Denmark History

By | March 8, 2021

Denmark is a country located in Northern Europe, bordered by Germany and Sweden. According to homosociety, it has a population of around 5.8 million people and an area of 43,094 square kilometers. The capital city is Copenhagen while other major cities include Aarhus and Odense. The official language of Denmark is Danish but many other languages such as German and English are also widely spoken. The currency used in Denmark is the Danish Krone (DKK) which is pegged to the Euro at a rate of 1 DKK : 0.13 Euro. Denmark has a rich culture with influences from both Scandinavian and Germanic cultures, from traditional music such as polka to unique art forms like flat-woven rugs. It also boasts stunning natural landscapes such as Møns Klint National Park and Wadden Sea National Park which are home to an abundance of wildlife species.

Prehistory

The Hunter Stone Age (up to 4000 BC)

The latest inland ice covered Denmark with the exception of the southwest part of Jutland. From this position it began to melt off about 18,000 years ago, and almost 13,000 years ago, the whole of Denmark was ice-free.

Already during the time of the ice melt, reindeer hunters (see hamburg culture) lived at times close to the ice rim. Small family groups conducted specialized season hunting on the reindeer herds, which migrated between summer and winter pastures.

During the first millennia after Denmark became free of inland ice, the climate was still subarctic and at times cold-tempered (ca. 11000–8000 BC). See AbbreviationFinder for geography, history, society, politics, and economy of Denmark. Periods of park tundra with single trees alternated with periods of sparse birch forests. A rich fauna, which was dominated by pure but which during periods of better climates also consisted of moose, wolf, wolverine, bear and giant deer, provided hunting grounds for the people of the hummingbird culture. During colder periods, access to hunting game was more limited, with hunting being more focused on reindeer.

Just over 10,000 years ago, there was a rapid climate improvement, which marks the end of the most recent ice age. After a short period of birch forest and birch and pine mixed forests and with a fauna of pure, wise, wild horse, elk and uroxe, the forest began to darken. Pure, wise and wild horse disappeared, while uroxia still remained, probably referring to more open landscapes. At the same time, deer, deer and wild boar began to spread. The climate improved and became better than today.

A rich catch culture, the magmose culture, was developed in the northern European lowlands. It is characterized by a varying set of implements in bones, horns and wood, often preserved in ancient lake camps and marshes. Climate optimum occurred 6000–4000 BC At that time, the surface of the sea was at its highest, while at the same time the land rise did not reach as far as it is now. Parts of Denmark’s current coast were below sea level. A dense forest covered by lime covered the land.

  • COUNTRYAAH.COM: Provides latest population data about Denmark. Lists by Year from 1950 to 2020. Also includes major cities by population.

On the lighter soils of Central and Western Jutland, the forest was more open, dominated by birch and oak with heather-planted glades. There arose a sea and coastal culture, the Kongemose culture, followed by the widespread peacock culture, which was based on fishing with russets and hunting, especially deer and wild boar hunting. Graves testify to the resilience of local territories.

Denmark Life Expectancy 2021

The Peasant Age (4000–1800 BC)

During the pea ball period, farmers were found south of the Baltic Sea (band ceramic culture), and a number of features in the material culture in Denmark testify to contacts between them and the peacock culture hunters and fishermen. They may have experimented with animal husbandry and farming at the end of the hunter-stone age. From 4000 BC the farmer industry expanded northwards, and after a short time a farmer’s culture, the funnel-bean culture, was educated.

During the following two millennia, the forest was opened by the clearings of the new peasants, and gradually, large pastures spread. Distinctive was the use of burning, where large areas were cleared around the countryside. The sweats were cultivated for one or a few years, often with wheat, and then the area was grazed for a while and eventually became forest again. During the regrowth phase, the area could be utilized for cattle harvesting, leaf fodder etc. In this way, there was a constant shift between sweating and regrowth in a rural area.

Centrally located in the countryside, the tombs, the cans, and later the monumental pedestrian graves, which marked the chief of the chief family genus (eg Tustrup), were erected.

During the 2000s BC Large, continuous pastures were opened, first in Central and Western Jutland where a new culture, the single-tomb culture, spread. It represented a new economy and probably a new, immigrant people – the latter is, however, debated. The culture was part of a movement towards the restructuring of the farming community throughout Europe, based on the utilization of marginal areas with the help of a livestock economy where processing of milk and wool were important elements, as well as possibly the riding and use of wagons. From that time, the heathlands in Jutland expanded without interruption as far back as the 19th century AD. In eastern Denmark, a similar development can be seen from the end of the 2000s BC.

The Bronze Age (1800–500 BC)

The period 1900–1700 BC was a transitional period when the old flint craft was still competing with imported bronze from Central Europe, especially daggers and axes. Simpler replicas were also produced locally. From 1700 to 1500, the foundation of a more hierarchical social order was laid, based on the fact that an elite had control over the supply of bronze, including the new weapon types sword and spear. A tribal war democracy emerged in the independent and rich Nordic Bronze Age culture that lasted from about 1500 to about 500 BC.

The new warrior democracy emerged during the first centuries of the period across Denmark by erecting tens of thousands of monumental burial mounds, high in the open countryside (eg the Borum Eshøj find, the Egtved find and the Skrydstrups find). The piles showed the status and control of the new chieftain genus over land and countryside, and weapons were an important part of the burial equipment. As power consolidated, women’s graves became richer and swords rarer. They stopped building piles, and the old piles were reused instead of urn burials to show the family’s continuity. The building consisted of individual farms with long houses, 20-30 m long, sometimes longer, where the entire household lived under the same roof but in different departments, while the animals grazed outside all year.

The members of the warrior democracy increasingly submerged land used for pasture. Animal and animal products from this agriculture were exchanged for bronze and gold. The hunt for these goods led to an increasingly intensive use of the landscape. resulted in overwork. From around 1000 BC had established the treeless Iron Age landscape which in its main features lived for the following millennia.

Outside the Bronze Age countryside, however, there were still large wooded areas, especially on the heavier moraine soil. This resource began to be used only after 500 BC, then since 1000 BC. the falling temperature reached its minimum value while developing a much more humid climate. A long-awaited economic-ecological crisis was triggered in the old Bronze Age settlements. It gradually became impossible to maintain the supply of bronze, and thus the basis for the international tribal aristocracy of the Bronze Age, which therefore collapsed, disappeared. Society was reorganized with a changed agricultural production where iron technology came to play an important role, primarily because iron could be produced locally.

The Iron Age (500 BC – 1050 AD)

A new social order was established after 500 BC, a further reorganization took place about 200 AD. and during the Viking era, social changes culminated.

For the millennia, natural resources had been utilized without systematically adding fertilizer as compensation. As a result, the soil was gradually sucked out, especially after 1000 BC, when the open, woodless soil became dominant. The Iron Age society, on the other hand, was based on permanent division of the cultivated soil.

