Portal:Denmark/Selected biography/2006 archive
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[edit] Week 9-11
Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig (September 8, 1783 – September 2, 1872) was a Danish teacher, writer, poet, philosopher, historian, minister, and even politician. He is one of the most influential people in Danish history, his philosophy giving rise to a new form of non-aggressive nationalism in Denmark in the last half of the 19th century. He was married three times, the last time in his seventy-sixth year.
Grundtvig and his followers, Grundtvigians, are credited with being very influential in the formulation of modern Danish national consciousness. Their attitude is well illustrated in the very different reaction of Danes to their national defeat in 1864 against Prussia versus the national trauma of German defeat in World War I. (more...)
[edit] Week 12
Tycho Brahe, born Tyge Ottesen Brahe (December 14, 1546 – October 24, 1601), was a Danish nobleman astronomer as well as an astrologer and alchemist. He was granted an estate on the island of Hven and the funding to build the Uraniborg, an early research institute, where he built large astronomical instruments and took many careful measurements. As an astronomer, Tycho worked to combine what he saw as the geometrical benefits of the Copernican system with the philosophical benefits of the Ptolemaic system into his own model of the universe, the Tychonic system. From 1600 until his death in 1601, he was assisted by Johannes Kepler, who would later use Tycho's astronomical information to develop his own theories of astronomy.
He is credited with the most accurate astronomical observations of his time, and the data was used by his assistant Kepler to derive the laws of planetary motion. No one before Tycho had attempted to make so many redundant observations, and the mathematical tools to take advantage of them had not yet been developed. He did what others before him were unable or unwilling to do — to catalogue the planets and stars with enough accuracy so as to determine whether the Ptolemaic or Copernican system was more valid in describing the heavens.
Recently selected: Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig
[edit] Week 13
Christian IV (April 12, 1577–February 28, 1648), king of Denmark and Norway, the son of Frederick II, king of Denmark and Norway, and Sophia of Mecklenburg, was born at Frederiksborg castle in 1577, and succeeded to the throne on the death of his father (April 4, 1588), attaining his majority on August 17, 1596. He is frequently remembered as one of the greatest kings of Denmark, having initiated many reforms and projects.
Recently selected: Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig – Tycho Brahe
[edit] Week 14
Karen von Blixen-Finecke (April 17, 1885 – September 7, 1962), née Dinesen, was a Danish author also known under her pen name Isak Dinesen. Blixen wrote works both in Danish and in English. She is best known, at least in English, for her account of living in Kenya, Out of Africa, and a film based on one of her stories, Babette's Feast.
Daughter of Ingeborg Westenholz Dinesen, and the writer and army officer Wilhelm Dinesen, and sister of Thomas Dinesen, she was born into a Unitarian aristocratic family in Rungsted, on the island of Zealand, in Denmark, and was schooled in art in Copenhagen, Paris, and Rome. She began publishing fiction in various Danish periodicals in 1905 under the pseudonym Osceola, the name of the Seminole Indian leader, and possibly inspired by her father's connection with American Indians. From August 1872 to December 1873, Wilhelm Dinesen had lived among the Chippewa Indians, in Wisconsin, where he fathered a daughter, who was born after his return to Denmark.
Recently selected: Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig – Tycho Brahe – Christian IV of Denmark
[edit] Week 15
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes (February 4, 1842 - February 19, 1927) was a Danish critic and scholar who had great influence on Scandinavian literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. Normally he is seen as the theorist behind "the Modern Break-through" of Scandinavian culture. At the age of 30, Brandes formulated the principles of a new realism and naturalism, condemning hyper-aesthetic writing and fantasy in literature. According to Brandes, literature should be an organ "of the great thoughts of liberty and the progress of humanity." His literary goals were shared by many authors, among them the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. Georg Brandes is widely understood to have inspired the intellectual leftist movement of the inter-war period known as Cultural Leftism.
Recently selected: Tycho Brahe – Christian IV of Denmark – Karen Blixen
[edit] Week 16
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, a 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian, is generally recognized as the first existentialist philosopher. He bridged the gap that existed between Hegelian philosophy and what was to become Existentialism. Kierkegaard strongly criticised both the Hegelian philosophy of his time, and what he saw as the empty formalities of the Danish church. Much of his work deals with religious problems such as the nature of faith, the institution of the Christian Church, Christian ethics and theology, and the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with existential choices. Because of this, Kierkegaard's work is sometimes characterized as Christian existentialism and existential psychology. Since he wrote most of his early work under various pseudonyms, and often these pseudo-authors would comment on and critique the works of his other pseudo-authors, it can be exceedingly difficult to distinguish between what Kierkegaard truly believed and what he was merely arguing for as part of a pseudo-author's position. Ludwig Wittgenstein remarked that Kierkegaard was "by far, the most profound thinker of the nineteenth century".
