Scandinavism through Dutch and Flemish eyes

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the reception of Scandinavism in the Dutch and Flemish press from the start of the nineteenth century and up to the end of World War I. It demonstrates that increasing knowledge of the pan-Scandinavian movement occurred in tandem with a growing interest in Scandinavian culture more generally and affected the Dutch language in its definition of both ‘Scandinavia’ and ‘Scandinavians’. Press coverage of Scandinavism was mainly dictated by the movement’s newsworthiness and Dutch understanding of the movement as either a political unification project and/or a more modest cultural programme developed in step with current events. Pan-national activism in Scandinavia was also deemed of interest because of its significance for similar initiatives in the Dutch-speaking world. Scandinavian nation-building processes became an inspiration for burgeoning Greater Netherlandism, as well as for the Flemish and Frisian national movements. Overall, the article contributes to the study of Scandinavism in particular by exploring how the movement was received outside its borders, and to the study of pan-nationalisms more generally by applying a comparative and transnational perspective, thus amplifying the central but often neglected role played by pan-national identity cultivation in the European nation-building discourse.

KEYWORDS:

• Scandinavism
• Greater Netherlandism
• pan-Germanism pan-nationalism
• transnational history
• entanglement

Introduction

The pan-Scandinavian movement experienced its period of greatest ideological traction in the mid-nineteenth century. As a cultural mobilizer, Scandinavism brought together students and intellectuals across Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in the cultivation of a common identity rooted in shared historical memories and linguistic likeness.¹ Plans for the political unification of the three nations in one shape or form were vehemently discussed and could count on the endorsement not only of local politicians and monarchs, but also the heads of state of Europe’s great powers. Recent research by Rasmus Glenthøj and Morten Nordhagen Ottosen has elaborately shown that these political aspirations were far from a mere pipedream and were in fact far closer to realization than historians long have assumed.²

That Scandinavism at the time was considered an ideological force to reckon with also becomes apparent when one looks at the foreign press, a perspective that so long has remained underexposed in the otherwise rapidly expanding research on Scandinavism.³ News coverage on the movement occurred primarily within the context of the intricate conflict in the Danish duchies Schleswig and Holstein, which led to war twice, in 1848 and 1864. Special attention was given to the large-scale student events that were organized with irregular intervals after 1842 and were seen as the primary platform for the exchange and development of pan-Scandinavian ideas. German newspapers, not surprisingly, were especially thorough in their reporting. More surprising is the great interest the Dutch press showed for Scandinavism from the outset. Multiple Dutch newspapers, for instance, covered the student event of 1843, held in Uppsala. These articles presented a brief description of the festivities, before concluding that ‘[a]ll these signs of the awakening Scandinavian spirit certainly deserve our attention’.⁴

The present study ventures to analyse the why and how of this attention in the Dutch and Flemish press. It will be argued that commentators in the Dutch-language media recognized something in Scandinavism that was of value for nation-building concerns at home. It is exactly these similarities that make the Dutch/Flemish reception a relevant and interesting subject of study. A shared unease with the expansionist tendencies in German nationalism formed an important background for this reception, as did the proliferation of pan-national thought, which highlighted the solidarity between peoples speaking kindred languages and sharing a cultural heritage. In fact, it is a central aim of this article to bring to light the prominent position of pan-nationalism within the nineteenth-century discourse on national identity, not only by disentangling the interconnections between Scandinavism, Greater Netherlandism, and pan-Germanism, but also by showing that growing interest for Scandinavism in the Dutch press went hand in hand with growing knowledge of Scandinavian culture more generally. Most strikingly, reporting on Scandinavism had a direct effect on the Dutch language, as the Dutch definition of ‘Scandinavia’, ‘Scandinavians’, and ‘Scandinavism’ changed in tune with the Scandinavists’ own conceptualization of these terms. This article, in other words, combines the study of pan-nationalism with a conceptual history approach, showing that Scandinavism had a notable impact on both the language and the nation-building process in a foreign country.

The period under investigation starts in the 1830s, when there is a notable upsurge in Dutch interest for Scandinavian culture, and runs up to the end of the First World War. This is a logical chopping-off point, as Scandinavism from that moment on started to shade over into a geographically broader and more durable Nordic cooperation that also included Iceland and Finland.⁵ A search in Delpher – the digitized collection of Dutch newspapers, journals, and books managed by the Royal Library of the Netherlands – returns a total of 116 publications within this timeframe that make mention of the word ‘Scandinavisme’ or ‘Skandinavisme’.⁶ The number is relatively low compared to other pan-nationalisms like pan-Germanism and pan-Slavism, with 296 and 216 hits respectively, but higher than for instance pan-Latinism (90). However, when limiting the search to the nineteenth century, Scandinavism is second only to pan-Slavism, with 72 mentions against 91 (and only 21 and 42 for pan-Germanism and pan-Latinism respectively).⁷ In other words, it is (the run-up to) the First World War that triggered the high numbers for both pan-Slavism and pan-Germanism.

The following will pair a low-key form of distant reading to close readings of selected texts from this altogether modest corpus. I by no means wish to imply that the corpus is definitive. The gathered data are dependent on the amount of digitized material available and the accuracy of the technology used. What is more, a text – and especially a non-Scandinavian one – may very well discuss Scandinavism, or related relevant topics, without even mentioning the term. In order to at least partially account for this, the search has been extended through the inclusion of newspaper articles on Scandinavian events and cooperation that do not necessarily use the word Scandinavism at all.

Scandinavism, the rhetoric of Scandinavianness, and pan-nationalism

Before turning to the Low Countries, a short history of Scandinavism and what Ruth Hemstad has called the ‘rhetoric of Scandinavianness’ is in order.⁸ That history starts in the second half of the eighteenth century with the so-called Nordic Renaissance.⁹ A revived interest for Old Norse culture inspired in the Scandinavian countries the idea of a shared heritage and common roots.¹⁰ To be sure, the terms ‘Scandinavia’ and ‘the (old) Scandinavians’ were at this time commonly applied to describe the geography and peoples of Norse antiquity, borrowing the words from Greek and Roman sources.¹¹ But there were those who had bigger dreams for the here and now. 1796 saw the establishment of the Skandinaviske Litteratur-Selskab (Scandinavian Literary Society), which sought to stimulate literary cooperation among Scandinavian intellectuals.¹² And four years earlier, the Danish historian Frederik Sneedorff had pled for the political unification of ‘the three Nordic nations’ in a speech held in the London-based Nordic Society.¹³

That is ‘Nordic’ twice in the last sentence. The word served as a near-synonym to ‘Scandinavian’ and was in fact more frequently used throughout the nineteenth century.¹⁴ In general, however, the adjective ‘Nordic’ can be considered a more backward-looking term, connoting a cultural orientation on the Old Norse, while ‘Scandinavian’ had stronger political implications that, during the 1830s and after, transformed ‘Scandinavia’ into ‘the land of the future – a common future for Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians’, to use Hemstad’s words.¹⁵ But before this tripartite definition gained foot on the ground in all Nordic nations, it had to overcome a narrower Swedish definition that contained itself to the Scandinavian peninsula and reflected king Charles John’s ambition to cement the new Swedish-Norwegian union that came into being in 1814.¹⁶ Not surprisingly, this vision was seen as a threat to national autonomy by the Norwegians, who were generally wary of Scandinavism as well, for similar reasons.¹⁷ Nonetheless, the considerable cultural impact of the Scandinavian movement, which entered the scene at the end of the 1830s, would have a lasting influence on the discourse of ‘Scandinavianness’ in all three countries – and indeed outside them, as we shall see. Without considering the potential political connotations of the word, ‘Scandinavia’ from the 1840s onward at the very least recognized Denmark, Norway, and Sweden as a cultural, historical, and linguistic unity.

