Norway is celebrating its centenary as an independent nation. In 1905 we went quietly out of a union with Sweden that had lasted almost a hundred years from 1814. We had gone straight from a 400 years union with Denmark into the union with Sweden, so it might look a bit strange for non-Scandinavians to understand why the Danish prince Carl was asked to be the new nation's king. He accepted and became King Haakon VII - the grandfather of our present king Harald.
Because of the centenary there will be many celebrations; most of them from February onwards culminating in a massive 7th June party - the official date of the independence. (Interestingly enough the Norwegian national day is not out independence day, but our constitution day: 17th May). Magazines and newspapers have started to publish articles on "1905". I enjoy reading historians discussing the events leading up to the independence. However, I miss a discussion of the vocabulary creating the political discourse in the years previous to 1905. I would in particular like to know about the discussion of 'nation'.
Norway has been a nation for approximately a millennium, with few changes of borders. And even if the country has been in unions, the Norwegian identity has as always been connected with the area which now is Norway. This is true both for the Middle Ages when Norway had an Empire "the Norse Sea Empire" including Iceland, Greenland, Shetland, the Faeroe Islands, some Scottish islands and, if I remember correctly, parts of Ireland at least some islands and for the time in the Danish early modern Empire where Norway was just a potato and fish producing area showing more or less loyalty to the king in Copenhagen. Norwegians have always been different from Swedes, Danes and Icelanders.
19th Century historiography in the new university in Christiania (Oslo), debated theories of immigration to the Scandinavian peninsula and concluded that Norwegians were from a different (perhaps more noble) race than Swedes, Finns, Samis and Russians. These theories were put back in the 1860s and 70s, but it shows that historians have tried to "prove" the national identity of Norway. Norway has not always been a state, but there has always been a Norwegian nation.
In Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe (eds. Brunner, Conze and Koselleck) the concepts of 'state', 'nation' and 'people' (Volk) is debated and differentiated. As far as I know there has been done no research on the Norwegian similar concepts. In my opinion the centenary as a independent nation state would have been a perfect occasion for such an investigation. (It seems to be easier to attract money for anniversaries and other celebrations...)
However, I do not know of a Anglophone investigation on this either. The European Union is a union of states, but is not The United Nations also mainly a union of states, though I believe there might be exceptions. The founding of the Scottish parliament in the 1990s must indicate a Scottish national identity, but what does a two parliament system of Scotland - Hollyrood and Westminster - say about the English nations one; Westminster?
What is a country? What is a nation? And what does national identity have to say in a multicultural state? These might be grand political questions, but one approach to them might be a conceptual analysis of our vocabulary both of the present and historically.
