Kalmar Union
The
Kalmar Union (
Danish/
Norwegian/
Swedish:
Kalmarunionen) was a series of
personal unions (
1397–
1521) 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.
The union was formed by
Queen Margaret I of
Denmark (
1353–
1412) in the Swedish town of
Kalmar, then close to the Danish border, after Danish and Swedish troops in
1389 had defeated the Swedish king,
Albert of Mecklenburg, and he subsequently failed to pay the required
tribute of 60,000 silver
marks within three years after his release
. King Albert, born in
Germany, was disliked by the
Swedish nobility and their rebellion had received help from the Danes, who intended the union to serve as a check on the growing power of the German
Hanseatic League.
Queen Margaret, who was a daughter of the late Danish king
Valdemar Atterdag and wife of the late
Norwegian king Haakon VI, maneuvered to have her grandnephew
Eric of Pomerania recognized as heir to the Norwegian throne
, and then elected king over the two other countries. Margaret promised to protect the political influence and privileges of the nobility under the union, but Eric wanted to strengthen the monarchy.
The Swedes were not happy with the Danes' frequent wars on
Schleswig,
Holstein,
Mecklenburg, and
Pomerania, which were a disturbance to Swedish exports (notably
iron) to the
Continent. Furthermore, the centralization of government in Denmark raised suspicions. The
Swedish Privy Council wanted to retain a fair degree of
self-government. The unity of the union eroded in the
1430s, even to the point of armed rebellion (the
Engelbrecht rebellion), leading to the expulsion of Danish forces from Sweden. Eric was deposed (
1438–
1439) as the union king and was succeeded by the childless
Christopher of Bavaria. In the power vacuum that arose following Christopher's death (
1448), Sweden elected
Charles VIII king with the intent to reestablish the union under a Swedish crown. Charles was elected king of Norway in the following year, but the
counts of
Holstein were more influential than the Swedes and the Norwegians together, and made the
Danish Privy Council appoint
Christian I of
Oldenburg as king. During the next seven decades struggle for power and the wars between Sweden and Denmark would dominate the union.
After the successful retaking of Sweden by
Christian II and the subsequent
Stockholm bloodbath in
1520, the Swedes started yet another rebellion which ousted the Danish forces once again in
1521. While independence had been reclaimed the election of King
Gustav of the
Vasa on
June 6,
1523, restored sovereignty for Sweden and finally dissolved the union. The day of Gustav Vasa's crowning is since
1983 the
National Day of Sweden, but was only recently made a
national holiday, in 2005.
|
The Kalmar Union at the beginning of the 16 Century |
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 ensure 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
Scandinavist movement, which sought to reunite the countries of the Kalmar Union, except
Finland, under one monarch.
*
List of Kalmar Union monarchs*
Grand Duchy of Finland*
Scandinavian royal lineage chart for the time around the founding of the Kalmar Union*
Kalmar Union Flag - Flags of the World
*
The Kalmar Union - Maps of the Kalmar Union