In older Iron Age, the soil was extensively used in the interaction between cultivation and long periods of trimming, when a rich flora gave good hay and oil-containing plants were collected for cooking. The cattle were placed on stables so that the manure could be collected and the milk used better. Hay and straw increasingly replaced leaves as winter fodder. The reason for this was, among other things, the development of the iron line. The characteristic grazing and mowing meadows on low lying lands along lakes and streams were trained during these centuries, which came to mean a far more labor-intensive production form than before.

The social organization was based on small individual households (farms) gathered in a village. The early centuries of the Iron Age were marked by a distinctive ideology of equality, and the expansion of the building now taking place everywhere required a collective effort. There was no great difference in the size or number of farms during these centuries, and the graves did not differ much from each other (compare Grøntoft).

Gradually more land and more animals were collected from individual families, and from about 150 BC we meet the first large farms within the village community. The best example comes from a fully-researched village at Hodde in Central Jutland, where a large farm stood for the village’s founding and, as we believe, the village’s farmhouses joined in a kind of dependency relationship. This coincides with the emergence of a new political and military hierarchy under the influence of Celtic and later Roman culture (compare Brå kitteln and Dejbjerg find). We meet again rich war graves, soon excavated at special burial sites, which differ from the crowd (compare the Hoby find). Trade and influence of the Roman Empire further accelerated this development. The chief and his shepherd were now a reality.

Around 200 AD, after the Romans’ war against the Markomans, this development in free Germany resulted in a reorganization of society. Villages were merged into larger units, and the many small farms and houses were united into fewer, individual large farms, each with its own demarcation. The emergence of a new warrior democracy coincides with the emergence of the first states or kingdoms. Large arms offerings (eg the Illerup find), pile barriers at the fjords and large embankments testify to this development of the Germanic states/kingdoms. All the old tribal names, mentioned by Tacitus, disappear after about 200 and are replaced by new, far fewer and with larger tribal areas corresponding to the new states: scissors, friezes, jute etc.

From the 400s and 500s, singular large farms or “main farms” appear, which have many animals, own smithy, mill, etc. and which often grew to significant size during the Viking Age. A class-based society with specialized division of labor and corresponding legal and tax systems can thus be considered to be fully developed by the end of the Iron Age. If you consider the development of farms and villages from older to younger Iron Age, you can see a remarkable growth in size and productivity, even if you consider that the number of farm units may have decreased. The reorganization around 200 AD was thus followed by a long line of productivity-promoting news, from hand mills to new iron handling. Significant technological developments in crafts and transport also occurred in the younger Iron Age, especially in shipbuilding (compareDebtor Life Ship). Thus, part of the foundation for the Viking Age’s political and economic expansion had been created.

The development of the Iron Age society culminated during the Viking Age, a period of expansion on both inner and outer fronts. Population pressure, trade and military policy expansion were, in varying degrees, the dynamic factors behind this development, which accelerated the upsurge of international trade in the 7th century. Here, Denmark played a central role as a transit country between, on the one hand, the Baltic Sea region and Russia, on the other, Western Europe. Later, military conquest and settlement followed, especially in Normandy and the Danes Act.

The consolidation of the royal power in the Danish area, which about 800 under King Godfred probably constituted a national unit, is reflected, among other things. in the construction of large defense facilities at Danevirke as early as the 7th century and the founding of royal trading venues and the first cities (Ribe, Hedeby and Århus). King power and state power were further consolidated at the end of the 9th century by Harald Blåtand, “the Harald who won all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian” (Jellingstenen). This was done with the introduction of Christianity, the construction of royal castles (Aggersborg, Fyrkat, Nonnebakken and Trelleborg) and the road construction (Ravning Enge) and other cities created by the royal power. The highlight is reached with Knut the store’s short-lived North Sea empire in the early 1000s. Subsequently, the Viking trains and settlement ceased on foreign land.

The king and his earls and officials were large landowners during the Viking era, often with several goods driven by subordinates, who also served as the king’s treasurers in terms of taxes needed to maintain here and fleet and infrastructure in the form of roads and defense facilities. Only some of these could be financed through trade and war trains. The introduction of Christianity towards the end of the Viking age should perhaps be seen as part of the consolidation of the king’s administrative grip on the country and the population after the cessation of the Viking trains.

History

THE MIDDLE AGES

Throughout the Middle Ages, Denmark was in most respects the leading state in the Nordic countries. The density position was based on the largest population – the number of Danes in the 13th century has been estimated at about one million, as many as Swedes and Norwegians together – an excellent strategic location between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and numerous impulsive contacts with the leading countries on the continent. It is significant that innovations in various areas of society were often introduced and rooted in Denmark about half a century earlier than in Sweden, for example. the founding organization, the city foundation and the crown’s castle construction. Often, news broke even stronger than in the other Nordic countries; one example is the feudal being.

Like the general European conditions, in the dominant agricultural industry during the 1100s and 1200s, there were usually good times, which stimulated new cultivation, while agrarian crisis in a strong decline of the population characterized the late Middle Ages. During the early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages, the dominant features were goods of various types. In the 13th century, for example, in many parts of Denmark a system of large farms managed by miners. These farms belonged to a number of landlords (farm seats) with low land holdings, while the land of large farms could cover entire villages. Following the effects of the agricultural crisis, these farms were cut into farms of a suitable size for family farming. At the end of the Middle Ages, the proportion of peasant land in Denmark was 10–15% (compared to about 50% in Sweden), the nobility and the church owned more than 1/3 each, and the krona the rest.

The peasant population thus consisted almost entirely of tenants (attachment farmers). Many of these were day-labored at the manor houses (hovering), and when the labor shortage was greatest introduced at the end of the 15th century in Zealand, Møn, Lolland and Falster, the so-called spring tool. It was a kind of life trait, where men born on the estate had to stay there and take over vacant leases at the owners’ request. In general, in the Middle Ages, social development in Denmark meant the emergence of a standing society, where certain groups – nobles, priests and citizens – were separated from the rest of the population through privileges. In all the higher levels there was a significant proportion of immigrants, especially Germans.

When the Middle Ages began in the middle of the 11th century, Knut the Great’s North Sea empire had just dissolved. For a century, Sven Estridsson’s and his successors’ kingdom covered only the same area as present-day Denmark, along with Sønderjylland, Skåne, Halland and Blekinge. It was also a young state, where the rights of the central power were not yet fixed and widely recognized and therefore usually depended on the king’s means of power in concrete situations. In then Denmark, the Christian church was also a young institution, which sought to consolidate its position. The kings took advantage of this. After all, a permanently organized church, whose interests partly coincided with theirs, could well be a good support for them against opposition big men.

The kingdom was divided into bishopric, but more importantly, the king of the pope was able to effect the separation of the Danish church from the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen and the establishment of 1104 of its own archbishopric for the entire Nordic region in Lund. However, during the next two centuries the Lund Church was not always the reliable ally of the royal power. On the contrary, archbishops such as Eskil, Jakob Erlandsen and Jens Grand were relieved of open conflicts, caused by the same ecclesiastical demands for emancipation from the dependence of worldly princes who had triggered the investiture struggle on the continent.