The large-scale student meetings that were organized seven times between 1843 and 1875 served as central platforms for the formulation and dissemination of new Scandinavian rhetoric. During these events numerous speakers used such turns of phrase as ‘the Scandinavian idea’, ‘Scandinavian unity’, ‘Scandinavian sympathies’, ‘Nordic unity’, ‘Scandinavian thought’, and so on. What these phrases meant exactly was not always clear.¹⁸ Of course, one spoke of the great likeness between the three languages, of the shared Old Norse heritage, of the wish to extend cultural cooperation and exchange. But the political rhetoric was generally muted. At first, this had everything to do with the absolutist regime in Denmark and its strict censorship legislation. This distrust of the Scandinavian movement was not without grounds, as the ‘Scandinavian idea’ was ultimately a brainchild of the liberal and national opposition in Denmark, who championed democratic reform of the political system. The National-Liberals concurrently considered pan-Scandinavian rapprochement a crucial intervention in the brewing conflict in Schleswig and Holstein, which they presented as a common concern for the whole of Scandinavia. Their programme to draw Denmark’s, and Scandinavia’s, southern border at the Eider, which meant the full integration of Schleswig and the cession of Holstein, was at odds with the government’s wish to keep the realm’s geographical integrity intact.

It was in the aftermath of the first Scandinavian student meeting that the neologism ‘Scandinavism’ starts to appear in written sources before quickly becoming a familiar term, the very core of the pan-Scandinavian movement. But here, too, it is difficult to give an exact definition, as the concept was constantly contested and open to different interpretations. Especially the question in how far Scandinavism should include the ultimate goal of political unification sparked debate, first and foremost, again, in Norway, where many were protective of the nation’s brittle cultural and political sovereignty.¹⁹ In its least controversial formulation, Scandinavism signalled a commitment to pan-Scandinavian cooperation in cultural and practical affairs, a programme that would find widespread and enthusiastic implementation with the establishment of numerous meetings, associations, and periodicals in the middle of the century and after.

Both contemporaries and historians have nonetheless habitually marked down 1864 as Scandinavism’s death year. Failing Norwegian and Swedish support in the Second Schleswig War is taken as proof for the illusory nature of Scandinavian state unification.²⁰ The primary sources, however, tell us something different, as Glenthøj and Ottosen have diligently shown. There were serious plans to place the Swedish-Norwegian king on the Danish throne, plans that involved revolution, state coup, war, and the abduction of the Danish royal family. As a political project, Scandinavism could count on the support not only of politicians and members of the royal families in Scandinavia, but also of Europe’s leading heads of state, among whom queen Victoria, Napoleon III, and Otto von Bismarck.²¹

Recent studies have additionally substantiated the cultural persistence of Scandinavism after 1864. Kari Haarder Ekman has argued that the late nineteenth century saw the creation of a truly Scandinavian literary sphere, while Ruth Hemstad has unearthed that pan-Scandinavian cooperation blossomed especially in the decade around 1900, an upsurge that was so striking in the eyes of contemporaries that they baptized it ‘Neo-Scandinavism’.²² It was only with the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905, and the resulting Swedish chagrin, that the dream of a politically united Scandinavia was truly abandoned. Nevertheless, a less ambitious but no less meaningful Nordic cooperation was picked up again at the start of the First World War and continues to exist until today. This durable Nordicism had not been feasible without the Scandinavist agitation of the previous century.²³

With these insights, the research on Scandinavism has contributed greatly to deepening our understanding of pan-national movements more generally. With Joep Leerssen, I understand pan-nationalism as ‘the nationalism of language families’, which aims ‘to unite not just the fellow-members of one particular culture or language but indeed whole clusters or families of languages’.²⁴ For a long time, historians have discarded pan-movements as failed and altogether unrealistic challengers of the nation-state.²⁵ However, such negative evaluations start from the flawed assumption that all national movements naturally aspire state formation. Politically, the purported end goal of pan-national activism was always something federative – with full autonomy for the federalized communities – and never a nation-state. More importantly, the work of Ekman, Hemstad, and others has shown that instead of the ‘high political’ goal of statehood, Scandinavism pursued ‘low political’ goals, such as the expansion of cultural cooperation or the cultivation of a shared pan-national identity that was supplementary, and not antithetical, to national identity.²⁶

The most recent step in the research on Scandinavism has been the application of a broader transnational perspective to study the entanglement of Scandinavism with other pan-national movements around Europe. The articles in an anthology edited by Hemstad and Peter Stadius demonstrate that the various pan-national movements were intertwined in a web of mutual influencing and competition.²⁷ This dynamic was propelled by the widespread idea that humanity was moving towards ever larger aggregates of peoples based on ethnolinguistic principles.²⁸ Pan-national identity back-up was in this context seen as no less than a matter of survival. Membership in a larger cultural community offered a warranty for the protection and full development of the own national identity.²⁹ As will be shown further down, the Dutch reception of Scandinavism was crafted on this way of thinking, thus providing further evidence that pan-national thought was part and parcel of the nation-building process and deserves closer attention from nationalism scholars.

Scandinavism, Friesland, Flanders and Greater Netherlandism

Knowledge in the Netherlands of Scandinavia was generally limited at the start of the nineteenth century. This despite the wide availability of both Dutch and translated travel literature, and a long history of entanglement and exchange in the previous centuries, spurred on, first and foremost, by Dutch economic interests in the Baltic.³⁰ Thus, when the young tradesman Everhardus Johannes Potgieter left the Helsingør harbour for Helsingborg at the Swedish side of the Sound, he would dramatically exclaim: ‘Farewell Europe!’, in so doing echoing age-old stereotypes about the North as being culturally uninteresting and underdeveloped – as indeed falling outside the realm of European civilization (Helsingør at least had Hamlet’s castle to show for it).³¹ Yet at the time of Potgieter’s travels through Denmark and Sweden (1831–32) such prejudices had for long been on the way out. The same developments that had informed the Nordic Renaissance – among which should be noted a widespread fatigue with classicism, a Herderian interest for vernacular literary traditions, and the resounding success of Macpherson’s Ossian poems – had brought Scandinavia and its cultural heritage on the radar of European intellectuals.³² Potgieter was not immune to this relatively new fashion. Throughout his 2-volume travel account, he remains in dialogue with his own preconceived ideas, ultimately concluding that Swedish culture in fact had a lot to offer. Indeed, Potgieter himself would serve as an important cultural conduit between Scandinavia and the Dutch-speaking world, introducing the work of such as authors as Erik Gustaf Geijer, Esaias Tegnér, and Adam Oehlenschläger to Dutch audiences.

