Bøger af Morten Nordhagen Ottosen

I 1864 erklærede en af tidens største statsmænd sig for ”meget stærk skandinav”. Ordene er Otto von Bismarcks. Den preussiske politiker forenede Tyskland og var også parat til at samle Skandinavien. Det samme var Napoleon III og dronning Victoria. 1800-tallets tankegang var, at Europa naturligt ville få færre, men større stater, som det skete for Italien og Tyskland, hvis talrige stater blev forenet gennem krig. Derfor måtte små nationer enten forene sig eller gå under.Frygten for undergang fik radikale revolutionære, fremtrædende politikere og kongelige til at stræbe efter at samle Sverige, Norge og Danmark i en union. På trods af konkrete forfatningsudkast og hemmelige forhandlinger blev skandinavismen aldrig virkelighed. Det har fået historikere til at afskrive den som en sværmerisk fantasi, mens de har set de tre skandinaviske nationalstater som historiens uundgåelige afslutning.Union eller undergang fortæller en helt anden historie og viser alvorlige planer om statskup, krig, bortførelse af den danske kongefamilie, revolution og indsættelse af Sverige og Norges konge på den danske trone.

This book explores the intellectual grounds of Scandinavianist ideology and its political development into a national unification movement. Denmark, Norway and Sweden were nearly annihilated during the Napoleonic Wars. The lesson learned was that survival was a matter of size. Whereas their union of 1814 offered Sweden-Norway geostrategic security tempered by fear of Russia, Denmark was the biggest territorial loser of the Napoleonic Wars and faced separatism connected to German nationalism in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. This evolved into a national conflict that threatened Denmark's survival as a nation. Meanwhile, a new generation of Danes, Swedes and Norwegians had come to regard kindred language, culture and religion as a case for Scandinavian union that could offer protection against Russia and Germany. When the European revolutions of 1848 unleashed the First Schleswig War, the influence of Scandinavianism was such that it nearly turned into a Scandinavian war of unification.

This book accounts for Scandinavian unification efforts in a time of great upheaval. The ideological repercussions of the European revolutions of 1848-1849 and the Crimean War (1853-1856) transformed both the international political system and nationalism into more 'realist' types. The First Schleswig War (1848-1851) having nearly turned into one of Scandinavian unification, the influence of Scandinavianism extended into the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian courts, cabinets and parliaments, attracting interest from the great powers. The Crimean War offered another window of opportunity for Scandinavian unification, before the Danish-German conflict over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein nearly united Scandinavia upon the outbreak of the Second Schleswig War in 1864. The ultimate failure of Scandinavianism in its unification efforts was not predetermined, although historiography has made it appear as such. Napoleon III, Cavour and Bismarck all actively contributed to plans for Scandinavian unification, the latter even declaring himself as "very strongly Scandinavian".