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[bruno_greengras]

"There's something that separates the Scandinavians from the rest of the continent, and England for that matter. It's a certain...sadness. It doesn't mean that we're sad all the time, or that we're dull and boring, it's just - good to be sad

Comments

[agatha_s]

There's something that separates the Scandinavians from the rest of the continent

Not really from all of the rest of the continent, because the same thing -- being very prone to melancholia and enjoying it -- is said about Slavs and it's pretty much true. This is how a Yugoslavian singer-songwriter described the feeling in a song called "The Slav Soul":

In my veins
I carry the ancient, lonely North
And sometimes I don't understand it
Why does it, in its madness,
Weave pain out of happiness,
my simple Slav soul

As you can see, he thought the feeling was connected to the fact that in ancient times our ancestors lived somewhere in the north, which would fit in well with what you wrote about dark winters.

This is what George Mikes, a Hungarian-British humourist, wrote about the same thing with less sympathy:

The worst kind of soul is the great Slav soul. People who suffer from it are usually very deep thinkers. They may say things like this: ‘Sometimes I am so merry and sometimes I am so sad. Can you explain why?' (You cannot, do

[eska_rina]

I think I agree whith agatha_s because I think it's something with the long winter, the "coldness" and the darkness. I don't feel it that much in DK normally, but it is there all the time. And especially in the winter and when we're supposed to get spring (*looks nasty at weather*).

Anyway, I don't feel it in Italy, France or in any of the other countries south for us. I think it's all that... light, you know. You can't feel melancholic when there's so bright. Hm...

And no, I don't think it's something you have talked about before. But it's a nice thing to talk about :)

[paulamcg]

Yes, you’ve talked about this to me before. As far as I can remember, you said that you could relate to the melancholy tone in my fics (which I feel can’t follow any fandom classification of dark or fluff). Perhaps it’s typical of us Nordic>/i> people, not only Scandinavians, and based on the annual cycle somehow in a profound way. Or perhaps it’s also cultural, and we Finns, influenced by both Scandinavians and Slavs, have developed it to the extreme.

[bruno_greengras]

Scandinavia is, by definition, only the peninsula, but I skip that fact - Finns and Russians definitely belong in the same category. After all, no one who's seen a film by Aki Kaurismäki can miss it. :) He's perfected this thing I'm talking about to the extreme.

[riibu]

Yeah, Nordic melancholia. That may be the reason I hate small talk. :D

I'm basically happy with my life, but there's certain melancholia in my character. That must be it.

[bruno_greengras]

That may be the reason I hate small talk.
Heh! I do too. ;)

Would you call us cold, Riibu? :/

[riibu]

I wouldn't call us cold. I know it might appear like that to the others, but it's just that when we say something we really mean it. There's no pointless talk; we are honest and true. :)

[paulamcg]

Hello! I wouldn’t say cold either. As I say in the other comment below, I hope the difference is mainly in the expression, not in the feeling. And I agree about really meaning what we say. Perhaps even the verbose among Nordic people are inclined to be honest and true, or at least it’s their ideal. I was really upset when a reviewer (who was a southerner and perhaps didn’t mean it as such harsh criticism) said that I had “all those pointless words” in a fic of mine.

[captainjames]

This might not be exactly what you are talking about, but several people I know think that people from Nordic countries are colder, more distant, which might be a reason for this melancholia you speak of.
I can't say much about it because I believe that one should not make generalisations, but it is true that customs and lifestyles are different in every country and that Nordic customs and lifestyle appear to be more...well, not as passionate as others? No, that's not the word I'm looking for. Loud? No, not that either

[bruno_greengras]

Not offended at all. I too have experienced this - not what I would call our coldness, but what I might call other's hotheadedness. And let me undeline this right away - I'm not a racist, have never been and never will be.
I've known people from north Africa and Albania/ex-Yugoslavia...and they are quite a mouthful sometimes. This also fits in with how I've reacted to certain south Europeans I've met online. What they call passion I call noisy and overly sentimental - they feel so much all the time and it's exhausting for me as a Scandinavian to keep up. :/ They also don't hesitate to show aggression, something that makes me very uncomfortable.

It's a cultural difference, simple as that. But it's enough to make me insecure sometimes, about what signals I send out, about jokes that the other person might not get...which is probably why I fill my posts with smileys. ;) Then again, I am overly sensitive to signals from other people, I know that.

[captainjames]

You put my thoughts into words much better than I ever could. It's not that people from Nordic countries feel less strongly than, say, people from South America - I never thought that and I hope my previous post didn't seem to imply that. It might be that you don't show it outwardly so much, perhaps.

It's a cultural difference, simple as that. But it's enough to make me insecure sometimes, about what signals I send out, about jokes that the other person might not get...which is probably why I fill my posts with smileys. ;) Then again, I am overly sensitive to signals from other people, I know that.
That's not quite so cultural. I also feel my posts with smileys, because for me gestures and facial expressions say even more than words and they are absolutely necessary in a conversation so that my meaning won't be misunderstood. When I write a smiley it's because I feel the meaning of the sentence I wrote is not clear unless I smile or grin or wink or make a "sad" face.

[bruno_greengras]

I hope my previous post didn't seem to imply that.
Not at all. :) It's something we're used to hearing up here, that we seem a bit "cold" when you don't know us. This is also, I believe, one of the reasons why so many Scandinavians enjoy going south, where one can express emotion without feeling it's unsuitable... It's a greater emotional freedom of expression, if you want to call it that, down south. But at the same time it can become too much for a lot of us sometimes.