Owing to trailblazers like Potgieter, there is a growing interest in Scandinavia and especially Scandinavian literature among the Dutch and Flemish intelligentsia from the 1830s onward.³³ Next to the abovementioned authors, the work of among others Frederika Bremer, B.S. Ingemann, Carsten Hauch and, above all, Hans Christian Andersen appeared in Dutch translation over the course of the 1840s.³⁴ Especially at the peripheries of the Dutch-speaking world, in Friesland and Flanders, this general interest for Scandinavian culture came to acquire more meaningful ideological connotations.

To begin with, nationalists in the multilingual northern province of Friesland engaged in what Simon Halink has termed the ‘nordification of the Frisian self-image’, meaning that a growing identification with the North, and especially with Scandinavian antiquity, served the purpose of distinguishing ‘Nordic’ Friesland from a culturally hegemonic ‘southern’ Holland. Ethnolinguistic arguments were deployed to demonstrate that the Frisians were of a different tribal lineage. This Nordic inheritance needed to be cultivated for the articulation of a quintessentially Frisian identity, a project that, to be sure, at this time did not include any calls for political independence. An illustrative example of nordification is the literary journal Iduna, founded in 1845 by the publicist and schoolteacher Harmen Sytstra and named after the Norse goddess who guarded the apples of eternal youth and is accordingly taken as a symbol for (spiritual, cultural) rejuvenation. The title is reminiscent of the Danish periodical Brage og Idun (1839–42) – which had been an explicitly pan-Scandinavian initiative – and, more strikingly, identical to that of the in-house magazine of the erstwhile Geatish Society (1811–44) in Stockholm.³⁵ This is more than a coincidence. Whereas the Geatish Society sought to restore Swedish national self-confidence after the loss of Finland in 1809 by seeking recourse in the glorious Viking past, Sytstra presented Norse mythology as a vital source for a revitalized Frisian self-understanding. And he was certainly not alone in his efforts to embed Friesland in the broader Scandinavian cultural sphere; it has been a defining trait of the Frisian identity discourse until this very day.³⁶

The fledgling Flemish movement would likewise look to a rejuvenating North in order to liberate itself from a culturally invasive South.³⁷ This South was France and everything French, the North entailed the northern Netherlands, Germany – and Scandinavia. It appears that this predilection for Scandinavia amounts to a case of serendipity resulting from the pan-Germanic approach of the Flemish nationalists, who in the 1840s at first looked to Germany as the shining example of how to cultivate an authentic folk-based national culture.³⁸ This vision was propagated by periodicals like Het Taelverbond (1845–52) and especially De Broederhand (1845–47).³⁹ But it is striking that both journals supplied their readers generously with translations of Scandinavian literature as well (Bremer, Andersen, Oehlenschläger, Tegnér, Ewald, Egede, as well as Eddic poetry), while De Broederhand presented first and foremost Sweden as an example to follow for the Flemish movement, seeing that the Swedes, according to the author, had liberated themselves from French cultural influences in favour of closer ties with Germany and Denmark, a Germanic reorientation that included a growing engagement with the own vernacular balladry.⁴⁰ And this was by far not the only article in the first volume that betrayed a great interest for Scandinavian language and culture. That their geographical focus surpassed Germany and stretched way further north must have been obvious to the editors of the journal, which underwent a small but significant change of subtitle from the first to the second volume, from Tydschrift voor neder- en hoogduitsche letterkunde (Journal for Low and High German Literature) to Tydschrift voor hoogduitsche, nederduitsche en noordsche letterkunde (Journal for High German, Low German, and Nordic Literature).⁴¹

Flemish enthusiasm for German culture dwindled after 1846–48. The aggressive Pan-Germanism of German philologists like Jacob Grimm and Ernst Moritz Arndt, who demanded the violent annexation of Schleswig-Holstein and also had their eye on Dutch Limburg, drove Flemish and Dutch philologists into each other’s arms. With only a slight measure of exaggeration, one could say that pan-Germanism was exchanged for Greater Netherlandism.⁴² Close cooperation between the Dutch and Flemish cultural elites had existed before within the framework of the short-lived composite kingdom of 1815 but had gone through a severe slump after the Belgian Revolution of 1830. An important first step in the renewed cultural rapprochement was a joint congress of Flemish and Dutch philologists held in Ghent in 1849. An announcement in Het Taelverbond made clear that the upcoming event had as its goal ‘the preservation of the Netherlandic tribe’ and placed the initiative in a broader European perspective, seeing it as part of the development towards national unification ‘where a nation is divided between different governments. […] The Low Countries share in this movement, as does Scandinavia, as do the Austrian states, as do Italy and Germany’.⁴³

It might be considered striking that Scandinavia has suddenly moved all the way to the front of the cue of cultural communities Dutch speakers should compare themselves to, while Germany has been pushed all the way to the back. It illustrates how pan-nationalisms were entangled in a complex dynamic of attraction and repulsion. The congress in Ghent was both inspired by the Congresses of Germanist philologists of 1846 and 1847, during which several Flemish and Dutch philologists had been present, and a reaction to the chauvinistic philology of Jacob Grimm and others, who claimed Dutch language and literature as part of German culture.⁴⁴ Similarly, when equated with an even more virulent German expansionism, pan-Germanism was perceived as a threat to the autonomy of the nation-states along the borders of the German Confederation. Here, the situation in Scandinavia was seen as similar to that in the Netherlands. The duchy of Luxembourg, in personal union with the Netherlands until 1890, was like Holstein a member of the Confederation, as was the Dutch province of Limburg. On the positive side of things, pan-Germanism also served as a common framework that amplified the ethnolinguistic and cultural ties between Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Flanders. Greater Netherlandism and Scandinavism in fact had a lot in common: the primary goal of both movements was the creation of a strong cultural block that, in the words of one Flemish philologist, ‘would make it easier for us to gain the awe and respect of other peoples’.⁴⁵ In both cases, that what bound the nations together above all were language, literature, and history.⁴⁶

Associational Scandinavism, the Schleswig-Holstein question and changing terminology

By the time of the first Pan-Netherlandic congress, the Dutch intelligentsia had first-hand knowledge of pan-Scandinavian associational initiatives. The zoologist Jan van der Hoeven had been one of the few foreign invitees during a congress of Scandinavian natural scientists in 1842. In his account, which was published over the course of the next year in four instalments in the literary journal Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen, he promoted the event as an example for the Netherlands to follow: ‘I hope that this [my report] has transported our fellow-countrymen for a while in the company of peoples, who, while descended from the same great tribe as us, seem to have surpassed us in the field of science!’⁴⁷

