HISTORY
History of Scandinavia:
During a period of Christianization and state formation in the 10th-13th centuries, three consolidated kingdoms emerged in Scandinavia:
- Denmark, forged from the Lands of Denmark (including Jutland, Zealand and Scania (Skåneland) on the Scandinavian Peninsula. The island Gotland in modern-day Sweden was initially also part of the Danish realm.)
- Sweden, forged from the Lands of Sweden on the Scandinavian Peninsula (excluding the provinces Bohuslän, Härjedalen, Jämtland and Idre & Särna, Halland, Blekinge and Scania of modern-day Sweden)
- Norway (including Bohuslän, Härjedalen, Jämtland and Idre & Särna on the Scandinavian Peninsula, and its island colonies Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Shetland, the Orkneys, Isle of Man and the Hebrides.)
In the 1645 Treaty of Brömsebro, Denmark–Norway ceded the Norwegian provinces of Jämtland, Härjedalen and Idre & Särna, as well as the Baltic Sea islands of Gotland and Ösel (in Estonia) to Sweden. The Treaty of Roskilde, signed in 1658, forced Denmark–Norway to cede the Danish provinces Scania, Blekinge, Halland, Bornholm and the Norwegian provinces of Båhuslen and Trøndelag to Sweden. The 1660 Treaty of Copenhagen forced Sweden to return Bornholm and Trøndelag to Denmark–Norway, and to give up its recent claims to the island Funen.
Scandinavian unions:
The three Scandinavian kingdoms were united in 1397 in the Kalmar Union by Queen Margaret I of Denmark. Sweden left the union in 1523 under King Gustav Vasa. In the aftermath of Sweden's secession from the Kalmar Union, civil war broke out in Denmark and Norway. The Protestant Reformation followed. When things had settled down, the Norwegian Privy Council was abolished it assembled for the last time in 1537. A personal union, entered into by the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway in 1536, lasted until 1814. Three sovereign successor states have subsequently emerged from this unequal union: Denmark, Norway and Iceland.
Denmark–Norway is the historiographical name for the former political union consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, including the Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The corresponding adjective and demonym is Dano-Norwegian. During Danish rule, Norway kept its separate laws, coinage and army, as well as some institutions such as a royal chancellor. Norway's old royal line had died out with the death of Olav IV, but Norway's remaining a hereditary kingdom was an important factor to the Oldenburg dynasty of Denmark–Norway in its struggles to win elections as kings of Denmark.
The Dano-Norwegian union was formally dissolved at the 1814 Treaty of Kiel. The territory of Norway proper was ceded to the King of Sweden, but Norway's overseas possessions were kept by Denmark. However, widespread Norwegian resistance to the prospect of a union with Sweden induced the governor of Norway, crown prince Christian Frederick (later Christian VIII of Denmark), to call a constituent assembly at Eidsvoll in April 1814. The assembly drew up a liberal constitution and elected him to the throne of Norway. Following a Swedish invasion during the summer, the peace conditions specified that king Christian Frederik had to resign, but Norway was to keep its independence and its constitution within a personal union with Sweden. Christian Frederik formally abdicated on August 10 1814 and returned to Denmark. The parliament Storting elected king Charles XIII of Sweden as king of Norway on November 4.
The union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved in 1905, after which Prince Charles of Denmark was elected king of Norway under the name of Haakon VII.