| Skandinavism
| | After 1830 the contacts across the Sound were increased. Joint scientific congresses were held and a number of large students´ meetings manifested the Scandinavian sense of community for the years to come. |
The Royal Skandinavism
| | The end of the many wars between Denmark and Sweden and the Scanian countries´ definitive transition to Sweden, created a “blue wall” through the Sound. A passport was now required to cross the Sound and communication across the Sound was limited for a number of years.
Marriages between the royal families re-established the connections, but during the Napoleonic wars the two countries ended up on different sides in the conflict and the transition of Norway to Sweden in 1814 chilled the relationship once again. |
The Roots
The attitude towards Sweden in Denmark after the end of the Great Nordic War in 1720 was relatively conciliatory. Denmark had definitively come to terms with the fact the Scanian countries were lost, while Sweden had a harder time of facing the lost status of big power. Both parties were at an early stage alert to the Russian big power ambitions in the Baltic area and in 1740 the Danish public officer said that: “the three Nordic kingdoms would gain in power and independence and happiness” when united. Efforts to create a Nordic union with a Danish crown prince as a starting point did not succeed, but in 1756 the two states entered into a federation of neutrality.
A Married Royal Couple
In 1766 the Swedish King Gustav III married the Danish Princess Sofie Magdalene. Gustav visited Denmark as a crown prince as early as 1770 and as Swedish King he visited briefly in 1786. July 9th King Gustav was received at Marienlyst Castle in Elsinore, where the king had arrived at 12 o´clock. He dined accompanied by Turkish chamber music from oboists of the Royal Life Guards and oboists from Kronborg. At 6 PM he went to Hellebæk to visit the rifle factory and in the evening he returned to Sweden.
Gustav III at Fredensborg |
Inoffical Visit
King Gustav came back in October 1787, this time on an unannounced visit to Copenhagen. The periodical “Minerva” wrote, that every “Scandinavian “ must feel great joy over the sense of community that this visit stood for. Thus “Scandinavian” became a household word.
But the Danes were a bit worried at this latest visit, which took the court by surprise, and they feared a hidden agenda with regards to foreign policy. At the first visit the Danish king had spat in the soup and left the meal abruptly, so they feared what the autocratic, but deranged king would do or be persuaded to do. Gustav had plans to expand in the east, but Denmark had formed an alliance with Russia and in 1788 the two parties as a result of the alliance fell out with each other.
Gustav III Murdered
However, in 1792 the Swedish king was murdered during a masked ball at Stockholm’s Castle and the threat of war blew over for the time being. That same year the Danish professor Sneedorf held a lecture in the Nordic Society in London saying how important it was that the three Nordic countries united and in 1794 another federation of neutrality was signed by Denmark and Sweden. At that occasion the Danish foreign minister Bernsdorff said: “Everything that brings Denmark and Sweden closer to each other is natural; all that separates them in unjust and unnatural”.
Swedes Hiding in Denmark
Count Horn, who was implicated in the murder of Gustav 3., had to spend his days in Danish exile and he is buried in the Assistens Churchyard in Copenhagen. The plight of the exiled was often wretched and he lived on the mercy of others. The high official Johan Bülow found a note written by Count Horn, probably addressed to the Danish king, in a vase at Marienlyst Castle, and it shows his condition:
“Noble owner of these places, the love of your people! Do not refuse the honest homage of a fugitive, a fugitive, who from foreign shores beholds his native country, lamenting his fate and that of all other nations governed by kings, who do not know how to imitate you.”
To be part of a conspiracy to commit murder is of course a serious matter, but Claes Horn and the nobleman Ehrensvärd were tolerated and were happy in Denmark and apparently it didn’t affect the relationship between Denmark and Sweden at the turn of the century.
The Napoleon War
In spite of the federation of neutrality Sweden and Denmark took different sides during the Napoleonic war and it came to minor incidents between the two parties in 1808-09 and later in 1813. After the dethroning of the Swedish King Gustav IV Adolf a Danish Prince Christian August was elected heir to the throne, but after his sudden death a former French general Bernadotte took the throne. Bernadotte converted to the Protestantism on the Swedish consulate in Elsinore and then travelled across the Sound.
