Fantastic video! Being a dane it´s great to hear and see the history from a norwegian point of view. Tordenskiold is pretty much celebrated as a danish hero even though we know he´s norwegian.
Tordenskiold was and is still held up as a patriotic figure in Norway. To many, he's the only iconic figure of the 18th century. Every country views historical persons differently, through their own lens!
My ancestors were hired by the king and moved from the Netherlands (Gelderland) to Copenhagen along with 3 other families of builders to help defend the Danish against the Swedish kingdom. They specialised in building star fortresses and after finishing the older part of the first permanent ramparts/citadel (Kastellet) gained nobility and knighthood and were awarded a lectureship award in complicated architecture at the King's University. We are still in Denmark, around 600 members of the former Wan der Borchs and the Bartholin branch of the family's.
@@caythorgrimson ja jeg har så også fået et par flere navne på frakken end bare det fra Holland. Blev sgu nødt til at skære i det for at få plads til en simpel underskrift. Men det er lovligt at bruge patrinomer igen, så man kan tage faderen eller moderens fornavn til efternavn med henholdsvis søn og datter som slutled.
A small mistake, the 1814 treaty of Kiel, ceding Norway to Sweden was absolutely not signed voluntarily, it was an absolute demand from the victors of the napoleonic wars. They ha promised Sweden they could get Norway if the Swedes would join them, so that's who you need to blame for it.
Yeah, the Danish king did everything he could to get out of it, including sending his own son to Norway to set the Swedish takeover up for failure and provide a way for Norway to return to the Danish royal line via succession.
Awesome work. Feels a bit like an extended trailer for a 10 episode series though! Would have loved more detail but can see how that would be a bit much. 😊
Fascinating topic, and equally fascinating and captivating channel. Your exhaustive research on Norwegian history is evident, and I look forward to much more on your channel. Thank you.
Thank you for an insightful video about my neighboring countries. It is interesting to see both combined together. I come from Bohuslän and our local dialect contains many Norwegian words but has specific Danish pronunciation patterns thus gata in Swedish becomes gada en Bohuslänish. If you know any more insightful videos about Norway, please tell me. Takk!
I recently looked into the period of the union between Denmark-Norway, and I find a few of the statements you make to be wrong, or misleading, as well as leaning into a particular view of the time period that lacks a lot of nuance. The biggest one was about Denmark ceding Norway over as property, which is not true. Denmark was on the losing side of a war, where they fought on bitterly to keep Norway, because Sweden had joined the opposite side under they condition they would gain Norway when they won. And the only reason they'd join Napoleon was because the British attacked Copenhagen in an unprovoked attack. Denmark desired to be neutral and didn't want to take part in the war, but was forced into it. They'd also have switched sides a lot earlier if that didn't mean having to cede Norway, which as I mentioned was why they fought on so bitterly. Further you heavily lean into the romantic national ideas about the union, like the quotes you reference, referring to either a "long night", or a "false period" without putting them into context, or mentioned where those ideas originated from and comparing them to more modern, nuanced ideas about the time.
Hi Jens. You are of course entitled to your opinion. I merely state my views in this video, and there are hundreds of ways to interpret and analyse these 400 years of history. Norway as 'property' is of course polemic, as Norway was traditionally thought of as its own crown and territory - but no Norwegians were consulted on the matter. I mentioned the "false period" because that was a quote what came to taint the romantic view of the period and I tried to nuance that view. I don't try in this video try to dig too deeply in how to judge such a long period of time that is now so steeped in myth and nation-building, but tried to give a brief glimpse of what some thinkers thought of it in its aftermath. Thanks for watching!
@@NorthernHistory Is it worth pointing out that no Norwegians were consulted, when the Danes involved didn't have a choice? In either fighting in the war, or having to give up Norway after they lost?
@@Jo-Heike I felt it was worth pointing this out to a modern viewer, yes - in the context of seeing Denmark-Norway from a Norwegian point of view. Most people don't really know what an absolute monarchy was like or operated like in that day and age.
It is said that frederik 3 would rather give up skåne in 1658 to sweden, than norwegian land? Norway was not handed over so easy as it is told in the video in 1814. Norway was not a colony, but always regarded as a independant people. The norweigian sailors and soldiers where highly valued in the navy and in the army. Copenhagen was full of norweigian students and sailors and also many Germans. If denmark had contiued the fight for Norway, denmark would probably had been split up to the swedes and Britania. This idea did the swedish King (who was now a french former officer) propose to the britts. Denmark was even offered the most of the northen German baltic sea borders ,by the russians, if they gave norway to schweden and then joined up against napoleon. This was rejected period by the danish King.. so the King did everything he could to keep his beloved norway under the crown. It is important to be objektiv and not colored by nationalism when the history is told. Nationalism did not exist as we know it today. Norwegian policy was danish policy and vice versa at the time. Like it it not. That said, norway would had become indepent over time, because of the rise of nationalism. Which also happend in Holsten and schleswig. Denmark always mentioned norway as an independant People under the crown. Denmark was in danish history described as denmark-norway. Unlike scania, Halland , Blekinge, bonus len which where delibertly forced in to the swedish state to wash away there danisch ,and for bonus len, norwegian history, language and mentality The pursuit to kill norwegian tradition and habbits was never a political goal. However the writing was danish, which of course had a big impackt and did actually wipe out the original norwegian language. But the norwegian was still regarded as norwegians by the danes and the King, danish writting or not. That is the big difference.
Nice work. If central and Southern Europe keep moving right and the Nordic countries stay Centrist/Left-Centrist - who knows - there might still come a time for the mothballed Nordic Union.
Danes and Norwegians are brothers and there is a lot of love between the 2 countries now… now the Swedes.. that’s a whole other story… haha. In all seriousness Scandinavian like to razz each other but we do love each other. 🇩🇰🇳🇴🇩🇰🇳🇴
I believe it was more give and take than what most think, actually. Sure, the Danish king got access to a lot of resources, manpower and cheap labor, but Norway also got exposed to a lot of foreign expertise, trade and colonies through the danish network. I don't think Norway would have been that much better off on its own in the centuries after the Black Death.
I'm not gonna take a political stance on this, but Sweden's immigration policies differs extremely from Denmark, it's basically night and day. Look it up.
I quite explicitly state on the video (and on this channel in general) that Nordic history is told from a Norwegian point of view. Nationalism is unavoidable because you somehow have to capture the mood in how modern Norway was born out of the union of the two kingdoms.
