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The Kingdom in the North - A Greater Scandinavia

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For the second instalment in my series exploring irredentism, I offer up my contribution to the much traversed and varied path of a 'United Scandinavia'. This is an exploration of what Northern Europe might look like if the Danish-lead Kalmar Union had survived. The union started life as a very loose personal union of the three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway in 1397, where the most the three kingdoms had in common was their ruler and everything else remained unchanged. However, in this timeline the union develops into what is perhaps best described as a confederation of kingdoms: whilst the constituent parts of Scandinavia enjoy large autonomy, they do comprise a single state with a single, national parliament.
Enlarged through various territorial acquisitions and conquests from Russia, Prussia, and other surrounding states, the union was first enlarged following the Ingrian War in 1617 when Finland was separated from Sweden and made a full kingdom within the union. Following Scandinavian successes in the Northern Wars of the early 1700s, Danish possessions in the Baltics were made a Duchy, autonomous within the Danish Crown, in 1720, and much of the former Prussian province of Pomerania was added to the Danish Crown in 1721.
The union was not without its internal struggles, however, as Greenland's 1814 designation as a 'crown territory' of Scandinavia demonstrated. This followed several hundred years of colonial administration in Greenland, and was at the insistence of Swedish nobles who felt that Denmark's increasing political superiority was a threat to the integrity of the union and their own relative freedom, as Denmark had originally sought to create Greenland as a territory of the Danish crown alone. This marked a turning point in the organisation of the union, moving a way from Danish superiority toward a more equal footing for all the constituent lands.
In 1849, these changes were made official with the establishment of a constitution. The constitution formalised the name of of the union as 'The Scandinavian Realm' (rather than the proposed 'United Kingdoms of Scandinavia' or the far worse 'Scandinavian Empire') at the insistence of every member of the union bar Denmark. The constitution also detailed that each member, or 'crown' as they were officially known, was to have its own parliament, with a unified parliament representing the whole realm to be based in Kalmar, the site of the original treaty signed to declare the union. The capital cities of each 'crown' were to be equal in standing, thus the Realm has no official capital (though Kalmar is often called the de facto capital). Finally, the constitution also created Estonia-Livonia and Iceland (then including the Faeroe Islands, Shetland and Orkney) as 'crowns' within the union, and Svalbard and Magen Island as 'crown territories' of the union.
In 1918, the Duchy of the Isles was separated from Iceland at the insistence of the United Kingdom, who sought protections for English speaking minorities in Orkney and Shetland. The final territorial change came in 1973, when the 4 northern provinces of Sweden and Finland were designated an 'autonomous area' within the union (though not a full 'crown') for the Sami people.
This map shows the political situation as of 2014.

Credit to Wikipedia for information, to the wonderful Fenn-O-Manic for his exemplary maps of Finland which proved a very useful reference, and to Kuusinen, who's own vision of a United Scandinavia inspired me to attempt a 'Bokmål' of my own, though his is both better and more extensive.

See also: The Kalmar Union, Scandinavia, and Scandinavism.

DISCLAIMER: This in no way represents my views on Scandinavian, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Estonian, Pomeranian, Icelandic or Swedish irredentism; nor any of the countries mentioned
; nor irredentism as a whole. It is a work of fiction, not a political statement, and is not intended to cause offence. Please refrain from making political statements in the comments, lest you shall be subject to my wrath. That aside, comments and (constructive) criticisms are always welcome!

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dredwardgumball115's avatar
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