The initiative for the first Scandinavian natural scientists’ meeting – which would be the very first instance of practical Scandinavian cooperation within a bordered-off field⁴⁸ – had in fact already been picked up by the Dutch media in January 1839.⁴⁹ The congress that Jan van der Hoeven visited was the third in the series and was held in Stockholm. In his report, he remarked that the purpose of the congregation was first and foremost scientific, aiming, on the one hand, to strengthen the connections between scientists in the ‘three Scandinavian realms’ and, on the other hand, to open the door to the outside world and establish new ties with scientists elsewhere in Europe.⁵⁰ Van der Hoeven also did not fail to mention that the Scandinavian event was inspired by earlier and comparable initiatives in Germany, England, France, and Italy.⁵¹ Unlike British reporting on the Stockholm meeting, which overstated it as a ‘first step (…) towards attaining that great Scandinavian League which they are so eager to bring about’,⁵² there is little to no attention for the possible political implications of the event in Van der Hoeven’s essay, save perhaps for the paraphrasis of a toast by crown prince Oscar, who wished that ‘the charming tree, sprung from Scandinavian soil, should spread its branches over the three brother peoples, thus uniting them even further’.⁵³ These words neatly reflected the tropes used by Scandinavia-minded poets and activists since the 1830s, who eagerly portrayed the intimate pan-Scandinavian bond as one between brothers, while applying the image of a tree as a metaphor for shared roots and a shared historical destiny.⁵⁴

This was arguably the first time such outright Scandinavist rhetoric reached Dutch readerships. And Van der Hoeven’s essay is also one of the very first texts to use the word ‘Scandinavia’ as referring to the ‘three Scandinavian realms’. The word was for instance notably absent from Potgieter’s previously mentioned travel book, the second volume of which was published only three years before Van der Hoeven’s account. Nor ‘Scandinavia’, nor one of its derivations was used even once. Instead, Potgieter employed the word ‘the North’ (het Noorden) throughout, which seems to embrace both Sweden and Denmark (Norway is mentioned only once), while he otherwise drew a sharp divide between both countries; the fact that he located Europe’s northern border in the Sound is revealing in this respect. This vocabulary is reflective of general Dutch usage at the time. The term ‘Scandinavia’ is not widely used before the 1840s, and when it is employed, it usually refers to the Scandinavian peninsula and its political manifestation, the United Kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, which thus excludes Denmark. In 1835, Dutch newspapers would for instance advertise a German book on European geography that discusses ‘Denmark’ in its sixth chapter and ‘Scandinavia’ in Chapter VIII.⁵⁵ It is in other words the Swedish conception of Scandinavia that rules the day. Dutch usage of the word not surprisingly peaks sharply in 1814 in relation to the establishment of the Norwegian-Swedish union.

In the meantime, the word ‘Scandinavians’ is hardly ever applied to describe the inhabitants of contemporary Scandinavia and is instead predominantly used in historical contexts, as referring to the ancient and early medieval inhabitants of Northern Europe (i.e. the Vikings and their Norse ancestors), in this case including Denmark. Again, this is in line with common practice in the Scandinavian countries at the time. The General Philosophical, Historiographical and Biographical Dictionary for Freemasons from 1845 gives a succinct summary of the Dutch understanding of Scandinavia and Scandinavians in the first decades of the century:

SCANDINAVIA, older name for Sweden.

SCANDINAVIANS. The Cymbrians, who settled in Scandinavia in 600 BC, introduced the religious practices of the Druids. (…) Their worldview concerned a depiction of nature steeped in allegory, and also in their worldview we find a noble being that sacrifices himself, or who is killed by foul play or an evil spirit. The name of this slain being is Balder.⁵⁶

As the phrase ‘older name for Sweden’ already suggests, the terminology had shifted towards the Danish-Scandinavist conceptualization by 1845. A dictionary published thirteen years later clearly reflects the influence of Scandinavism on Dutch vocabulary; the chosen example here is meaningful, showing that the adjective ‘Scandinavian’ could be both descriptive and more politicized:

Scandinavia,

General name for Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Scandinavian, that which concerns these countries, e.g. Scandinavian alliance.⁵⁷

This shift in the meaning ascribed to the word Scandinavia occurred in the early 1840s, not coincidently, I would like to argue, at the same time when newspapers started reporting on, first and foremost, the student meeting in Uppsala, as well as other occasions of Scandinavian association.

As noted before, it were above all the much-anticipated student events – which included processions, dinners, toasts, speeches, balls, and excursions, both in the host city and in the places visited on the way over – that served as hotbeds for the development and exchange of Scandinavist thought. This significance was well-noted by the Dutch press. Unlike those of the natural scientists, the student meetings were framed – albeit in hedged language – as being part of a more ambitious political agenda. Writing on the event in Uppsala in 1843, the Leydse Courant for instance maintained that the visit of the students from Lund, Copenhagen, and Helsinki was ‘associated with a secret pledge to realize a union of the three Nordic realms’.⁵⁸ The Nederlandsche staatscourant in a similar vein spoke of a ‘rumour’, which ‘made the more sedate inhabitants of the city rejoice over the students’ departure’.⁵⁹ Especially the presence of ‘a large number’ of Finnish students (in reality there were only two of them) gave cause for ‘wonderment’, or perhaps even concern, according to the papers.⁶⁰ The Leydse courant followed up on this with a short newsflash two months later, which stated that these students had indeed been expelled from the university of Helsinki because of their participation.⁶¹ It is never mentioned explicitly, but it is implied here that the readers understood that the Russian government looked upon Scandinavism with great distrust, especially amongst Finns.

Several newspapers also reported on the establishment of the Scandinavian Society (Skandinavisk Selskab) in Copenhagen in the immediate aftermath of the Uppsala meeting. No mention is made of the political difficulties that had to be overcome before this society could be founded (the Danish government strictly forbade the discussion of political topics at the new platform and had in fact abolished an earlier initiative for this reason). Whereas the earlier reports on the student meeting were relatively neutral in tone and purported to reflect only local views and opinions, the articles on the Scandinavian Society seem to be generally appreciative, with the correspondent observing for example that it would ‘in all likelihood quickly become good taste to speak Swedish here [in Copenhagen]’, while concluding that ‘[a]ll these signs of the awakening Scandinavian spirit certainly deserve our attention’.⁶²

In spite of this last recommendation, however, this attention wanes slightly after 1843, when taking into account that there is no reporting on the next two student meetings in Copenhagen (1845) and Christiania (presently Oslo, 1851). Yet both De Broederhand and the Overijsselsche courant did in 1845 report on the so-called ‘Nordic Feast’ that was celebrated annually at the four Scandinavian universities on the 13^th of January. Having started as a Norwegian initiative in 1834 ‘to remember our ancestors’, the celebrations would after 1844 acquire a pan-Scandinavian character, again after a Norwegian proposal. This pan-Scandinavian solidarity was expressed, among other things, through the Old Norse decoration of the party locations and the repeated toasts on Nordic unity.⁶³ The article in the Overijsselsche courant dedicated special attention to the anti-German sentiments typical of the Nordic Feast in Copenhagen. In fact, close to half of the article consists of a longer quote from the poet and pastor N.F.S. Grundtvig, who concluded his toast with the wish that if the Germans were planning to ‘devour’ Schleswig, that they may ‘break their teeth on what they call the Danish groat’.⁶⁴

It would indeed be the escalating conflict over Schleswig, and to a lesser extent Holstein, that captured the interest of the Dutch press in the ‘awakening Scandinavian spirit’. This notoriously complex conflict centred on the constitutional position of Schleswig within the Danish kingdom. The German national movement in the two duchies pursued a separatist agenda and protested Danish policies to further integrate Schleswig into the realm and promote the use of Danish in public life. Whereas the Danish government thus wanted to maintain the geopolitical status quo of 1851 and preserve the Danish conglomerate state (Helstat), most Scandinavists saw no problem in ceding ‘non-Nordic’ Holstein and propagated the so-called ‘Eider solution’, which, in their view, would secure the ethnolinguistic integrity of Scandinavia through the integration of Schleswig into Denmark.⁶⁵

