Scandinavia

Related Topics:
Scandinavian :: Scandinavian-American :: Scandinavia

For other uses, see Scandinavia (disambiguation).

Scandinavia is the cultural and historic region of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The Scandinavian countries are Denmark, Norway and Sweden, 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 terms Fennoscandia and Fenno-Scandinavia are sometimes used for an extended region.

The Scandinavian languages, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are mutually intelligible, the countries share a common history and have many cultural similarities.

In the English language, "Scandinavia" is often incorrectly used as a synonym for the Nordic countries

The usage and meaning of the term outside Scandinavia is somewhat ambiguous:

Finland and Iceland are many times counted as parts of Scandinavia.
In a German mindset, Norway, Sweden and Finland are usually included, but Denmark is not.
In a British mindset, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are usually included, often with the addition of Iceland and Finland.

These alternative meanings are considered incorrect in the local languages, and occasionally some people may take offense by such usage in English.

The term the Nordic countries is used unambiguously for the Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the republics of Finland and Iceland.

The terms Fennoscandia and Fenno-Scandinavia may either be used to include the Scandinavian peninsula, the Kola peninsula, Karelia and Finland under the same term alluding to the Fennoscandian Shield, or they may be used in a more cultural sense, more or less as a synonym for the Nordic countries, to signify the historically close contact between Finnic, Sami and Scandinavian peoples and cultures.

Outside of Europe, the Netherlands are sometimes mistakenly considered Scandinavian as well. The reason for this seems to be confusion with Denmark; both are small Teutonic countries bordering the North Sea, and the adjectives Dutch and Danish are a bit alike.

The Nordic Countries are Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and include the autonomous territories of Svalbard, Åland, Faroe Islands and Greenland.

Terminology and usage

The region consists of the greater part of the Scandinavian and Jutland peninsulas and the islands in between. Smaller portions of the peninsulas belong to Finland and Germany.

In present usage, Scandinavia includes, politically and culturally, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Geographically the Scandinavian peninsula includes mainland Sweden and mainland Norway, and also a part of Finland, while the Jutland Peninsula includes mainland Denmark and a small part of Germany (Denmark has not included any territory on the Scandinavian Peninsula since the middle of the 17th century).

The three countries that form Scandinavia came to be viewed as a single political and cultural region during the height of the nationalist movements in these countries in the middle of the 19th century (Scandinavism). The region takes its name from the peninsula, which in turn is thought to be named after the historical province of Skåne (Scania in southernmost part of Scandinavian Peninsula, in Sweden). Before the mid-19th century, the term covered a larger area of Northern Europe including adjacent parts of Germany, parts of Russia bordering Finland and Estonia.

The label Scandinavia today reflects linguistic similarities (Scandinavian or North Germanic languages), historical and cultural ties as well as similar societal developments. These similarities have persisted despite past enmity and competition, opposite policies during the two World Wars and the Cold War, and differing stances on membership in international organizations (e.g. NATO and the European Union).

Geography

The geography of Scandinavia is extremely varied, because of the large extent of the area. Notable are the Norwegian fjords (1), the Scandinavian Mountains, the flat, low areas in Denmark, and the archipelagos of Sweden and Finland. When Finland is included, the moraines (ice age remnants) and lake areas are also notable. Several of the largest lakes in Europe are found in Sweden and Finland.^*

The climate varies from north to south and from west to east; a marine west coast climate ( Temperate/Mesothermal climates) typical of western Europe dominates in Denmark, southernmost part of Sweden and along the west coast of Norway reaching north to 65°N, with orthograpic enhanced precipitation of more than 2000 mm/year (max 3500 mm) in some areas in western Norway. The central part - from Oslo to Stockholm and Helsinki - has a humid continental climate (Dfb), which gradually gives way to subarctic climate (Dfc) further north and cool marine west coast climate (Cfc) along the northwestern coast. A small area along the northern coast east of North Cape has tundra climate (Et) due to lack of summer warmth. The Scandinavian Mountains block the mild and moist air coming from the southwest, thus northern Sweden, northern Finland and Finnmarksvidda plateau in Norway receive little precipitation and have cold winters. Large areas in the Scandinavian mountains have alpine tundra climate.

