Kalmar Union

The Kalmar Union (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish: Kalmarunionen) was a series of personal unions (1397–1520) that united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden under a single monarch. The countries had given up their sovereignty, but not their independence, and diverging interests (especially Swedish dissatisfaction over the Danish and Holsteinish dominance) gave rise to a conflict that would hamper it from the 1430s until its final dissolution in 1523.

Final dissolution

The last structures of the Kalmar Union remained until 1536 when the Danish Privy Council, in the aftermath of a civil war, unilaterally declared Norway to be a Danish province, without consulting their Norwegian colleagues. As Norway was a hereditary kingdom, it was in the king's interest to maintain Norway's formal status as semi-independent, to insure that future members of the Oldenburg dynasty would be elected to the Danish throne. Norway kept some separate institutions and its legal system, but the former Norwegian possessions of Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands, came directly under the Danish crown. In 1814 the king of Denmark-Norway was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden. In the middle of the 19th century, this would give rise to the Scandinavian movement, which sought to reunite the countries of the Kalmar Union, except Finland, under one monarch.

Related Topics:
1536 - Danish Privy Council - Iceland - Greenland - Faroe Islands - 1814 - Denmark-Norway - 19th century - Scandinavian movement - Finland

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