In the current Danish debate, Grundtvig’s emphasis upon a fellowship of the folk [ folkefællesskabet ] is often perceived as standing in opposition to the idea of universal human rights as a foundational social concept. However, Grundtvig links together contract-theory and ideas upon liberty and upon human rights within his premise that every society, whether civic [ borgerlig ] or Christian, is founded upon a contract, a consensus which finds its expression in a covenant [ sammenfatning ], a constitution [ grundlov ], which in Grundtvig’s view should be oral but which in his own writings can also be found in written form. This constitution comes about by the establishment of a pact [ pagtsslutning ], in the first place between God and man, creator and creature, thence in a derivative form in civic society between king and people. A society’s constitution expresses a dialogue-relationship between the two parties involved in the social compact, and upon this rests Grundtvig’s concept of dialogue-based liberty. The two-way I/you-relationship between God and man and between person and person is the basis of Grundtvig’s principle of freedom which Kaj Thaning concisely phrases thus: they alone are free who allow their neighbour to be free as well. On this principle of freedom rests Grundtvig’s concept of a pact, which is crucial to his notion of the Apostolic Creed as being the foundation of the Church and to his thinking on civic society. The Christian baptismal compact [ dåbspagt ] is entered into by God and man, the social compact in the first instance by king and people whose reciprocal freedom becomes the model for the citizens’ life with each other. This finds its expression in an oral but fixed agreement, a mutual pledge. The pledge binds fast the two parties to their rights and responsibilities and thus becomes the premise for Grundtvig’s Locke-inspired thinking on human rights. In the first transcribed text it is seen how Grundtvig incorporates human rights within an outline for a social constitution; and in the second text how, on the grounds of the oral and public character of the social compact, he rejects the Danish Royal Law [ kongelov ] of 1665, written down but at various times kept secret, as society’s foundation.
Is Grundtvig’s thinking to be perceived as a genuine appropriation and continuation of Luther’s? Or is it rather to be perceived as a renegotiation of Luther’s thought? Regin Prenter, Christian Thodberg and Svend Bjerg maintain three different positions on the question of the relationship between Luther’s and Grundtvig’s theological thinking. With Prenter, a tight connection is tied. With Thodberg it is “both…and”. With Bjerg there is a marked distance between Luther’s and Grundtvig’s theology. In this article a more conceptual-historical viewpoint is adopted which demonstrates that they used the concepts “nation” and “folk” with differing significations.
Luther does not use the word “nation” in its modern signification. According to Liah Greenfield: “he did not take the step that connected the separation from Rome to the definition of the polity as a people. The ‘German nation’, for Luther, had none but the conciliar meaning of the princes and nobility of the Empire, and in this sense he used it in An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation .” Grundtvig on the other hand used the word “nation” in its modern signification, that is to say, he made an inseparable connection between the concepts “nation” and “folk”. And he is surely the person who, in Denmark, has exercised the greatest influence in linking these two concepts.
Before “nation” and “folk” became synonymous concepts, the word “folk” signified kinship and household. The societal whole was comprised, so to speak, of a certain number of households. Each household had as its supreme authority a householder who exercised power over his “folk”. The master tailor exercised power over the journeymen and apprentices who, together with children and other family members, belonged in the household. The combined households of a land were subordinate to a father of the land and belonged in his house, for example the Oldenburg House, the Habsburg House and so on. The supreme lord was the Lord God and all the houses within a society belonged in the final instance to his house. Individual freedom was no part of Luther’s political programme. His guardianship-society ( formyndersamfund ) was built not upon individual, responsible members of society but upon a fellowship between superiors and subordinates. The household constituted that social space within which a connection was forged between the individual and the Christian state. That Luther espoused political guardianship ( formynderskab ) as the best principle of governance is not remarkable. Everyone, more or less, did so at that time. The epochmaking and revolutionary thing about Luther was that he dispensed with the pope as religious guardian.
