THE UNION OF CALMAR—NORDIC GREAT POWER OR NORTHERN GERMAN OUTPOST?

Steinar Imsen

Scandinavia is commonly conceived of as a distinct northern European region. By and large Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes speak the same language, and the Scandinavian countries can be considered ethnically homogeneous nation states. In contrast to East Central Europe, which has been marked by German dominance and multi-ethnic territorial states with authoritarian regimes (even dictatorships), the Scandinavian countries are old and stable democracies with welfare states. Many Scandinavian historians, particularly Danish and Swedish ones, would also hold that the fourteenth-century uni cation of the three Nordic kingdoms was a response to German expansionism in the Baltic, and that the Union of Calmar (1388/97–1523) was one of the reasons why the Scandinavian peoples were able to preserve their national identities and Scandinavia its “Scandinavian-ness.” There is reason to suspect that the historians who encouraged this view had the Germany of Bismarck and Hitler in mind rather than the patchwork of principalities and communes that was late medieval and early modern Germany. My intention here is to question this traditional view of late medieval Scandinavia and the Union of Calmar as a bulwark against Germany. I will use the term Norden instead of Scandinavia, since Scandinavia strictly speaking is Norway and Sweden only. Both geographically and historically Norden is more appropriate than Scandinavia. Present day Norden also includes Denmark, the Faeroes, Greenland, Iceland, and Finland. Even though the language question in this region is a bit complicated—modern Icelandic is closer to Old Norse than to modern Norwegian and only some hundred thousand Finns today use Swedish as their mother tongue—all the Nordic countries share a common his- tory and the same political ideals. Since the 1950s they have all been members of the Nordic Council. However, we should be careful not to confuse present day Norden with medieval and early modern Norden, which was larger and more complex, ethnically, culturally and politically, 472 steinar imsen than post-Napoleonic Norden.1 Before discussing the political and national character of the Union of Calmar, I will outline the history of this union in Norden and then discuss its historiography.

The Union of Calmar

The Union of Calmar is named after the south Swedish city of Calmar. In July 1397 delegates from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark assembled there for the coronation of Eric as the Nordic king.2 During a hectic month they discussed a formal treaty among the monarchies of the union. The goal was to replace the already existing confederation of monarchies with a real union or even a federal Nordic state. Eric had been king of Norway since 1389 and went on to claim the thrones of Denmark and Sweden in 1395 and 1396 respectively. Yet the ties among the three monarchies were even older. As early as 1319, Norway and Sweden had entered a confederation of monarchies, which forged lasting dynastic and political bonds between the two countries, even though this rst “marriage” came to an end in the 1350s. A similar confederation was formed in 1380 between Norway and Denmark as a result of the Norwegian heir to the throne, Olaf Håkonsson, being elected king of the Danes in 1376. Olaf acceded to the Norwegian throne at the death of his father, Hakon VI Magnusson, who was the son of the former Norwegian-Swedish king, Magnus Eriksson, and had, for a short while, also been accepted as king of Sweden (1362–64). The fteen years between 1380 and 1395 were dominated by rivalry and, at times warfare, between the two dynasties, which strove for a position of dominance in Norden. One was the Norwegian-Swedish- Danish royal family, the Folkunge dynasty, which claimed the right to the Swedish throne. The other was the Swedish-German dynasty of Mecklenburg, which made similar claims to Norway and Denmark. Albert, son of Duke Albert of Mecklenburg and Eufemia Eriksdatter and cousin to Hakon VI of Norway, acceded to the Swedish throne in 1364 after the Swedes had ousted Albert’s uncle, Magnus Eriksson.3

1 Steinar Imsen, Grenser og grannelag i Nordens historie, pp. 12–32, Oslo 2005. 2 Eric, who was baptised Bugislav, was son of Duke Wartislav VII of Pommern- Stolp and Mary of Mecklenburg, and in Nordic history he is known as Eric of Pomerania. 3 Grethe Authén Blom, “Forhandlingene på Båhus omkring 24. juli 1321”, in S. Imsen and G. Sandvik (eds.) Hamarspor, Oslo 1982; Aksel E. Christensen, Kalmarunionen og nordisk politikk 1319–1439, pp. 11–21, Copenhagen 1980.