What is Scandinavia?

Geography and Natural History

Ancient Religion and Folklore

Vikings, Normans, and Christianization

Lutheranism and Holy Wars

Napoleonic Wars

Migration

Modern Scandinavia

What is Scandinavia?

The name Scania originally referred to the very southern tip of Sweden.  Now the term has expanded indefinitely to encompass that “part of the world”, whatever that means:

• Broadest sense of the word Scandinavia = All of the Nordic (northern) countries:  Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland.  The word Norse also means “northern”.
• Narrowest sense of the word Scandinavia = Norway and Sweden.  These two countries currently share the Scandian Peninsula, and they share a cultural heritage.  Finland has a completely different language and a mostly distinct history.
• Most common sense of the word Scandinavia = Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.  Although Denmark does not currently occupy the Scandian Peninsula, it used to, and its cultural history is interwoven with the other two.  These three languages are closely related within the Germanic family.

Geography and Natural History

One of the most striking features of Scandinavia is its extreme latitude.  The Nordic countries are among the most northerly inhabited lands of the world.  Lying partly within the Arctic Circle, Scandinavia experiences full days of sunlight in the summer and full days of darkness, with northern lights, in the winter.  Norway is one of only six countries with a coast on the Arctic Ocean.  The Gulf Stream carries heat to Europe, making the climate much more bearable than at the same latitudes in Canada or Siberia.

Scandinavia is subject to heavy glaciation during ice ages.  The glaciers have left behind thousands of lakes.  Glaciers also created the unique fjords on the coast of Norway.  A fjord forms when a glacier carves a steep valley extending below sea level.  When the glacier melts, the valley fills with seawater and creates a long, narrow inlet with high cliffs.  This extremely rugged coastline, along with thousands of islands close to shore and mountains inland, makes Scandinavia much more traversable by sea than by land.

Scandinavia’s wildlife includes numerous carnivores — wolves, foxes, lynx, wolverines — and their small prey — boars, hares, beavers, otters.  The primary source of meat for the human population is seafood.  Salmon, cod, herring, shrimp, crab, and lobster are all staples of the diet.  Norway is one of only three countries in the world to practice whaling.  Berries are native to the land, and cold-weather vegetables such as cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and potatoes grow well there.  Scandinavians love their bread too.  The Nordic diet is considered one of the world’s healthiest.

Ancient Religion and Folklore

The gods and goblins of traditional Scandinavian legend are still well known, as they have been passed down to us through cultural contact, historical collections, and centuries of romantic fantasy literature.

The Norse cosmos consisted of nine worlds.  In addition to the world of humans, there were worlds of gods, dwarves, elves, giants, fire, and ice.  The world of the dishonorable dead was ruled by the goddess Hel (sound familiar?!).  These worlds were all connected by the tree of the universe, Yggdrasil.  Prophecies told of Ragnarök, a doomsday or twilight of the gods, when the gods’ battles would destroy man’s world by fire but two human survivors would repopulate it again.

Norse gods included four whose names we say every week.

Tuesday means “Týr’s Day”.  Týr was associated with justice, courage, and heroism.  He was one-handed after a run-in with Fenrir, the wolf-god.

Wednesday means “Odin’s Day”.  Odin set the sun and moon in motion in the chariots of two giants Sól and Mani.  To keep them moving, he set two great wolves after them in perpetual chase. ¹

Thursday means “Thor’s Day”.  Thor was the warrior-god who wielded a thunder hammer.  He used his hammer and other weapons to slay giants and dragons, and to protect humanity.

Friday means “Freya’s Day”.  Freya was one of the highest goddesses.  She had the power to see the future and to alter destiny by weaving new fates.

The Scandinavian imagination populated the wilderness with all manner of creatures and little people.  Trolls were usually big, ugly, cruel, and stupid.  They were said to turn to stone when exposed to sunlight, and many rock formations were explained in this manner.  Our idea of gnomes comes from the Scandinavian nisser.  Each old farm had a nisse, which lived in the barn and represented the spirit of the farm.  In Christian times, nisser played the role of private Santas on Christmas night.

Fittingly for its geography, Norway had a skiing goddess and spirits of the sea.  This website goes through a whole cast of mythological beings.  They persisted even into the 1700s, with the legend of kraken, the gigantic sea creature.

