| Utopia or Reality?
| | When the Germans defeated the Danes in 1864 Scandinavism was set back, but in the following years new efforts were made and the steadily growing cultural exchange continued. The first Scandinavian Art and Industry Exhibition took place in Copenhagen in 1872. In architecture joint styles were developed and Copenhagen became the centre of the Modern Breakthrough in literature and art and attracted artists from all of Scandinavia. |
Scandinavism was not a political program, which was to be carried through. The Scandinavists met from time to time and successively new ideas, sympathizers and symbols evolved. It started as a cultural statement in the literary circles, developed into a real sense of community with plenty of toasts and cheers among students and the middle classes. Then it evolved into a political unification idea, where the kings had far reaching union plans, which finally went to pieces because of the reality of the European higher politics.
It is open to discussion how strong the mutual will and solidarity really was. If one compares it with other contemporary unification efforts in Germany and Italy – which succeeded – it was not because the political, religious and linguistic differences were greater – on the contrary. Another question was the surrounding world, particularly the attitude of the European great powers.
Russia and Prussia did not look mildly on a united command of the Sound and thus the entrance to the Baltic – in other words the classic problem in European higher politics concerning the Sound and Baltic region. But would the European great powers have gone against the will of the people in the time of dawning liberalism?
Exhibitions of Art and Industri
On an economical level Scandinavism had a certain impact, which manifested itself when the Scandinavian Art and Industry Exhibitions were held in Copenhagen in 1872. The idea of a joint customs union were killed, but in 1873 a Scandinavian monetary union with joint value and flow of exchange. Thus it was not necessary to change money within Scandinavia and the rate of exchange was always 100/100.
In 1888 once again an art and industry exhibition was held in Copenhagen and the first plans of a fixed link across the Sound in the form of a tunnel situated in the Elsinore-Helsingborg area stems from the following year. The proposer was a Swedish engineer, Rudolf Liljequist, who wanted to bring “Stockholm, Kristiania and Copenhagen in direct railway connection with Hamburg, Berlin and Paris, etc.” This was to be the first of a number of proposals to a fixed connection across the Sound.
Scandinavian Exhibition 1888 | 
Exhibition building 1888 | 
Oversættes | 
Plan for a Fixed Connection |
The Monument of the Battle of Lund
December 4th 1876 on the day of the 200-year anniversary of the battle at Lund, a circle of Scandinavistic minded people started a collection in order to erect a memorial on the spot where 9000 Danes and Swedes lost their lives in a bloody infighting. The intent was not to celebrate the narrow Swedish victory, but to create a joint memorial to the incident. The architect Helgo Zetterwald designed the monument and it was made of the material of the industrial age, namely concrete, which unfortunately crumbles so they had to erect a copy of solid granite in 1930.
The inauguration took place at a joint Danish-Swedish student celebration in 1883 and the speaker at the occasion was the chairman of the Scanian landscapes historical and archaeological society, Martin Weibull.
Typical of this occasion was its deep roots in the regional, in the Danish-Scanian relations, which in different forms took an upturn at this time. The circle around Weibull and a number of other academics at Lund´s University were leading in these efforts, which intended to cultivate the Scanian cultural heritage and history. In that respect it is difficult to get around many hundred years of common history to the year 1658 and that had an effect in various respects.
Monument for the Battle of Lund | 
Monument for the Battle of Lund |
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