilly, John, Nationalism and the State (2nd edn, Manchester, 1998 [1993]).
Breuilly, John, ‘1848: Connected or Comparable Revolutions?’, in 1848—A European Revolution? International Ideas and National Memories of 1848, ed. Körner, Axel (Basingstoke, 2000)
Breuilly, John, ‘Nationalism and national unification in Nineteenth-century Europe’, in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism, ed. Breuilly, John (Oxford, 2013).
Breuilly, John, ‘Modernism and writing the history of nationalism’, in Writing the History of Nationalism, eds Berger, Stefan and Eric Storm (London, 2019).
Brincker, Benedikte, ‘On the Roles of Institutions and Agency in Nationalism and the Relations between Them: A Theoretical Enquiry into the Study of Nationalism, Its Present and Future’, Sociology, Vol. 54(6), (2020).
Broers, Michael, Europe under Napoleon, 1799–1815 (London, 1996a)
Broers, Michael, Europe after Napoleon: Revolution, Reaction and Romanticism, 1814–1848 (Manchester, 1996b).
Burman, Anders, ’Vår lyckligaste tanke. C J L Almqvist om skandinavismen’, Scandia. Tidskrift för historisk forskning 68/2 (2002).
Bååth-Holmberg, Cecilia, Skaldedrömmar och skaldepolitik: Emil von Qvanten och hans tid (Stockholm, 1906).
Clausen, Julius, Skandinavismen: Historisk fremstillet, (Copenhagen, 1900).
Clark, Christopher, Time and Power: Visions of History in German Politics, from the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich (Princeton, NJ and Oxford, 2019).
Cohn, Gustav, Grundlegung der Nationaloekonomie, x vols (Stuttgart, 1885), vol. 1.
Danstrup, John, ‘Den politiske Skandinavisme i Perioden 1830–50’, Scandia. Tidskrift för historisk forskning XVI (1944).
De Graaf, Beatrice, Fighting terror after Napoleon. How Europe Became Secure after 1815 (Cambridge, 2020).
Edgren, Henrik, ‘Traumakonstruktionen: Svensk historieskrivning om rikssprängningen 1809’, Scandia. Tidskrift för historisk forskning 76/1 (2010).
Elliott, J.H., ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies’, Past & Present 137 (1992).
Engberg-Petersen, Anders, Empire of Change: The Napoleonic Wars and the Disorder of Things (Cambridge, MA, 2015).
Ferguson, Niall, Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (Basingstoke and Oxford 1998 [1997]).
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, The Characteristics of the Present Age (London, 1847 [1806]).
Freitag, Sabine, ‘National Union or Cosmopolitan?’, in 1848: A European Revolution?, ed. Körner, Axel (Houndmills, 2000).
Frevert, Ute, The Politics of Humiliation. A Modern History (Oxford, 2020).
Friisberg, Claus, Orla Lehmann—Danmarks første moderne politiker: Orla Lehmann, de nationalliberale og Danmark, 1810–49. En politisk biografi (Esbjerg, 2000).
Fritzsche, Peter, Stranded in the Present: Modern Time and the Melancholy of History (Cambridge, MA, 2004).
Gagliardo, G., Reich and Nation: The Holy Roman Empire as Idea and Reality, 1763–1806 (Bloomington, 1980).
Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, 2002 [1983]).
Ginsborg, Paul, Daniele Manin and the Venetian revolution of 1848–49 (Cambridge, MA, 1979).
Glenthøj, Rasmus, 1864—Sønner af de slagne (København, 2014).
Glenthøj, Rasmus, ‘Fortællinger om Danmark og Norge’, in Mellem brødre: Dansk-norsk samliv i 600 år, ed. Glenthøj, Rasmus (Copenhagen, 2016)
Glenthøj, Rasmus, ‘Skandinavismen—en politisk utopi fra 1800-tallet? Et komparativt studie’, in Utopi og realiteter: Festskrift til Erik Kulavig, eds Bisgaard, Lars et al. (Odense, 2018).
