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The scenario is that during the German occupation of Norway, the inhabitants of Svalbard declare independance.

How would the news be recieved abroad(outside of Svalbard)? How might the declaration impact the UN? Would the declaration likely lead to a wildly different WW2?

Somehow Svalbard becomes independant during WW2 and keeps it's independance after, how might Svalbards history between 1940-2018 be?

Linguistically would the island keep a split between Norwegian and Russian or would one of the languages dominate? Maybe another language other than Norwegian and Russian might come to play? Maybe Svalbard might become a bilingual society(Russian,Norwegian).

How might Svalbards demographics evolve during this period? Would there be alot immigration fueling a large growth? Where would the immigrants come from?

How would this Svalbard be politically organised?

How might this Svalbard evolve economically? Would Svalbard remain a resource exporter or might they get a industrial aswell as a service sector. In the future Svalbard might become a important node in trade between East Asia and Europe, as the ice melts.

In 1940 at the eve of WW2 the population of Svalbard was 2900 people. 2000 of those were Soviet citizens while 900 were Norwegian citizens.
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbards_historie#Krigsårene_1940–45

The Sovietunion claimed Svalbard as shared Norwegian-Soviet territory, while the Norwegian bjørnøya/bearisland become Soviet owned. Suggesting there was some tension between Norway and the Sovietunion regarding the artic territories(Bear Island, Svalbard).
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbards_historie#Krigsårene_1940–45
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