Non-Fiction

They Came From The North

By Ryan Gesme University of Wisconsin–Madison During the Viking Age, the Norsemen traveled from their northern dwellings to trade, plunder, and control much of Northern Europe. While the documentation of the Viking raids in Western Europe, especially in the British Isles, has been well researched for many years, there is still a lack of scholarship about their excursion into Eastern Europe. The Vikings created one of the largest trading, military, and control networks in Eastern Europe from 750 until 1100.…

Read More

The Rise and Fall of Imperial Sweden

By Ben Pflughoeft University of Wisconsin–Madison The early sixteenth century heralded transformations to the organization of Sweden’s state formation, which elevated the poor and sparsely populated country to the status of a powerful and influential Scandinavian empire. Imperial Sweden, a dynamic government, proved itself to be an eclectic state of military, centralist, and localist influences distinct from many European contemporaries. For approximately two hundred years, this identity of a uniquely structured empire would operate under a complex formula defined by…

Read More

Fearing Change: An Analysis of Andersen’s “The Year’s Story”

By Adam Rieder University of Wisconsin–Madison Societies inherently possess many problems. These problems can range from hierarchical issues to problems concerning collective action. In many of his tales, Andersen is critical of these very issues. “The Year’s Story” is no exception. Written in 1852, “The Year’s Story” is a story about the changing of the seasons, and upon further examination, it is also so much more than that. To give some historical context, Denmark’s elite decided to transition away from…

Read More

Powerful Women in the Sagas By Ikwe Mennen

By Ikwe Mennenn University of Wisconsin–Madison The rise of feminism and the concept of women’s rights are thought to be very recent and many believe that women in the past had no power. However, women in medieval Iceland, though not equal to men, enjoyed a surprising amount of free­dom. Not everything is known about social dynamics of the time, but analyzing the Sagas of the Icelanders can reveal the women’s various freedoms and influences. Women could often choose their husbands…

Read More

An American In… Petrozavodsk: Finnish-American Emigration to Soviet Karelia

By Zachary Strom University of Wisconsin–Madison Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the familiar story of emigration was one of a lone individual or a family leaving a homeland that was without promise and searching for renewed prospects in life, boarding a ship to take them to a virgin land to pursue a dream. For the overwhelming number of these people, that virgin land was in the Americas, and the dream that they were pursuing has been termed…

Read More

Transatlantic: The Role of Gender Expectations in Birgitte Evensen’s Story of Emigration and Assimilation

By Nikki Link University of Wisconsin–Madison INTRODUCTION Loving another human being is never an easy task. Yet, imagine if that love had to not only venture from one heart to another, but also remain fossilized on yellowing paper, sent careening across a vast ocean, and over thousands upon thousands of miles of amber waves of grain. Imagine if the promise of eternal union meant leav­ing everything and everyone you know behind. For Birgitte Evensen, a privileged young Norwegian woman, those…

Read More