Glenthøj, Rasmus, ‘Pan-Scandinavianism and the threshold principle’, in A History of the European Restorations: Governments, States and Monarchy, eds Broers, Michael and Ambrogio Caiani (London and New York, 2019), vol. 1.
Hallendorff, Carl, Illusioner och verklighet: Studier öfver den skandinaviska krisen 1864, (Stockholm, 1914).
Harvard, Jonas and Magdalena Hillström, ‘Media Scandinavianism: Media Events and the Historical Legacy of Pan-Scandinavianism’, Communicating the North: Media Structures and Images in the Making of the Nordic Region, eds Harvard, Jonas and Peter Stadius (Farnham, 2013).
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Hegel’s Philosophy of mind (Oxford, 1894).
Hemstad, Ruth, ‘‘Skandinavismens’ tilkomst som samtidig og omstridt begrep’, in Skandinavismen: vision og virkning, eds Hemstad, Ruth et al. (Odense, 2018).
Hemstad, Ruth et al. (eds), ‘Innledning: Skandinavismen som visjon og påvirkningskraft’, in Skandinavismen: vision og virkning, eds Hemstad, Ruth et al. (Odense, 2018).
Hobsbawm, Eric J., The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848 (London, 1962).
Hobsbawm, Eric J., Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, (2nd edn, Cambridge, MA, 2002 [1992]).
Holmberg, Åke, Skandinavismen i Sverige vid 1800-talets mitt (Gothenburg, 1946)
Hroch, Miroslav, ‘Marxism and the history of nationalism’, in Writing the History of Nationalism, eds Berger, Stefan and Eric Storm (London, 2019).
Johnsen, Niri Ragnvald, ‘Vi hafva ifrån morgon till qväll varit ute och agiterat’: Skandinavismen og pressen 1848–1864, Masteroppgave i historie ved Institutt for arkeologi, konservering og historie, Universitetet i Oslo (Oslo, 2018).
Kahan, Alan S., Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century Europe: The Political Culture of Limited Suffrage (Basingstoke, 2003).
Kedourie, Eli, Nationalism (London, 1985 [1960]).
Koht, Halvdan, Die Stellung Norwegens und Schwedens im Deutsch-Dänischen Konflikt, Zumal Während der Jahre 1863 und 1864 (Christiania, 1908).
Kohn, Hans, Pan-Slavism: Its History and Ideology. 2nd edition (New York, 1960).
Koselleck, Reinhardt, The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts (Stanford, 2002).]
Koselleck, Reinhart, ‘Erfaringsændringer og metodeskift: En historisk-antropologisk skitse’, in Begreber, tid og erfaring: En tekstsamling, ed. Koselleck, Reinhart (Copenhagen, 2007).
Kumar, Krishan, ‘Nationalism and revolution: friends or foes?’, Nations and Nationalism 21/4 (2015).
Körner, Axel, ‘The European Dimension in the Ideas of 1848 and the Nationalization of Its Memories’, in 1848—A European Revolution? International Ideas and National Memories of 1848, ed. Körner, Axel (Basingstoke, 2000).
Langewiesche, Dieter, ‚Was heist “Erfindung der Nation”?, in Auf dem Weg zum ethnisch reinen Nationalstaat? Europa in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Beer, Mathias (Tübingen, 2004).
Langewiesche, Dieter, ‘The Nation as a Developing Resource Community: A Generalizing Comparison’, in Comparative and Transnational History: Central European Approaches and New Perspectives, eds Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard and Jürgen Kocka (New York, 2009).
Larsson, Simon et al. (eds), ‘Introduction: Nordic historiography: from methodological nationalism to empirical transnationalism’, in Making Nordic Historiography: Connections, tensions & methodology, 1850–1970, eds Haapala, Perttii et al. (New York and Oxford, 2017).
Leerssen, Joep, Remembrance and imagination. Patterns in the historical and literary representation of Ireland in the nineteenth century (Cork, 1996)
Leerssen, Joep, National thought in Europe: A Cultural History (Amsterdam, 2006).
