The United Kingdoms Sweden and Norway 1814–1905
One or Two Cultures?
In the framework of the United Kingdoms Sweden- Norway (1814–1905) a polarised struggle about the definition of the young Norwegian nation emerged in the 1890s. The conflict was a Kulturkampf and a struggle about what language to use. A radical tendency tried to derive the Norwegian nation from the medieval peasantry under demarcation to European influences. An organic narrative about the growth of the Norwegian nation emerged in this search for authenticity. The oppositional perspective emphasized Norway as an integrated part of the broader European civilisation. The question in the Norwegian debate was whether Norway should be seen as one singular culture, historically based on a mix of domestic and foreign influences, or two, of which one genuinely domestic based on the peasantry and the other one imported and artificial based on the administrative and intellectual elites. The massive answer to this question was after 1905 one integrated culture, although the language issue and tensions between centre and periphery remained strong for a long time.
The article discusses with the point of departure in this Norwegian debate whether Sweden and Norway within the framework of the union between them could be seen as one culture. The answer is that there were considerable similarities and overlappings between the two countries and that there were in many respects bigger differences within the countries than between them. They were not two cultures but they became so through processes of reinforced nationalistic rhetoric from the 1880s which at the end broke up the union. The concept of culture that the article applies is not ethnologically orientated towards everyday practices but sees culture as a space of reflection and interpretation with open ends and borders that are continuously negotiated and transgressed, entangled with other cultures rather than sharply demarcated from them.
