A sense of loss is a driving force in most nationalist movements: territorial loss, the loss of traditions, language, national virtues or of a Golden Age. But which emotions charged the construction of loss and how did they change over time? To what objects and bodies did emotions stick? How was the production of loss gendered? Which figures of loss predated nationalist ideology and enabled loss within nationalist discourse? 13 scholars from different backgrounds answer these questions by exploring nationalist discourses during the long nineteenth century in the Baltic Sea region through political writings, lectures, novels, letters, paintings, and diaries.
Contributors are: Eve Annuk, Jenny Bergenmar, Anna Bohlin, Jens Grandell, Heidi Grönstrand, Maciej Janowski, Jules Kielmann, Tiina Kinnunen, Kristina Malmio, Peter Nørgaard Larsen, Martin Olin, Jens Eike Schnall, and Bjarne Thorup Thomsen.
Anna Bohlin, Ph.D. (2008), Umeå University, is Associate Professor of Nordic Literature at the University of Bergen. Her recent publications include the co-edited volume
Tracing the Jerusalem Code III. The Promised Land: Christian Cultures in Modern Scandinavia (ca.1750–ca.1920) (de Gruyter 2021).
Tiina Kinnunen, Ph.D. (2000), University of Tampere, is Professor of Finnish and Northern European History at the University of Oulu. Her recent publications include “Feminist Biography in Finland and Sweden around 1900: Creation of Bonds of Gratitude and Admiration,” in
Erinnern, vergessen, umdeuten?(Campus, 2019).
Heidi Grönstrand, Ph.D. (2005), University of Turku, is Associate Professor at the Department of Slavic and Baltic languages, Finnish, Dutch and German at Stockholm University. Her recent publications include the co-edited volume
The Aesthetics and Politics of Linguistic Borders: Multilingualism in Northern European Literature (Routledge, 2020).
Contents
Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Introduction: The Production of LossAnna Bohlin, Heidi Grönstrand and Tiina Kinnunen
The Production of Loss Organising Thought
1
Loss, Emotion, and Transformation of a National Idea: Poland 1795–1815Maciej Janowski 2
Visions of the Nation and Feelings of Loss in the Works of Steen Steensen BlicherJens Eike Schnall 3
Neglect, Grief, Revenge: Finland in Swedish Nineteenth-Century LiteratureAnna Bohlin 4
How a Culture Was Almost Lost: The Sámi in Nineteenth-Century Conceptualizations of Finnish NationhoodJens Grandell
Landscapes and Bodies Activating the Production of Loss
5
Entrenchments and Escape Routes: Expressing a Sense of Loss in Danish Art 1848–1864Peter Nørgaard Larsen 6
Outreach, Invasion, Displacement: Denmark’s Disputed Southern Borderland as Negotiated through Strategic and Affective Aspects of Space in Novels by Andersen and BangBjarne Thorup Thomsen 7
Affective Bodies on the Move: Space, Emotions and Loss in Fredrika Runeberg’s Historical Novel Lady Catharina Boije and her Daughters (1858)Kristina Malmio 8
Carl Larsson’s Spadarfvet, My Little Farmstead (1906): Paradise Regained or Lament for a Disappearing Agrarian Society?Martin Olin 9
Sweden and Algeria in the Travel Writing of Anna Maria Roos, 1905–1909Jenny Bergenmar
Personal Loss and Lived Nationalism
10
“Thus Shall Our Joy Be Solemn, and Our Pain Fruitful”: Nation, Loss and the Power of Emotions in Amalie von Helvig’s WritingsJules Kielmann 11
The Sense of Loss in the Context of Language Disputes in Finland: Reflections on E.F. Jahnsson’s AuthorshipHeidi Grönstrand 12
Nationalism, Emotions and Loss in Lilli Suburg’s Short Story “Liina” (1877)Eve Annuk 13
Alexandra Gripenberg and Lost Faith in National BelongingTiina Kinnunen Index
Researchers and students of nineteenth-century history, art, and literature, nationalism studies, gender studies, history of emotions as well as Scandinavian and Baltic Studies.