But the sharp distinction which Luther drew between spiritual and secular governance is not, as is often alleged today, a distinction between State and Church but only between the State and “the Church Invisible”. In a continuation of Augustine, Luther in fact distinguished between two Churches, the invisible and the visible. The Church has both an outward, institutional and predominantly worldly side and an inward, invisible and predominantly spiritual side. As an incorporate member of the State one is obligated to be a member of the visible Church, that is to say the Church as an institution. Membership of the visible Church, however, grants no certainty of salvation. The visible Church cannot dispose over the relationship between the individual and God. Therefore membership of the visible Church is not enough to secure salvation. Faith is necessary. And faith is a personal and existential matter. With the doctrine of public polity, there is thus created a spiritual free-space. The formation of the individual’s morality and character, on the other hand, was placed under the aegis of secular government.
Grundtvig grew up in a society whose world view was characterised by Luther’s thinking on calling and station. Lutherdom encompassed not only the obvious foundation in faith with respect to the Church but also the foundation in morality with respect to the State. However, Grundtvig himself was engaged in reassessing this foundation. After 1825 he began to distinguish himself with quite Luther-critical viewpoints, which is connected with the fact that he himself became one of the leading contemporary spokesmen for the new viewpoint that it was not the dispensations of Lutheranism but the dispensations of the folk which should comprise the moral foundation of State and school.
The shift from Lutherdom to ‘folkdom’ meant that after 1825 Grundtvig again and again pointed to errors in Luther and his disciples. Thus he tackled three central dogmas in Lutherdom. The first was fundamentalism in respect of Scripture. The second was fundamentalism in respect of sin. The third was Lutherdom’s fundamentalism in respect of the State. For Grundtvig, the alliance which Constantine the Great established in 325 between State and Church was nothing less than a great lapse into sin in the history of the Church. And this lapse Luther had not tackled. The process of transformation from Christian principality to democratic nation-state demanded a clarification of the relationship between religion, State and polity. What form of connection should there be established between individual, State and religion in a democracy? Should Christianity, which was deeply integrated in the state-structure of the absolute monarchy, continue to comprise the foundation for the State’s educational polity? Grundtvig drew a clear boundary between citizenship and religion and, according to the ecclesiastical-political premises of his day, advocated religious freedom, freedom to preach, and dissolution of parochial ties. In simplified terms one can say that Luther’s horizon was a world divided into religions, and these were subdivided into nations, while Grundtvig’s horizon was a world divided into nations, and these could be subdivided into various religious societies.
A conceptual-historical viewpoint reveals that Luther and Grundtvig not only used the concepts “nation” and “folk” with differing significations: theologically, they also thought differently upon crucial points. These differences can be put into perspective by looking at Luther’s categories “law and gospel”, “householder and household” and “parents and children” set off against Grundtvig’s use of “the knot” as metaphor.
According to Grundtvig, Luther did not go far enough in his understanding of the relationship between law and gospel. He did not manage to untie the “tight knot” [ Haardeknuden ]. Instead of, like Luther, regarding the law as castigator, Grundtvig spoke of “Moses as ‘schoolmaster’ for the whole world, who guides those desiring it to Jesus”. This shift in the view of the law – from castigator to schoolmaster – is a key to understanding Grundtvig’s thought. Grundtvig regarded the law as an “enlightenment of which one freely makes use according as one can and will”. Understood in Grundtvig’s terms, the law thus becomes a medium for folk-enlightenment. In other words, it is possible to untie the knot between the law and the gospel.
The opening of the Gospel of John – In the beginning was the Logos – forms the basis of the whole of Grundtvig’s programme of enlightenment and exposition. Grundtvig distinguishes, however, between logos and dia-logos . Humankind does not have direct access to the logos of the great word, but must make do with the little word, the verity of which must be proved through dia-logos , that is, dialogue. For Grundtvig, “enlightenment” [ Oplysning ] is not an absolute, but a relative concept. The world cannot be overseen from a panoptic viewpoint, but necessarily has to be viewed with various eyes. The truth always emerges from out of the interplay between truths. Using a modern concept, one may say that for Grundtvig enlightenment is a discursive concept, a concept open to argument. No one can boast of being in possession of the absolute truth. We understand fragmentarily and in part. And such a process of understanding demands, according to Grundtvig, faith. [Editorial note: Danish tugtemester , as used in this context to refer to the Law, is not readily translatable into English. A tugtemester is one who enforces discipline by chastisement and castigation, whether a gaoler, a slavemaster, a disciplinarian pedagogue addicted to flogging or a rigorous moral tutor.]
