ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests a link between the mid-nineteenth-century Scandinavist movement and conceptualizations of peace in the Nordic countries prior to First World War. Following a broad overview of the movement in the early- and mid-nineteenth century, the era most commonly related to Scandinavism in the research literature, it shows how mid-century Scandinavism lived on and came to affect a particular vision of the Nordic countries as forerunners for international peace. The chapter’s main part exemplifies this dynamic through the intellectual and institutional work of Danish peace activist, politician, and Noble Peace Prize winner Fredrik Bajer. It asserts that a firm Scandinavist outlook shaped in the late 1860s undergirded his involvement in the Danish, Scandinavian, and international peace movements and that he personifies a link between the Scandinavist movement and an external conception of what has subsequently been termed “Nordic peace.” To Bajer, the Scandinavian countries’ potential contribution to a peaceful international order extended beyond upholding an internal state of non-war: their peaceful relations constituted a model for peace propagation, which came to align with an image of the Nordic countries as forerunners for peace that could plausibly be promoted abroad.
