Gothicismus
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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 founders of the movement were Nils Ragvaldsson, the brothers Johannes Magnus, Olaus Magnus and Olof Rudbeck d.ä..
The name is derived from Jordanes's account of the Gothic urheimat in Scandinavia (Scandza), and the Swedish Gothicists liked to stress 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 (1–4 (1679–1702), 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.
