Narrating the Second World War in Denmark since 1945

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
NILS ARNE SØRENSEN

After the liberation in 1945, two conflicting narratives of the war experience were formulated. A consensus narrative presented the Danish nation as being united in resistance while a competing narrative, which also stressed the resistance of most Danes, depicted the collaborating Danish establishment as an enemy alongside the Germans. This latter narrative, formulated by members of the resistance movement, was marginalised after the war and the consensus narrative became dominant. The resistance narrative survived, however, and, from the 1960s, it was successfully retold by the left, both to criticise the Danish alliance with the ‘imperialist’ United States, and as an argument against Danish membership of the EC. From the 1980s, the right also used the framework of the resistance narrative in its criticism of Danish asylum legislation. Finally, liberal Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen started using it as his basic narrative of the war years (partly in order to legitimise his government's decision to join the war against Iraq in 2003). The war years have thus played a central role in Danish political culture since 1945, and in this process the role of historians has been utterly marginal.

Rural History ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID MATLESS ◽  
CHARLES WATKINS ◽  
PAUL MERCHANT

AbstractThis paper examines the introduction of a novel and modern form of natural history education in Britain in the 1960s, the nature trail. The rise in the number of nature reserves owned by county conservation trusts and the Nature Conservancy after the Second World War raised the issue of how they might best be used by members of the public. Reserves were initially seen by many as places from which the public should be excluded. The American concept of Nature Trails was introduced by a powerful group of nature conservationists to raise the profile of nature conservation and educate people. The role of the two National Nature Weeks of 1963 and 1966 is examined. The paper concludes with a detailed case study of the planning and management of the nature trail at East Wretham Heath, Norfolk.


Author(s):  
Jeff Crisp

This chapter provides a historical perspective on the role of the United Nations in the areas of humanitarian action and coordination. It examines the UN’s emerging engagement in this domain in the aftermath of the Second World War, as well as the growth of the organization’s humanitarian role during the period of decolonization in the 1960s and 1970s. The chapter argues that the end of the Cold War created a humanitarian landscape that was more complex and dangerous than had previously been the case, giving rise to a range of acute policy dilemmas in relation to the protection and provision of assistance to refugees, displaced people, and other civilians. The chapter suggests that effective interagency coordination has been a chronic challenge for the UN in the humanitarian realm and provides a critical review of the different organizational arrangements that have been established to address this concern.


Author(s):  
Pekka Gronow

Records have become an essential source for popular music history. The article discusses the technical development and global expansion of the international recording industry from the 1890s to the 2010s. Production peaked in 1929 and started to grow again after the Second World War. As the technology developed, independent recording studios were established, and the infrastructure for making records became widely available. The article also discusses the special case of record production in the Soviet Union. In the early days of radio, stations produced music themselves, but since the 1960s, radio has mostly relied on records. Many public broadcasters still have large music archives. Television has also been important for documenting and marketing music. Since 2000, the recording industry has made a successful transition to the internet. Access to social networks has given birth to a large number of microproducers, and the role of music videos has increased.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Redvaldsen

Concentrating on the strength of the mutual relationship, this article examines crucial periods in Anglo-Norwegian history since 1814. In the November Treaty (1855) Britain and France guaranteed the Swedish-Norwegian union's territory against Russian encroachment. Britain was not supportive of Norwegian independence in 1905, though she had wanted better terms for Norway within the union. From a Norwegian perspective, Britain was the most important signatory to the Integrity Treaty (1907) whereby the great powers guaranteed her territory. Due to her neutrality Norway could not openly support Britain, but many events prior to 1940 showed that she oriented her foreign policy primarily towards London. The German invasion and Norway's subsequent entry into the Second World War on the side of the Allies, fostered much warmer Anglo-Norwegian relations. These were cemented by the creation of NATO in 1949, in which both nations participated. In the 1950s even British officials occasionally described the ties as a ‘special relationship’. In that decade and in the 1960s, Britain preferred to work with the Scandinavian nations in multilateral organizations such as UNISCAN and EFTA. In 1973, however, Britain entered the EEC, whereas the Norwegian people had voted to reject the membership their government was recommending. The great power's interests shifted away from Scandinavia towards mainland Europe. Consequently, relations with Norway became more distant. Norway's second stalled bid to enter the EU in 1994 underlined that the two countries have drifted apart. The article nevertheless argues that Britain was Norway's lodestar between 1905 and 1973.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Flanagan