Grundtvig’s concept of a folkelig education has elements of both a truly nationalist education and a professional training aimed at occupational competence, but is not completely covered by either of these. Against the background of his contemporary social structure, he was sceptical towards an institutionalised primary school, especially if it was meant to function as preparation for an occupational training. He despised the grammar-school which in his view served only to distance the future professionals from the people they were supposed to serve. As an alternative, he expounded a plan for a large state-run highschool in Sorø where there could be developed a folkelig education which would be common to both ordinary folk and the elite, while strictly professional training could take place as a supplement at ‘nurseries’ or professional seminaries.
The distinctive nationalist dimension of his concept of folkelig education is connected partly with the general trends of the age and partly with Denmark’s particular position in his day. However, the heart of the matter was indubitably the idea of a human communality cutting across the differences, a communality which had nationality as a natural, but open framework.
The folk-highschool movement which went on historically to develop itself, thus diverges markedly from Grundtvig’s original thinking on the highschool. Yet it must be said that the idea of human development and sense of communality cutting across the differences has been a key element in its work and that this has been one of the most important things it has contributed to Danish cultural life.
Today it is in difficulties, insofar as it is under pressure partly from a dramatic fall in the number of young people of highschool age and partly from the influence of the management culture upon educational policy with its demand for a quantifiable end-product of all teaching. It has been proposed that the survival of the folk-highschool be secured by introducing examinations. This however would deal a blow to that freedom of teaching which has itself been a basis of its special character and its work, and which still today remains the basis of its ability to make its special contribution to a folkelig education. In an age of globalisation and internationalisation this is a greater imperative than ever.
The author sketches out the way in which the Grundtvig legacy, having at first been a force for religious and political transformation, has become a national gene-code by becoming identified with Danishness. However, this is not felt to be a victory within the Grundtvigian movement where almost from the start a worry about watering-down and a desire to get back to the wellsprings can be traced. Instead of worrying, a job of reconstruing ought to be addressed. In our post-postmodern age, the inherited legacy is no longer taken as given but has to be reformulated without use of the received terminology. The annexation of Grundtvig by Danish newnationalism and the modern folk-highschool’s critical relationship to the inheritance from him make this problematic, but with a startingpoint in Grundtvig’s conception of Christianity one may point to Grundtvig’s openness, founded upon his creation-theology, towards the present and the future and that interaction between Christianity and culture, tradition and renewal, which ensue from it.
Taking as his starting-point the enthusiasm of certain folk-highschool people for qualification-orientated education, combined with criticism of Grundtvig, the author suggests that this group of people’s current break with Grundtvig is not inconsistent with the history of the folk-highschools following the Second World War, when interest gravitated towards life-philosophy, theology and literature. Furthermore, Grundtvig has suffered the fate of been overshadowed by the Grundtvig-myth, a relationship which has partly to do with the compartmentalised nature of Grundtvig’s writings, and partly with the compartmentalisation of the Grundtvigian movement. Here, Grundtvig functions as a mythic gathering-point which overshadows the real Grundtvig. Grundtvig is of significance not because of the effectiveness of his specific message, but because he made himself effective and thereby became an historical premise for the present.
