Kuldkepp, M; Marklund, C; (2015) Norden beyond Norden – region-work in the margins. Ajalooline Ajakiri. The Estonian Historical Journal (3) pp. 213-222. 10.12697/AA.2015.3.01.

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Abstract

An intuitive way to define Norden would be roughly the following: it is a region1 in Northern Europe and Northern Atlantic encompassing the Scandinavian countries, including Finland, but excluding the Baltic countries. However, this would not be telling the whole truth. It should also taken into account that during the twentieth century, the regional concept of Norden has acquired new layers of meaning that go far beyond any such simple geographical definition. Indeed, Norden, which was the target of so much regionalizing ambition in the nineteenth century, has by now become a political and historical entity perceived largely as “natural” – in marked distinction to the hitherto much less successful attempts to talk into existence a Baltic Sea region (BSR) or a joint Baltic-Nordic “space of expectation.”2 Still, the delimitations of Norden, self-evident as they may seem, have always allowed for some space of negotiation – not least at the region’s margins bordering the Baltic and the Arctic. This results from the fact that due to its “naturalness,” Norden does not only denote a particular region located in a more or less ambiguously delimited space in Northern Europe, but it also signifies a specific positive “regionness,” manifested in allegedly “Nordic” ways of conducting politics, organizing the society and living one’s life.3

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