History

Scandinavia was Christianized in the 10th-13th centuries, resulting in three consolidated kingdoms.

Denmark forged from the Lands of Denmark (including Blekinge, Gotland, Halland and Skåne in modern-day Sweden)
Sweden forged from the Lands of Sweden
Norway (including Bohuslän, Härjedalen, Jämtland and Idre & Särna in modern-day Sweden. Also Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Shetland, the Orkneys and the Hebrides.)

The three kingdoms were united in 1397 in the Kalmar UnionÖrjan Martinsson , The Kalmar Union by Queen Margrete I of Denmark. Divergent interests among the independent nations led to the Union's final dissolution in 1536. Norway remained united with Denmark; Norway's possessions in the North Atlantic (Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands) remained under the Danish crown even after the Dano-Norwegian union was dissolved in 1814. Sweden left the union in 1523 under King Gustav Vasa.

In the mid 17th century, the Treaty of Brömsebro and Treaty of Roskilde permanently transferred some provinces and islands from Norway and Denmark to Sweden.

After the Napoleonic Wars, Scandinavia was reorganized into two personal unions:

Denmark with Schleswig-Holstein (dissolved in 1864; included former overseas provinces of Norway)
Sweden and Norway (dissolved in 1905)

Etymology

Scandinavia and Skåne (Scania) are considered to have the same etymology. The earliest source is Pliny the Elder's "Natural History", dated to the 1st century AD. As the Goths had already left Sweden four or five hundred years previously and were probably already speaking east Germanic (Gothic), Pliny's names were of west Germanic origin. North Germanic had not yet divided from west Germanic.

Pliny, an admiral, says that there were 23 islands "Romanis armis cognitae", "known to Roman arms", in the Kattegat. His descriptions are not always clear, even though he was speaking of geography he considered revealed by a "clarior fama", "a clearer story." He begins (4.96) with the mountain of Saevo (mons Saevo ibi), which forms the Codanian Bay (Codanus sinus) surrounding the Cimbrian promontory. These features are the mountainous coasts of Norway and Sweden, the Skagerrak and Skagen. Saevo is most likely an early form of Zeeland, which Pliny applied to southern Scandinavia. The Cod- in Codanus is a form of the second element in Kattegat (lat. coda "the tail of animals", lat. ănus "anus" or "old wife, also of feminine animals", dan. katte "cat" ~ possibly a reference to the group Felis, esp. Lynx and dan. gat in gatfinn "analfin of a fish", thus kattegat "tail of a cat" or a "cat's hole" ~ Freya, Norse goddess of love, fertility and beauty, travelled in a chariot drawn by huge cats). According to Pliny, the most famous (clarissima) of the islands in the Codanian Bay is Scatinavia, of unknown size. There live the Hilleviones, who can probably be identified with what is now Halland. As described, Saevo and Scatinavia are the same place.

Pliny mentions Scandinavia one more time: in 8.39 he says that the animal called achlis (given in the accusative, achlin), was born on the island of Scadinavia. Achlis is not Latin. As well as having some mythical attributes, the animal grazes and has a big upper lip. Pliny also uses the name Scandiae to mean some islands near Britain.

The Germanic reconstruction based on Pliny is *Skaðin-awjo, without the n, which can be seen as a later assimilation to the second n, and with the thorn, which might be represented in Latin by t or d. The first segment is uncertain, and perhaps will always be so.

Nearly everyone agrees that the second segment is "island", which the American Heritage DictionaryIsland, The American Heritage, 2000 derives from Proto-Indo-European *akwa-, "water", in the sense of "watery land". Saevo is probably a synonym, as it resembles Gothic saiws, "lake", which is one of the Germanic group of words including English sea, German See. The group does not have an Indo-european derivation and is not believed to be Indo-european. However, the word "saevo" in Latin means "raging, mad, furious, fell, fierce, savage, ferocious".^*

It seems clear that the designation of Scandinavia as an island preceded the Indo-europeans there, and that our words for island and sea came from the indigenes in the region. The *awia- translates Saevo and saiws into Indo-european. Today Scandinavia is not an island, but the indigenous Mesolithic people inhabiting the region may have remembered Ancylus lake and preceding times, when water exited the Baltic through what is now Stockholm and the lakes called saiws by the Goths.