In an extension of the study-group “A new view upon Grundtvig” within the Danish folk-highschools, the author sketches an outline for a new interpretation of the Grundtvigian vision of the highschool. The objective is that the highschools should keep up with the circumstances of the times without capitulating to their conditions, but concretely to formulate a third way between new nationalism’s exploitation of Grundtvig and his repudiation by Danish intellectuals and highschool people: that is, on the one hand a nationalistic Grundtvig, and on the other hand the Danish education system’s focus upon the concept of qualification-attainment [ kompetence-begrebet ], which is here to be understood as being in harmony with the present time’s focus upon power relationships as the determinant within human relationships. The history of Grundtvig’s influence and the debate among Grundtvig scholars form a background for the third way. In opposition to acceptance of power relationships as foundational, an extension of Martin Buber is brought to bear upon the dialogue. Grundtvig is seen as a part of modernity, and against the background of the Grundtvigian concepts of converse [ samtale ] and interaction [ vekselvirkning ] the Grundtvigian concept of life-enlightenment [ livsoplysningsbegreb ] is construed out of the human relationship to God within a radical freedom and with space for the miracle and the unexpected which breaks through into human life through this dialogue. The Grundtvigian concept of national communality [ folkelighed ] is construed, in opposition to theories of social-constructivist nationalism, along the lines of Adrian Hastings’ understanding of “nation” as a concept coming into existence via Christianity in the medieval and early modern periods. Global changes mean that today national communality [ folkelighed ] is indeed to be understood against the background of the national culture, but also, simultaneously, as an imperative, a project, rather than as a description of a pre-established reality.
The essay aims to point out common theological grounds between John Wesley (1703-1791) and N. F. S. Grundtvig (1783-1872). It is argued, first, that Wesley and Grundtvig share the same problem of how to reformulate the Reformation insight in God’s unconditional justification in a context of modernity, in which human freedom is seen as essential also in spiritual matters. It is furthermore argued that Wesley and Grundtvig concur in criticizing the Augustinian-Reformed doctrine of double predestination. Both argue that grace is for all humankind, but grace is not an irresistible force that captivates the human mind. Grace, rather, is a divine self-offering that stimulates the sinner to give a positive response to God’s free offer. Due to his Arminian allegiance, Wesley was an outspoken conditionalist, who explicitly criticized Augustine, Luther, and Calvin. Grundtvig’s critique of Augustine and Luther, by contrast, was mostly of a more indirect nature and couched in his independent use of the Augustinian motifs of grace. The most important difference between Wesley and Grundtvig, however, is that whereas Wesley develops an expanded notion of prevenient grace, Grundtvig expands the traditional notion of creation and imago dei . According to Grundtvig’s doctrine of baptism (central to his so-called Church View), the invitation by Christ to become baptized puts the requirement on the old human being (who is not yet baptized by the Holy Spirit) that he or she must renounce the Devil and embrace the truth of God. Grundtvig’s rich doctrine of imago dei and divine providence can thus be seen as a functional equivalent to Wesley’s doctrine of prevenient grace. Grundtvig, however, never shared Wesley’s view of the possibility of a Christian perfection. Instead, Grundtvig developed a theory of the possibility of a post-mortal conversion (cf. 1 Pet 3). This eschatological vision has the same universal scope as Wesley’s doctrine of prevenient grace, but involves a temporal relaxation as compared with Wesley’s evangelicalism.
The common ground between Grundtvig and Wesley casts a new light on the very structure of Grundtvig’s theology. Grundtvig’s “Church View” should not be understood as a precursor to 20th century English Summaries / Danske resuméer 303 dialectical theology. Divine action, according to Grundtvig, is certainly primary to human activity, but it is not unilateral. The baptismal covenant between God and the human person involves an “agreement”, or contract, between two parties, God and humanity. God offers His divine grace, but human beings should themselves accept grace in order to be part of salvation. This important motif is reflected in Grundtvig’s doctrinal writings, especially in his doctrine of baptism; however, conditionalist motifs can also be found in his hymns and sermons.
In his account of the human being, the early church father Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon (in the second century, C.E.), makes a distinction between imago dei and similitudo dei based on the Genesis account of the creation of human beings in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27). It is the thesis of this article that this distinction can be traced in the works of N. F. S. Grundtvig and Søren Kierkegaard and that this distinction opens possibilities for finding and demonstrating new and parallel elements in Grundvig’s and Kierkegaard’s respective conceptions of the human person, particularly concerning the relationship between the image and likeness of God in human beings and the Fall.
