Dictionary: Denmark   (dĕn'märk')

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Denmark

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A country of northern Europe on Jutland and adjacent islands. It was unified in the 10th century by the Viking king Harold Bluetooth (died 985), who converted the people to Christianity. Denmark controlled England briefly in the 11th century and was united with Sweden and Norway in 1397. The union with Sweden lasted until 1523, and the union with Norway until 1814. Copenhagen is the capital and the largest city. Population: 5,470,000.

In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Danish Krone.

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Country, north-central Europe. Area: 16,640 sq mi (43,098 sq km). Its territory includes Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which are self-governing dependencies. Population (2007): 5,454,000. Capital: Copenhagen. The majority of the population is Danish. Language: Danish (official). Religions: Christianity (predominantly Evangelical Lutheran [official]); also Islam. Currency: Danish krone. Lying between the North and Baltic seas, Denmark occupies the Jutland peninsula and an archipelago to its east. The two largest islands, Zealand (Sjælland) and Funen (Fyn), together make up about one-fourth of the country's total land area. With a 4,500-mi (7,300-km) coastline, Denmark has a generally temperate and often wet climate. It has a mixed economy based on services and manufacturing. It boasts one of the world's oldest and most comprehensive social welfare systems, and its standard of living is among the highest in the world. Denmark is a constitutional monarchy. Its chief of state is the Danish monarch, and the head of government is the prime minister. Denmark was inhabited by about 12,000 BC. During the Viking period the Danes expanded their territory, and by the 11th century the Danish kingdom included parts of what are now Sweden, England, and Norway. Scandinavia was united under Danish rule from 1397 until 1523, when Sweden became independent; a series of debilitating wars with Sweden in the 17th century resulted in the Treaty of Copenhagen (1660), which established the modern Scandinavian frontiers. Denmark gained and lost various other territories, including Norway, in the 19th and 20th centuries; it went through three constitutions between 1849 and 1915 and was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940 – 45. A founding member of NATO (1949), Denmark adopted its current constitution in 1953. It became a member of the European Economic Community in 1973 and of the European Union (EU) in 1993, but it negotiated exemptions from certain EU provisions in response to some Danes' concerns regarding environmental protection and social welfare. In the early 21st century, Denmark's handling of immigrants raised great debate, as did the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons that many Muslims viewed as anti-Islamic.

For more information on Denmark, visit Britannica.com.

Ballets were performed at the court in Copenhagen from the second half of the 16th century and were heavily influenced by French taste. In 1722 the Lille Grønnegade Theatre was built to stage Danish work, with dance playing a popular role in many of its productions and in 1748 the Theatre Royal (built to accommodate ballet, opera, and theatre) became home to the Royal Danish Ballet. This company has dominated Danish dance ever since. At first it was run by a series of French and Italian ballet masters, most outstandingly Galeotti, who radically improved its standards. Between 1775 and 1811 Galeotti produced a repertoire of over 50 ballets and divertissements, one of which, The Whims of Cupid (1786), is still performed today. Under Antoine Bournonville's direction (1816-23) ballet declined but the advent of his son August turned the company into a major artistic force. August Bournonville was not only a performer of inspiring virtuosity but proved to be the greatest choreographer the country has ever produced, creating over 50 ballets many of which still form the basis of the company's repertoire today. He also reorganized the education of dancers and during his years as director (1829-75) he tightly controlled both school and company to ensure strict standards, so much so that while ballet suffered a marked decline in both quality and popularity in the rest of Europe, it enjoyed a renaissance in Denmark. After Bournonville's death the company deteriorated, though Beck and Borchsenius tried to preserve some of the former's works, but it revived dramatically under Harald Lander's direction (1932-51) and under subsequent directors it has established a world-wide reputation performing not only its Bournonville heritage but also a wide 20th-century repertoire (see also Royal Danish Ballet). Other dance activity in the country has received relatively little encouragement, though from the 1970s onwards some small modern dance companies have emerged, the most successful being the New Danish Dance Theatre and Uppercut Danseteater. In 1997 the city of Holtsebro invited Peter Schaufuss to establish a new company, the Peter Schaufuss Ballet Company, to serve the Jutland area.

After World War I, psychoanalysis was diffused among artists and pedagogues, but the discipline was condescendingly dismissed by the leading university professors in philosophy, psychology, and psychiatry.