The outcome of the Napoleonic wars meant that Sweden lost Finland in 1809 and Denmark lost Norway, which instead was united with Sweden in 1814. Norway’s transition to Sweden entailed that the mutual relationship was cooled down, but in the course of a few decades the contact was increased considerably among other things because of the improvement of the means of communication.
Monument in memory of Christian August | 
The Swedish consulate in Elsinore | 
The Swedish consulate in Elsinore | 
Bernadotte disembarks in Helsingborg | 
The Bernadotte Monument in Helsingborg |
The Literary Scandinavism
| | By the end of the 18th century the mutual cultural interest and exchange were increased, and in the age of Romanticism the common Nordic traits in language and literature were rediscovered. The cultivation of the Nordic past and mythology lead to a new literary departure and the forming of joint periodicals and societies. |
In the course of the 18th century there was an increased cultural interest and exchange between Denmark and Sweden, e.g. was Linné´s scientific works very much admired also in Denmark, the comedies of Ludvig Holberg was discovered in Sweden and from the other half of the 18th century the songs of Bellmann were cultivated in Copenhagen too.
Litterary Incidence
The Danish liberty of the press at the end of the 18th century gave opportunities for a political and cultural exchange, but when censorship was intensified in Denmark it brought with it a tightened control of liberally oriented writers. One of them was Peter Andreas Heiberg, who was exiled because of his writings. To begin with he went to Sweden, where he served his military service. Malthe Conrad Bruun, who went into Swedish exile from 1796-99, followed him. Heiberg as well as Bruun were according to the standards of the time radical writers, who criticized the absolute monarchy and the official middle classes.
The wife of P.A. Heiberg stayed in Copenhagen, where she started a relationship with an exiled Swede, Carl Frederik Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd. He was implicated in the murder of the Swedish King Gustav III in 1792. He fled to Denmark and lost his titles and powers in Sweden. Thomasine Heiberg was granted divorce from her husband, P.A. Heiberg because of his exile and she married Ehrensvärd under the name of Gyllembourg. Thomasine Gyllembourg became the most famous woman writer in the first half of the 19th century in Denmark and she was the mother of the most well known arbiter of taste of the time, Johan Ludvig Heiberg.
The Scandinavian Literature Society
As early as 1796 “The Scandinavian Literature Society” was formed. The society published a periodical called “Scandinavian Museum”. At the time Denmark led the way in these unification ideas, which of course had a setback in connection with the Napoleonic War and after the separation of Norway from Denmark. The literary scholar Christian Molbech was a key figure in the cultural exchange, which for his part built on his repeated travels in Sweden, although he was suspected, in connection with the Napoleonic Wars, to be a spy and was prohibited to visit the Stockholm area.
Christian Molbech |
New Trends
It didn’t take more than a few decades before these efforts were taken up again, this time helped by the romantic and liberal currents in Europe. The new class, the middle class, whether Danish or Swedish, wanted modern political conditions and was not tied down by the absolute monarchies´ traditional conflict of interests.
The time of romanticism and the romantic invention of the concepts people and nation influenced all of Europe and many felt that people with a common culture, language and tradition should unite. This nationalism had created unification efforts in Europe in for example Germany and Italy. This is why these joint concerns became interesting even in Scandinavia, for there were many things that united Denmark and Sweden and could overshadow the old animosity. Now greatness was in the past. Thus it was not strange that there was a movement towards the old days and an absorption in the old, glorious Nordic history.
The common Nordic
In Denmark the writers Grundtvig and Ingemann took the initiative to relive the Nordic mythology, the literature and the history of former times. The Danish linguist Rasmus Rask established scientifically the close connection between the Nordic languages. In 1812 Rask arrived in Stockholm with the literary professor Rasmus Nyerup. They were well received by their Swedish kindred spirits, but the authorities harassed them. At this time Denmark was engaged in a privateer war against Sweden’s ally, England, and Nyerup was suspected of having visited Sweden in 1810 for political reasons.