Leerssen, Joep, ‘introduction’, in Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe, ed. Leerssen, Joep (Amsterdam, 2018)
List, Friedrich, National System of Political Economy (Philadelphia, PA, 1856 [1841]).
Lyons, Martyn, Post-Revolutionary Europe, 1815–1866 (Basingstoke, 2006).
Maxwell, Alexander, ‘Pan-Nationalism as a Category in Theory and Practice’, Nationalism and Ethnic politics, 28:1 (2022).
Mearsheimer, John J., The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York & London, 2001).
Meriage, Lawrence P., ‘The First Serbian Uprising (1804–1813) and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of the Eastern Question’, Slavic Review 37/3 (1978).
Mill, J.S., ‘Nationality’, in Nationalism in Europe 1815 to the present, ed. Woolf, Stuart (London, 1996 [1861]).
Munch, Peter Rochegune, ‘Skandinavismen’, Sønderjyske Årbøger (1901).
Murphy, David T., ‘Prussian Aims for the Zollverein, 1828–1833’, Historian 53 (1991).
Møller, Jens Fabricius, “Tyskland er Edder og Forgift’: Forholdet mellem dansk og tysk i det lange 19. århundrede’, in Venskab og fjendskab: Danmark og Tyskland i det 19. og 20. århundrede. Festskrift til Karl Christian Lammers i anledning af hans 75 års fødselsdag 4. september 2018, eds Mariager, Rasmus and Niklas Olsen (Copenhagen, 2018).
Mørch, Søren, 25 statsministre: 25 fortællinger om magten i Danmark i det tyvende århundrede (Copenhagen, 2004).
Naarder, Bruno, Socialist Europe and revolutionary Russia: perceptions and prejudice, 1848–1923 (Cambridge, 1992).
Nielsen, Jens Petter (ed.), Russland kommer nærmere: Norge og Russland, 1814–1917 (Oslo, 2014).
Nygaard, Bertel, Kærlighedens samfund: Romantiske utopier i 1800-tallets Danmark (Aarhus, 2016).
Petri, Rolf, A Short History of Western Ideology: A Critical Account (London, 2018).
Rath, Andrew C., The Crimean War in Imperial Context, 1854–1856 (Basingstoke, 2015).
Recchia, Stefano and Nadia Urbinati (ed.), A Cosmopolitanism of Nations: Giuseppe Mazzini’s Writings on Democracy, Nation Building, and International Relations (Princeton, NJ, 2009).
Renan, Ernst, ‘What is a Nation?’, in Becoming National: A Reader, eds Geoff Eley and Ronald Gregor Suny (Oxford, 1990).
Reill, Dominique Kirchner, Nationalists Who Feared the Nation: Adriatic Multi-Nationalism in Habsburg Dalmatia, Trieste, and Venice (Stanford, CA, 2012).
Rerup, Lorenz, ‘Fra litterær til politisk nationalisme: Udvikling og udbredelse fra 1808 til 1845’, in Dansk identitetshistorie, ed. Feldbæk, Ole (Copenhagen, 1991), vol. 2.
Rerup, Lorenz, ‘Nationalisme og skandinavisme indtil Første Verdenskrigs udbrud’, Den jyske historiker 69/70 (1994).
Rothschild, Emma, ‘Political economy’, in The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought, eds Jones, Gareth Stedman and Gregory Claeys (Cambridge, 2011).
Rozdolski, Roman, Engels and the “nonhistoric” Peoples: The National Question in the Revolution of 1848 (Glasgow, 1986)
Rummel, Rudolph, Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence (New Brunswick, NJ, 2002).
Sanness, John, Patrioter, intelligens og skandinaver: Norske reaksjoner på skandinavismen før 1848 (Oslo, 1959).
Schulze, Hagen, The Course of German Nationalism (Cambridge, MA, 1991).
Seip, Jens Arup, Utsikt over Norges historie (Oslo, 1981), vol. 2.
Simms, Brendan, The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797–1806 (Cambridge, MA, 1997).
Smith, Anthony D., Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History (Malden, Mass., 2001).
Smith, Denis Mack (ed.), The Making of Italy, 1796–1870 (New York, 1968).