Valdemar the Great’s takeover of power in 1157 began “The Valdemar’s Great Age”; it also lasted under his sons Knut  VI and Valdemar Victory until 1241. The influence of the central power in the kingdom widened and strengthened. To the King’s leadership of the armed forces and his function as supreme justice and punishing authority were now part of the legislation; such as built the Jutland Act in 1241 on a royal proposal. His power was based among other things. on the during the period, probably primarily for external defense purposes, the citizens of Sweden erected with their garrisons of professional warriors under the command of royal “ombudsmen”.

The King’s expanded operations were financed by new sources of income in addition to the krona estate. Almost all landowners, as in Sweden, became taxable when the military management duty was removed; for the most affluent as well as for the chiefs, this was replaced instead by the duty of war on horses for preserved tax exemption (salvation). The fees from the Skåne market also became one of the SEK’s main revenues. The rise of the Skåne market was associated with major changes during the 12th century in the southern Baltic Sea area. Germans conquered the Baltic Sea hitherto by Slavic-dominated south coast from the lower Elbe east, where they also built a number of cities. At the same time, the herring started to go to the Sound like never before. The catches were sold on the Falsterbo Peninsula, mainly in Skanör. The herring market attracted, among other things. the merchants of the newly created cities,

The city foundation also spread to Denmark. The few older cities – Ribe, Roskilde, Lund and others. – was followed during the period 1150–1300 by some forty new ones, mainly Havn (Copenhagen). The demand for food by the northern German and domestic city residents contributed to the upswing in Danish agriculture.

With a society on a broad progression as a base, King Voldemar was already able to resume the expansionist policy that had to be abandoned in the 11th century. But now they did not turn west, but to the east, first to the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in competition with German princes and cities about the areas of the turning, eventually all the way to Estonia. Since both the turnaround and the ester were Gentiles, the conquest companies – like the Swedes against Finland – could be camouflaged as crusades. This dual function made them natural objects for collaboration between the royal power and the Lund church under the archbishops of Absalon and Andreas Sunesen.

The conquest policy reaped success for half a century, from Rügen’s conquest of 1169 to Estonia’s 1219. When the Danish Baltic Sea Empire that year was the largest, it also included the Mecklenburg and Pomeranian coastal countries, as well as Holstein and the cities of Lübeck and Hamburg. The location of the possessions reveals the main purpose: Denmark now dominated not only the Öresund and the Belts, but also the southern trade route from Elbe’s mouth to and from the Russian market. But already after a few years, Valdemar Victory must give up all the possessions on the northern German mainland. Remains of his Baltic Sea empire became only Rügen and Estonia.

During the Valdemar period, a long period of weakness followed until 1340. At that time a fairly significant feudalisation of the country took place. As in some continental states, this meant that the central power gradually weakened until the national unit in practice had ceased. A flagrant feature of the process was when Sønderjylland in the middle of the 13th century became hereditary prince in a younger branch of the royal family, and thus began the migration towards liberation from the Danish crown whose consequences have extended all the way into the present. Also, during the second half of the 13th century, the Lund church’s attempt to assert its independence from the royal power fits into the feudal pattern.

As far as the main man class was concerned, it had grown ever stronger after the introduction of salvation – also a feudal embossed institution. It now required the statutory right for its own body, the danehoffet, to participate in the national board. The goal was reached through Erik Klipping’s fortification (king’s assurance) in 1282, when it included, among other things. got involved in the legislation. Later, however, a smaller circle, the Swedish National Council, took over the role of the chiefs’ representatives towards the royal power. That Denmark was not an inheritance – but an electoral kingdom – let alone the members of the royal family were eligible for the throne – favored the aristocracy’s power aspirations; the leading men of the kingdom could demand the hand of the faithful before the royal election. The method was used extensively, especially during the last century of the Middle Ages.

Foremost, however, the crisis of the central power should have been caused by the poor state finances. These became even worse in the early 1300s as a result of Erik Menved’s extremely costly war policy; more than in the past, now acquired professional warriors were required. The king both intervened in fights in Sweden and went on offensive in northern Germany. Finally, he had to pledge large parts of the kingdom, which led to huge loss of income for the state and in turn to new pledges. The peak was reached under Kristofer  IIabout 1330, when almost all of Denmark was mortgaged, mainly to the Countess Johan and Gert of Holstein. A rebellion in Skåne gave the Swedish king Magnus Eriksson the opportunity to acquire the landscape from Count Johan in 1332 for a large sum of money. At Kristoffer’s death that year, it was considered pointless to choose a successor; for eight years Denmark was without a king.

As early as the 13th century, the so-called inland traffic past Skagen and down the Öresund had begun to take the promise of the Hamburg-Lübeck country road as a link between the North and Baltic Sea, which was further stimulated by and stimulated the Skåne market. The northern German trading cities wanted control of the main roads and hubs of the trade to be spread on the princes and states of the area and had therefore worried about the downfall of the central power in Denmark.

With support including of them Valdemar Atterdag 1340 was elected king of Denmark. Valdemar first gained control of the central core areas west of the Sound; he received funds by selling to Estonia in 1346 the German words Estonia, the last remaining of Denmark’s former Baltic Sea Empire. At the same time, he strengthened the inner national unity; the riksborgs again became effective support points for the royal administration. But since he had regained the Scanian countryside in 1360 and the following year conquered Gotland, whose semi-German Hanseatic city of Visby was an important intermediate station for trade via the Baltic States in Russia, Hansan instead saw him as the greatest threat to the balance of power in the Baltic Sea region and started war. This led to the first Nordic three-state collaboration against the Hanseatic people: Valdemar brought Magnus Eriksson and his son King Håkan of Norway in a union in 1363.

Denmark’s war with the Hanseatic nations ended in 1370 with these, among other things. temporarily gained control of the Skåne market. In order to stifle the international traffic, they banned their Dutch and English competitors from adding to Skanör. But the foreigners sailed directly to the Baltic Sea trading sites, and the Danish herring fishery was at the same time relocating to the Limfjord. The result was instead that the Skåne market thinned away.

After Valdemar’s death in 1375, Margaret’s and Håkan’s five-year-old son Olof was elected Danish king. When he inherited the Norwegian krone in 1380, the political association between Denmark and Norway arose, which would last until 1814. But Olof never exercised the board himself. He died as early as 1387, and Margaret was elected regent of both kingdoms. Two years later, she also became Sweden’s mistress after King Albrekt of Mecklenburg fell. The unification of the entire Nordic region under a spire coincided in time with a strong need for political cooperation, mainly against the growing German influence in all three countries. Not only total male dominance in commerce was threatened; North German princes and nobles, too, had acquired leading positions at the expense of the domestic great men. This must have been a major reason for the formal confirmation of the three-state union at a meeting in Kalmar in 1397,

The Kalmar Union was characterized by domestic politics at the beginning of the rulers’ absolutist ambitions. The threads of the National Board were gathered for the Royal Office, and all three countries’ council aristocracy were set aside as far as possible. Margareta and Erik first and foremost established their power over control of the kingdoms’ fortresses by reliable chiefs, who were often Danes, also in Norway and Sweden.