The influential literary journal De Gids – founded in 1837 by Potgieter and still in existence today – spent a long, almost 40-page article on the Schleswig issue in 1847. The author of this piece, Gerrit de Clercq, explained the various aspects and causes of the conflict in meticulous detail and concluded, based on the principal of national autonomy, that the German nationalists had every right to protest the repressive ‘Danification’ policies of the Danish government. De Clercq saw in the Scandinavian movement no less than a political movement that aimed at the unification of the three Nordic nations and that had its most vigorous supporters in Denmark, who, according to him, championed the Eider solution in order to secure a dominant position for the Danes in this ‘powerful Scandinavian realm’. In this capacity, the Scandinavian ‘conviction’ (rigting) likewise threatened to repress or even exterminate the nationality of the Schleswigians, according to De Clercq.⁶⁶ His judgement stands in stark contrast to Scandinavist self-understandings, who tended to see Schleswig-Holsteinian nationalism, and the pan-Germanism that stood behind it, as a threat to the independence of the Scandinavian countries, while they repeatedly underscored that the future Scandinavian union should rest on the full equality between the three member states.⁶⁷

Notably, De Clercq does not use the word ‘Scandinavism’ in his treatise. For as far as I could verify, the word was not used in the Dutch press before 1857 – a full fourteen years after its first usage in Scandinavian sources. The most common phrase until that time, used by De Clercq as well, is Scandinavische partij (Scandinavian party), which for all intents and purposes attributes a greater level of institutionalization to the movement than would be accurate. Direct cause for the introduction of ‘Scandinavism’ in the Dutch language is the governmental crisis in Denmark in the early spring of 1857, which was set in motion by a letter of Danish Foreign Minister Ludvig Nicolaus von Scheele. This letter, which Scheele had sent to Danish ambassadors abroad without informing his colleagues, contained a ringing condemnation of Scandinavism and criticized the Swedish king, Oscar I, for his unrealistic attachment to the idea of a Nordic union. Because of the resulting commotion, Scheele had to resign on 17 April. Shortly thereafter, the Danish king refused a Swedish offer to form a defence alliance, as such would have meant the cession of Holstein and the Danish government had obligated itself to the preservation of the conglomerate state as stipulated in the London Protocols of 1852.⁶⁸

There is a real possibility that French functioned as a mediator in introducing ‘Scandinavism’ in the Dutch language. The first three mentions of the term are in separate issues of the Maastricht-based French-language newspaper Courrier de la Meuse, which would for instance publish the reaction of the Swedish Foreign Minister to his Danish counterpart’s letter in full on 2 May.⁶⁹ Two weeks earlier, the same newspaper had already included a longer article on Scandinavism, which provided plenty of historical background, going all the way back to the days of Kalmar Union, and demonstrates accurate insight into the movement’s significance in the present political situation. In line with the political news of the day, Scandinavism is here defined as ‘the project to reunite the crowns of Denmark and Sweden-Norway on a single head’.⁷⁰

1857 not only saw the introduction of the new word, but it at once was also the high watermark in the usage of ‘Scandinavism’ by the Dutch press (see Table 1). Newspaper articles from 1858 that mention the word include several look back articles on the previous year, which regurgitate the Scheele affair and reflect on Scandinavism, which is no longer exclusively associated with full political unification, but is also more broadly defined as ‘the spirit of closer connection between the Nordic states’.⁷¹

Table 1. 'Scandinavism' in Dutch Newspapers and Periodicals (n=116).

Next to factual reporting, there are several newspaper and journal articles that take up a position towards Scandinavism, especially in the run-up to the Second Schleswig War of 1864. A long opinion piece in De Noord-Brabanter in September 1858 takes a firm stance in favour of Scandinavism in relation to the Schleswig question. Its author denounces Germany’s conduct as contrary to international law and a real threat to the ‘old nationality’ of the three Scandinavian states, who have a ‘common origin’ and form a ‘distinct family’. Scandinavian unity is even presented as an absolute necessity to counteract German assertiveness and preserve the balance of power in Europe.⁷²

An equally long piece in the Rotterdamsche courant of 6 January 1862 likewise expresses sympathy for the ideal of Scandinavian unification, which includes Schleswig. The balance of power on the continent again offers an important argument, as a united Scandinavia would according to the author emerge as a leading naval power that would form a buffer between England and Russia. Unification would moreover benefit the democratic reform of the Swedish political system in line with the Norwegian and Danish constitutions. The rationale behind united Scandinavia is obvious in the eyes of the author. It is the principle of nationality, to his mind the sole warranty for peace and freedom on the continent. And that the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes share a common identity is equally obvious: ‘The separate states have no literature of their own, there is only the common Nordic literature’.⁷³

Another long article in De Gids, published on the eve of the war, once again set out to provide the reader with the necessary historical and political background to understand the ongoing conflict. The author, Carel Adriaan Engelbregt, underlines that his piece is a factual exploration, but all the way at the end, he permits himself two normative remarks. First, he wants to highlight that Schleswig is not as inclined towards Germany, as the Germans generally make it out to be. And second, the lesson of this whole history is that the Dutch government too should seek to liberate itself from the German Confederation, thereby hinting at the situation of Luxembourg and Limburg.⁷⁴ Once again, we see that events in Scandinavia are taken as meaningful and exemplary for the Dutch context.

All in all, the Dutch press in general was favourably inclined towards Scandinavism in light of the Schleswig-Holstein question, both for geopolitical reasons and because of the nationality principle. The daily De Tijd even expressed regret that Sweden had not followed through on its promise to offer military support. This decision, the newspaper wrote, was ‘inexcusable’.⁷⁵

After 1864: from politics to culture and practical cooperation

That political Scandinavism was far from dead and buried after 1864 is evidenced by Dutch news coverage. In the decade after the war, various articles mention that the ideal of a united Scandinavia is still very much alive, despite growing scepticism in Sweden and diminishing support in Denmark, where political Scandinavism was considered ‘the greatest danger for Denmark in general and Jutland in particular’, according to Algemeen Handelsblad.⁷⁶ A fearful Danish correspondent writing for the Arnhemsche courant even raises the possibility of the Swedish occupation of the Danish islands were the political agenda to be pursued again.⁷⁷ But apart from these expressions of scepticism, reporting on the Nordic National Society (Nordiska Nationalföreningen) in Sweden, the Stockholm Exhibition of 1866, the establishment of the monetary union in 1872, and the last two student meetings in 1869 and 1875, all mention that the possibility of unification is still on the table.⁷⁸ As late as April 1875, the Dagblad van Zuidholland en ‘s Gravenhage cites the Danish newspaper Fædrelandet – since its establishment one of the main media outlets of the Scandinavian movement – which still sees great potential in a ‘powerful association between the three Nordic states’.⁷⁹

