What Is Scandinavia?

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What is Scandinavia? What unifies Scandinavia? Geography Facts and Figures Culture Geopolitics What separates the nation’s of northern Europe? Language Identity History Viking Age (793-1016) Medieval Period Protestant Reformation Age of Nationalism The Wars The Welfare State 1 Geography • Definining characteristics of Scandinavia’s location • Climate • Maritime access • Landmass • Forests • Not a “crossroads” • No Roman history Scandinavia on the northern margin of Europe, alongside Russia and Germany 2 Facts and Figures • Denmark • Norway • Copenhagen • Oslo • Danish • Trondheim • 5 million • Christiania • Finland • Norwegian • Helsinki • 4.5 million • Finnish/Swedish • Sweden • 5 million • Stockholm • Iceland • Göteborg • Reykjavik • Malmö • Icelandis • Swedish • 250,000 • 9 million 3 Culture • What do we mean by culture? • Organic implications • Culture as construct • “High Culture • “Anthropological culture” • Institutions as key construction sites • Unifying elements of Scandinavian culture • History • Not a part of Roman Empire • Vikings circa 800-1100 • Kalmar Union 1397-1512 • Language • Lutheran church • Constitutional Monarchies 13th-century Stavkirke, Norway • Universal welfare state 4 Geopolitics Finnish soldiers during the Continuation War, 1941-1944 • What is geopolitics? • Multiple causes for institutional (state) behavior • What relations of economics and geography together explain policy • Scandinavia on the Margins • Relatively limited sources of wealth • Small population dispersed over poor agricultural land • Location between, but to the margins, of traditional great powers 5 Swedish Capital, Stockholm Language and Identity • Language • Finnish • Scandinavian languages • Form of government • Monarchies • Colonies • Center and Periphery • Self-understanding • Everyday life • Culture Finnish Interior, Tampere 6 IDENTITY Identity Questions Objectively determined? Recognition My Defnition Your Definition Distribution Institutionalized National identities Social struggle Pusher II (Denmark, 2003) 7 History Viking Age (793-1016) Medieval Period (1000-1517) Protestant Reformation (1517) Age of Nationalism (1809-1914) The Wars (1914-1945) The Welfare State (1930-) Global or Neoliberal Era (1989-) Viking Ship Museum, Oslo 8 Conclusion • Unifying and diversifying factors • Geography • Language and Culture • Geopolitics • Course themes • Identity • History 9.

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