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Vikings, Normans, and Christianization

Integration of Scandinavia with the rest of Europe began in the 8th century.  English-based history remembers this as the time of the Vikings, who made a frightening impression on peoples of the British Isles.  Vikings were Scandinavians venturing out to trade, raid, or colonize surrounding lands.  This expansion was due to multiple factors.  Simply put, they were a strong force, and in that time and place strong forces expanded outward.  Vikings had the best ships of the time.  Some Vikings even reached North America five centuries before Columbus, though they did not stay.  A group of Vikings under King Rolle secured land in northern France as part of a peace treaty, to keep them from penetrating further into France.  This area was called Normandy, land of the northern men.  Normans fully assimilated themselves into French culture, creating a new hybrid nation.  In the 11th century, they famously took over England.  By this time, the continent was reaching equilibrium and the age of Viking raids came to an end.

At the same time, mainland Europeans were encroaching on Scandinavia too.  From the Scandinavians’ perspective, Christianity was the intruding force.  Christian missionaries entered the region in the 8th century, beginning with Denmark.  Christianization was central to medieval politics.  For example, King Harald Klak of Denmark received help from the German emperor on the condition that he make his kingdom Christian.  The Catholic church established Scandinavian archdioceses in the 11th century.  Ordinary people continued to practice their traditional religions for centuries longer.  Sometimes governments used force to expel the old traditions.  Folklore reflects this tense period.  It was said that trolls could smell Christian blood and feared the sound of church bells.  Pagan magic was recast as wicked because it was anti-Christian.

Wooden “stave” churches or stavkirker date to the 12th – 14th centuries 1Or maybe earlier; they were made of wood, so they decay! when traditional religion co-existed with Christianity.  The most famous Stavkirke, Urnes, is adorned with images of Christ on the inside but an epic woodcarving seeming to depict Yggdrasil and Ragnarök on the outside.  As Vikings were increasingly expected to wear a sign of the cross, they found a clever way to disguise Thor’s hammer as a crucifix.  After a few centuries, though, Scandinavia fully joined Christendom, the one institution that united Europe.

All across medieval Europe, kingdoms grew and coalesced.  Without stable constitutions, nation-states were not defined by law but were constantly reshaped by personal power battles.  Harald Fairhair (alive in 900) was a semi-legendary king who first unified the tribes of Norway.  Norway, Denmark, and Sweden were united together as the Kalmar Union throughout the 15th century.  It was an unstable union wherein each nation preserved some autonomy.  Sweden broke away in 1523. 2“Swexit”?!

In modern times, we romanticize the Vikings, and genealogy optimists like to believe that they can trace their heritage to particular Vikings.  There may be a few lines stretching back that far for Scandinavian kings, but there was no regular record-keeping system in medieval Scandinavia.  Besides, a family tree based on birth becomes almost meaningless more than about 500 years back.  Beyond that, (1) You owe very little genetic material to any individual ancestor, and some of them are no longer in your genes at all.  (2) Your ancestral population grows so large that it encompasses large swaths of nations.  We must regard our genetic ancestors of past millennia as populations, not individuals.  As a consolation prize, then, we can reliably say that we descend from “the Vikings”.

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Lutheranism and Holy Wars

The Reformation, beginning with Luther’s 95 Theses in 1517, was a time of great turbulence.  It set off centuries of holy wars.  Who would control the church: the Catholic authority in Rome, or local kings? 3Personal “freedom of religion” was not an option! That was one of the most divisive issues of the times.  In truth, these “holy” wars involved many complex issues besides the church.  This was truly the last stage of formation of modern European nation-states.

As slow as they had been to Christianize, the Scandinavian nations became strongholds of Protestantism very readily.  How did this come to be?

In Sweden and Denmark, the Reformation was championed by strong kings.  Christian III of Denmark and Gustav I of Sweden took control of church infrastructure (seizing church property, appointing their own bishops, converting tithes to taxes) and also rode popular waves of sentiment in favor of them and / or Lutheranism.  After Christian III became king of Denmark in 1534, he decided that Norway was not an independent partner anymore, and claimed it as a protectorate instead.  Norway was much more rural.  Its clerics came from Denmark, and they used the Danish language.  Many Norwegian villagers were again resistant to the change and remained Catholic, but in 1638 Catholicism became punishable by confiscation of property.

