Annotation

The article highlights that by “Nordic exceptionalism” the representatives of Sweden mean not only their difference from others, but also cultural and moral superiority, which extends to a variety of areas in life. The image of the Swedes as unambiguous supporters of human rights with rejection of any racist manifestations over the past few centuries has become an important element of national “exceptionalism”. However, in fact, Sweden played a leading role in European colonialism, owning the colony of St. Barthélemy in the Caribbean (in the XVIII-XIX centuries), having trade relations with the African, West Indian and East Indian Companies (since the XVII century) and economically supporting the slave trade (in the XVII–XIX centuries). Moreover, Swedish recent past contains evidence of following the methods of racial biology, hygiene and eugenics (in the XX century), for example, in activities of the State Institute for Racial Biology: its legacy included the maintenance of sterilization programs for the Swedish population even after the end of World War II. Sweden’s response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, which differed from most countries, suggesting the development of collective immunity by increasing the risk of infection among vulnerable sections of the population, turned out to be the most significant recent example of such “exceptionalism”. The paper identifies some “myths” that have formed in the (self-) perception of the Scandinavian countries, revealed primarily through the works of their own authors as the closest to the topics under consideration, and skeptically evaluates the aspiration of Scandinavian researchers to present Sweden’s “welfare state” as a modern analogue of mythological Hyperborea in Europe.