Recently selected: Georg Brandes – Karen Blixen – Christian IV of Denmark
[edit] Week 17
Hans Christian Ørsted (August 14, 1777 – March 9, 1851) was a Danish physicist and chemist, influenced by the thinking of Immanuel Kant. He is best known for discovering the relationship between electricity and magnetism known as electromagnetism.
From 1806, Ørsted was a professor at the University of Copenhagen. He was instrumental in the founding of the university's Faculty of Science shortly before his death. In the 1960's the main building complex of the university's new science campus was named in his honor.
Ørsted was the driving force behind the founding of the Technical University of Denmark in 1829 and served as its first director. The present-day department of applied electronics is named Ørsted·DTU in his honor.
Recently selected: Søren Kierkegaard – Georg Brandes – Karen Blixen
[edit] Week 18
Piet Hein (December 16, 1905 - April 17, 1996) was a scientist, mathematician, inventor, author, and poet, often writing under the Old Norse pseudonym "Kumbel" meaning "tombstone". His short poems, gruks (or grooks), first started to appear in the daily newspaper Politiken shortly after the Nazi Occupation in April 1940 under the signature Kumbel Kumbell.
Recently selected: Hans Christian Ørsted – Søren Kierkegaard – Georg Brandes
[edit] Week 19
Ole (Christensen) Rømer (September 25, 1644 – September 19, 1710) was a Danish astronomer who made the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light (1676).
Rømer was employed by the French government: King Louis XIV made him teacher for the Dauphin, and he also took part in the construction of the magnificent fountains at Versailles.
In 1681, he returned to Denmark and was appointed professor of Astronomy at Copenhagen University. He was active also as an observer, both at the University Observatory at the Round Tower and in his home, using improved instruments of his own construction. Unfortunately, his observations have not survived: they were lost in the great fire of Copenhagen in 1728. However, a former assistant (and later an astronomer in his own right), Peder Horrebow, loyally described and wrote about Rømer's observations.
Recently selected: Piet Hein (Denmark) – Hans Christian Ørsted – Søren Kierkegaard
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Portal:Denmark/Selected biography/Week 24, 2006
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Portal:Denmark/Selected biography/Week 25, 2006
[edit] Week 26
Bjørn Lomborg (born January 6, 1965) is a Danish political scientist and former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen. He is most known for his best-selling controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist, and the allegations of scientific dishonesty that followed it. He is now an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School.
Lomborg is also a vegetarian (although he is not a supporter of animal rights), and known to wear jeans to formal business meetings.
According to an interview published in 2005 by the San Francisco Examiner, the book he would most liked to have written is Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society, by Jared Diamond.
Bjørn Lomborg spent one year as an undergraduate at the University of Georgia, earned a Master's in political science at the University of Aarhus in 1991, and earned a Ph.D. at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, 1994.
[edit] Week 27
Niels Juel (8 May 1629 - 8 April 1697) was a Danish admiral.
Brother of diplomat Jens Juel, he was born at Christiania in Norway. He served his naval apprenticeship under Maarten Tromp and Michiel de Ruyter, taking part in all the chief engagements of the war of 1652-54 between England and the Netherlands. During a long indisposition at Amsterdam in 1655-1656 he acquired a thorough knowledge of ship-building, and returned to Denmark in 1656 a thoroughly equipped seaman. He served with distinction during the Swedo-Danish Wars of 1658-60 and took a prominent part in the defence of Copenhagen against Charles X of Sweden.
During fifteen years of peace, Juel, as admiral of the fleet, labored assiduously to develop and improve the Danish Navy, though he bitterly resented the setting over his head in 1663 of Cort Adeler on his return from the Turkish wars. In 1661 Juel married Margrethe Ulfeldt. On the outbreak of the Scanian War he served at first under Adeler, but on the death of the latter in November 1675 he was appointed to the supreme command.
[edit] Week 28
Portal:Denmark/Selected biography/Week 28, 2006
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[edit] Week 34
Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger* (November 14, 1779-January 20, 1850) was a Danish poet and playwright. He introduced romanticism into Danish literature.