In accordance with the main purpose of the Union, the foreign policy of the first two Union regents was primarily to defend the southern border and economic independence of Denmark and the entire Nordic region against the Germans. If the princely county of Sønderjylland has been going on since the end of the 1300s between the Danish krone and Holstein, a tug of war was developed which, under the Erik government, developed into a protracted war. At the same time, the king favored foreigners and Danish merchants at the Hanseatic expense, which also drove them to start wars.

The two parallel wars harmed the forces of the Union empires. The introduction of the Öresund Customs, so important for the future, circa 1429, did not go far to solve the financing problems. Violently increased taxes have to be made, and great popular dissatisfaction arose. This, in conjunction with the rebellious desire of the aristocracy of the Council of the Council, in the 1430s, caused a revolt against Erik, who was deposed in all his kingdoms in 1439. As a result, the time of the strong Union Government was over. The continued development was characterized by the Council aristocracy’s program: a government-dominated, extensive self-government for the kingdoms. The result was that the three-state union fell apart in 1448. Sweden went its own way, while the personnel union between Denmark and Norway consisted of Kristian I as king.

The first Oldenburg kings chose the same tactics to assert themselves against the council aristocracy as their Swedish rivals Sturarna and Gustav Vasa: to seek support from the unruly. Kristian I called in 1468 the first Danish town meeting with four-part representation, and later Kristian II in particular drove a citizen- and peasant-friendly policy. All of them also tried to capture Sweden’s crown and restore the union, but without lasting success. The Hanseates, of course, continued to consistently fight these aspirations, and it was primarily through Lübeck’s support for Gustav Vasa’s rebellion that they were definitely averted in the early 1520s.

The times 1536–1814

Although the three-state union could not have been re-established, Denmark’s foreign policy position at the beginning of the new era was quite good. Norway was certainly in Danish hands; its formal autonomy within the Union was abolished in 1536, when it became a part of the general state equal to the Danish landscapes. Although Erik of Pomerania had lost the war against Holstein over Southern Jutland (Schleswig), but by the end of the 14th century, however, dynastic changes had given the Danish king power in parts of both these principalities; the rest later became the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp. Most importantly, due to excessive English-Dutch competition, Hansan had definitely lost its expansion power. Thus, in total, its attempt to intervene in the battle for Denmark’s crown through the so-called count feud 1534–36 failed.

Economically, the situation for the country was also bright, in the context of a general European economic picture. The population trend had already turned towards the end of the Middle Ages, and the 16th century became a boom period in all areas of business, including due to societal changes in the traces of geographical discoveries. Agriculture, in particular, was favored by rising food prices for a long time. The real advantage of this, however, only attracted those who had surplus production to sell, mainly noble property owners. On the contrary, for the farmers, the result was often negative, as many landlords, who, by large scale, wanted to increase production, incorporated leasehold land with their main yard and demanded increased hovering. Moreover, since landlords often invested profits in land purchases, the imbalance between noble and peasant land became even greater than before;

Neither did the church, Denmark’s other great medieval landowners, enjoy any of the good agricultural economic conditions of the 16th century. Through the Reformation, as Kristian  IIIcarried out in 1536, as in Sweden most of the church property was withdrawn to the crown. In conjunction with an administrative and collection reform, this meant that the state finances were sanitized and the national board more efficient. Like Gustav Vasa, Kristian ruled his kingdom mainly with the help of unruly secretaries, including many Germans, and the actual political influence of the council aristocracy was much less under him than in the late Middle Ages. Although it was periodically strengthened over the next hundred years, the kings essentially retained their dominance, including due to the fact that the rather loose management organization had to exist – in stark contrast to the centralist modernization in Axel Oxenstiernas Sweden. Therefore, the term “time of the noble empire” in the years 1536-1660 in Denmark’s history is more based on economic and social than political factors.

The strong position of the royal power during the first centuries of the era had many parallels in contemporary Europe. It also had the mercantilist politics that particularly marked the long reign of Kristian  IV (1588–1648). Trading companies were founded with a monopoly on relations with distant countries, manufac- tures were started and cities were created, i. Kristianstad in Skåne and Kristiania at the brown Oslo location. However, the results did not meet expectations, largely due to foreign policy developments.

The peaceful Danish-Swedish relations during Christian  III ‘s time deteriorated in the 1560s. One of the main causes was the disintegration of the German Order State. A race for the Order Countries started between the Baltic States’ coastal states: Denmark, Sweden, Russia and Poland. It also marked the beginning of the Danish-Swedish power survey on the dominion in the Nordic region and the Baltic Sea area, which in a series of wars would continue until 1720.

Initially, Denmark’s military strategic takeover was obvious. It enclosed Sweden almost all the way from Finnmarken in the north to Blekinge’s eastern border and had Gotland and Ösel as advanced bases to the east. In addition, most of the Swedish foreign trade must also pass through the Danish-controlled Öresund. In two wars in 1563–70 (the Nordic Seven Years War) and in 1611–13 (the Kalmar War), Denmark managed to assert its hegemony with little need.

Kristian  IV ‘s attempt to strengthen Denmark’s external position by participating in the Thirty Years War failed. Through the Swedes’ simultaneous war success on the continent, the strategic situation in the Nordic countries changed completely. Sweden got bases in northern Germany, later fixed possessions there. Denmark could be attacked from two directions and the ring breaking on a broad front. Through the peace in Brömsebro in 1645 and Roskilde in 1658, Denmark lost Skåne, Halland, Blekinge, Gotland, Ösel and the Norwegian landscapes Härjedalen, Jämtland and Bohuslän. Only the intervention of Sweden’s rivals, especially the Netherlands, prevented Karl X Gustav from subjugating the entire Danish empire.

The catastrophic end of Denmark in the 1650s war was a severe burden for the nobility, especially the national council, which, in particular after Fredrik III ‘s ascension in 1648, had dominated the national government. In this situation, the King, like later Karl XI in Sweden, liaised with the dissatisfied rancid positions. He made a standing meeting in 1660 to propose and introduce inheritance in Denmark to noble resistance, and in 1661 he enforced, likewise with unremitting support, the so-called One-Violence Government Act. On its basis, the Kongeloven was established, established in 1665 and valid until 1849. The monarchy was, according to the Kongeloven, almost unlimited but was not practiced on a full scale.

The secret council soon set up the secret council, a council consisting mainly of leading officials, who, through their expertise, usually had a decisive influence on the royal decisions. Furthermore, the administration was centralized and streamlined according to primarily a Swedish model. For Norway, the one-world meant formal reclaimed equality with Denmark, but in reality, the central power’s grip on the national part became tighter. In foreign policy, the first half-century of the single world was marked by failed attempts to recover the lost landscapes from Sweden through two wars, 1675–79 and 1700–20. Nevertheless, the last of them, the Great Nordic War, meant a radical improvement of Denmark’s external position by crushing the Swedish great power and a balance position for a long time ahead in the Baltic Sea area.