At the same time, the events of 1864 do seem to have rung in a new age, which reveals itself in a certain retrospective approach. This retrospection includes, for the first time, a reflection on the distinction between political and cultural or practical Scandinavism. The article on the establishment of the Nordic National Society in Stockholm for instance distinguishes between the political goals of the society and its more practical objectives and activities.⁸⁰ A slightly longer article in the De Tijd from 1872 offers a reflection on ‘Pan-Scandinavisme’ (this is one of the very few sources that uses this particular term) and explains why the attempts at dynastic unification did not work out, concluding that ‘[a]s a consequence, dynastic unity has for long been removed from the agenda, as is confederation. Yet, in spite of this, Pan-Scandinavism steadily gains ground in the realm of ideas and social relations’.⁸¹ The Arnhemsche courant observes three years later in a report on the student meeting of that year in Uppsala that ‘it has been said and repeated that the days of political Scandinavism are over’ and ‘that Nordic unity received its deathblow in 1864’. Yet the correspondent himself maintains that ‘the real Scandinavism, the idea of Nordic unity, is not dead’, and still carries political meaning, particularly regarding the expressed loyalty towards the Danes living under German rule in Schleswig.⁸²

Despite the steady newspaper reporting on Scandinavism published since the later 1840s, I could find only one Dutch dictionary that includes the word on its pages. Published in 1886, this dictionary restricts itself to the political definition:

Scandinavism, the aspiration to unite, or at least federalize, these three states [Denmark, Norway, and Sweden].⁸³

It is furthermore noteworthy that Scandinavism was not included in a single Dutch encyclopaedia. The interest in Scandinavism was primarily guided by its topicality and the movement was therefore mainly covered by the news media; only rarely was it the topic of extensive critical, let alone scholarly, reflection, and when this ever was the case, it was also current affairs that dictated its meaningfulness.

After 1875, ‘Scandinavism’ completely disappears from the radar for over a decade, before it returns with a fragmented meaning. Next to the time-honoured definition of political/cultural association, ‘Scandinavism’ now also comes to connote a certain folk-music-inspired musical style (the music of the Danish composer Niels W. Gade is described as ‘weak’ Scandinavism compared to the music of the Norwegians Grieg and Svendsen),⁸⁴ a linguistic phenomenon (the word ‘hardschaligheid’ is deemed a possible ‘Scandinavism’),⁸⁵ and one speaks of ‘economic Scandinavism’ to describe the potential shared Scandinavian sanctions against Germany following Prussian expulsion of Danish optants from Schleswig.⁸⁶ Striking also is an article that uses ‘Scandinavism’ to describe ‘another decease of modern literature in Germany’, where many authors apparently wished to trade on the recent success of Scandinavian literature on the international stage. Yet, the authors suggest that it is fundamentally impossible for an author to take over another national mentality or mindset: ‘One wants to think like Ibsen, but one forgets that he thinks like a Scandinavian’.⁸⁷

Scandinavism becomes topical again following the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905. Already in 1892, the Danish correspondent Alfred Ipsen observed that if the growing tensions between the two countries would lead to war, that that would be ‘a blood-stained satire on Scandinavism’.⁸⁸ In the heat of the conflict in 1905, Algemeen handelsblad points out Swedish dissatisfaction with Denmark, who seem to take Norway’s side; the Swedes accordingly had never been more aversive to Scandinavism than right at this moment.⁸⁹ Land en volk, to the contrary, cites the Danish literary scholar Georg Brandes, who sees Norway’s independence as a sine qua non for Scandinavian cooperation to be truly successful; the events will to his mind ultimately be beneficial to the Scandinavian project. The correspondent adds: ‘One becomes best friends when there are no coercive bonds. That is this is so, has been proven in our immediate environment’.⁹⁰

Although ‘1905’ meant a significant set-back for pan-Scandinavian cooperation (many societies were dissolved and congress series discontinued) and broke the back of its unification aspirations, it would by no means bring an end to the idea of Scandinavian togetherness. Dutch commentators seemed to be perfectly aware of this situation and Scandinavism continued to be a frame of reference in the Dutch press. Especially 1907 shows a peak in the mention of the term. Here, classical music is again part of the context following the passing of Edvard Grieg, but there are also various articles on the inter-parliamentary meeting in Copenhagen of that year; despite their expressed dismissal of political Scandinavism, the participants postulated the necessity of cooperation between the three Scandinavian parliaments.⁹¹ On the occasion of this meeting, the Leeuwarder courant examines the opinions in all three countries on the desirability of Scandinavian cooperation, concluding that ‘a lot of water has to pass through the Sound before the serious disagreements can be overcome’. The correspondent was not necessarily optimistic about the success of new rapprochement. Not only because of an increasing divergence between the countries he identified, but also because the Danes and Swedes according to him had ‘completely different national characters’.⁹²

Had the Sound processed enough water by 1914? The historiography seems to suggest as much. The meeting of the three Scandinavian monarchs in Malmö in December of that year is often ascribed significant symbolic relevance for the reflourishing of Scandinavian cooperation.⁹³ High-flying dreams of unification have been shelved, if not altogether discarded, and are replaced by more practical political objectives and the guarantee of preserved national sovereignty.⁹⁴ In late 1914 these common objectives concern a concerted declaration of neutrality in the ongoing war. Two Dutch newspapers cite the Swedish National Tidende, which had asked leading figures in Scandinavian culture for commentary on the meeting, concluding that the dire times had made the three countries aware of their common concerns and the need to form a unified block towards the outside world.⁹⁵ The Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant speaks in this context explicitly of a ‘new Scandinavism’,⁹⁶ and in 1917 several newspapers cite Fridtjof Nansen, who asserted that this new Scandinavism ‘did not emerge from a jubilant mood, but owed its existence to reality and the bitter necessity of political convergence’.⁹⁷

But this recovered pan-Scandinavian coalescence also showed its pitfalls during the war, according to the Telegraaf, the largest daily newspaper in the Netherlands. A longer article published in November 1917 spoke of the ‘dangerous politics of Scandinavism’. According to the article, the Scandinavian countries had a misguided faith in mutual support during the ongoing food crisis, as the three governments were ‘naively convinced’ that the war would quickly end in Germany’s favour and that it would therefore be unwise to seek help from the Allied Powers.⁹⁸ A few months later, the Vaderland would likewise chastise the new Scandinavism, this time for its ambivalence towards Finland. On the one hand, the newspaper observed that the Russian Revolution had opened the door for Finland to join the Scandinavian community, but that on the other hand Sweden, first and foremost, had squandered the opportunity by not offering support to restore order in Finland, which had contributed to driving the Finns into Germany’s hands.⁹⁹

Such criticisms and misgivings would quickly recede after the end of the war. Fittingly, the last newspaper edition in the sample offers a retrospective article on the history of Scandinavism. Direct reason for this publication is the establishment of a Scandinavian Society in Medan, Sumatra, Dutch East Indies in May 1919. The local Sumatra post provides a survey of the supposed differences between the Scandinavian countries and recounts the events of 1905 and the consequences it had for Scandinavian cooperation before it concludes: ‘Until the war came in 1914 and the Scandinavians … retrieved their common sense’.¹⁰⁰ The society in Medan bears witness to this turnaround. After 1905, most Scandinavian diasporic societies throughout the world had been dissolved following Swedish dissatisfaction, but several new ones saw the light of day after the First World War.¹⁰¹

Conclusion

The Dutch and Flemish press reported on the Scandinavian Society on Sumatra, the congress of natural scientists, the student meetings, and other instances of pan-Scandinavian cooperation because they were seen both as examples of a broader nineteenth-century trend towards internationalization – of which congresses, conferences, and World Fairs formed an integral part – and, more specifically, as expressions of the pan-national block formation that effected all corners of the European continent. From the perspective of various national movements in the Netherlands and Belgium, Scandinavism, as a source of inspiration, was seen as a carefree alternative to the more problematic pan-Germanism, as the two areas were, despite a vaguely sensed shared Germanic connection, so far apart that they did not compete over either land or heritage.¹⁰² Scandinavism, in other words, was not only considered newsworthy because it was interesting on its own account, or topical in light of the larger political conflicts of the day, but also because it was deemed relevant for, or reflective of, current affairs in the Netherlands and Flanders.

