A New Era

This introductory chapter situates the book in the context of a changing political climate in the 1850s and 1860s, during which the international system created at the Congress of Vienna was largely shattered, bringing Realpolitik and war to the forefront of international politics. These decades were the zenith of Scandinavianism, an ideology and movement bent on Scandinavian unification. Indeed, the Crimean War (1853–1856) and Second Schleswig War (1864) presented major windows of opportunity for Scandinavian unification, which were very nearly exploited. Yet, traditional historiography has not been kind to Scandinavianism, shrugging it off as utopianism and “dangerous escapism”. However, having been established as a mainly liberal and cultural movement in the 1840s, Scandinavianism adapted to the new climate of the 1850s and 1860s in becoming more ideologically flexible and ruthless in its means, and attracting interest from both Otto von Bismarck and Camillo di Cavour, widely regarded as incarnating a new political era. The chapter also frames Scandinavianism from a methodological perspective, discussing the relationship between structural conditions and human agency, sources, narratives, and the need to apply transnational and international comparative approaches to the study of a pan-national movement that was long confined to the national histories of the individual Scandinavian nation-states.