The idea of a Scandinavian nation

Aineisto on Opiskelijakirjaston digitoimaa ja Opiskelijakirjasto vastaa aineiston käyttöluvist

Historia som teleologi? Ett annat perspektiv på unionen Sverige-Norge

AbstractThe union between Sweden and Norway was established in 1814 as a consequence of royal conquest in the wake of the European turbulence of the Napoleonic wars, and was liquidated peacefully in 1905 after a Noríwegian proclamation and subsequent negotiations. The peaceful liquidation after negotiation came about after a decision which in Norway was described as the Kingââ¬â¢s abdication and in Sweden as a Norwegian coup dââ¬â¢Ã©tat. There is a century later a shimmer of self-evidence over this peaceful liquidation in 1905. However, against the backdrop of the widely different opinions about how and why the union was liquidated, this view of self-evidence can be questioned. Swedish historiography has to a very small degree dealt with the union, as if its destiny was a stain on a proud national history and has therefore circumvented it in a kind of bypass operation. In Norwegian historiography much more attention has been paid to the union. The break-up from the union has been seen as a confirmation of the Norwegian nation in a view on history where 1905 was pre-programmed already in 1814. Many even date the independence to 1905, despite the fact that already from 1814 onwards it was a union beítween two autonomous states. The image has been mediated of a teleological development, of a predetermined history of destiny. In the Norwegian case this destiny means a Sonderweg determined by external forces but with 17 May (the day of the adoption of the Conístitution in 1814) rather than 14 January (the day of the Kiel Peace in 1814) and 7 June (the day of the Norwegian proclamation of the liquidation of the union in 1905) (as well as 8 May 1945) as milestones on a road which despite the external pressure at the end was staked out by the inherent force of the Norwegian people. There is a lack of a coherent macro historical perspective, which does not teleologically try to inscribe 1905 in the earlier history of the union, a perspective which tries to pay attention to the openness and the alternatives in the development from 1814 onwards, instead of going backwards from 1905 and searching for confirmation of what really happened also necessarily had to happen. The article argues for such a perspective.Keywords: Union Sweden-Norway, 1905, 1814,history and telelogy, nationalism, democracy,Norwegian independenc

Scotland, Wales and press discourses amid the 2016 EU referendum.

This chapter is concerned with establishing and analysing the discourses that shaped the coverage of the 2016 EU referendum in a selection of Scottish and Welsh newspapers. The chapter looks at the Scottish editions of the Daily Express and Daily Mail, as well as the Herald and the Daily Record. The Welsh papers examined are the Western Mail/Wales on Sunday, the Daily Post and the Evening Post. Using Lexis Nexis the chapter engages in a search for key terms across a three month sample of coverage, followed by a critical discourse analysis of how these are used. Discourses of danger and fear are found to be prominent themes across both samples, mirroring public discourse more broadly

Representation, nation and time

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The Nineteenth Century Revised: Towards a New Narrative of Europe’s Past

The conventional history of Europe, connecting the Enlightenment heritage with our time, makes a huge detour around the violent nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth one. The article explores the European peace utopias of 1815, 1918 and 1951, and their eventual loss of suggestive force, and argues that they link today’s global Europe to the post-Napoleonic world two hundred years ago. This connection, through a series of illusions and disillusions about the nature of politics, represents a different view on the nineteenth and twentieth century than the conventional teleological narrative about fulfilment of the Enlightenment promise of progress. The analysis of the bicentenary chain of shifts between postwar, prewar and war should not be read in terms of a teleology necessitating a new war; the point is, rather to draw attention to the fragility and openness of historical processes. The new narrative outlined here emphasizes that there was no necessity in the development towards today’s Europe; the story is full of alternatives, and highlights the role as well as the responsibility of human agency. No solution appears as a necessary result of impersonal forces, everything has depended, and continues to depend, on human choice