marcos_eirik
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2004
- Messages
- 4,215
- Location
- Oslo, Norway
- Car(s)
- Mostly my feet, occasionally a Tesla
Not recent, you have to go som centuries back in time...boafan said:Law said:marcos_eirik said:Sounds very swedish to me, but then it isn't the first time in history you danes has lost something to the swedes...Law said:
Very swedish - except from the fact that it starts with a letter that DOESN'T EXIST IN SWEDISH!
Btw. the traffic on the bridge is mostly Swedes comming to Denmark. To buy beer
I won't talk bad about Norway, since many Norwegians are extremely proud of their country, and would probably be hurt.
I don't like nationalism anyway. And I don't feel proud or ashamed about what Danes I don't know or are related to, do or did before I was born.
gasp! what is this? both of you, enlighten me on this losing out to the swedes. I always thought that part of the world was pretty much neutral throughout recent history. what did norway do? what did denmark do? oh dear...
From the 11th century and onwards, Norway was really a big superpower in Scandinavia. We ruled over Gr?nland, most of Britain, F?r?yene and big parts of Sweden. This however turned dramaticly in the year 1349, when the "black death" came to Scandinavia, it was a plague that killed 2/3 of the population in Norway, and those who where killed was the intellectual litterate part of the population. Therefore Norway went from being the strongest to a role as the weak link. The whole of Scandinavia was gathered under the same union, the Kalmar union, of which the swedes managed to keep a certain distance from, Norway on the other hand fell deeper and deeper into danish rule because people employed for administrative positions in Norway was danes. In 1537 came the "Norgesparagrafen" which said that "From now and forever Norway was a part of Denmark just like Fyn, Sj?lland and Bornholm." This led Norway into the long "400 year night" as it's called in Norway.
It still wasn't peace in Scandinavia, as the swedes built up their forces. From 1611 to 1613 we had the Kalmar war which the danes lost. then the swedes fought against Russia, and won, then they conquered large parts around the East sea. Later on there were more wars between Denmark and Sweden and the result was that the danes lost all of them and had to give up Jemtland, Herjedalen and B?huslen the swedes came as long as into Copenhagen the last time befor Denmark surrendered. The Norwegian border as it is today was drawn in 1750 with some compromises narrowly eccepted by the swedes.
But after 1800 the whole of Europe was in tension as Napoleon built up forces. Then, the danes made a mistake and joined Napoleon wheras the swedes joined the other side. This was a war Napoleon was expected to win come what may, but somehow he didn't. He made the same mistake Hitler did a 150 years later, he underestimated the Russian winter. Which meant he came back with just some 20000 soliders of an army of more than 600000 men. When Napoleon was defeated after the battle of Waterloo, denmark had to pay wardebt to the winning powers. They could not afford this without giving away something precious, their jewel in the crown, Norway. On the 17th of May 1814 Norway got it's own constitution after much debate. And from december 1814 and onwards Norway was in union with sweden.
The danes wasn't finished though, as danish contiued to be the administrative language in Norway as they wanted to keep a certain distance from the swedes. The swedes however, never tried to push the swedish language on to the norwegian population becaus they knew it was impossible just like trying to rule Norway with feudalism. Norway was as good as independent, because whe had our own government and constitution, but the foreign politics was ruled from Sweden and the king was swedish. As it closed up to 1905 Norway got stronger and stronger untill we got our freedom that year. That's the reason for all the norwegian smugness this year, because it is a 100 years since we got our independence. From 1905 we even got our own King (Haakon VII)
After WW2 Norway was in ruins, but whe got "Marshal" help from the US (Thanks...
) and finally, in 1969 we found oil, and the year later we found out that it was one of the 10 biggest reseres of oil in the world. This meant that Norway could build up a huge fortune over a few years and pay back uor foreign debt, as well as building up a welfare state. At the moment Norway has more money on book than Sweden and Denmark has in debt together and that's what we are so smug about...I hope this clared things up, and didn't annoy anyone...