After hearing a speech by Ernest Jones in 1926, though, the psychologist Sigurd Næsgaard became the first Dane to undertake a serious study of Freud. In February 1933, Wilhelm Reich gave a speech in Copenhagen and the IPA was requested to allow him to come to Denmark as a training analyst; the answer, however, was negative. Instead the Danes were offered Jenö Hárnik from the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Berlin. Unfortunately he turned out to be psychically ill, and all that survives of his brief stay in Denmark are the reports of the scandal caused by his behavior. Reich was to come to Denmark anyway in May 1933, but as a political refugee. He was only granted six months' asylum, which was not extended, as he was suspected of practicing psychoanalysis without the requisite work permit.

Reich nonetheless remained in touch with a circle of disciples in Denmark during his ensuing stays in Sweden and Norway. Another influence came from Oskar Pfister, who enjoyed a certain popularity among prominent theologians and teachers. He gave a series of much-attended talks in Copenhagen in 1936.

From 1930 on, a series of more or less short-lived psychoanalytic societies were founded in Denmark, all marked by their respective founders and leaders. The most important was the group that surrounded Sigurd Næsgaard, who in the public eye was largely identified with Danish psychoanalysis. Another group was led by P. C. Petersen, who had a background in dairy production, and it represented especially the inspiration of Pfister. A third group arose around Reich's Danish pupils, led by the physicians J. H. Leunbach and T. Philipson; these were known in particular for their work in the movement for sexual reform.

The person with the greatest influence on the establishment of psychoanalysis in Denmark was Sigurd Næsgaard (1883-1956). He started as a teacher and then completed a university degree in philosophy and psychology. He had strong roots in the Danish high school movement, and considered general education, education reform, and sexual freedom his most important goals. As a psychoanalyst he was self-taught. His large authorship is characterized by a popularizing tendency and a predilection for pat and quick-witted interpretations. He is known for his analyses of a number of the important cultural figures of his time, among others the painter Asger Jorn. Some of the leading Danish IPA analysts after World War II also started their analytic careers on his couch.

The Danish-Norwegian Psychoanalytic Society that was founded at the IPA congress in 1934 had only one member with a Danish address, the Hungarian Georg Gerö, a pupil of Reich who had been educated at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Berlin. Under pressure from the IPA, Gerö broke with Reich around 1937. The only known work of his in Denmark today is his training analysis of the psychiatrist Poul Færgeman. Gerö emigrated to the United States at the beginning of World War II.

Færgeman (1912-67) left for the United States in 1946 to terminate the training analysis he had started with Gerö in Denmark. He later became a member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, but returned to Denmark in 1960 and joined the Danish society. He is best known for his work with psychogenic psychoses (Færgeman, 1963). Because of his premature death he was not to have the influence on Danish psychoanalysis to which he seemed entitled.

After the war, Næsgaard and Petersen each established new societies. Both sought admission to the IPA, but since neither had had IPA-accredited training, they were unsuccessful. Instead, the initiative slid to another group. The Swedish analyst Nils Nielsen, member of the IPA, came to Denmark in 1949 with a view towards starting a number of training analyses and founding a psychoanalytic society. The Danish psychiatrists Thorkil Vanggaard and Erik Bjerg Hansen, who had received accredited psychoanalytic training in New York and Vienna, respectively, later joined Nielsen. Their Danish Psychoanalytic Society attained status as a study group under the IPA in 1953 and obtained full IPA membership in 1957. The society hosted the international IPA congresses in 1959 and 1967. The accession of members was low, as was the level of activity throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Thorkil Vanggaard (1910-1998)) was the strong leader of the Danish Psychoanalytic Society in the years following World War II. He received his psychoanalytic training in New York with Robert Bak as his training analyst. His psychoanalytic authorship is not prolific, but a fairly original theory of the phallus as a meditating symbol in connection with the transfer of authority from master to pupil merits mention (Vanggaard, 1972). He was vice president of the IPA from 1967 to 1969, but then began to move away from psychoanalysis and left the psychoanalytic society in 1984. He is known to the Danish public rather for his highly controversial position on gender roles and incest than as a psychoanalyst.

Not till 1980 was the increasing general interest in psychoanalysis reflected in the number of members. Among the Danish public, psychoanalysis has mainly been represented by psychologists, researchers and writers with no analytical training (e.g., Andkjær Olsen and Køppe, 1988).

In the 1990s the Danish Psychoanalytic Society had around 30 full members, of whom more than one third are from the southern part of Sweden, having chosen to belong to the Danish society due to the fact that Copenhagen is closer than Stockholm. There is no institute, and the society depends greatly on its collaboration with the other Scandinavian societies, who among other things have cooperated since 1978 on the publication of the Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review (in English).