He was born in Vesterbro, then a suburb of Copenhagen, on the 14th of November 1779. His father, a Schleswiger by birth, was at that time organist, and later became keeper, of the royal palace of Frederiksberg; he was a very brisk and cheerful man. The poet's mother, on the other hand, who was partly German by extraction, suffered from depression, which afterwards deepened into melancholy madness.
Oehlenschläger and his sister Sofia were allowed their own way throughout their childhood, and were taught nothing, except to read and write, until their twelfth year. At the age of nine, Oehlenschläger began to make fluent verses. Three years later, while walking in Frederiksberg Gardens, he attracted the notice of the poet Edvard Storm, and the result of the conversation was that he received a nomination to the college called Posterity's High School, an important institution of which Storm was the principal. Storm himself taught the class of Scandinavian mythology, and thus Oehlenschläger received his earliest bias towards the poetical religion of his ancestors.
[edit] Week 35
Johan Ludvig Heiberg (December 14, 1791 - August 25, 1860), Danish poet and critic, son of the political writer Peter Andreas Heiberg (1758-1841), and of the novelist, afterwards the Baroness Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd, was born at Copenhagen.
In 1800 his father was exiled and settled in Paris, where he was employed in the French foreign office, retiring in 1817 with a pension. His political and satirical writings continued to exercise great influence over his fellow-countrymen. Johan Ludvig Heiberg was taken by K.L. Rahbek and his wife into their house, Bakkehuset. He was educated at the university of Copenhagen, and his first publication, entitled The Theatre for Marionettes (1814), included two romantic dramas. This was followed by Christmas Jokes and New Years Tricks (1816), The Initiation of Psyche (1817), and The Prophecy of Tycho Brahe, a satire on the eccentricities of the Romantic writers, especially on the sentimentality of Ingemann. These works attracted attention at a time when Baggesen, Oehlenschläger and Ingemann possessed the popular ear, and were understood at once to be the opening of a great career.
[edit] Week 36
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Portal:Denmark/Selected biography/Week 44, 2006
[edit] Week 45
Thorvald August Marinus Stauning (26 October 1873 – 3 May 1942) was the first Social Democrat Prime Minister of Denmark.
Stauning was trained as a cigar sorter and soon became involved with trade union activity. From 1896 to 1908 he was leader of the Cigar Sorters' Union, in 1898-1904 also editor of the magazine Samarbejdet (Co-operation) of the Federation of Trade Unions, and elected Member of Parliament (Folketinget) in 1906.
In 1910 he was elected chairman of the Social Democratic Party (Socialdemokratiet), a position he retained for almost thirty years, until 1939. He became Prime Minister in 1924 - leading a minority cabinet which would survive until 1926. His cabinet was considered ground breaking not only as it was the first purely Social Democratic cabinet, but also because a woman, Nina Bang, was appointed Minister of Education, which attracted some international attention.
From 1929 he led a successful coalition cabinet with the Danish Social Liberal Party that would steer Denmark out of the Great Depression, shaping a major political compromise that greatly improved the Danish economy, and also transformed the Social Democratic Party from a class party to a popular party.
[edit] Week 46
Absalon (c. 1128–March 21, 1201) was a Danish archbishop and statesman. He was the son of Asser Rig (Asser the Rich) of Fjenneslev on Zealand, at whose castle he and his brother Esbjørn were brought up along with the young prince Valdemar, the later King Valdemar I.
The family were as pious and enlightened as they were rich. They founded the monastery of Sorø as a civilizing centre, and after giving Absalon the rudiments of a sound education at home, which included not only book-lore but every manly and martial exercise, they sent him to the schools of Paris. Absalon first appears in Saxo's Chronicle as a fellow-guest at Roskilde, at the banquet given, in 1157, by King Sweyn to his rivals Canute and Valdemar. Both Absalon and Valdemar narrowly escaped assassination by their treacherous host, but managed to escape to Jutland. They were followed by Sweyn, who was defeated and slain at the battle of Grathe Heath.
In 1158, Valdemar ascended the Danish throne and Absalon was elected bishop of Roskilde. Henceforth Absalon was the chief counsellor of Valdemar, and the promoter of that imperial policy which, for three generations, was to give Denmark the dominion of the Baltic.
Recently selected: Thorvald Stauning
[edit] Week 47
Nicolas Steno (Danish: Niels Stensen; latinized to Nicolaus Stenonis) (January 10, 1638 - November 25, 1686) was a pioneer both in anatomy and geology.
