I have found that the Norwegian people were indignant to being under Swedish rule, but how do the people of Sweden feel? Were they proud of seizing rule of Sweden, or were they apathetic to the idea?
I'm writing a historical fiction paper over this time in Sweden and am having difficulty finding this particular piece of information, which I would like to be able to incorporate.
Thank you!
The conventional version given in schoolbooks etc, is that the Swedes did not have very much interest in ruling Norway. Swedes wanted Finland back, having lost it in 1809 after seven centuries of it being an integral part of the kingdom. It's usually noted that the idea of acquiring Norway was the idea of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, the crown prince at the time and future king Carl XIV Johan. As a Frenchman who didn't speak the language, he was regarded as rather out-of-touch with the opinions and mentality of Swedes. Although his idea that the peninsula as a whole would be more easily defended was no doubt strategically sound.
Norway was regarded another country under the union. With justification - it was a personal union where the Norwegians had far-reaching autonomy. Naturally, the Swedish leadership had a long-term aim of trying to integrate the two countries into one unified country. But the Norwegians had an even greater interest in asserting their independence and eschewed 'amalgamation' as they called it.
That just got worse as the 19th century progressed and nationalism swept Europe. In Sweden, nationalism expressed itself in dreams of a Greater Sweden, and support for Scandinavianism, while in Norway and Finland it took the form of independence movements.
But generally I would say Swedes simply weren't that interested. Even today, Swedish history books tend to pay relatively little attention to the union itself and the goings-on in Norway during the union period. Norwegian books have much more to say.
There was not much reason for military pride - Norway didn't really count as part of Sweden or even a Swedish possession, and had given up Pomerania to get it, so Sweden proper had been reduced to its present-day borders, excepting the island of Saint Barthélemy, returned to France in 1878. Sweden had its smallest territorial extent since the beginning of the (Scandinavian) Middle Ages, and a century of military misfortunes and territorial losses behind it. Norway was viewed almost as a 'consolation prize'.