Smith, Denis Mack, Cavour (London, 1985).
Smith, Denis Mack, Mazzini (New Haven, CT, 1994).
Snyder, Jack, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (New York, 2000).
Snyder, Louis L., Macro-Nationalism: A History of the Pan-Movements (Westport, CT and London, 1984).
Spencer, Herbert, Principles of Biology (Edinburgh, 1864), vol. 1.
Stenroth, Ingmar, Sveriges rötter: En nations födelse (Stockholm, 2005).
Stråth, Bo, Union og demokrati: Dei sameinte rika Noreg og Sverige, 1814–1905 (Oslo, 2005).
Stråth, Bo, Norstedts Sveriges Historia, 1830–1920 (Stockholm, 2012).
Sørensen, Øystein, ‘Hegemonikamp om det norske: Elitens nasjonsbyggingsprosjekter, 1770–1945’, in Jakten på det norske: Perspektiver på utviklingen av en norsk nasjonal identitet på 1800-tallet, ed. Sørensen, Øystein (Oslo, 1998).
Sørensen, Øystein, Norsk idéhistorie (Oslo, 2001), vol. 3.
Thiesse, Anne-Marie, The Creation of national identities. Europe, 18th–20th Centuries (Leiden & Boston, 2022).
Thorkildsen, Dag, ‘Skandinavismen: en historisk oversikt’, in Nasjonal identitet: et kunstprodukt?, ed. Sørensen, Øystein (Oslo, 1994).
Thorkildsen, Dag, ‘En nasjonal og moderne utdanning’, in Jakten på det norske: Perspektiver på utviklingen av en norsk nasjonal identitet på 1800-tallet, ed. Sørensen, Øystein (Oslo, 1998).
Thorkildsen, Dag and Lars Österlin, ‘Kulturell, politisk og kirkelig skandinavisme’, in Kyrka och nationalism i Norden: Nationalism och skandinavism i de nordiska folkkyrkorna under 1800-talet, ed. Brohed, Ingmar (Lund, 1998).
Tilly, Charles, The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, NJ, 1975).
Vammen, Hans, Den tomme stat: Angst og ansvar i dansk politik, 1848–1864 (Copenhagen, 2011).
Varouxakis, Georgios, ‘‘Great’ versus ‘small nations: size and national greatness in Victorian political thought’, in Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth-Century Political Thought, ed. Bell, Duncan (Cambridge, MA, 2007).
Vasilev, George, ‘Methodological nationalism and the politics of history-writing: how imaginary scholarship perpetuates the nation’, Nations and Nationalism, 25 (2), 2019.
Vick, Brian E., Defining Germany: The 1848 Frankfurt Parliamentarians and National Identity (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2002).
Westrem, L., Skandinaviske Betragtninger (Bergen, 1865).
Wolf, Stuart, ‘The Construction of a European World-View in the Revolutionary-Napoleonic’, Past & Present 137 (1992).
Wolff, Larry, Inventing Eastern Europe: the map of civilization on the mind of the enlightenment (Stanford, 1994).
Woolf, Stuart J. (ed.), Nationalism in Europe, 1815 to Present (London, 1996).
Østergård, Uffe, ‘Norden: europæisk eller nordisk?’, Den jyske historiker 69–70 (1994).
Østergård, Uffe, ‘The Geopolitics of Nordic Identity’, in The Cultural Construction of Norden, eds Sørensen, Øystein and Bo Stråht (Oslo, 1997).
Özkirimli, Umut, Theories of nationalism. A Critical Introduction. Third Edition (London, 2017)
Websites
Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of, ‘Salisbury’s ‘Dying Nations’ Speech, 4 Mai 1898’, Clio-Texte, ed. by Patrice Delpin, 2015, <https://clio-texte.clionautes.org/salisburys-dying-nations-speech.html> (15 August 2019)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Glenthøj, R., Ottosen, M.N. (2024). Futures Past. In: Scandinavia After Napoleon. War, Culture and Society, 1750–1850. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46561-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46561-1_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-46560-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-46561-1
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)