Among the societies that do not belong to the IPA are the Group Analytic Institute (established with the support of the British group analysts Colin James and Malcolm Pines) and the Psychoanalytic Circle (Lacanian).

Bibliography

Andkjær Olsen, Ole, and Køppe, Simo. (1988). Freud's theory of psychoanalysis. New York: New York University Press.

Færgeman, Poul. (1963). Psychogenic psychoses. London: Butterworths.

Reimer, Jensen, and Paikin, Henning. (1980). On psychoanalysis in Denmark. Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 3, 103-16.

Paikin, Henning. (1992). Denmark. In P. Kutter (Ed.), Psychoanalysis international. A guide to psychoanalysis throughout the world (Vol. 1, Europe). Cannstatt: Frommannn-Holzboog.

Vanggaard, Thorkil. (1972). Phallos. New York: International Universities Press.

—OLE ANDKJÆR OLSEN

Denmark was an expansive, sparsely populated kingdom. It embraced Denmark itself, the Scanian provinces at the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula (until 1660), the kingdom of Norway and its vassal state, Iceland, the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein-Segeberg, the Færoe Islands, and the Baltic island of Bornholm. Its aggregate population in 1600 numbered around 1.5 million, but territorial losses incurred in 1658–1660 reduced that number somewhat. Although not a wealthy state, at its height it produced and exported substantial quantities of grain, hides, timber, fish, and cattle. Its main source of wealth and power came from its position astride the Sound and the Belts, which gave Denmark control over maritime traffic entering or leaving the Baltic. From 1426, the kings of Denmark collected the Sound Dues, a commercial duty on shipping passing through the Sound at Helsingør. The Sound Dues became the monarchy's single most important source of revenue, and command of the Sound gave Denmark prestige and influence disproportionate to its small population and resource base.

Before 1660, the system of government was a conciliar, elective monarchy under the rule of the Oldenburg dynasty, with its administrative center at Copenhagen. The kings shared power with the Council of State (Rigsråd), whose membership was drawn from a handful of aristocratic families. Diets and popular assemblies were generally insignificant at the national level. From 1536 to 1660, Norway, with its vassal state Iceland, was a mere province of Denmark, while the "duchies" of Schleswig and Holstein were the monarch's personal patrimony. The kings' dual identities as Scandinavian sovereigns and as princes of the Holy Roman Empire ensured that Denmark would enjoy close commercial and cultural ties with the German lands.

The sixteenth century witnessed a considerable expansion of royal and state power in Denmark. At the beginning of the century, Denmark was still linked to both Norway and Sweden by the Kalmar Union of 1397, but separatist tendencies in Sweden had rendered the union meaningless before its dissolution in 1523. The autocratic and centralizing rule of Christian II (ruled 1513–1523) sparked a national uprising in Sweden in 1520, leading to Sweden's independence three years later. The king's policies, which favored mercantile and peasant interests over those of the nobility, likewise stirred discontent within Denmark and led to his deposition in 1523. The council replaced Christian II with his more passive uncle, Frederick I (ruled 1523–1533), who paved the way for the Protestant Reformation by his toleration for Lutheran preaching. Civil war—the so-called "Count's War" (1534–1536)—broke out when Frederick died, as the king's son, the avowedly Lutheran Christian of Holstein, and the exiled Christian II fought over the throne. Ultimately, Christian of Holstein was victorious and was crowned Christian III (ruled 1536–1559). Christian III introduced Lutheranism as the state religion, and, although he brought greater power and wealth (the latter through the confiscation of church properties) to the central authority, he maintained good relations with the great magnates and kept the realm at peace for his entire reign. His enviable record in this regard was shattered by his son, Frederick II (ruled 1559–1588), who conquered the Ditmarschen region in Holstein (1559) and brought Denmark to war with Sweden in the Seven Years' War of the North (1563–1570). Denmark proved unable to vanquish Sweden, but the bloody conflict severely disrupted Baltic trade and thus drew the attention of all Europe. The remainder of Frederick II's reign was peaceful, and after 1570 the king devoted himself to ecclesiastical reform, endeavoring as well to craft an international Protestant alliance. Denmark was at the height of its power and cultural influence: the navy was, in 1588, the equal of the Elizabethan fleet, and the monarchy supported such luminaries as the theologian Niels Hemmingsen (1513–1600) and the astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601).

