Denmark and Sweden have a weird relationship between them.
The two have fought at least 15 wars between them, and yet today they couldn’t be any
closer to each-other.
Today if you want to go between them it takes less than an hour to cross the strait between
the Danish capital Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmö on the Øresund Bridge, and
once you get there you don’t need to go through immigration (because Schengen).
Both countries are also part of the Nordic Council, which with all the wars fought in
the past might sound like the result of a completely new idea, but the idea of a Scandinavian
union is nothing new, as medieval Scandinavia was dominated by the Kalmar Union.
So what was the Kalmar Union?
The Kalmar Union (not to be confused with calamari) was a union between the kingdoms
of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland that lasted in various stages from 1397 to 1523,
long after the Viking Age had ended, but of course still long before their current happy-peaceful
age.
Now I don‘t want to disappoint you or anything if you‘re the type to drool all over multinational
unions, but this was not a political union like today’s European Union or even the
United Kingdom of Great Britain, as these countries were actually united under a personal
union.
So before we get into what the Kalmar Union was like, what exactly is a personal union?
After all, it kind of just sounds like a union that only exists to one person, right?
“Look guys, I may be a little biased and you’re welcome to disagree with me, but
I personally think the US and Canada should be in the European Union.
Doesn’t that just make sense?”
A personal union however is more like a union that only exists due to one person, as it
is what happens when multiple countries are ruled by the same person, but still remain
separate countries.
For a modern example, take the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth countries; Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, etc. are all independent nations from each-other with their own governments,
passports, currencies, immigration policies, and everything else, and yet their separate
currencies (which are also called dollars) all have pictures of Queen Elizabeth II on
them since she is queen in these lands as well as the UK.
Of course, as little political and legal power as the Queen has in the UK, she has even less
in these other countries since we now live in an age where it’s more acceptable to
want local, democratically elected leaders… but that certainly wasn’t the case in the
15th century, was it?
In the leadup to the founding of the Kalmar Union, various Scandinavian aristocrats wanted
to curb the influence of the Hanseatic League (which if you saw my video on it, Denmark
was not part of it).
It was also a bit of a passion project of not-yet-Queen Margaret I of Denmark, who married
King Håkon VI of Norway-and-briefly-also-Sweden, who was himself the son of King Magnus IV
of Sweden, Norway, and Scania.
Margaret got her son Olaf to inherit the throne of Denmark in 1376 and Norway in 1380, which
he occupied until 1387, while his mom was still alive.
The crown hopped backwards a bit and Margaret became regent of Denmark and Norway after
that had happened.
She then adopted her great-nephew Eric of Pomerania, and proclaimed him King of Norway
after having defeated King Albert in 1389.
He was then elected to also rule Denmark and Sweden in 1396, starting a new personal union,
including Swedish-held Finland and Norwegian-held Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
All this was made official in his coronation the following year, with the presence of the
three Rigsråds, in the Swedish city of Kalmar.
[Oh I get it now!]
The Union was not a completely stable one however, as it would barely even stay in the
same shape throughout its entire 126-year long history.
A conflict of interest quickly arose between the monarchy and aristocracy, as the monarchy
kept pushing to keep the union in place while the aristocracy steadily grew more skeptical
of its purpose.
The everyday Swedish populace wasn‘t too fond of it either, as became apparent in the
1430‘s when Sweden briefly became independent during the Engelbrekt Rebellion.
A little later, nationalist Swedish elements also crowned Charles VIII king of Sweden on
three different occasions in the 1440‘s and 50‘s.
The Kalmar Union broke for the final time in 1523, with Sweden leaving Denmark and Norway.
Sweden went on its own path, establishing a heckin‘ chonker of an empire in the Baltic
Sea (these videos are going to be so fun to rewatch in five years).
Denmark and Norway also went their own ways as Denmark-Norway, with Norway originally
supposed to be part of Denmark, but instead the two remained as kingdoms in what is called
a real union.
A real union?
But what even is real?
Nope, no, stop, cut the Vsauce music!
I‘ll probably make a video on all the different types of unions out there at some point in
the future, but a real union is somewhere between a personal union and a political union,
think a personal union but with some non-royal institutions also shared between them.
This continued until 1814 when Norway and Sweden formed a union that lasted until 1905.
These days the Kalmar Union is definitely an interesting thing to think about, particularly
as Fenno-Scandinavia goes from its imperial phase to its let‘s-stop-fighting-and-trade-more-with-each-other-and-also-be-happier-as-countries
phase, oh and also as Europe starts to unite around it.
Interestingly, Norway and Iceland are not part of the EU (unlike Denmark, Sweden, and
Finland) but they are part of the EEA and all are part of the Schengen Area, although
Finland is as of yet the only Eurozone country in the area.
Oh and also there‘s the Nordic Council, which CGP Grey already made a video discussing.
Yeah, Northern Europe is an interesting place, first they were Vikings and now they‘re
famous for being happy and peaceful.
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Help.
If you want to learn more about Denmark and the Nordic countries than this video could
provide, I would recommend you check out Storm Over Europe for the history of the Germanic
peoples, and Happiness Is On the Plate which explores the food scenes in different cities
around the world (including Copenhagen).
If you’re still a little on the fence about it though, you can get a 30-day free trial
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