Scadin- can be segmented various ways to obtain various Indo-european meanings: scand- or scad-in-, scan- or sca-din, scandin or scadin-. These segmentations have resulted in a number of possible etymologies, such as "climbing island" (*scand-), "island of the Scythian people", "island of the woodland of *sca-". Another possibility is that all or part of scadin- came from the indigenes along with achlis and sea.

One strong derivation is from the Germanic *Skaðin- meaning "danger" (cf. English scathing and unscathed, and German Schaden and beschädigen): "dangerous island", possibly referring to the banks around Skanör (skan- is the same as in Scandinavia, and -ör means "sandbanks") and Falsterbo in Skåne in southernmost Sweden. This root also may not be from any of the Indo-European languages.

Alternatively, the first element is sometimes attributed to the Scandinavian giantess Skaði from Norse mythology. If it is she, it is even less likely to be Indo-European, as a people moving in among another people typically take on their gods and goddesses (not quite daring to reject them).

The original form gave rise to different forms in Germanic languages often transliterated by non-Germanic scribes. Ptolemy uses the form Scandia, showing that the n had appeared by then. In Beowulf we meet the forms Scedenigge and Scedeland. Pomponius Mela used Codanovia, based on the ancient name of the Kattegat. This usage appears to support the "sealand" idea. The form Scadinavia, the original home of the Langobards, appears in Paulus Diaconus' Historia LangobardorumPaulus Diaconus, Historia Langobardorum, BIBLIOTHECA AUGUSTANA, but in other versions of Historia Langobardorum appear the forms Scadan, Scandanan, Scadanan and ScatenaugeHistory of the Langobards, Northvegr Foundation. In Jordanes' history of the Goths (AD 551) we meet the form Scandza their original home, separated by sea from the land of Europe (chapter 1, 4)Jordanes (translated by Charles C. Mierow), THE ORIGIN AND DEEDS OF THE GOTHS, April 22, 1997. If the -za represents an early form of zee, then it may replace *awia. On the other hand, Jordanes' spelling may just be an attempt to capture the late Latin palatalization of the d by a following i.

The name of the Scandinavian mountain range, Skanderna in Swedish, was artificially derived from Skandinavien in the 19th century, in analogy with Alperna for the Alps. The commonly used names are bergen or fjällen; both names meaning "the mountains".

Languages

Main articles: North Germanic languages

Most dialects of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible, and Scandinavians can easily understand each other's standard languages as they appear in print and are heard on radio and television. The reason why Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are traditionally viewed as different languages, rather than dialects of one common language, is that they each are well established standard languages in their respective countries. They are related to, but not mutually intelligible with, the other North Germanic languages, Icelandic and Faroese, which are descended from Old West Norse. Danish, Swedish and Norwegian have, since medieval times, been influenced to varying degrees by Middle Saxon and standard German. A substantial amount of that influence was a by-product of the economic activity generated by the Hanseatic League.

Finns and Icelanders who have studied Swedish and Danish, respectively, as foreign languages often also find it hard to understand the other Scandinavian languages. On the other end of the scale are the Norwegians, who with two parallel written standards, and a habit to hold on strongly to local dialects, are accustomed to variation and may perceive Danish and Swedish as only slightly more distant dialects. In a conversation between a Swedish speaker and a Dane there can be significant difficulties in understanding each other's spoken language, due to differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. In the Faroe Islands Danish is mandatory, and since Faroese people this way become bilingual in two very distinct Nordic languages, they find it relatively easy to understand the other two Mainland Scandinavian languages. Internordisk språkförståelse, Nordisk Sprogråd, November 2002

