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( Kalmar Union)
The Kalmar Union (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish Kalmarunionen) is a historiographical term meaning a series of personal unions (1397–1523) that united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway (with Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Shetland and Orkney) and Sweden (including some of Finland) under a single monarch, though intermittently.[1] The countries had not technically given up their sovereignty, nor their independence, but in practical terms, they were only autonomous, the common monarch holding the sovereignty and, particularly, leading foreign policy; diverging interests (especially the Swedish nobility's dissatisfaction over the dominant role played by Denmark and Holstein) gave rise to a conflict that would hamper the union in several intervals from the 1430s until the union's breakup in 1523 when Gustav Vasa became king of Sweden. The union was never formally dissolved - some argue that its conception actually was never ratified either. Norway and her overseas dependencies, however, continued to remain a part of the realm of Denmark-Norway under the Oldenburg dynasty for several centuries after the dissolution. The union was the work of Queen Margaret of Denmark (1353–1412), a daughter of King Valdemar IV of Denmark. At the age of ten, she was married to King Haakon VI of Norway and Sweden, who was the son of King Magnus II of Sweden and Norway. Margaret succeeded in having her son Olav recognized as heir to the throne of Denmark. In 1376 Olav inherited the crown of Denmark from his maternal grandfather as King Oluf III, with his mother as guardian. When Haakon VI died in 1380, Olav also inherited the crown of Norway. The two kingdoms were united in a personal union under a child king, with the king's mother as his guardian. Olav also had designs on the throne of Sweden (in opposition to Albert of Mecklenburg) from 1385 until 1387. Before Olav came of age and could take over the government, he died in 1387. Margaret made the Danish Council of the Realm elect her as regent of Denmark, but she did not attempt to assume the title of queen. The next year she was also recognized as regent of Norway, on February 2, 1388. She adopted her sister's grandson Bogislav, a son of prince Vartislav of Pomerania, and gave him the more Nordic name Erik. She manoeuvred to have the Norwegian Council recognize him as heir to the throne of Norway,[2] in spite of his not being first in the line of succession, and he was installed as king of Norway in 1389, still with Margaret as his guardian.
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