Grundtvig studied Irenaeus for the first time in 1823 and produced a translation of the fifth and final book of his apologetic work, Adversus haereses , in 1827. Kierkegaard seems not to have studied Irenaeus’ own texts, but a good ten years after Grundtvig’s translation he read about the theology of Irenaeus in Johannes Adam Möhler’s Athanasius der Große und die Kirche seiner Zeit from 1827. Irenaeus’ conception of the human being with regard to both the Fall and the rebirth in Christ can be summarized as follows: The human being consists of body and soul, which is its substance, and this substance must become united with the Spirit of God if the individual is to become a complete spiritual person. What was lost in Adam is English Summaries / Danske resuméer 304 won in Christ. But not all was lost with the Fall. The image of God is still within the human soul while the likeness of God, which resides in the human spirit, has been lost and must be reborn of the Holy Spirit. The image of God in the soul is freedom, and this remains with human beings. At times, this freedom assents to the flesh and falls into earthly desire, at times it follows the will of God and submits to His Spirit, which is granted anew in Christ.
The account here of Grundtvig’s conception of the human being – specifically with regard to the consequences of the Fall for the image and likeness of God that was endowed to human beings at creation – is based on Den christelige Børnelærdom, [ Elementary Christian Doctrine ], which was first published in a series of articles in 1855-61 and which was later republished in book form in 1868. Additionally, it is based on a series of hymns and spiritual songs from the same period, especially “Hvor skal jeg Guds Billed finde?” [Where Shall I God’s Image Find?] and “I Begyndelsen var Ordet / Gjenlyds-Ordet i vort Bryst,” [In the Beginning Was the Word / The Resonating Word in Our Breast] together with a sermon from 1839 on Mark 7: 31-37, and finally, ‘Christenhedens Syvstjerne’ [The Pleiades of Christendom] (1854-55).
The corresponding account of Kierkegaard’s conception is based on several sources: The Concept of Anxiety (1844) where the author engages in a critical rejection of the Augustinian-Lutheran understanding of inherited sin; “An Occasional Discourse” and “What We Learn from the Lilies in the Field and the Birds of the Air” from Upbuilding Discouses in Various Spirits (1847); and his discourses for Friday Communion in Christian Discourses (1848), in Three Discourses at Communion on Fridays. The High Priest – The Tax Collector – The Woman Who Sinned (1849) and in Two Discourses at the Communion on Friday (1851). Additionally, a series of other texts is consulted, including passages from Philosophical Fragments (1844) and Journals EE (1839) and HH (1840-41).
These two respective accounts reveal that the thesis of the article cannot be comprehensively applied in every detail and for every text; the construction is too schematic and static to do justice to Grundtvig’s dynamics and Kierkegaard’s dialectics. But as a backdrop to a reading and comparison of their respective conceptions of the human being with regard to the Fall and its consequences for the image and likeness of God in human beings, it has been helpful to treat essential aspects of their respective anthropologies.
Both Grundtvig and Kierkegaard agree with Irenaeus that human beings consist of a triad: body, soul and spirit. And they share the conviction that human beings possess an original divine stamp, English Summaries / Danske resuméer 305 established in creation, in the form of the image and likeness of God. This stamp has not completely perished with regard to the image of God, but with regard to the likeness of God, it has been lost – though Grundtvig and Kierkegaard do not make the distinction between imago dei and similitudo dei as sharply.