At the same time, with the loss of vital parts of the country, in the middle of the 17th century, Denmark was hit hard by the deterioration of international agricultural economic conditions. The bad times lasted a century. The landlord’s share, which had been deprived of important privileges in connection with the introduction of the single world, soon lost its economic and social leadership. In its place, an office saddle was recruited mostly in bourgeois circles and among immigrant Germans. Many of the new nobility and the higher bourgeoisie became large landowners when, as the state’s creditors, they were paid with a crown of land because of the disastrous state financial situation after the war.

By the middle of the 18th century, the proportion of noble land had grown to about 60%, while the rest was fairly equally distributed among the landlords and the crown. The farmland comprised only 4%. The social situation of the peasants became even worse during the time of the one world. Hoveries increased, and although the commodity began to be discontinued in 1702, instead, in 1733, the stave band was introduced throughout Denmark to secure the labor supply of the goods and the recruitment of soldiers to the army: all residents of the goods, 14-36 year old men and boys were prohibited from moving without permission. from home.

By the middle of the 18th century, demand for food in Europe was rising again. The rise in prices that followed stimulated Denmark’s landowners to increase production. But when, at the same time, the ideas of the Enlightenment on human rights, and the physiocraticism of agriculture’s central role and the importance of freedom to its pre-eminence had gained momentum, completely different methods were chosen than before to rationalize operations.

The agrarian reform legislation in the 1780s and 1790s began with a shift regulation 1781 which was soon followed by others; as well as the corresponding Swedish laws, they led to bursting and scattered farm buildings. The so-called agricultural forms, of which the most important came in 1787–88, meant that the stave band and later also the hovery disappeared. They also opened the way for fast-peasants to buy their farms, so that 60% of Denmark’s farmers in 1815 were self-sufficient. The downside of the reforms, however, was that they did not prevent landlords and farmers from exploiting the landlords, the numerically dominant farm labor proletariat.

The Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in Europe marked the end of the long peace that was the basis for Denmark’s favorable economic development in the latter part of the 18th century. A British attack on Copenhagen in 1807 to prevent Napoleon seizing the Danish fleet drove the country into an alliance with France. The catastrophic consequence of this eventually became that Norway in Kielfreden 1814 must resign to Sweden in exchange for Svenska Pommern, which in 1815 was changed to Lauenburg. Because of its connection to the opposite, in 1809 Sweden had suffered the equally severe loss of Finland. The Nordic political map had thus changed radically.

Financial crisis, liberalism and new constitution (1814–49)

The Napoleonic Wars meant for Denmark not only a political but also an economic disaster. A previously income-generating remote trade ceased forever. Copenhagen’s role as a commercial and financial center was taken over by Hamburg. On a state bankruptcy in 1813, a galloping inflation followed only after a government-independent National Bank with the exclusive right to issue banknotes was established in 1818. The loss of Norway in association with high British protection duties hurt Danish grain exports with a serious agricultural crisis as a result. Around 1830, grain exports again gained momentum thanks to more favorable international economic trends and technological improvements in Danish agriculture, with life-giving effects also on trade and industry.

Politically there was a bureaucratic monarchy, symbolized by the patriarchal Fredrik  VI (1808–39). After 1830, the emergence of an economically and socially expansionary bourgeoisie created the conditions for the dissemination of liberal ideas of liberty. An opposition newspaper press disrespectfully criticized the government, which through censorship legislation tried in vain to stave off “the writing frenzy”. A national liberal party won supporters mainly among academics and citizens.

At some points, the government met with the opposition. Advisory stand assemblies were established in 1834 for the islands, Jutland, Schleswig and Holstein. The municipal laws of 1837–41 gave autonomy to parishes, counties and cities. In the 1840s, a peasant movement emerged that demanded that the remnants of rent systems and hoover duty be abolished and that all citizens, not just farmers, should do military service. Farmer Friends’ Societywas formed by peasants and farmer-friendly intellectuals. The peasant movement drew nourishment from the religious revivals; especially the basic Twigianism and the movement of this folk high school movement inspired a lot for peasant emancipation. Cooperation between the peasant friends and the national liberals was initiated with the aim of removing the single power and implementing a democratic constitutional reform. The goal was reached by a peaceful revolution in March 1848, part of the European chain reaction of the French February Revolution.

In the so-called Ministry of March, a place for some national-liberal leaders was prepared, and a constitutional National Assembly drafted a new constitution, signed by Fredrik  VII (1848-63) on June 5, 1849 (the June Constitution). According to this, the country would have a parliament consisting of two chambers, the County Council and the Folketing. Both would be elected with universal suffrage for men, but for eligibility for the County Council, one must have relatively high income or wealth. The constitution, like the contemporary Norwegian and Swedish, was based on the principle of power sharing. King and Parliament shared the legislative power while the courts were independent. Parliament could not overthrow a government; thus, the constitution was not constitutional. On the other hand, it provided guarantees of freedom of religion, opinion, pressure and association.

The Schleswig question

The Danish monarchy consisted of four parts: the Kingdom of Denmark with the car lands of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, and the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg, both of which belonged to the German Confederation and were German in language and culture. Schleswig, on the other hand, was split between German and Danish. The landlords in the countryside and the upper classes in the cities spoke German, as did the peasants in most of South Schleswig, while the peasants in North Schleswig were mostly Danish-speaking. Only through the breakthrough of the nationality idea in the early 19th century did this become a problem. Now German-speaking liberals in the duchies demanded free constitution for a united Schleswig-Holstein, allied with Denmark only in the personnel union. This state could then be part of a German kingdom when one was established. In response to German nationalism, towards the end of the 1830s, a Danish-national movement grew in Schleswig and was supported by national liberal circles in the Kingdom and by Scandinavians throughout the Nordic region. Its program included free constitution and Schleswig’s incorporation with Denmark; Holstein and Lauenburg, on the other hand, would be separated. The border would go by the river Ejder, which separates Schleswig and Holstein (the Eider policy).

Through the March Revolution of 1848, the ownership program became official Danish foreign policy. The Schleswig Holstein then seized arms for his independence and received military support from Prussia. On the other hand, Sweden-Norway intervened on Denmark’s side by placing a reserve force on Funen. A three-year war was fought and ended with a series of agreements under the superpower guarantee. Denmark was allowed to retain the duchy judgments but must commit not to tie Schleswig closer to the Kingdom than to Holstein. Crucial had been pressure from Russia and Britain; their security interests did not allow a united Germany to gain control over the strategically important dukes. The national liberals were allowed to leave power for a time but withdrew it as early as 1857 under the leadership of CC Hall.