Sweden and Denmark-Norway warred with each other many times in the 16th and 17th centuries.  The last war finally forced Denmark out of what we now call Sweden. ² Denmark was on the decline now, but still retained Norway.

Gustavus Adolphus was perhaps the premier Scandinavian king.  He led victorious campaigns in the 30 Years’ War 4The German-centered holy war, and Europe’s largest conflict before the world wars and made Sweden one of the continent’s strongest forces.  Adolphus was a bureaucratic reformer who began parish registration of the population.  As a state agent, it was the Lutheran church’s job to keep track of vital records.  Thus began the excellent record-keeping system that was implemented for tax purposes but is so valuable to genealogists today.

Norwegian and Swedish ministers were all required by law to keep church records after 1686, and some of them did so even earlier.  These are record books of events that took place at the church, including baptisms, marriages, and funerals.  After 1750, local church officials also traveled door-to-door for periodic census interviews.  They were instructed to:

“keep certain rolls of all their listeners, house to house, farm to farm, and know their progress and knowledge of the assigned sections of the catechism, and diligently admonish children, farm helpers and servant maids to read the book and with their own eyes see what God bids and commands in his Holy Word.” ³

The genealogical records have been very well-kept since 1700; the challenge is finding them.  Each parish had its own records, and there was no central organizing bureau.

Aside from royalty, the most famous Scandinavian from the early Lutheran period was Tycho Brahe, who lived in Denmark in 1600.  He was the last great pre-telescopic astronomer.  With an elaborate royal observatory, he compiled a catalog of heavenly objects so precise that Kepler was able to use them to derive his laws of planetary motion.

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Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars of 1803 – 1815 shook up Europe once again, and Scandinavia was no exception.  Napoleon’s aim was to expand France to its “natural borders” and to subdue the strong nations around him, especially England.  Sweden was an immediate ally of England.  Denmark-Norway stayed neutral for years and then ended up siding with France.

King Karl Johann XIII of Sweden was in his 60s without children.  In 1810, he asked his courtier to select the best man in Europe to be his heir.  In a bizarre and unexpected twist, the courtier selected Jean Bernadotte, one of Napoleon’s top marshals!  Sweden needed someone with military experience, and it was said that Bernadotte had treated Swedish prisoners of war well.  Bernadotte assumed military power immediately, assuming the new name Karl Johann XIV.  After a confusing start, he did maintain Sweden in the alliance with Britain and against France.  The Bernadotte dynasty is still on the Swedish throne.

When England won the war, the concluding  treaties favored Sweden greatly over Denmark.  England offered to wrest Norway away from Denmark and grant it to Sweden.

Norwegians did not like this idea.  In one of their proudest moments, an assembly of Norwegians convened and crafted a constitution for their own independent nation-state.  It was inspired by the US model but was uniquely European.  Though they would still have a lifelong king, he would be elected, and his powers would be limited and balanced by parliament.  The constitution is still in effect, the oldest in the world outside of the US.  It was ratified on May 17, 1814, a date that is still celebrated as the national holiday.

Karl Johann XIV, however, had counted on taking Norway.  He felt entitled to it, and immediately launched an invasion, the last war among Scandinavian nations.  It ended in compromise.  The king of Norway stepped down, and the people of Norway agreed to elect Karl Johann XIV as their king.  At the same time, they kept their constitution and their parliament, the Storting.  The new union was called the United Kingdom of Sweden and Norway.

My 3GGF Hans Hansen Svare was born in this new kingdom in December, 1819 to an unwed mother, Anne Jonsdatter.  I’m sure we’ll never know who started the rumor, but the story has been handed down for generations that the roving father was King Karl Johann XIV himself!  The story really doesn’t check out.  The king visited the Storting in Oslo in 1818.  He would have had to stay in Norway for several months and travel north to Oppland County to impregnate Anne.  Any genealogist can tell you that tall tales surround illegitimate births.  Anne’s neighbor Hans Hansen Sandviken was identified as father on the birth certificate, and that legal presumption will have to remain the most likely truth.

Famous 19th century Scandinavians include Hans Christian Andersen (Danish), Edvard Grieg and Edvard Munch (Norwegian), and Alfred Nobel (Swedish).