After having completed his university education in Copenhagen, the city of his birth, he set out travelling in Europe; in fact, he would be on the move for the rest of his life. In the Netherlands, France, and Italy he came into contact with prominent physicians and scientists, and thanks to his eminent power of observation he very soon made important discoveries. At a time when scientific studies consisted in the study of ancient authorities, Steno was bold enough to trust his own eyes, even when his observations differed from traditional doctrines.
Steno first studied anatomy, beginning with a focus on the muscular system and the nature of muscle contraction. He used geometry to show that a contracting muscle changes its shape but not its volume.
However, in October 1666, two fishermen caught a huge shark near the town of Livorno, and Duke Ferdinand ordered its head to be sent to Steno. Steno dissected it and published his findings in 1667. Examination of the teeth of the shark showed a striking resemblance to certain stony objects, called glossopetrae or "tongue stones," that were found in certain rocks. Ancient authorities, such as the Roman author Pliny the Elder, had suggested that these stones fell from the sky or from the moon. Others were of the opinion, also going back to ancient times, that fossils naturally grew in the rocks. Steno's contemporary Athanasius Kircher, for example, attributed fossils to a "lapidifying virtue diffused through the whole body of the geocosm."
Recently selected: Absalon - Thorvald Stauning
[edit] Week 48
Ludvig Holberg (December 3, 1684 – January 27, 1754) was a Dano-Norwegian writer and playwright born in Bergen, Norway, and is considered the founder of modern Danish literature. He died in Copenhagen. Holberg's works about natural and common law were widely read by many Danish law students over two hundred years.
Holberg was the youngest of six brothers. His father, Christian Nielsen Holberg, died before Ludvig was one year old. He was educated in Copenhagen, and was a teacher at the University of Copenhagen for many years. At the same time, he started his successful career as an author, writing the first of a series of comedies.
Holberg began to study theology at the University of Copenhagen and later taught himself law, history and language. He was not particularly interested in theology as a career, settling for an attestats (similar to a Bachelor's degree today), which gave him the right to work as a priest; he did not attempt a baccalaureus, magister or doctorate in the subject, nor did he follow a career as a theology professor, priest, or bishop.
Holberg was eventually appointed assistant professor after having first worked as one without pay, having to accept the first available position, which was teaching metaphysics. Later, he became a professor and taught rhetoric. Finally, he was given a professorship in the subject which he prized most and was most productive in, history.
Recently selected: Nicolas Steno - Absalon - Thorvald Stauning
[edit] Week 49
Rasmus Rask (IPA: [ʁɑsmus ʁɑsɡ̊]) (November 22, 1787 - November 14, 1832), Danish was a scholar and philologist, was born at Brændekilde on the island of Funen.
Rask studied at the University of Copenhagen, and at once showed remarkable talent for the acquisition of languages. In 1808 he was appointed assistant keeper of the university library, and some years afterwards professor of literary history. In 1811 he published, in Danish, his Introduction to the Grammar of the Icelandic and other Ancient Northern Languages, from printed and manuscript materials accumulated by his predecessors in the same field of research.
The reputation which Rask thus acquired recommended him to the Arna-Magnaean Institution, by which he was employed as editor of the Icelandic Lexicon (1814) of Björn Halldórsson, which had long remained in manuscript. Rask visited Iceland, where he remained from 1813 to 1815, mastering the language and familiarizing himself with the literature, manners and customs of the natives. To the interest with which they inspired him may probably be attributed the establishment at Copenhagen, early in 1816, of the Icelandic Literary Society of which he was the first president.
In October 1816 Rask left Denmark on a literary expedition at the cost of the king, to prosecute inquiries into the languages of the East, and collect manuscripts for the university library at Copenhagen. He proceeded first to Sweden, where he remained two years, in the course of which he made an excursion into Finland to study the language. Here he published, in Swedish, his Anglo-Saxon Grammar in 1817. In 1818 there appeared at Copenhagen, in Danish, an Essay on the Origin of the Ancient Scandinavian or Icelandic Tongue, in which he raced the affinity of that idiom to the other European languages, particularly Latin and Greek.
Recently selected: Ludvig Holberg - Nicolas Steno - Absalon
[edit] Week 50
Bertel Thorvaldsen (November 19, 1770 - March 24, 1844) was a Danish sculptor.
Thorvaldsen is normally believed to have been born in Copenhagen in 1770 (according to some accounts in 1768), the son of an Icelander who had settled in Denmark, and there carried on the trade of a wood-carver. An alternative Icelandic account argues that he was born in Iceland.
