1st Edition

Anti-fascism in the Nordic Countries New Perspectives, Comparisons and Transnational Connections

Edited By Kasper Braskén, Nigel Copsey, Johan A. Lundin Copyright 2019
    306 Pages
    by Routledge

    306 Pages
    by Routledge

    Although the Nordic countries have a reputation for tolerance and social democracy, they were not immune to fascism which spread across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. This book offers the first comprehensive history of anti-fascism in the Nordic Countries. Through a number of case studies on anti-fascism in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, the book makes a significant contribution to the history of contentious politics in the Nordic Countries and to our broader knowledge of European fascism and anti-fascism. The case studies concentrate on the different manifestations of resistance to fascism and Nazism in the interwar era as well as some of the postwar variants. The book will be of considerable interest to scholars of anti-fascism as well as researchers of Nordic and Scandinavian history and politics.

    Introduction - Kasper Braskén and Johan A. Lundin, Anti-fascism beyond the far left. 1. Anti-fascist discourses, practices and confrontations in 1930s Iceland - Ragnheiður Kristjánsdóttir and Pontus Järvstad, 2. Finnish liberals and anti-fascism, 1922-1932 - Jenni Karimäki, 3. An anti-fascist minority? Swedish-speaking Finnish responses to fascism - Matias Kaihovirta and Mats Wickström, 4. Conservative fascist sympathies and anti-fascism in 1930s Norway - Knut Dørum. Anti-fascist youth activism and militant resistance. 5. Three arrows against the swastika: militant social democracy and radical opposition to fascism in Denmark, 1932-1934 - Charlie E. Krautwald, 6. Social Democratic youth and anti-fascism in Sweden, 1929-1939 - Johan A. Lundin, 7. ‘Boycott the Nazi Flag’: the anti-fascism of the International of Seamen and Harbour Workers - Holger Weiss. Cultural fronts and anti-fascist intellectuals. 8. Anti-fascist race biology: Gunnar Dahlberg and the long farewell to the Nordic ‘master race’ - Martin Ericsson, 9. Finnish socialist intellectuals on fascism and anti-fascism in the 1930s - Tauno Saarela, 10. Intellectuals ready to fight: Scandinavian anti-fascist cultural fronts, 1935 – 1939 - Ole Martin Rønning, 11. Fighting for peace: the Workers’ Stage, the popular front, and aid for Spain in 1930s Finland - Mikko-Olavi Seppälä, 12. The last ‘Münzenberg empire’: the transnational networks of Die Zukunft in the Nordic countries, 1938–1940 - Bernhard H. Bayerlein. Post-war anti-fascisms. 13. Framing anti-fascism in the Cold War: the Socialist Youth International and Franco’s regime after the Second World War - Anders Dalsager, 14. Radical-right movement and countermovement in Denmark, 1985-present - Flemming Mikkelsen, 15. Challenging fascist spatial claims: the struggle over the 30 November marches in southern Sweden - Andrés Brink Pinto and Johan Pries, Afterword - Nigel Copsey.

    Biography

    Kasper Braskén, Ph. D. Åbo Akademi University, Finland



    Nigel Copsey, Professor Teesside University, United Kingdom



    Johan A Lundin, Professor Malmö University, Sweden

    "This volume offers a balanced and many-sided look at a key region in the development of anti-fascist initiatives and policies in the interwar era, and a further proof of the globality, diversity and endurance of this movement." Hugo García, Associate Professor of Modern World History at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain. Co-editor of Rethinking Antifascism. History, Memory and Politics, 1922 to the Present (Berghahn Books, 2016)

    "This volume offers a very welcome addition to the research of the anti-fascist mobilization in the interwar era. A field that that in many respects have been over looked as a research field. The volume offers new insights in the history of anti-fascism initiatives and politics." Heléne Lööw, Associate Professor of History at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. She has written several books about the history of fascism in Sweden.