Transition to Absolutism

The central event in seventeenth-century Denmark was the transition to absolute monarchy. Following a difficult regency, Frederick II's ambitious son came to the throne as Christian IV (ruled 1596–1648). Christian IV sought to expand Denmark's dominance in Baltic and north German affairs, taking control of several secularized bishoprics in the Holy Roman Empire, challenging the waning commercial power of the Hanseatic League, initiating a trade monopoly in Iceland, and trying without success to conquer Sweden (the Kalmar War, 1611–1613). The king's fears of Habsburg aggression prompted him to take up the leadership of a Protestant coalition and to intervene directly in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). Denmark's intervention, called the "Lower Saxon War" (1625–1629), proved calamitous. Denmark escaped utter destruction through a lenient peace treaty (Lübeck, 1629), but the war bankrupted the state, damaged Denmark's international reputation, and wrecked the relationship between king and council.

Christian IV's efforts to reassert his influence in German affairs, and to sidestep the opposition in the council, exacerbated the split between king and aristocracy. Sweden's invasion of Denmark near the end of his reign (the Torstensson War, 1643–1645) effectively ended Christian's political career. Christian's son and successor, Frederick III (ruled 1648–1670), was initially almost powerless because of the aristocratic reaction that followed his father's death. His attempt at revenge against Sweden (the Charles Gustav Wars, 1657–1660) was an abject failure; Swedish armies invaded Denmark and compelled the conclusion of a humiliating peace (Roskilde, 1658, and Copenhagen, 1660). Only Dutch intervention prevented the Swedish king Charles X Gustav (ruled 1654–1660) from partitioning Denmark. Denmark lost the Scanian provinces and much of Norway, and, thereby, control over the Sound.

The crushing defeat, a huge national debt, and a popular antiaristocratic backlash spurred a royalist revolution in the autumn of 1660. Frederick III accepted the diet's offer of hereditary and absolute kingship, confirmed by the Royal Law (Lex Regia) of 1665, Europe's only formal absolutist constitution. Under absolutism, which would survive until the revolutionary upheavals of 1848–1849, Denmark would gain a measure of order and efficiency, but it would never again attain the status of a major power. The old administration was replaced gradually by a collegial system, topped by a privy council; the nobility lost its tax-exempt status. During the reign of Christian V (ruled 1670–1699), the king and his chief ministers (notably Peder Schumacher Griffenfeld [1635–1699]) initiated a flurry of reforms and commercial endeavors, including the introduction of ranking in the noble estate (1671), the creation of the West Indies Company (1671), and a standardized law code (1683). Denmark had recovered sufficiently from the disasters of 1657–1660 to undertake an offensive war against Sweden (the Scanian War, 1675–1679), although all of the territories conquered by Danish forces were returned to Sweden as the result of French diplomatic pressure. Christian V's attempts to subjugate Hamburg and Holstein-Gottorp in the 1680s proved similarly fruitless.

The Eighteenth Century

The eighteenth century started with a new king (Frederick IV, ruled 1699–1730) and a new war. Denmark's resentment of its powerful neighbor Sweden continued unabated, and in 1700 Frederick IV attacked Sweden's ally Holstein-Gottorp in conjunction with offensives launched by Poland-Saxony and Russia (the Great Northern War, 1700–1721).Theyoung Swedishwarrior-king, Charles XII (ruled 1697–1718), easily defeated Denmark and forced it out of the war within weeks. Although temporarily cowed, Frederick renewed the war after Charles XII's 1709 defeat at Poltava (in what is now the Ukraine), managing some limited territorial gains. The war continued in earnest after Charles XII returned in 1714 from his lengthy exile in Turkey but ground to a halt after the Swedish king's death in battle in Norway (1718). Although there were serious international crises involving Sweden in the 1740s and Russia in the 1760s, Denmark did not go to war again for the remainder of the century.

During the first half of the eighteenth century, the kings (Frederick IV, ruled 1699–1730; Christian VI, ruled 1730–1746; and Frederick V, ruled 1746–1766) steadily exerted greater control over Danish society while favoring the mercantile elite. The peasantry, already suffering the effects of falling grain prices, felt the most pressure: the creation of a national militia in 1701 restored to the landowning nobility considerable control over the lives of the peasants; to sustain the militia, further decrees enacted in 1733 restricted the movement of male peasants of military age. The trading companies—especially the West Indies-Guinea Company, which managed the lucrative sugar exports from Denmark's colonies in the Caribbean (the present-day U.S. Virgin Islands)—prospered, as did Copenhagen, the staple-town of several trade monopolies.

