Mer du Nord et Baltique

- Season 1

(1981)

Archaeologists and historians attempt through rock engravings, stone and bronze tools, tombs and skeletons, to grasp attitudes allowing an approach to the organization of the first human societies installed on the Northern European shores.

Covers the prodigious expansion of the Vikings and the Varangians, from Norway to Ireland and Iceland, from Denmark to Scotland and Normandy, from Sweden through Russia to Constantinople.

The founding of Lubeck in the middle of the 12th century marked an important turning point in the development of the North, as the Hanseatic League launch a net of commercial and human relations along the coasts of Northern Europe.

The mastery of the seas passes, in the North, from the Hanseatic League to the Dutch: it is a relay, an expansion of commercial horizons towards overseas territories.

Only a hundred years ago, most of the peoples of the North were still thriving agricultural societies. Today, in most of these countries, we are witnessing an economic and social development that is, more often than not, seen as a model.

Scandinavian traditions take on specific colors from one country to another, according to the composite contributions that have formed them. The contrasts become even more pronounced if we travel the shores of the Southern Baltic.