Eric The Red’s Land. The Long Conflict in the Nordic Family

• Published in: Studia Scandinavica
• Main Author: Kubiak, Krzysztof
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Polish
• Published: Uniwersytet Gdański. Wydział Filologiczny 2020
• Subjects: droit; geo; Arctic; Greenland; Norway; East Greenland; Eirik Raudes Land
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.26881/ss.2020.24.08; https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/1373806.pdf; https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/1373806

Eric The Red’s Land cannot be found on contemporary maps. There are not many older cartographic publications in which such an area would be marked either. They were published in only one country, Norway, and for a limited time. This was the result of the territorial claims that Norway reported to parts of eastern Greenland. To locate the area in geographical space, the name of Eric The Red’s Land was used (Norwegian: Eirik Raudes Land). Norwegian claims to East Greenland met the strong opposition of Denmark. In the interwar period, it seemed that the verdict of the Permanent International Court of Justice in The Hague, adopted in 1933 and recognizing Denmark’s sovereignty over all of Greenland, had ended the dispute. However, during World War II, Norway raised the issue of the possession of eastern Greenland again. This happened at a time when both Nordic countries were occupied by Germany. The cooperation with Germany undertaken by “Arctic expansionists” ultimately intersected with Norwegian ambitions in the eastern part of Greenland.