The mutual distrust was still great, but Nyerup still stood as an important cultural link until his death in 1829 and he inspired Erik Gustaf Geijer as well as Esaias Tegnér from Sweden, who wrote about the great Nordic history. The literary circles kept the Nordic memories alive in this cooled down period until 1830, where Scandinavism flourished again.
The Importance of Rasmus Rask
In 1816 Rasmus Rask returned to Sweden, at first in Kalmar and on November 12th in Stockholm, where he arrives after some trouble with his visa. He stayed there for some time. Rask had spent the years 1813-15 studying in Iceland and here he founded comparative linguistics. He spent his time in Stockholm studying Swedish, Russian and Persian; he translated his own Icelandic grammar, which included a translation of major parts of the Old Norse literature into Swedish and it was published along with the Anglo-Saxon grammar, which he was not able to get published in Copenhagen.
Rasmus Rask played an important part in increasing the interest in the common Nordic cultural heritage. In Copenhagen he had felt that he had to fight for recognition, but Stockholm received him with open arms. At one point a rumour spread that Rask wanted to stay in Sweden and that caused a commotion in Copenhagen: Scandinavian sense of community is one thing, another is the patriotism, which also was part of the time.
Oresund – the center
The dream of the old great North and nationalistic unification efforts were specifically united in the time after 1830 in the movement called “the Scandinavism”. Its centre of gravity was to become the Sound region, and here efforts were made to bridge over the Sound. Scania had after all been part of Denmark’s cultural centre before the Swedes took over, so it was natural that a rapprochement with Denmark was positively viewed in this landscape.
Regular steamship communications between Scania and Denmark began with the service Malmo-Copenhagen in 1828. Thus the Sound again had begun to work as a communication link – and not as a “blue wall” – between Sweden and Denmark. The new technique and the new ideas went hand in hand and were also able to motivate each others´ existence.
Ophelia |
The Kings of Poems in Lund
June 23. 1829 there was a conferring of degrees in Lund´s cathedral. Adam Oehlenschläger had arrived with the newly established steamboat route from Copenhagen and the bishop of Vaxsjö, Esaias Tegnér had arrived to see his son Kristofer get his degree. The Nordic poet kings paid homage to each other and Tegnér read his new poem:
“The time of division is over (and should never have existed in the free, infinite world of the spirit) and kindred sounds, which ring across the Sound, enthral us now and especially yours. Therefore Svea offers you a garland, here I speak for it, take this from a brotherly hand and carry it to commemorate the day!”
This incident is usually called the birth of Scandinavism and none of the bards could know the political significance it would have.
Tegnér and Oehlenschläger |
The Strengthening of Scandinavism
The connection between the Swedish and Danish men of letters was strengthened considerably the following years, where P. Atterbom was in close contact with the Danish romantic poets Carsten Hauch and Ingemann, who went to Sweden in 1833. Chiefly it was a spiritual movement towards a Nordic unification, romantically inspired, but not liberal political in its orientation. The Jutlandic poet S.S. Blicher, who visited Sweden in 1836 also had this relatively non-political basis, although be became a main force in the attempt to give Scandinavism more popular roots by connecting it to his Jutlandic meetings on the Himmelbjerg in the 1840´s. Thus in 1843 many Swedes attended and Blicher spoke to them in their native language.
Festivity for the People
The events also took a more popular-political turn with the establishment of the so-called Constitution Day meetings in Egebæksvang forest south of Elsinore. Originally May 28th celebrated the dawning democratisation of the Danish society of the estates of the realm, at first in 1841 with 5-6000 participants. The following year not only local participants attended but also visitors from Sweden and Copenhagen, the latter arrived with the ferry “Hamlet”. The event grew to become a significant manifestation of Scandinavism and the wish for a liberal constitution, which came a few years later in 1849.
The high point for these Constitution Day celebrations was the year 1845, where S.S. Blicher, Orla Lehman, Carl Ploug and the later Danish minister D.G. Monrad spoke. The Swedish editor and author Oscar Stuzenbecker, who advocated Scandinavism eagerly, extensively covered the celebration in 1845.