The significant discursive power of pan-national thinking in nineteenth-century European culture and politics is furthermore shown not only through the close entanglement between the three pan-national movements discussed in this article, but also, and more remarkably perhaps, through the impact Scandinavist rhetoric had on the vocabulary of a foreign language. The Scandinavist reformulations of the keywords ‘Scandinavia’, ‘Scandinavians’, and ‘Scandinavism’ – however problematic and changeable these terms might be in the Scandinavian languages themselves – all entered the Dutch language over the course of just a few years. It goes to show how successful Scandinavism was in redefining Scandinavia’s presence to the outside world. This adds to Ekman’s conclusions regarding the equally successful development of a common Scandinavian literature, which acquired world fame towards the end of the century following the international breakthrough of such authors as Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg.¹⁰³

On a final, light-hearted note one can compare the nineteenth-century Dutch understanding of Scandinavia favourably to the present-day situation. Notably, the Dutch language knows no equivalent to the Scandinavian Nordisme and English (pan-)Nordism to describe the cooperation between the Nordic countries – including Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Åland – that started to take shape after the First World War. In fact, as late as 1972, a newspaper uses ‘Scandinavism’ as an umbrella term for this Nordic cooperation.¹⁰⁴ This adds to the general fogginess related to ‘Scandinavia’ in the Dutch language (contrary to Scandinavian usage, Finland is generally considered a Scandinavian country by Dutch people), which is complicated by the fact that terms equivalent to nordisk and Norden do in fact exist in Dutch (e.g. ‘de Noordse landen’, ‘Noordse combinatie’), but are hardly ever used.

Bearing this in mind, it is no surprise that the daily newspaper Trouw could spend a rather lengthy article on the question ‘Scandinavia, what is that supposed to be?’ in February 1994, triggered by the Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway.¹⁰⁵ Tellingly, after consulting numerous dictionaries and encyclopaedias, carefully surveying Scandinavian history, and presenting a plethora of different interpretations, the article remains inconclusive.

Acknowledgements

I wish to extend my gratitude to Ruth Hemstad and the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on the various versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tim van Gerven

Tim van Gerven obtained his PhD in European Studies at the University of Amsterdam in 2020. The commercial edition of his dissertation Scandinavism: Overlapping and Competing Identities in the North, 1770–1919 (Brill, 2022) was awarded the 2022 Nordic History Book Award. He is currently associate professor of nineteenth-century history at the University of Tromsø.

Notes

1. I am using the spelling ‘Scandinavism’ here instead of ‘(pan-)Scandinavianism’ – which is more common in the English language – in order to stay closer to both the Scandinavian, Dutch, and French spelling. There is no difference of meaning between the two variants.

2. For a summary and conclusion, see Glenthøj and Ottosen, Union eller undergang, 520–51.

3. The most important studies include Hemstad, Fra Indian Summer; Kari Haarder Ekman, Mit hems gränser vidgades; Hillström and Sanders, eds., Skandinavism; Hemstad, Møller, and Thorkildsen, eds., Skandinavismen: Vision og virkning; Glenthøj and Ottosen, Union eller undergang; van Gerven, Scandinavism.

4. Nederlandsche staatscourant, 20 July (1843); Leydse Courant, 21 July (1843); Noord-Brabander, 25 July (1843).

5. This new conceptualization of ‘Nordicness’ found its first initialization with the establishment of the Nordic Associations (Foreningene Norden) in 1919, which acquired Icelandic and Finnish branches in 1922 and 1924 respectively. Stadius, “Nordism as a Remake”.

6. Both spelling variants were used interchangeably during the period under scrutiny, although the c-variant is most common by some margin. What is more, Dutch is not the only language in the corpus, as some publications are in French, such as the Maastricht-based newspaper Courrier de la Meuse (1851–92).

7. In these numbers the linguistic usage of the word ‘Germanism’ has been filtered out as this denotes a common barbarism in the Dutch language, which is mentioned hundreds of the times in the database.

8. Hemstad, “Scandinavian Sympathies”.

9. Blanck, Den nordiska renässansen.

10. Clunies Ross and Lönnroth, “The Norse Muse,” 14–8.

11. Hemstad, “Scandinavian Sympathies,” 37.

12. Clausen, Skandinavismen historisk fremstillet, 12.

13. Hemstad, Fra Indian Summer, 47.

14. Hemstad, “Scandinavian Sympathies,” 46–50.

15. Hemstad, “Scandinavian Sympathies,” 42.

16. Hemstad, “Skandinaviens geografi”.

17. Hemstad, “Scandinavian Sympathies,” 37–41.

18. Hemstad, “Mapping the Rise,” 12–5.

19. Hemstad, “Scandinavianism,” 18–20.

20. For a discussion of this corpus, see the introductions to each of the earlier cited monographs and anthologies, as well as Hvidt, “Skandinavismens lange linier”.

21. Glenthøj and Ottosen, Union eller undergang.

22. Ekman, “Mit hems gränser vidgades”; Hemstad, Fra Indian Summer, 87–294.

23. Ibid., 297–411.

24. Leerssen, National Thought, 154.

25. See for instance Breuilly, “Nationalism and National Unification”; Snyder, Macronationalisms, 6, 11, 247–54.

26. See also, van Gerven, Scandinavism, 226–32 and 377–88. For a general historiographical and methodological critique of pan-nationalism, see Maxwell, “Pan-Nationalism” and Hemstad and Stadius, “Introduction”.

27. See the different articles in Hemstad and Stadius, Nordic Experiences.

28. See also, Giladi, “Origins and Characteristics of Macro‐Nationalism”; Thier, “The View from Paris”; Zantedeschi, “Petrarch 1874”.

29. Leerssen, “Quixotic? Not Quite,” 28–9.

30. This does not mean that these relations were purely of a political, military, or economic nature. There was a measure of cultural and academic exchange as well. To mention just two examples: Linnaeus, famously, worked at the universities of Harderwijk and Amsterdam, while plays by Ludvig Holberg would be performed at Amsterdam’s main theatre from the middle of the eighteenth until well into the nineteenth century.

31. Potgieter, Het Noorden, 67. The citation is taken from the third edition. The first edition appeared over two volumes in 1836 and 1840.

32. Arndt, Imagologie des Nordens; Fjågesund, The Dream of the North; van Gerven, “The Copenhagen Question”; Leerssen, “A Cultural Stereotype”.