After a few years of patient negotiation policy, Hall in 1863 updated the eider program again, in reliance on a seemingly favorable foreign political economy and in the hope of support from Sweden-Norway; Charles  XV had placed a military alliance in view, but without sufficient support in the deciding bodies. On November 13, two days before Fredrik  VII ‘s death, the so-called November Constitution, issued jointly for Denmark and Schleswig, was issued. The new king, Kristian IX(1863-1906), signed in spite of evil spirits. Thus, in violation of international agreements, Denmark had decided to implement the ownership policy. A war settlement with the German states was inevitable. Prussia and Austria stood on the side of the Schleswig Holstein and started wars in February 1864. Since the unimaginable position at Danevirke was broken and the Danish troops suffered a decisive defeat at the dykes of Dybbøl, Denmark had to end peace in Vienna. Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg resigned to Prussia and Austria.

Agricultural conversion, industrialization, democratic breakthrough (1864-1914)

Around 1870, Danish grain exports began to become unprofitable due to increased competition from American and Russian cereals. Unlike Sweden, which chose protectionism, Denmark allowed its agriculture to adapt to the changed market structure. Danish agriculture now had its characteristic focus on the production of butter, pork and eggs, mainly for export to the UK. The change was made possible thanks to intensive modernization activities in agriculture which became increasingly capital intensive. Nature conservation in the villages was gradually replaced by money management, and thus the dissolution of the old folk culture followed.

The modernization was led from the beginning by the landlords, but from the end of the 19th century, most of the cooperation took place in cooperation between the peasants. Co-operative dairies, co-operative slaughterhouses and purchasing associations were formed; the Danish cooperative movement became a pattern for the other Nordic countries. As a result, exports of agricultural products doubled during the period 1875–1914. Many of the agricultural workers persuaded by agricultural rationalization emigrated to the United States; however, the Danish emigration, which amounted to about 300,000 people, was far from being the same extent as the Norwegian and Swedish. Most of the liberated workforce gained employment in the highly expansionary industry during the second half of the 19th century.

The good supply of clay and agricultural products made it natural for cement factories, bricks and food industries. The country’s location on the waterways between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea favored the import of coal and iron and facilitated the growth of the metal and engineering industries. Of particular importance was the shipbuilding industry, which in turn gave rise to a successful shipping business. A prerequisite for rapid industrialization was the freedom of trade introduced in 1857, the expansion of railways and ports in the 1850s and 1860s as well as the abundant and inter alia. through 1857, the private bank founded organized capital supply. Parallel to industrialization was extensive urbanization; Between 1870 and 1901 cities’ share of the total population increased from 26 to 44 percent.

Politically, the defeat in 1864 led to the fall of the National Liberal Government and to the National Liberals joining a power-holding party, Højre, dominated by major landlords and higher officials. In 1866 a constitutional revision was carried out that gave the County Council the same character of representation for the elite of society as the approximately simultaneously introduced first chamber in Sweden. On the other hand, in 1870, peasants and radical intellectuals organized themselves in Venstre, with democratic electoral order and parliamentary parliamentarianism as the main requirements. They encountered opposition from the main representative of the landlord interests, the Conservative head of government JBS Estrup, who claimed the incompatibility of parliamentarism with the Constitution. Since Venstre since 1872, a majority in the Folketing, Estrup was forced to govern with provisional finance laws according to an emergency clause in the constitution. Venstre replied by saying no to any more important government proposals (wither policy). During the so-called estrupy, there was a political deadlock.

At the same time, the labor movement was on the rise. In 1871 Louis Pio founded a Social Democratic Party, which however was not represented in the Folketing until 1884. It was socialist with regard to the goal, workers’ control over the means of production, but reformist with regard to the means. The first unions came into being in the 1870s; in 1898, the cooperating trade unions, the LO of Denmark, was established, which in 1899 was recognized as a negotiating partner by the counterparty, and in 1898 the Employers’ Association was founded. The agreement, the so-called September settlement, marked a first step toward the labor movement’s integration into capitalist society. However, the opposition to this integration has long been strong within the Social Democratic Party,

Under the pressure of the rise of socialism, Højre and Venstre approached each other and entered into a compromise agreement in 1894, which prepared the way for a complete system change in 1901, when Venstre formed the country’s first parliamentary government, supported by a majority in the Folketing. Contradictions within Venstre regarding defense, cultural issues and social policy led in 1905 to the emergence of a socially liberal outbreak party, Radical Venstre, founded on a coalition between urban radicals and smallholders. In the years 1913-20 the Radical Left governed the country with the support of social democracy. They carried out the constitutional revision in 1915, which meant that both things should be elected with universal and equal voting rights, even for women, while meeting Højre’s requirements for proportional voting.

World War I and the reunion of North Schleswig (1914-20)

During the First World War, Denmark sought to take a neutral stance in cooperation with Sweden and Norway. However, as a remission to Germany, they were forced to mine the Belts to prevent the British from entering the Baltic Sea. For agricultural exports, the war meant good outlets and prices, but also led to shortages of goods and price increases, especially since Germany started the unrestricted submarine war in 1917. The government sought to meet these through maximum prices and rationing. In 1917, the Danish Caribbean islands were sold to the United States.

The end of the war again raised the question of Schleswig. According to Versailles Peace’s principle of the people’s right to self-determination, in 1920 a referendum was held on Schleswig’s future state affiliation. A majority in northern Schleswig voted for accession to Denmark, while the southern part with the city of Flensburg wanted to remain German. The radical social-democratic government accepted the result of the referendum, but King Kristian X (1912–47) and some national and conservative circles hoped to be able to persuade the victorious powers to internationalize Flensburg pending a new referendum later on. Among other things, due to the question of schleffs, the king dismissed the government at Easter time and announced new elections. However, through a general strike, the Social Democrats and trade unions forced him to retreat. The so-called Easter crisis in 1920 became one, as it turned out,

The interwar period (1920–39)

Through the agricultural environment and industrialization, Denmark had become strongly dependent on foreign trade and the world economy. To counteract the escape from the countryside, in 1919, a series of land laws were passed, which led to the fragmentation of many large estates and the establishment of about 10,000 domestic farms, which increased animal production. However, the rapid fluctuations in the world economy presented Danish society with serious problems, which were not facilitated by parliamentary instability. In a political climate characterized by open class struggle, industrial and trade interests as well as the besieged peasants were represented by the Conservative People’s Party (formerly Højre) and Venstre, while the Social Democrats and the Radical Venstre represented the working class and small people in general.

During the 1920s, Venstre sat in office except for the years 1924–26 when the Social Democrats under Thorvald Stauning ruled the country for the first time. As in the rest of the Western world, economic policy was drafted according to liberal guidelines with free trade, freedom of trade, tax cuts and public savings. Those affected became wage earners and indebted peasants but also the defense. The defense issue led to a break between the Left government and the Conservatives. After the government crisis and recent elections, Stauning regained power, this time at the head of a coalition government between social democrats and radicals.