Hamlet |
H. C. Andersen and Scandinavisme
H.C. Andersen was perhaps the Danish writer, who attached himself closest to Scandinavianism and Sweden. During the first Sweden journey Andersen spent a month in Sweden, where he sailed the Gøta Channel and visited Stockholm. On his way he became acquainted with Scandinavianism, the Scandinavian sense of community. That same year he wrote the poem ”Jeg er skandinav ” (I am a Scandinavian) for the poetic calendar Hertha.
Scanian Journeys
In the year 1839 H.C. Andersen visited baron C.G. Wrangel on the manor Hyby in Scania on June 22nd. Midsummer June 23rd was celebrated on the estate Häckeberga and in the following days Andersen visited three more manors and Lund before he returned from Malmo to Copenhagen. In 1840 Andersen visted Scania again. First another visit to Hyby, after that he was honoured with a banquet and that same night he is celebrated with a serenade by the students in Lund on the town hall. The newspaper Malmø Nya Allehanda, wrote :
”Når Europa, inden lang tid er gået, erkender Andersens storhed som digter, glem da ej at Lunds studenter var de første som offentligt bragte ham den hyldest, han fortjener”.
An Emotional Writer
The event in Lund made a deep impression on Andersen. He wrote about in Mit Livs Eventyr:
"Efterretningen alene overraskede mig i den grad at jeg skjelvede over alle Lemmer. Jeg kom ganske i Feber-Tilstand, da jeg saae den tætte Skare, Alle med deres blaa Møtser paa Hovedet, Arm i Arm at nærme sig Huset; ja, jeg havde en YdmyghedsFølelse, en saa levende Erkjendelse af mine Mangler, at jeg ligesom følte mig trykket til Jorden, idet man hævede mig; da de Alle blottede deres Hoveder, idet jeg traadte frem, havde jeg min hele Kraft nødig for ikke at briste i Graad" ("Mit Livs Eventyr" 1855)."
I sin takketale til studenterne siger Andersen, ifølge hans egen erindring:
"De vise mig en Ære jeg slet ikke fortjener; jeg skal imidlertid stræbe i et kommende arbejde at udtale den Kjærlighed jeg føler til Sverrig. Gid jeg engang maa kunne levere et arbejde, hvorved jeg nogenlunde kan afbetale den Gjæld, jeg er kommen i paa en aandelig Maade!”
Acclaim
1840 was not a good year for H.C. Andersen in Denmark. He was badly reviewed for his exotic plays Mulatten and Maurerpigen. However, Mulatten, which was performed at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen February 3rd 1840, was a hit and was successful in April in Sweden, where it was performed in the Royal Theatre in Stockholm and by a travelling troupe in the smaller towns and in Malmo in Danish.
Recognition in his homeland however was scarce and in the arbiter of taste Johan Ludvig Heiberg´s play "En Sjæl efter Døden", which was published in the end of 1840, Andersen´s success in Lund was commented upon thus:
"Alt længe skinner hans Berømmelses Maane
over hele det store Kongerige Skaane."The Students
| | Students, steamships and flags at the students´ meeting in Copenhagen in 1845. Here Scandinavism began to have a political touch, which the politicians did not like. (Painting by Jørgen Sonne from the Frederiksborg Museum in Hillerød). |
Stronger Unity
In 1834 the gym teacher at the University of Lund, Gustav Johan Schartau, arranged an Olympic Game in Ramlösa outside Helsingborg. A new national feeling was to be created with a national festival and games among “The strong sons of Scandinavia”. The collaboration in the science field was strongly promoted be the Dane, Christian Molbech and most important was the natural scientist meetings, which started in 1839, at first in Gothenburg, after German model. In Denmark the physicist H.C. Ørsted personified these efforts and along the way thoughts of joint studies in Nordic universities were ripened
Nordic natural scientists´ meeting in 1847 |
Connections on Fixed Routes
In 1838, when there happened to be a fixed route across the Sound, the ice was used in a much more friendly manner than in 1658. Now, 180 years later, students from Lund walked over to the Danish side. Contacts were made and the common origin and the common history were underlined. At the same time the volunteer fire brigade in Helsingborg walked with torches across the ice to Elsinore. A party was held at Hotel d´Öresund and a week later the fire brigade in Elsinore arranged a similar trip, which ended with a party at Hotel Mollberg. Toasts and cheers dominated the festivities.