In Grundtvig, one finds first and foremost that despite the Fall, a positive element of God’s image survives in the soul as “the resonating word” which can both hear and utter God’s creative Word. In Kierkegaard, one finds first and foremost that because of the Fall a negative element of God’s image is left behind as a cracked and split freedom which is, however, manifest positively as a consciousness of sin and a desire for God. For both of them – insofar as Irenaeus’ distinction can be sustained – a remnant of God’s image in the soul remains while the likeness of God in the spirit has been lost. They likewise agree that God’s Spirit is the driving force for both the renewal and reunification of the image and likeness of God. For Grundtvig, this renewal of the image of God and the rebirth of the likeness of God takes place through the Holy Spirit in Baptism. For Kierkegaard, where Baptism does not have the same signifying meaning, it takes place in the interaction between Confession and Communion.
Grundtvig maintains a clear axis between Baptism and Communion, with an emphasis on Baptism as the place where human “sin-guilt,” which is a consequence of the Fall, is forgiven and erased once and for all. By contrast, Kierkegaard inserts a third element, Confession, so that the schema appears as follows: Baptism, Confession, Communion, but with an emphasis on Confession as the place where human beings confess their sins and God grants His forgiveness. Grundvig underscores first and foremost that Baptism is a spiritual bath of rebirth and, secondly, that it is a covenant. To be sure, they are in agreement that Baptism must be appropriated in faith but Kierkegaard, more than Grundtvig, insists that human beings constantly fall away from and break the covenant. It is here that the confessee’s admission of sin and the absolved one’s reception of God’s forgiveness in Confession receives decisive significance as a preparation to and precondition for going to Communion worthily and for accepting forgiveness at the Lord’s table.
In neither of them is there a mention of a “creation anew” in the form of a second creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing) – at least not as the dominant theme – but rather a renewal, a rebirth, a redemption, a restoration, a repetition, and a reunification in spirit and truth. While Grundtvig, who thinks especially dynamically and English Summaries / Danske resuméer 306 metaphorically, places emphasis on the homogeneous quality of the states before and after the Fall or, more specifically, before and after renewal and rebirth, Kierkegaard – who thinks more dialectically and conceptually – points to the heterogeneous quality. For both of them, one can speak of a growth: in Grundtvig, a growth in faith, hope and charity; in Kierkegaard, a growth in faith and especially in following Christ as truth which brings about a sanctifying fellowship of love and suffering in Christ.
The article is an attempt to place Grundtvig’s “Lay of Departure” (Bortgangskvæde, text B. H. Begtrup’s title) in relation to his view on human life and Christianity, placing it also as part in the course of his authorship in order to describe more precisely the function within the poem’s context of the antique Greek myth about Charon and his boat, and to clarify the character of the poem as an answer to a situation of crucial existential impact. The method used is an analysis of the common motifs in the texts A, B, and C combined with a theological approach to the texts.
The examination of the maritime motifs, especially the Sea and the Vessel, shows that when the sea relates explicitly to Biblical texts, as is the case in B, it depicts death as an active force, able to annihilate life totally if no divine interference takes place. The vessel sounds echoes of the traditional use of a ship as representation of the Church seen as a tool for the action of God against mortality and in favour of life. The vessels in A, B, and C, however, also bear reminiscences of Skidbladner, the ship of Frej, one of the Nordic gods, and Noah’s ark, of the Fayak vessel, that carried Odysseus to Ithaca, and, in the case of B, Charon’s barge – not to mention different actual vessels from Grundtvig’s lifetime. Therefore, it is the function of the vessel rather than its origin in literature and shipbuilding that demands the main attention. And this function is to bring man from the wellknown, actual form of life to a proclaimed condition of existence, which is English Summaries / Danske resuméer 307 brought into focus by the imminence of death, the poet’s and the reader’s.
In order to specify the character of the answer to death in text B, the wording within the western tradition of this incident, especially Grundtvig’s own terminology, is sketched. He maintains the view that neither the language of common sense nor of philosophy of his day with its tendency to limitless analysis and speculation offers an answer to the question raised by death. The motifs expressing his own attempt to answer are found in all three texts, namely preaching vis-à-vis praise, Baptism and Communion, by Grundtvig himself called “the three main festivals”, the three lesser festivals being Christmas, Easter and Whitsun. In this context, the function of “Sjæle-Færgen” in text B is defined as being the vessel for the last lap of the same long and dangerous voyage of life, but now marked by its imminent end and the reduction of the dangers to one: Death. Thus this last lap might be seen as a new navigation, but the force carrying the vessel across the sea is one and the same.