This article traces Ken Russell's explorations of war and wartime experience over the course of his career. In particular, it argues that Russell's scattered attempts at coming to terms with war, the rise of fascism and memorialisation are best understood in terms of a combination of Russell's own tastes and personal style, wider stylistic and thematic trends in Euro-American cinema during the 1960s and 1970s, and discourses of collective national experience. In addition to identifying Russell's recurrent techniques, this article focuses on how the residual impacts of the First and Second World Wars appear in his favoured genres: literary adaptations and composer biopics. Although the article looks for patterns and similarities in Russell's war output, it differentiates between his First and Second World War films by indicating how he engages with, and temporarily inhabits, the stylistic regime of the enemy within the latter group.


Author(s):  
David Hardiman

Much of the recent surge in writing about the practice of nonviolent forms of resistance has focused on movements that occurred after the end of the Second World War, many of which have been extremely successful. Although the fact that such a method of civil resistance was developed in its modern form by Indians is acknowledged in this writing, there has not until now been an authoritative history of the role of Indians in the evolution of the phenomenon.The book argues that while nonviolence is associated above all with the towering figure of Mahatma Gandhi, 'passive resistance' was already being practiced as a form of civil protest by nationalists in British-ruled India, though there was no principled commitment to nonviolence as such. The emphasis was on efficacy, rather than the ethics of such protest. It was Gandhi, first in South Africa and then in India, who evolved a technique that he called 'satyagraha'. He envisaged this as primarily a moral stance, though it had a highly practical impact. From 1915 onwards, he sought to root his practice in terms of the concept of ahimsa, a Sanskrit term that he translated as ‘nonviolence’. His endeavors saw 'nonviolence' forged as both a new word in the English language, and as a new political concept. This book conveys in vivid detail exactly what such nonviolence entailed, and the formidable difficulties that the pioneers of such resistance encountered in the years 1905-19.


Author(s):  
Mark Edele

This chapter turns to the present and explains the implications of the current study for the ongoing debate about the Soviet Union in the Second World War and in particular about the role of loyalty and disloyalty in the Soviet war effort. It argues that this study strengthens those who argue for a middle position: the majority of Soviet citizens were neither unquestioningly loyal to the Stalinist regime nor convinced resisters. The majority, instead, saw their interests as distinct from both the German and the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, ideology remains important if we want to understand why in the Soviet Union more resisted or collaborated than elsewhere in Europe and Asia.


2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1065-1082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mila Dragojević

This article examines the role of the intergenerational memory of the Second World War (WWII) in identity formation and political mobilization. An existing explanation in the ethnic-conflict literature is that strategic political leaders play a crucial role in constructing and mobilizing ethnic identities. However, based on 114 open-ended interviews with individuals born in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia, conducted in Serbia during 2008–2011, nearly a third of the respondents make spontaneous references to WWII in their statements, usually drawing parallels between the cycle of violence in the 1990s and that in the 1940s. The question this article asks, then, is why some respondents make references to WWII spontaneously while others do not. It is argued that intergenerational narratives of past cycles of violence also constitute a process of identity formation, in addition to, or apart from, other processes of identity formation. The respondents mention WWII violence in the context of the 1990s events because they “recognize” elements, such as symbols, discourse or patterns of violence, similar to those in the intergenerational narratives and interpret them as warning signs. Hence, individuals who had previously been exposed to intergenerational narratives may be subsequently more susceptible to political mobilization efforts.


2006 ◽  
Vol 93 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANK MORT

ABSTRACT Historians of the sexual and cultural changes associated with the ““permissive”” moment of the 1960s have tended to emphasize a progressive narrative of reform focused on national policies and their social outcomes. This article explores a diffierent dynamic, highlighting the ways in which a series of scandalous and transgressive events, associated with particular networks of metropolitan culture in London, played a significant role in reshaping sexual beliefs and attitudes within English society during the postwar period.


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