Student Meetings
A Nordic periodical " Brage och Idun " was published in 1839 by the author Frederik Barfod, who appeared at several Scandinavian students´ meetings. In a poem he read at a meeting in Copenhagen in 1842 the thought of the unification of the North was very clear:
Tripartite is the trunk of the North
But the root is one
The foliage of the top unites
Every branch of the trunk
The next year, in 1843, a huge students´ meeting was arranged in Uppsala. Travel arrangements from Copenhagen were made and along the way stops were made in Kalmar. It was no coincidence that this city was visited; it was the union city where Denmark and Sweden were united in 1397. Students from Lund and Copenhagen spoke and in the spirit of brotherhood a new union was held forth, this time built on the ideas of liberalism. Thus Scandinavism had a new political undertone, but it was mainly a South Scandinavian movement, while Uppsala mostly focused on the relationship with Finland and Oslo was sceptical with regards to a continued affiliation with Sweden.
Three flags, but one people |
The Copenhagen Meeting
In 1845 a huge Scandinavianist meeting was held in Copenhagen, where students from Uppsala, Lund and Christiania (Oslo) arrived by steamboat. To take the steamboat had taken on a symbolic value for the Scandinavianists. The steamboat was like Scandinavism something new and revolutionizing. The steamboat created the possibilities for regular contacts and had in a concrete manner once again changed the Sound into unifying waters.
At the Copenhagen meeting in 1845 many speeches were held and the spokesman for the Danish students, Orla Lehmann, in a appraised speech in the equestrian house in Christiansborg succeeded in making the students feel deeply for the Nordic unification thought. Afterwards he was charged with revolutionary activities, but was acquitted later.
The meeting in Copenhagen lasted a week and it was ended, of course, in Tivoli, where the founder of the amusement park, Georg Carstensen, received them. During the whole week feelings about the unification thought swelled and cheers sounded in between toasts and cups. In streets and squares they flaunted their Scandinavism and went to different meetings arm in arm. It was no secret elitist group, who gathered without showing the public what they wanted, but they wanted the public to become part of the new feeling of solidarity. The gatherings in squares and in parks used the public space for propaganda purposes.
Students´ meeting in 1845 | 
Orla Lehmann | 
Frederiksborg Castle | 
Stockholm 1856 | 
Copenhagen 1862 |
Political Confusion
From the beginning the mutual cultural inheritance had been emphasized, but first and foremost in Zealand and Scania it became a matter of political Scandinavism. It was this political variant, which contributed to worry in government circles. The autocratic Christian VIII as well as Karl XIV with his “one man government” had been suspicious of the movement all the way. In Denmark it was usual practice that Scandinavists were under close guard by the police.
All together the political relationship between Denmark and Sweden was poor on the official level because of the events concerning Norway, but when Oscar I succeeded his father as the king of Sweden in 1844 the relations improved considerably and the fact that the Swedish king visited Copenhagen was almost sensational. This had not happened since the visit of Gustav III 60 years earlier.
The Spokesman
In Helsingborg the Øresundsposten (The Sound Post) had begun an eager pro-Danish campaign and the newspaper became something of the official organ for Scandinavism during a couple of decades. The responsible editor, the publicist and poet, Oskar Patrik Sturzenbecker, deserves his own chapter. He had come from the literary circles in Uppsala to Stockholm, where he among other things wrote discourses in Aftonbladet under the pen name “Orvar Odd”.
In 1844 he moved to Copenhagen, participated in the student meeting in 1845 and involved himself more and more in the cause of Scandinavism. He settled in Helsingborg in 1847 and founded the Øresundsposten, whose character was radical liberalistic and Scandinavistic and therefore developed into the most noticed local paper in Sweden.
