Building the Nation: N. F. S. Grundtvig and Danish National Identity

How Denmark became Denmark through one of the most successful nation building processes in history. Cover Contents Acknowledgments Introduction PART ONE: THEORETICAL GROUNDWORK 1 Nation Building and State Building 2 Icons of Nationalism 3 Between Tradition and Modernity: Grundtvig and Cultural Nationalism PART TWO: ENABLING CONDITIONS 4 Religious Revivalism in Sweden and Denmark 5 The Nation as Event: The Dissolution of the Oldenburg Monarchy and Grundtvig’s Nationalism 6 Why Denmark Did Not Become Switzerland PART THREE: GRUNDTVIG AND THE PEOPLE 7 “Hand of King and Voice of People”: Grundtvig on Democracy and the Responsibility of the Self 8 On the Church, the State, and the School: Grundtvig as Enlightenment Philosopher and Social Thinker 9 How Grundtvig Became a Nation Builder PART FOUR: COMPARISON 10 Fichte and Grundtvig as Educators of the People 11 Come Together: Thoughts and Theories on Social Cohesion in the Work of Nikolai Grundtvig and Émile Durkheim 12 “The Gordian Knot”: Grundtvig and British Liberalism 13 Grundtvig and the Slavic Awakening in East Central Europe: (Con)textual Parallels, Mutual Perceptions 14 Crisis of Religion and Nineteenth-Century Spiritual Reform: Varieties of Nation Building in Grundtvig and Emerson 15 Community and Individuality: Grundtvigian and Kierkegaardian Protestantism in Denmark PART FIVE: TRANSMISSION 16 Grundtvig’s Idea of a People’s High School and Its Historical Influence 17 Grundtvigianism as Practice and Experience 18 The Popular Voicing of Sport: Comparative Aspects of Grundtvigian Movement Culture 19 Windmills, Butter, and Bacon: The Circulation of Scientific Knowledge among Grundtvigians in the Decades around 1900 20 An Ongoing Influence: The Political Application of Grundtvig’s Ideas in the Debate on Danish Society, 2001–09 21 The Economic Consequences of the Size of Nations: Denmark in Comparative Perspective Conclusion Contributors Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z Annotation Denmark became a nation amidst the turbulence of the nineteenth century, an era plagued by war, bankruptcy, and territorial loss. Building the Nation is an insightful study of this formation, emphasizing the crucial role of N.F.S. Grundtvig, the father of modern Denmark. Persevering through years of humiliation, internal conflict, and occupation, Denmark now boasts one of the world's most stable and democratic political systems, as well as one of its richest economies. From disaster to success, Building the Nation emphasizes the role of national icons and social movements in the formation of Denmark. The poet, political philosopher, clergyman, and founding father N.F.S. Grundtvig is compared to Rousseau and Durkheim in France, to Herder and Fichte in Germany, and to other great thinkers in the United States and Ireland. During his lifetime, the kingdom of Denmark transformed from monarchy to democracy and moved from agrarianism to a modern economy - evolutions to which Grundtvig himself contributed. He has become a fundamental and inescapable reference-point for discussions about nation, democracy, freedom, religion, and education in Denmark and abroad. Situating Grundtvig in both the history of Denmark and the intellectual history of nineteenth-century Europe, Building the Nation argues for the centrality of his influence in the making of modern Denmark, as well as the continuing influence of his work