ABSTRACT
The Scandinavian realms, like most countries in Western Europe, had their ‘bouts’ of revolution in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. For example, Sweden’s Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 was one of the earliest and most far-reaching of its time. A motion to extend reform and privileges to the lower estates was also brought to the Swedish Diet in 1769. In Denmark, during the brief rule of Johann Friedrich Struensee in the early 1770s, freedom of the press was introduced and central government was reformed quite radically. In 1792, the Swedish King was assassinated by the Noble opposition concomitantly with the ongoing revolutionary fervour in France. In 1809, Icelanders saw a foreign attempt to import revolution to their island. Constitutional change in Sweden in 1809 and in Norway in 1814 brought absolute monarchy to an end and initiated a series of reforms inspired by some of the more moderate ideals of the French Revolution. Despite such radical moments, however, the Age of Revolution in Scandinavia shows a remarkable continuity with the past. The monarchies and the state churches were never seriously challenged, and the political systems of all the Nordic countries remained remarkably stable despite Sweden’s loss of Finland to Russia in 1809 and Norway’s shift from Danish rule to a personal union with Sweden in 1814.