The name of the paper clearly showed the political intent. Sturzenbecker (later Sturzen-Becker) eagerly advocated Sweden’s participation in the Danish-German war in 1848 and made propaganda for a Scandinavian federation and was continuously in close contact with his Danish party colleagues. It is not wrong to claim that the strongest supporters of the Scandinavistic ideas were the academic circles in Lund and the Øresundsposten in Helsingborg.
Sturzen-Becker | 
Öresundsposten |
Revolution and Civil War 1848
When the absolute monarchy fell in Denmark in the revolution year of 1848 the possibilities of Scandinavism increased and the new king of Denmark Frederik VII, had, like his Swedish colleague, quite a different view of Scandinavism than that of their fathers. The political Scandinavism now went as far as to help with troops in the Danish-German war in 1848.
This resulted in great enthusiasm around the Sound. One example of this is that several hundred citizens from Elsinore went to Helsingborg one Sunday in May in 1848 to celebrate that Swedish troops were to land in Denmark. A great party was held with citizens of Helsingborg at the Hotel Mollberg.
The Swedish soldiers were placed in Funen, but were never actively used in the war, which ended with armistice negotiations in Malmo in the late summer of 1848. Until the end of the war Swedish troops were on guard in the winter of 1849-50.The Union Plans
| | Around 1850 the royal family on both sides of the Sound was positive towards Scandinavism and a new Nordic union with a joint royal family was seriously discussed. The kings also greeted the students´ Scandinavists deputations, but the backing was lacking in the Danish-German war in 1848 and 1864. |
Union Plans
The unification thoughts also blossomed at the Danish and Swedish court in the 1850´s and here they as far as to discuss a union under a Swedish king. Frederik VII was childless and thus it would be opportune with one king ruling Sweden-Norway and Denmark. This union would then play a greater part in European high politics. The great powers of Europe had opinions in this matter and they felt that the integrity of the Danish monarchy should be preserved. This was stated clearly at conferences held in London in 1850 and 1852.
A New Danish King
The succession in Denmark was then moved to Prince Christian of Slesvig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and his heirs. Perhaps this time – with the problems concerning Denmark’s southern border and the uncertain succession after the childless Frederik VII – was decisive when it came to a more extensive Scandinavian union. But it was missed with the passing of the Danish succession law of 1852, according to which the Glücksburger Christian IX was to succeed Frederik VII.
But many Danes had doubts about this Christian, who was to be their new king and that Frederik preferred a Swedish successor to the Danish Christian was quite clear. Oscar I as well as Frederik had planned for a union. Lively propaganda was carried through in Europe in order to make the great powers to approve of a union between the Nordic states. Many (among them Sturzen-Becker) wrote pamphlets in order to influence the European press. When Oscar I fell ill and died in 1859 the throne and the union plans were taken over by the son Karl XV.
Jovial Friendship
There was an even better personal chemistry between the new Swedish king Karl XV and Frederik VII. They met on several occasions, for instance in Ljungbyhed in 1860 and in connection with the student meeting in Copenhagen in 1862 and at a great meeting in Skodsborg in 1863 and the same year also at Bäckeskog in Scania. They formed a jovial friendship and the conditions for a union seemed good. Karl, with his unassuming style was popular in Denmark as well as Sweden. He was also very generous with his promises to the Danes and gave, in connection with the meeting in Skodsborg a verbal promise that Swedish troops would support the Danish defence of its southern border, which once again was threatened by the Germans.
Karl XV and Frederik VII | 
Karl XV and Frederik VII | 
Karl XV in Elsinore | 
Fredensborg Castle´s Park in 1862 |
Broken promises
But the promises were broken, when the Danish-German war started in 1863. At first the king was supported by foreign minister Mandelstrøm and the Swedish envoy in Copenhagen, Hamilton, but was later overruled by the ministers of the state. The Swedish government explained that they were not going to send any troops, a decision, which went against the wishes of Karl XV. In connection with this political turbulence Frederik VII died and Christian IX became king of Denmark. The union ideas began to fade away because of the broken Swedish promises, the distrust of the Swedish government and the new Danish king’s negative attitude and Scandinavism lost ground.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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