33. Broomans and Kroon, Zweedse en Zweedstalige Finse auteurs, 5.

34. It is worth noting that all the authors mentioned here were at least sympathetic towards Scandinavism. Tegnér and Oehlenschläger were seen by the Scandinavists as spiritual fathers of their movement; Tegnér crowning Oehlenschläger ‘King of Nordic Poets’ in Lund Cathedral in 1829 was often recalled in pan-Scandinavian meetings as a decisive moment in the reconciliation between the Scandinavian nations. On the personal Scandinavism of Bremer and Andersen, see Ekman, “Mitt hems gränser vidgades”.

35. A newspaper article in the Leeuwarder courant of 29 May 1971 explicitly cites the Geatish Society as an inspiration for the Frisian movement.

36. Halink, “Almost Like Family”. One cannot help but think that Potgieter was attracted to the work of Geijer and Tegnér – who were founding members of the Geatish Society – for similar reasons, as he advocated to bring Dutch culture back to the outstanding position it had held in the seventeenth century, the so-called Dutch Golden Age.

37. See also, Broomans, “The Concept of Ethnolinguistic Nationalism,” 37–47; Biesemans, “Skandinavisk litteratur i Nederländerna,” 1–11.

38. Leerssen, De bronnen van het vaderland, 146–62.

39. Langhendries, “Natuer en kunst”.

40. W., “Een uitstapjen op den Rhyn,” 200.

41. At this time ‘Low German’ (nederduitsch) was a common name for the language we now generally call Dutch.

42. Couttenier, “Literatuur en Vlaamse Beweging”; Leerssen, “Landsnamen, taalnamen”; van Oosterwijk, van Kalmthout, and Spanjers, “De retoriek van de Nederlandse stam”.

43. “Kunst en letternieuws,” 455.

44. van Oosterwijk, van Kalmthout, and Spanjers, “De retoriek van de Nederlandse stam,” 8.

45. Handelingen, 84.

46. Leerssen has likewise argued that Greater Netherlandism had most in common with Scandinavism. See, “Quixotic? Not Quite,” 30.

47. Van der Hoeven, “Herinneringen aan eene reis naar Stokholm,” 753.

48. Hemstad, Fra Indian Summer, 48–50.

49. De avondbode, 22 January (1839).

50. My emphasis. Van der Hoeven, “Herinneringen aan eene reis naar Stokholm,” 640.

51. Van der Hoeven, “Herinneringen aan eene reis naar Stokholm,” 527.

52. “The Philosophers in Sweden,” 258.

53. Van der Hoeven, “Herinneringen aan eene reis naar Stokholm,” 646.

54. Van Gerven, Scandinavism, 13 and 120–1.

55. Algemeen Handelsblad, 3 September (1835).

56. Jan Schouten, Algemeen wijsgeerig, 232.

57. Weiland, Kunstwoordenboek, 653–4.

58. Leydse Courant, 21 June (1843).

59. Nederlandsche staatscourant, 20 June (1843).

60. Leydse Courant, 21 June (1843); Groninger courant, 23 June (1843); Beretning om Studentertoget, 111.

61. Leydse Courant, 16 August (1843).

62. Nederlandsche staatscourant, 20 July (1843); Leydse Courant, 21 July (1843); Noord-Brabander, 25 July (1843).

63. Van Gerven, Scandinavism, 218–9.

64. Overijjselsche courant, 18 February (1845).

65. For a comprehensive discussion, see Glenthøj, 1864, 118–47.

66. De Clercq, “De nationaliteits-strijd in Sleeswijk,” 266.

67. Van Gerven, Scandinavism, 105–6 and 109–10.

68. Glenthøj and Ottosen, Union eller undergang, 307–13.

69. Le Courrier de la Meuse, 2 May (1857).

70. Le Courrier de la Meuse, 22 April (1857).

71. Dagblad van Zuidholland en ‘s Gravenhage, 16 January (1858).

72. De Noord-Brabanter: staat- en letterkundig dagblad, 14 September (1858).

73. Rotterdamsche courant, 6 January (1862).

74. Engelbregt, “Sleeswijk-Holstein tegenover Denemarken,” 318.

75. De Tijd: Noord-Hollandsche courant, 23 September (1864).

76. Algemeen Handelsblad, 6 July (1867).

77. Arnhemsche courant, 23 May (1871).

78. Utrechtsch provinciaal en stedelijk dagblad: algemeen advertentie-blad, 25 March (1865); Dagblad van Zuidholland en ‘s Gravenhage, 9 February (1866); Utrechtsch provinciaal en stedelijk dagblad: algemeen advertentie-blad, 19 July (1869); Arnhemsche courant, 22 August (1872); Het nieuws van den dag: kleine courant, 11 June (1875)

79. Dagblad van Zuidholland en ‘s Gravenhage, 30 April (1875).

80. Utrechtsch provinciaal en stedelijk dagblad: algemeen advertentie-blad, 25 March (1865).

81. De Tijd: godsdienstig-staatkundig dagblad, 1 November (1872).

82. Arnhemsche courant, 13 July (1875).

83. Bonte, Kramer’s Algemeene Kunstwoordentolk, 1112.

84. Het Vaderland, 7 January (1887); “Necrologie. Niels Wilhelm Gade,” 16; Sumatra-courant: nieuws- en advertentieblad, 24 November (1897); Algemeen Handelsblad, 4 September (1907); Haagsche Courant, 7 September (1907); Het Vaderland, 14 September (1907).

85. Bruining Jr., “Bijdragen tot kennis van onze landbouwzaden,” 356.

86. De Telegraaf, 8 January (1899); Provinciale Drenthse en Asser courant, 10 January (1899); Het nieuws van de dag: kleine courant, 10 January (1899); Vlaardingsche courant, 14 January (1899).

87. Basse, “Moderne Duitsche toneelletterkunde,” 341.

88. Het Vaderland, 2 August (1892).

89. Algemeen handelsblad, 16 July (1905).

90. Land en volk, 27 June (1905).

91. Bredasche courant, 27 September (1907); Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 28 September (1907).

92. Leeuwarder courant, 3 October (1907).

93. Stadius, “Trekungamötet i Malmö 1914”.

94. Hemstad, “Promoting Norden and Nordic Cooperation”.

95. Het vaderland, 23 December (1914); De avondpost, 23 December (1914).

96. Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 23 June (1915).

97. De nieuwe courant, 3 April (1917); Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en ‘s-Gravenhage, 3 April (1917); Haagsche Courant, 4 April (1917).

98. De Telegraaf, 21 November (1917).

99. Het vaderland, 19 March (1918).

100. Sumatra post, 13 May (1919).

101. Hemstad, “Organise into Existence”.

102. This comes with the sidenote that the ethnolinguistic worldview of Greater Netherlandism did in fact extend into Holstein, Schleswig, and Southern Denmark as it considered Low German (Nederduits) part of the Dutch language. There was furthermore a small Frisian minority in Denmark. However, such views were never in any way politicized. See, van Oosterwijk, van Kalmthout, and Spanjers, “De retoriek van de Nederlandse stam,” 4.

103. Ekman, “Mit hems gränser vidgades”.

104. Nederlands dagblad: gereformeerd gezinsblad, 21 August (1972).

105. Trouw, 21 February (1994).