The Dream of the North

Abstract

This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided no alterations are made and the original author(s) and source are credited. Further information and the complete license text can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ The terms of the CC license apply only to the original material. The use of material from other sources (indicated by a reference) such as diagrams, illustrations, photos and text samples may require further permission from the respective copyright holder.An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. More information about the initiative can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org.The author of this book has received financial support from the Norwegian Non-Fiction Literature Fund,

Exploration, Celebrity, and the Making of a Transnational Hero: Fridtjof Nansen and the Fram Expedition

“…55 Nansen promoted Norwegian independence both through advocacy and through his symbolic work as an embodiment of national virtue. 56 The leading nationalist writer Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson told Nansen that Norwegians must free "ourselves from being psychologically and politically ruled by Sweden. Each of your deeds is a step in the right direction."…”

“…The popularity of Norse sagas, archaeological finds and research into the ethnic origins of western societies fed interest in the "old northern world" at this time. 97 Tributes to Nansen mobilised a rich repertoire of historical associations, diluting any political message. Norway's relative weakness -"a people without enemies," 98 still ruled from Sweden -helped nationalists across Europe and America to view this "Modern Viking" 99 with admiration rather than anxiety, a man dedicated to the peaceful cause of progress.…”

Happy moderation – Serge de Chessin’s promotion of Sweden in France as a counter image to bolchevik Russia

“…This granite rock solid nation is nurtured by the atavistic need for freedom, a millennium old stereotype of the Scandinavian people. 44 The essentialization of the Swedes, is thus made more comprehensive than just that of simple contemporaneous racial anthropology. Chessin explains how leading public figures have signed a petition in favour of exiles German intellectuals, and "Les vrais Nordiques n'ont pas hésité à prendre sous leur protection des Juifs persécutés pour la plus grande gloire de la race aryenne."…”

#JeSuisAmatrice: Identity through a Landscape of Wounds; Toward a Geo-Imagology

“…Beller 2007b), the Orient and the Occident (see also part 3 of this volume), the centres and the peripheries (Leerssen 2007), and the North and South (cf. Arndt 2007;Jakobsson 2009;Fjågesund 2014). A notable example of such a combination of geography and imagology is Franz Karl Stanzel's National Character as Literary Stereotype (1980), where these differences are traced back to the old climate hypothesis based on a similar depiction of people from the North and South.…”