European fascism is by now a century-old intellectual, political and cultural tradition. Instead of being a phenomenon consigned to the past, the body of fascist thought and fascist history continues to grow and inspire modern far right movements. To them, both the intellectual tradition of fascism and its history matter a great deal (Lööw 1990 & 2009; Malkki & Sallamaa 2022). Thus, efforts aimed at producing useful appraisals of the dynamics of these ideas and movements in the present cannot ignore history.
However, there are major gaps in our understanding of the history of fascism, understood in its generic sense as a set of key characteristics of ideology, organisation, and political style (Griffin 1991). One of the most outstanding gaps concerns the very origins of fascist thought, particularly within the Nordic region. Everywhere in Europe, the period of late 19th-early 20th century was a crucial era of intellectual and ideological gestation of philosophical themes that would later bloom into fascism (Mosse 1964; Sternhell 1995).
It is during this period that the future proponents of fascism would form the salient local and regional intellectual milieus, as well as go through the key formative experiences that would later produce recognisably fascist outcomes. But as of yet, there is little understanding of the interplay between the key pre-fascist thinkers and the intellectual and experiential landscape that gave rise to one of the most influential and destructive political ideologies of the 20th century.
The first premise is that fascism was, and is, a transnational intellectual phenomenon. Its philosophical roots extend into the 18th-century European cultural movement of Counter-Enlightenment (Gegenaufklärung). The central tenets of what after 1919 became known as fascism were further formulated in characteristically cosmopolitan milieus, from ingredients common to 19th-century Western thought (Berlin 1997; Sternhell 1995). Consequently, fascism has no single place of origin. It is an outgrowth of an all-Western philosophical environment, giving rise to various intellectual and political expressions across a vast geographical area. Nevertheless, they are all recognisable as fascist by their common features.
The second premise of this project is that the Nordic region (particularly the area of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) has not been a periphery in the intellectual history of fascism (Noreng 1975; Berggren 2002; Silvennoinen et al. 2018). Instead of an exogenic chain of events, with the central themes of fascist thought imported into the Nordic region from elsewhere, we maintain that the birth of fascism throughout the region was a characteristically endogenic process, compiled by native Nordic thinkers, who crafted their ideas within a common 19th-century Western and European mental landscape.
Moreover, the Nordic region has been a central source of inspiration for both historical and modern fascist thinkers. The North and the Nordic people have served as a myth and ideal, as an imagined past and a longed-for future, and as a model community (Holm 2011). During the period under research, the idea of an exceptional Nordicness with a special position and mission in the world was created, carried, and maintained by Nordic political activists, literati, and artists (Henningsen 1997; Lutzhöft 1971; Karcher 2009). It has been nurtured within fascist tradition ever since.
The gravity of Nordicness within fascist thought and rhetoric has been noted by earlier research, but its full reach and influence remain insufficiently understood. Previous studies have demonstrated that the Nordic perspective in fascism transcended the borders of Nordic nation-states. Proponents of Nordicness tended to see the Nordic region as Thule Ultima (Henningsen 1997; Forsell 2022), a pristine, uncorrupted home of a superior race, and the cradle of the most genuine fascist ideals (Emberland & Sem Fure 2009).
Alongside the history of fascism within the Nordic region, this project will thus investigate and explain the emergence of specifically Nordic interpretations of fascism. Henceforth, we will refer to all these aspects as Nordic fascism. Recognising this specifically Nordic fascist vision is essential to understanding the development of historical fascism in the Nordic region. An example of its expressions is the Swedish politician Adrian Molin, who in his introduction to National Socialism, published in 1934, stressed that there was no need for Swedes to look to Germany for ideological inspiration, as all the ideas already had been developed in Sweden by the philosopher Vitalis Norström and others (Molin 1934). Of the present transmutations of Nordic fascism, the modern pan-Nordic Nordic Resistance Movement is a prominent example.
We maintain that the period of pre- and early fascism is in dire need of further examination, holding promise of significant contributions to international studies of fascism and the far right. Due to the sense of shared linguistic and cultural identities between the Nordic pioneers of fascist thought, they tended early on to form transnational intellectual milieus. We claim that this nature of the organising period of pre- and early Nordic fascism mandates a transnational, entangled research approach. Likewise, due to the interconnectedness of the actors, and the prevalent role of Nordicness in fascist ideation, the Nordic region forms a pertinent and viable unit of study.
The research project aimed to produce a comprehensive historical analysis of the ideological development of fascism and the inception of the first self-consciously fascist movements in the Nordic region from the late 19th century until the early 1930s. The two main lines of inquiry of the project will be:
- the emergence of proto- and early fascist thought and milieus within the Nordic region
- the development of specifically Nordic interpretations of fascism, and their impact on the intellectual history of generic fascism