The world depression of the early 1930s had the most catastrophic consequences for the Danish economy in the form of price falls on agricultural products and a more than 40 percent unemployment in industry. At this stage, liberalism was declared, and business was subjected to strict state control. This was made possible by a compromise between the two government parties and Venstre in January 1933 (“Chancellor’s Settlement”). The government agreed to devalue the krona, giving farmers better prices, while Venstre promised its support for unchanged wages and a number of social policy measures. A strict import regulation was introduced through the Currency Exchange (1932), which determined the composition and extent of imports. This nationalist economic policy, which strongly resembled the one introduced in Sweden through the “cow trade” a few months later, met with responses from voters. The 1935 elections (the Folketing) and 1936 (the County Council) led to great successes for the Social Democrats and the radicals, so that they became independent of the Left’s support. However, no party reached absolute majority.

Denmark during World War II (1939–45)

During the interwar period, Denmark’s foreign and defense policy had been based on the pessimistic assessment that the country’s exposed strategic position made opposition to an attacking superpower meaningless. In 1922, a defense system was adopted that made Denmark’s defense one of the weakest in Europe, and in 1932 the defense was further reduced. The Danes relied on the collective security within the framework of the League of Nations to which the country joined in 1920. Since the union showed its weakness during the Abyssinian crisis of 1935–36, Denmark has resorted to an isolationist policy of neutrality. Nordic defense cooperation was also rejected; In Stauning’s words, Denmark did not want to be the “Nordic dog”. In 1937, a moderate defense reinforcement was implemented, but above all, they sought to establish the best possible relationship with the aggressive German neighbor; as the only Nordic state, Denmark accepted a German offer for a nonaggression pact in 1939.

Nevertheless, when Germany attacked on April 9, 1940, Denmark capitulated after a symbolic resistance. In return, the Germans promised to let Denmark maintain its internal autonomy. The so-called cooperation policy was initiated: Denmark contributed to the German war effort mainly through deliveries of, among other things, agricultural products against the Germans, for the time being, refrained from handing over power to the probably so anxious Danish Nazis. In order to administer the cooperation policy, a unifying government was formed, where the Conservative People’s Party and the Venstre took place alongside social democrats and radicals. Prime Minister was Stauning, Foreign Minister Erik Scavenius; he came to personify the cooperation policy despite being politically radical and by no means sympathetic to Nazism. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, new concessions were made, this time for German demands for some form of Danish participation in what was portrayed as a European crusade against Bolshevism. The Communist Party was banned, Denmark joined the Antikomintern Pact and a smaller Danish volunteer force participated on the German side in the fighting on the Eastern Front.

However, in the summer of 1943, after the war began to disappoint Germany, protest strikes erupted, and the resistance movement organized the previous year now gained greater accession. The opposition, which was led by the Danish Freedom Council, took on, among other things. expression in sabotage against German rail transport. An illegal army was organized; inter alia a Danish brigade was trained on Swedish territory. The government, now led by Scavenius, tried to continue the cooperation policy but without results. On August 29, the Germans carried out a military coup; the government and the parliament were forced to resign, the army and the navy dissolved. The rest of the occupation period was ruled Denmark by administrative means under the supervision of a German national commissioner. The sabotage operations were intensified and opponents were tortured and executed. The resistance movement liquidated indicators (“stickers”),

During a German raid on October 1, 1943, 472 Danish Jews were deported to German concentration camps, where about 100 of them were killed. About 5,000 Jews managed to hide in Denmark or flee to Sweden. On September 19, 1944, the Danish police were dissolved, and approximately 2,000 policemen were taken to German camps. Following the German surrender on 4 May 1945, the leadership was taken over by a provisional government, half consisting of parliamentary politicians and half of representatives of the resistance movement.

Postwar

After the liberation, processes were opened against those who joined the occupants during the war, including young men who fought on the German side on the eastern front and so-called economic traitors who contributed to the German war through supplies or labor. A few were sentenced to death and executed, but many more received imprisonment, fines or loss of civic confidence. This “legal settlement” has subsequently been criticized for to some extent resting on retroactive legislation.

In South Schleswig, after the German collapse, there was a movement for reunification with Denmark, which, however, in the so-called October 1946 note to the United Kingdom did not declare itself interested in a border change that could be a strain on the future Danish-German relations. On the other hand, during the post-war period, negotiations between Danish and West German authorities have managed to create satisfactory guarantees for the national minorities on both sides of the border.

Denmark’s foreign policy during the post-war period has been determined from the outset by its close cooperation with Britain during the war, but also by its need for good contacts with, on the one hand, West Germany, on the other with the other Nordic countries. Like the other Nordic countries, Denmark has joined the Council of Europe, the European Payment Union (EPU) and the OEEC (later OECD). At the outbreak of the Cold War in 1948–49 there was considerable interest in Denmark in the Swedish proposal for Nordic defense cooperation, but as this could not be realized due to Norwegian resistance, Denmark chose to join NATO, however, on condition that the organization was not allowed to build bases or store nuclear weapons on Danish territory. NATO membership, however, has been a contentious issue,

Another issue has been the market issue. Denmark joined EFTA already at its inception in 1959, which guaranteed continued agricultural exports on favorable terms to the United Kingdom. However, it was considered desirable to also gain access to the EC market. An opportunity for this was offered since France, after de Gaulle’s fall, no longer opposed the UK’s entry into the EC. Following a referendum in 1972, which gave a clear yes majority, the EC accession was implemented in a way that met a number of Danish wishes, including that the internal Nordic freedom of duty would exist. When the European issue was again raised in the early 1990s, after two referendums, Denmark succeeded in gaining membership in the European Union on conditions that in substantial respects safeguarded Danish and Nordic interests (no single currency, own defense and asylum policy). In other ways than through EC/EU policy, Denmark has followed the Nordic line. member of the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Denmark’s relationship with its car countries was reshaped during and after the war. Iceland, which had become its own kingdom in 1918 in a personal union with Denmark, was proclaimed in 1944 during an ongoing allied occupation to an independent republic. The Faroe Islands received “home rule” in 1948, and Greenland has also expanded its autonomy and – like the Faroe Islands – own representation in the Folketing. The relationship with the Faroe Islands was greatly deteriorated by the so-called banking business in the 1990s, when it emerged that in 1993, with the good memory of the Danish government, Den Danske Bank led the Faroese government to light the sale to the Faroe Islands by the bankrupt Føroya Banki. The Faroese demanded negotiations on Faroese sovereignty, with the Icelandic-Danish Union of 1918 as the role model. The hope of finding oil around the Faroe Islands has also diluted the will to independence. However, the negotiations have not yet produced any results. A similar strain on relations with Greenland is the revelation that the Danish government in the 1950s secretly approved the US nuclear weapons arrangement in Greenland. All this indicates that relations between the three countries within the “national community” will be reshaped.

Economic and social development up to the 1970s oil crisis was characterized in Denmark as in other Nordic countries by economic growth, structural transformation and the construction of an ambitious welfare program. Industry distanced agriculture as the country’s most important export industry, but the service and administration sector developed even faster. Rising demand led to inflation and current account deficits. The attempts by the state authorities to forced loans and tax increases restoring the balance led to strong social tensions such as expressed itself in extensive strikes in the spring of 1956.