The concluding part of the article is a comparison between the notions and dynamics of the language Grundtvig uses when speaking of the Church, and the structure of text B, v. 3-5, the verses put in opposition to the situation described in B, v. 1-2. It includes a rough outline of Grundtvig’s understanding of “the World” and a short characteristic of his use of non-Biblical material in Christian statements. Finally, an attempt is made to state more precisely the validity of this “answer to Charon” in contemporary.
Ove Korsgaard, Kampen om folket. Et dannelsesperspektiv på dansk historie gennem 500 år [The Battle over the People: A Perspective of Education through 500 years of Danish History] (Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 2004), 672 p.
From the day of its publication, Ove Korsgaard’s brilliant dissertation has had much influence on the Danish understanding of Denmark’s 500-year process of establishing the concepts of individual, society, people, and democracy. The author distinguishes between demos, the general population of the state, and ethnos, that part of the population which has inherited and accepted rights and obligations as far as and beyond a constitution and written laws. These latter are folket, the people.
This primary division leads to a similar distinction between state and nation as well as a parallel distinction in government between representative government and democratic, self-organization of the citizens. A special focus of the book is the interaction and mutual dependency of the specified categories in an historical perspective of change from a late feudal society to a modern democratic welfare state. Essential institutions in this long societal process have been (a) the LutheranChurch; (b) from 1814, the municipal local schools for all, including girls; (c), for centuries, the patriarchal household; and (d) the rising centralized power of king and state. These four institutions formed the ideological and practical base of society until, through the slow effect of the Enlightenment, the individual and the people as such, within a national and democratic framework, took over in the period 1870-1900 and became the ideological basis of society with special and defined rights and duties attaching to every adult male and, from 1920, female. After the pre-1814 ethnic and cultural Danish- Norwegian-German conglomerate state finally broke down with the loss (1814) of Norway to Sweden and (1864) the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein to Prussia, Denmark became the most ethnically and linguistically homogeneous state of Europe. Not until then could the ethnic concept of ‘the people’, folket, finally take over the indisputable English Summaries / Danske resuméer 311 role as the rock of the Danish society – a role which was further strengthened by the German occupation of Denmark 1940-45.
Before 1870, 75% of all cultivated land was worked by the owners of medium-sized family farms, and some 75% of the population made their living in the agrarian sector of society. Agriculture produced the necessary surplus to pay for Denmark’s imports. From 1870, when the farmers began to organize effectively, they gained a higher economic, cultural and political status in Danish class-structured society which they were able to maintain for a hundred years. Up to 1870-90 Copenhagen was the only urban-industrial centre of any great significance, and from the 1890s the organized industrial capital and its workforce rose in influence; but not until the 1960s and 70s did these succeed in outdoing the fundamental influence of the agrarian sector on a national scale. Regrettably, this economic perception of the lower middle-class appearance of Danish society has been under evaluated in Korsgaard’s book, and the reader may thus miss a vital factor in the development of the democratic understanding of the Danish ethnos.
The labour unions and the labour movement in politics never became revolutionary to any great extent and from 1916-29 renounced any such tendency and won a national position as a trustworthy partner in a coalition with other political and social forces. They graduated from expressing purely class interests to representing the whole population of Denmark. This led to the formation of a general welfare state for all after the Second World War. All political parties and national movements took part in building a welfare provision from cradle to grave, covering 80-90% of the population, which led to an embracing of both ethnos and demos.
From the post-industrial and post-modern society of 1970 until today no leading classes in coalition with other groups have been able to formulate a common ideology and political guidelines for the future. So the Danes collectively are insecure about the future, and divided as to whether they want globalisation, Muslim newcomers, the EUconstitution etc.
All in all, this book is a fascinating and well-written contribution to the current debate: Where do we come from? Who are we? And where are we heading?