He attended Copenhagen's Royal Danish Academy of Art (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi), winning all the prizes including the large Gold Medal. As a consequence, he was granted a Royal stipend, enabling him to complete his studies in Rome, where he arrived on March 8, 1797.
Thorvaldsen's first success was the model for a statue of Jason, which was highly praised by Antonio Canova, the most popular sculptor in the city. In 1803 he received the commission to execute it in marble from Thomas Hope, a wealthy English art-patron. From that time Thorvaldsen's success was assured, and he did not leave Italy for sixteen years.
In 1819 he visited his native Denmark. Here he was commissioned to make the colossal series of statues of Christ and the twelve Apostles for the rebuilding of Copenhagen's Church of Our Lady, now Copenhagen Cathedral. This work between 1817 and 1829, after its having been destroyed in the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807. These were executed after his return to Rome, and were not completed till 1838, when Thorvaldsen returned to Denmark.
He died suddenly in the Copenhagen Royal Theatre on March 24, 1844, and bequeathed a great part of his fortune for the building and endowment of a museum in Copenhagen, and also left to fill it all his collection of works of art and the models for all his sculptures very large collection, exhibited to the greatest possible advantage. Thorvaldsen is buried in the courtyard of this museum, under a bed of roses, by his own special wish.
Recently selected: Rasmus Rask - Ludvig Holberg - Nicolas Steno
[edit] Week 51
Jacob August Riis (May 3, 1849 - May 26, 1914), a Danish-American muckraker journalist, photographer, and social reformer, was born in Ribe, Denmark. He is known for his dedication to using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the less fortunate in New York City, which was the subject of most of his prolific writings and photographic essays. As one of the first photographers to use flash, he is considered a pioneer in photography.
Riis held various jobs before he landed a position as a police reporter in 1873 with the New York Evening Sun newspaper. In 1874, he joined the news bureau of the Brooklyn News. In 1877 he served as police reporter, this time for the New York Tribune. During these stints as a police reporter, Riis worked the most crime-ridden and impoverished slums of the city. Through his own experiences in the poor houses, and witnessing the conditions of the poor in the city slums, he decided to make a difference for those who had no voice.
He was one of the first Americans to use flash powder, allowing his documentation of New York City slums to penetrate the dark of night, and helping him capture the hardships faced by the poor and criminal along his police beats, especially on the notorious Mulberry Street. In 1889, Scribner's Magazine published Riis's photographic essay on city life, which Riis later expanded to create his magnum opus How the Other Half Lives. This work was directly responsible for convincing then-Commissioner of Police Theodore Roosevelt to close the police-run poor houses in which Riis suffered during his first months as an American. After reading it, Roosevelt was so deeply moved by Riis's sense of justice that he met Riis and befriended him for life, calling him "the best American I ever knew." Roosevelt himself coined the term "muckraking journalism", of which Riis is a recognized protagonist, in 1906.
Recently selected: Bertel Thorvaldsen - Rasmus Rask - Ludvig Holberg
[edit] Week 52
Jacob August Riis (May 3, 1849 - May 26, 1914), a Danish-American muckraker journalist, photographer, and social reformer, was born in Ribe, Denmark. He is known for his dedication to using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the less fortunate in New York City, which was the subject of most of his prolific writings and photographic essays. As one of the first photographers to use flash, he is considered a pioneer in photography.
Riis held various jobs before he landed a position as a police reporter in 1873 with the New York Evening Sun newspaper. In 1874, he joined the news bureau of the Brooklyn News. In 1877 he served as police reporter, this time for the New York Tribune. During these stints as a police reporter, Riis worked the most crime-ridden and impoverished slums of the city. Through his own experiences in the poor houses, and witnessing the conditions of the poor in the city slums, he decided to make a difference for those who had no voice.
He was one of the first Americans to use flash powder, allowing his documentation of New York City slums to penetrate the dark of night, and helping him capture the hardships faced by the poor and criminal along his police beats, especially on the notorious Mulberry Street. In 1889, Scribner's Magazine published Riis's photographic essay on city life, which Riis later expanded to create his magnum opus How the Other Half Lives. This work was directly responsible for convincing then-Commissioner of Police Theodore Roosevelt to close the police-run poor houses in which Riis suffered during his first months as an American. After reading it, Roosevelt was so deeply moved by Riis's sense of justice that he met Riis and befriended him for life, calling him "the best American I ever knew." Roosevelt himself coined the term "muckraking journalism", of which Riis is a recognized protagonist, in 1906.
Recently selected: Bertel Thorvaldsen - Rasmus Rask - Ludvig Holberg