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Migration5The word “migration” refers to all movement.  “Immigration” means “moving in”, and “emigration” means “moving out”.

Sweden-Norway enjoyed a century of peace and prosperity.  Deaths due to starvation, disease, and war plummeted in the 19th century.  Before the people realized this, though, they continued reproducing like rabbits.  As the population grew, land became more scarce and farms got smaller.  Organized migration to the US began as early as the 1820s, essentially as an “overflow” of the Scandinavian population. ⁴ There were channels of migration from certain European communities to transplanted communities in the US.  Scandinavians preferred the open spaces and familiar weather of the Midwest and Plains States.  Norwegians were particularly connected to Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota.  Immigration laws were not strict like they are today!  The US government felt that it needed able-bodied settlers to occupy its vast empty plains.  The borders were apparently open to any European who could afford the journey and felt adventurous enough.  That amounted to over 2 million Scandinavians in the 1820s – 1920s.

Our earliest immigrant ancestors from Scandinavia were my 3GGPs Johannes Anderson and Johanna Månsdotter, who came from Sweden in 1854 when 2GGM Mary was four.  The antebellum migrations were especially challenging because the US was still not in full control of its western frontier.  Johannes and Mary were in Minnesota during the Dakota War, a pretty sizeable armed conflict with the Sioux.

Immigration paused during the US Civil War.  In the next wave, immigrants were attracted by the new Homestead Act.  The US government offered free land (1/4 square mile) to anyone who would develop it for five years.  This was irresistible to farmers on small crowded plots of land.  In fact, Scandinavia suffered one last major famine in 1866 – 1868, which really brought the first spike of Norwegian immigrants.  Ole Hanson Fagerland left Norway in 1866.  That was also the time that the Svares left their farm in Oppland County to try their hand at fishing instead.

Our last Scandinavian immigrant ancestors were the Sandvers and Svares, who departed from Nordland County in the late 1880s.  Anders Andersen homesteaded in western Minnesota.  Ymbjorg’s parents, the Svares, lived nearby, though they were probably not still farming at that time. They were more likely supported by their numerous children in the US.

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Modern Scandinavia

Though all our ancestors are gone, of course many distant cousins remain in their Scandinavian home lands.  Needless to say, most of them are no longer peasants and fishermen.  Since the 1880s, life has changed in Norway and Sweden just as much as in the United States.

Norway declared its independence from Sweden in 1905, after our ancestors had left.  Continuing its independent streak, today Norway is a notable holdout from the European Union.

Norway and Sweden both set out to remain neutral throughout the world wars.  Sweden managed to do so, though it had to make many difficult diplomatic decisions along the way.  Norway was occupied by Nazi Germany during WWII, not without some complicity and high treason among Norwegian officials — 25 of whom were later executed.

After the wars and reconstruction, Scandinavia is recognized as a thoroughly industrialized and “western” region.  Oil has been a major industry in Norway since the 1960s, and mega-corporations such as Volvo are big business in Sweden.  Scandinavians are eager consumers of American and British pop culture.  Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are currently ranked as the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best ESL-speaking nations in the world, respectively.  The most influential element of Scandinavian culture to spread through the world is its simplistic interior design, epitomized by brands such as Ikea and Bang & Olufsen.

The Scandinavian relationship with religion and politics is peculiar.  Norway and Sweden both retained their official state churches (forms of Lutheranism) until our lifetimes.  The Church of Norway was just made an independent legal entity in 2017.  At the same time, in practice these have become some of the least religious nations in the world.  Scandinavians have a long history of social liberalism. They were world pioneers in the abolition of slavery and in women’s suffrage (before the US in both cases). The modern lifestyle choices of cohabitation and gay rights / same-sex marriage were also led by the Nordic countries.  Their welfare states are studied and debated around the world.  Scandinavian governments engage in a high degree of taxing and spending.   They are not Marxist, because resources are privately owned.  The Scandinavian model is often described as democratic socialism, a term that received considerable attention in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ presidential candidacy.

The Scandinavian populations are still relatively small.  Norway has 5 million citizens and Sweden 10 million, each about the size of a typical state in the US.  Norway is still the most rural part of Scandinavia.

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