Gothicismus
Gothicismus (
Swedish:
Göticism, i.e.
Geaticism) is the name given to what is considered to have been a
cultural movement in
Scandinavia. The term is often used as a
straw man by Swedish scholars.
The name is derived from
Jordanes's account of the
Gothic urheimat in
Scandinavia (
Scandza), and the Swedish Gothicists liked to stress the that the Goths were the same as the
Geats, whereas the Danes wanted to identify the Goths with the
Jutes. The movement took pride in the Gothic tradition that the
Ostrogoths and their king
Theodoric the Great who assumed power in the
Roman Empire had Scandinavian ancestry.
This pride was expressed as early as the
medieval chronicles, where chroniclers wrote about the Goths as the ancestors of the Scandinavians, and it permeated the writings of
Johannes Magnus (
Historia de omnibus gothorum seonumque regibus) and his brother
Olaus Magnus (
Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus). Both works had a large impact on contemporary scholarship.
During the
17th century, Danes and Swedes competed for the collection and publication of
Iceland manuscripts,
Norse sagas, and the two
Eddas. This became a new injection of the idea of the greatness and heroism of the old
Geats (in this sense, the ancient
Germanic tribes). The pride culminated in the publication of
Olaus Rudbeck's
Atland eller Manheim (1â€"4 (
1679â€"
1702), where, in the scholarly tradition of his time, he claimed that
Sweden was identical to
Atlantis.
During the
18th century, the movement sobered, but it resurged during the
Romantic nationalism from ca
1800 and onwards, in
Denmark with writers such as
Ewald,
Grundtvig and
Oehlenschläger, and in Sweden with
Geijer and
Tegnér in the
Geatish society.
In other parts of Europe, the interest in Old Norse matters were represented by the
Englishman Gray, the
Germans Herder and
Klopstock, and by the
Suiss Mallet.
In the
architecture, Gothicismus had a prime during the
1860s and the
1870s, but it continued into ca
1900. The interest in Old Norse matters led to the creation of a special architecture in wood inspired by the
Stave churches, and it was in
Norway that the style had its largest impact. The details that are often found in this style are dragon heads, and it is often called
dragon style, false
arcades, lathed
colonnades, protruding lofts and a ridged roof.
*
Götaland theory
