Active citizen diplomacy and cultural connections between the Nordic countries and the Balkans date their beginnings to the eighteenth century. The contacts between ordinary people in Finland and Bulgaria, Sweden and Serbia are a little researched but important aspect of the common history of Europe, created not by states or officials, but by individuals and associations.
The article by Dorijan Hajdu and Sabira Ståhlberg is Open Access and can be read here.
Dorijan Hajdu & Sabira Ståhlberg: A fly in amber? Nordic-Balkan citizen diplomacy and cultural connections then and now. The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, Vol. 12, Issue 2 (2020), pp. 7-48.