ABSTRACT
‘Peace on the Scandinavian Peninsula’ was the powerful geopolitical slogan utilised by the Swedish Crown Prince Charles John towards the Great Powers, as well as to a Norwegian audience, around 1814. He managed to secure diplomatic support for his contested plans of a Scandinavian Union, a restructuring of the Nordic region confirmed and concluded in Vienna. In spite of Norwegian opposition, the loose Swedish-Norwegian Union, 1814–1905, in fact contributed to decisively turning the region from a community of war to a region of peace. The backdrop of centuries of intra-Scandinavian warfare also played an important role in the pan-Scandinavian rhetoric of peace and reconciliation, although the second German-Danish war of 1864 put an end to Danish plans of a common union. Scandinavianism as a cultural project continued, however, to inspire closer Nordic cooperation. When the union broke up in 1905 through the peaceful means of negotiation, the old catchphrase of ‘Nordic peace’ was revitalised. The international political community was supportive of a peaceful solution, thus contributing to make the events of 1905 to the “first Nordic non-war”. The intra-Nordic peace, dating back to 1814, it is argued in this chapter, must be understood by taking both the broader international context and the pan-Scandinavian ideas of reconciliation during the nineteenth century into account.