The Enlightenment had as profound an impact on Danish politics and society as it did on intellectual life. Mid-century witnessed the blossoming of literature and the arts in Denmark, as evidenced by the career of the author Ludwig Holberg (1684–1754). Though the last two kings of the century (Frederick V, 1746–1766; Christian VII, 1766–1808) were mediocrities at best, a series of ministers and royal favorites—Adam Gottlob Moltke (1710–1792), Andreas Peter Bernstorff (1735–1797), Johann Friedrich Struensee (1737–1773), and Ove Høegh-Guldberg (1731–1808)—introduced typical "enlightened" reforms, aimed primarily at increasing agricultural productivity while improving the brutal living conditions of the peasantry. Struensee was personally responsible for sweeping reforms, including freedom of the press, but his unchecked ambition and scandalous affair with Queen Caroline Mathilde, the sister of King George III (ruled 1760–1820) of England, brought an end to both his career and his life in1772. Reforms continued despite this setback, culminating in the abolition of serfdom in 1788. At the closeoftheearlymodernperiod, Denmarkwasaprosperous, stable, and well-ordered state, but no longer a significant participant in international politics.

Bibliography

Barton, H. Arnold. Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era, 1760–1815. Minneapolis, 1986. The best account in English of the reform era in Denmark, particularly with regard to Struensee.

Christianson, John Robert. On Tycho's Island: Tycho Brahe and His Assistants, 1570–1601. Cambridge, 2000. Well-researched analysis of Brahe's career, and of the vibrant intellectual atmosphere of Frederick II's court.

Frost, Robert I. The Northern Wars: War, State, and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558–1721. New York, 2000. By far the best account, in any language, of the complicated series of conflicts in early modern Scandinavia and the Baltic.

Grell, Ole Peter, ed. The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform. Cambridge, U.K., 1995. Includes articles on the course and implications of the Lutheran Reformation in Denmark by Martin Schwarz Lausten, Thorkild Lyby, and Ole Peter Grell.

Jespersen, Leon, ed. A Revolution from Above? The Power State of 16th- and 17th-Century Scandinavia. Odense, Denmark, 2000. A summary of the work of the "Power State Project" of the 1980s and 1990s, including valuable essays by Leon Jespersen (Denmark) and Øystein Rian (Norway). Includes a thorough bibliography.

Lockhart, Paul Douglas. Denmark in the Thirty Years' War, 1618–1648: King Christian IV and the Decline of the Oldenburg State. Selinsgrove, Pa., 1996. Examination of Denmark's involvement in the war, as well as of the constitutional upheaval that followed.

Munck, Thomas. The Peasantry and the Early Absolute Monarchy in Denmark, 1660–1708. Copenhagen, 1979. Far broader than the title suggests; an excellent description of the rural classes and of the ramifications of absolutism.

—PAUL DOUGLAS LOCKHART

Constitutional monarchy in northern Europe, bordered by the North Sea to the west, the Skagerrak and the Kattegat Straits to the north, the Baltic Sea to the east, and Germany to the south.

• Denmark became a member of NATO in 1949, breaking its tradition of neutrality.

The international dialing code for Denmark is:   45

Local Time: Dec 1, 10:28 PM

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Native Text

Der er et yndigt land

orig. tekst af Adam Oehlenschläger

oversat til engelsk af
Peter Ravn Rasmussen


Der er et yndigt land,
Det står med brede bøge
Nær salten østerstrand;
Det bugter sig i bakke, dal,
Det hedder gamle Danmark,
Og det er Frejas sal.

Der sad i fordums tid
De harniskklædte kæmper,
Udhvilede fra strid;
Så drog de frem til fjenders mén,
Nu hvile deres bene
Bag højens bavtasten.

Det land endnu er skønt,
Thi blå sig søen bælter,
Og løvet står så grønt;
Og ædle kvinder, skønne mø'r,
Og mænd or raske svende
Bebo de danskes øer.

Hil drot og fædreland!
Hil hver en danneborger,
Som virker, hvad han kan!
Vort gamle Danmark skal bestå,
Så længe bøgen spejler
Sin top i bølgen blå.

English Text

A lovely land is ours
With beeches green about her
Encircled by the sea
Her hills and vales are manifold
Her name, of old, is Denmark
And she is Freya's home

In days of long-ago
This land was home to heroes
From war they rested here
Then forth they went, to smite the foe
Now to their graves they've gone
Among the barrow-stones

This land is yet so fair
Her waters yet so blue
And green are still her leaves
And noble ladies, maidens fair,
And men and able lads
Still dwell on Danish soil

Hail Sovereign, hail Home!
Hail every Dane who labours
To do his very best
Our ancient Denmark shall abide,
While yet the waves reflect
The beeches in their blue