The Scandinavian languages are (as a language family) entirely unrelated to Finnish and Estonian, which as Finno-Ugric languages are distantly related to Hungarian. This said, there still is a great deal of borrowing from the Swedish language in both the Finnish and Estonian languages. Oddly enough, texts on some rune stones found in Skåne have been deciphered mixing Finnish words into the "Fornnordiska" (Ove Berg: Runsvenska, svenska finska 2003). Although Swedish speakers constitute a small, but influential, minority in Finland, and Finnish speakers constitute a minority in Sweden of similar relative size, the linguistic distance between the language families has often been seen by native speakers of each of these languages as indicative of a cultural distance, as well as a reason to consider the Finns as a people separate from the Scandinavian culture group.

The ethnic nationalist Fennoman movement in Finland fought for equal language rights for Finnish-speakers from the Swedish-speaking elite at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The Fennoman movement was established by prominent Finns and sympathetic Swedish-speakers in Finland under a period of intense russification efforts from the tsar, and its motto "Swedes we are no longer, Russians we will never become, so let us be Finns" was popular among Finns.

The movement's goal was to promote the equal legal status of the Finnish language in a country, where the official language of government was Swedish or Russian, despite the large majority of the population being Finnish-speakers. Only in 1902 Finnish language received an equal official status with the other two.

In Finland, the only exception to the equality between Finnish and Swedish languages is made on the Åland islands, and it is in favour of the Swedish language. According to the county legislation^*, the region is unilingually Swedish-speaking.

Politics

See also Politics of Denmark, Politics of Norway and Politics of Sweden.

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 (Slesvig in Scandinavian) (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 King proposed the unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a single united kingdom. The background for this was the tumultuous 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. The geographical Scandinavia included Norway, Sweden and parts of Finland, 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 with Denmark according to the Treaty of Kiel).

The end of the Scandinavian political movement came when Denmark was betrayed when 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.

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.

Historical political structure

Century	Scandinavia and the Nordic Countries
21st	Denmark (EU)	Faroes	Iceland	Norway	Sweden (EU)	Finland (EU)
20th	Denmark				Sweden	Finland
19th	Denmark			Sweden-Norway		GD of Finland
18th	Denmark-Norway				Sweden-Finland
17th
16th
15th	Kalmar Union
14th	Denmark	Norway			Sweden-Finland
13th
12th		Faroes	Icelandic CW	Norway
Peoples	Danes	Faroese¹	Icelanders¹	Norwegians	Swedes	Finns

1/ The original settlers of the Faroes and Iceland were of Nordic (mainly Norwegian) origin, with a considerable element of Celtic or Pictish origin (from Scotland and Ireland) .

The Nordic Countries vs. Scandinavia

Finland (a sovereign republic since 1917)
Iceland (a sovereign republic since 1944)

and

Faroe Islands (an autonomous region of Denmark since 1948)
Greenland (a self-governing Danish territory since 1979)
Jan Mayen (an integrated geographical body of Norway)
Svalbard (under Norwegian sovereignty since 1920)
Åland (an autonomous province of Finland since 1920)

Putting it another way, Scandinavia can be seen as a subset of the Nordic countries.

The term the Nordic countries - Norden in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, Pohjola in Finnish, Norðurlond in Icelandic - is used unambiguously for the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden and Denmark and the republics of Finland and Iceland.

The terms Fennoscandia and Fenno-Scandinavia have been used either to include the Scandinavian peninsula, the Kola peninsula, Karelia, Finland and (seldom) Denmark under the same term, alluding to the Fennoscandian Shield, even though Denmark is on the North European Plain.

Footnotes

External links

Nordic Council
NordRegio Statistics - A collection of thematic maps of Nordic and Baltic countries
Historical Atlas of Scandinavia
Scandinavian Food, Gifts and Crafts
Scandinavia Files - Introduction and facts on Nordic culture and life.
Travel Scandinavia - Lot's of info about scandinavian countries.
Scandinavia House - The Nordic Center in America.
A Railway map of Scandinavia - Comes in handy with an Interrail Ticket ( Page in Dutch )