När en norsk del av Danmark tillfogades Sverige : en ingång till att förstå bohuslänska identitetsföreställningar 1662-1668
(2008)History
- Abstract
- This essay discusses the Nordic region Bohuslän the decade after it became "Swedish" in 1658, during what I call the region's "transition period". The wide cause of the study is to show how the traditional understanding of this state shift (and of state shifts in general) need to be problemized and understood in the light of the state conditions of Early Modern Europe. By examine court protocols from the local-court of Orust and Tjörn (one of five local courts in contemporary Bohuslän) and the local noble's writings to the Swedish parliament, a tricky mixture of references to different territories gets observed and analyzed.
To approach the difficult identity problems, I have assistance in Peter Sahlins' conclusions from his study of the... (More) - This essay discusses the Nordic region Bohuslän the decade after it became "Swedish" in 1658, during what I call the region's "transition period". The wide cause of the study is to show how the traditional understanding of this state shift (and of state shifts in general) need to be problemized and understood in the light of the state conditions of Early Modern Europe. By examine court protocols from the local-court of Orust and Tjörn (one of five local courts in contemporary Bohuslän) and the local noble's writings to the Swedish parliament, a tricky mixture of references to different territories gets observed and analyzed.
To approach the difficult identity problems, I have assistance in Peter Sahlins' conclusions from his study of the French-Spanish borderland during the same period. Especially helpful are his identity schemes by which he (inspired by the Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth) supposes that each identity originates from a counter-identity. This study ends up in an attempt to reconstruct the landscape of identities and counter-identities found in the sources, according to professor Sahlins' schemes. The result is a thesis of how the collective identity was constructed in the region during the transition period.
My main thesis is that the transition from the Danish to the Swedish state basically was considered as a matter of chronology. Unaffected by the state shift was however the belonging to the Norwegian kingdom and of course to the local country. This conglomerate of identities could be an advantage in negotiations with the state, but it furthermore became problematic when the Norwegian army, subordinated to the Danish state, attacked the local country including the local representative of the Swedish crown. Situations like this make it reasonable to consider the connection to the Norwegians as divided into one identity and one counter-identity. This statement makes sense with help from professor Sahlins' schemes.
In conclusion, I discuss how interactions concerning identities and counter-identities like the example given above affected the local identity in the long run. It's a well established assertion that the local identity and the Swedish national identity grew together as one during the Nationalistic Era. The coast of Bohuslän is actually still often described as the logic Swedish boundary legitimated by natural geographical arguments. But what is really the history beyond for this intertwining of local and state identity? This essay is a start of how one can answer that question concerning Bohuslän, without being misled by anachronistic terminology but with consideration to the contemporary conditions of the region. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1315568
- author
- Ljungberg, Johannes
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2008
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- 1600-talet, Identitet, Statsbildning, Gränser, Bohuslän, Sverige, Danmark, Norge, Häradsting, Roskildefreden, 1658, Landsförräderi, Förnationalism, 17th century, Identity, Statebuildning, Boundaries, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Local court, Treason, Pre-nationalism, History, Historia
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 1315568
- date added to LUP
- 2009-01-21 00:00:00
- date last changed
- 2009-02-02 00:00:00
@misc{1315568,
abstract = {{This essay discusses the Nordic region Bohuslän the decade after it became "Swedish" in 1658, during what I call the region's "transition period". The wide cause of the study is to show how the traditional understanding of this state shift (and of state shifts in general) need to be problemized and understood in the light of the state conditions of Early Modern Europe. By examine court protocols from the local-court of Orust and Tjörn (one of five local courts in contemporary Bohuslän) and the local noble's writings to the Swedish parliament, a tricky mixture of references to different territories gets observed and analyzed.
To approach the difficult identity problems, I have assistance in Peter Sahlins' conclusions from his study of the French-Spanish borderland during the same period. Especially helpful are his identity schemes by which he (inspired by the Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth) supposes that each identity originates from a counter-identity. This study ends up in an attempt to reconstruct the landscape of identities and counter-identities found in the sources, according to professor Sahlins' schemes. The result is a thesis of how the collective identity was constructed in the region during the transition period.
My main thesis is that the transition from the Danish to the Swedish state basically was considered as a matter of chronology. Unaffected by the state shift was however the belonging to the Norwegian kingdom and of course to the local country. This conglomerate of identities could be an advantage in negotiations with the state, but it furthermore became problematic when the Norwegian army, subordinated to the Danish state, attacked the local country including the local representative of the Swedish crown. Situations like this make it reasonable to consider the connection to the Norwegians as divided into one identity and one counter-identity. This statement makes sense with help from professor Sahlins' schemes.
In conclusion, I discuss how interactions concerning identities and counter-identities like the example given above affected the local identity in the long run. It's a well established assertion that the local identity and the Swedish national identity grew together as one during the Nationalistic Era. The coast of Bohuslän is actually still often described as the logic Swedish boundary legitimated by natural geographical arguments. But what is really the history beyond for this intertwining of local and state identity? This essay is a start of how one can answer that question concerning Bohuslän, without being misled by anachronistic terminology but with consideration to the contemporary conditions of the region.}},
author = {{Ljungberg, Johannes}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{När en norsk del av Danmark tillfogades Sverige : en ingång till att förstå bohuslänska identitetsföreställningar 1662-1668}},
year = {{2008}},
}