Earlier and harder than other Nordic countries, Denmark was affected by the international oil crisis of 1973–74. The current account deficits increased, as did inflation and unemployment, while the increase in gross domestic product slowed. The increased social contradictions led to an ideological polarization. On the one hand, the economic crisis gave new impetus to the Marxist-inspired criticism of the socially liberal market economy, which has already been advocated by the left-wing movement of the 1960s, on the other arose a conservative reaction to what can be called from the various starting points the modern welfare society’s collectivism or its basic solidarity principle..

The parliamentary political system that took shape around the turn of the century has changed only slightly after the war. A new constitution was adopted in 1953. Female succession was introduced, parliamentarism was enshrined in the constitution and the County Council was abolished. The party system has been quite unstable compared to the Swedish, among other things. due to the low two percent block to the Folketing, which made it easy for new parties to enter there. Parties have come and gone, e.g. the Georgian Retsforbundet, which sat in the government in 1957-62 but is now out of the Folketing. In such circumstances, it has been difficult to form stable majority governments. The normal has been minority parliamentarism with relatively frequent change of government. Until 1968, the parliamentary situation was dominated by two roughly equal blocks consisting of Venstre and the Conservative People’s Party on the one hand and the Social Democrats with limited support from the Left Socialist Socialist People’s Party on the other, while Radical Venstre played the role of third force. Despite the change of government, Danish politics during this time showed a considerable degree of continuity, and some crucial differences between the bourgeois and social-democratic governments’ methods and problem-solving could hardly be ascertained.

The economic crisis in the 1970s, however, led to a crisis for the old political parties, which all lost big in the “disaster elections” in 1973. The winners were some newly formed parties: the Progress Party, a creation of the lawyer Mogens Glistrup, with radical tax cuts as the main program point, Centrum -The Democrats, a breakout to the right from the Social Democracy, and the morally conservative Christian People’s Party. Over the next few years, a series of weak parliamentary governments under Left leader Poul Hartling and Social Democrat Anker Jørgensen sought to pursue an unsuccessful economic stabilization policy.

In 1982, however, the leader of the Conservative People’s Party Poul Schlüter succeeded in forming a more stable government with the Conservatives, the Venstre, the Center Democrats and the Christian People’s Party (the “four-leaf government”), which with parliamentary support from the Radical Venstre, pursued a largely successful austerity policy according to the liberal guidelines. which was common in the Western world during the 1980s (“potato cure”), however, at the price of continued high unemployment. The 1984 election indicated that the scheme from the time before 1973 was in the process of being restored. The four-leaf clover parties and Radical Venstre went ahead, while the Progress Party returned strongly and was threatened by parliamentary deletion; even the Center Democrats lost big. This political situation essentially persisted throughout the 1980s, although the 1988 elections led to a certain recovery for the Progress Party,

Since Glistrup was excluded, the Danish People’s Party, under its new leader Pia Kjærsgaard, won great electoral success with his pronounced xenophobic policy. After the election, the four-clover government under Schlüter’s leadership was transformed into a purely bourgeois coalition government of the Conservatives, the Venstre and the Radical Venstre. In 1993, however, Schlüter was forced to resign after it was found that he deliberately mislead the Folketing in the so-called Tamil business to protect a minister who sabotaged the statutory right of family members of Tamil refugees to obtain a residence permit in Denmark. He was followed by a cross-border government with representatives of the Social Democrats, the Radical Left, the Center Democrats and the Christian People’s Party under the Social Democrat Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. However, the course was fixed, and the austerity policy continued,

At the turn of the millennium, immigration and refugee issues came to be at the center of Danish debate. In many places, the defense of Danish, Danish culture, history and values was emphasized. The increasingly strong xenophobic Danish People’s Party won public opinion, and all parties talked about the need to reduce the flow of refugees to Denmark. The 2001 election was a victory for the bourgeoisie. For the first time since the 1920s, Venstre became the largest party and its leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen was able to form a minority coalition with the Conservative People’s Party, with parliamentary support from the Danish People’s Party.

The government coalition also persisted after the 2005 and 2007 elections. The Danish People’s Party strengthened its voting figures for both elections and consolidated its role in Danish politics. The support for Venstre was quite stable, and the party was still Denmark’s largest. At the same time, the Social Democrats have been meeting declining voting numbers, partly at the expense of the Socialist People’s Party, which received sharply increased voting numbers in the 2007 election.. The government Fogh Rasmussen also announced public cuts, for example. in the environmental field, and tightening of refugee policy, but also a strong investment in health care and the elderly.

Fogh Rasmussen left the Prime Minister’s post and the party leadership post in Venstre in 2009 when he was appointed Secretary General of NATO. Former prime minister and party leader for Venstre was appointed former finance minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen. He called for parliamentary elections in September 2011. The election resulted in barely a left-wing victory, and Denmark got a new government with Social Democrat Helle Thorning-Schmidt as prime minister.

In the 2015 general election, however, the bourgeois bloc regained power, even though Venstre lost voters and the Social Democrats (now the Social Democracy) increased slightly. The bourgeois electoral victory was due to a strong success for the Danish People’s Party, which took over the role of largest bourgeois party with 21.1 percent of the vote. Left’s Lars Løkke Rasmussen was commissioned to form a new government. He started negotiations with the Danish People’s Party on a coalition government, but these collapsed after disagreement on tax policy. The consequence was that Løkke Rasmussen formed a minority government consisting solely of Venstre.

To avoid new elections, the government was reformed in November 2016 after Rasmussen’s Venstre invited the Conservative People’s Party and the Liberal Alliance to join a tripartite government. With the government reform, Left was forced to leave several ministerial posts. The former Left government consisted of 17 ministers. The VLAK government was expanded to 22. Venstre received 13 of the ministerial posts, Liberal Alliance 6 and Conservative People’s Party 3. Although Venstre was joined by two more parties, the Danish government still lacks enough seats to rule in the majority.

Historical overview

16000 BC The melting of ice begins.
11000–8000 BC Subarctic climate with shorter heating periods. Reindeer and moose hunters. Brommekultur.
8000–6000 BC Warm period. Varied hunting and hunting culture. Maglemosekultur.
6000–4000 BC Atlantic time. Kongemose and pea culture.
4000–2800 BC Agricultural culture with sweat farming. Trattbägarkultur. Boxes and trenches are erected as grave monuments.
2800–2300 BC Housing Expansion and Pet Economy.
2300–1900 BC Fords. Copper axes and metal daggers are imitated in flint.
1900–1500 BC The first metal culture.
1500–500 BC Rich, Nordic Bronze Age. Close trade relations with Central Europe. Tens of thousands of burial mounds are erected 1500–1100 BC
500–150 BC Iron Age Iron Age. Cultural engineering improvements. The urban community is founded.
150 BC – 200 AD International trade in Celts and Romans. Rich chief tombs.
200-700 Reorganization of villages and redistribution of land (inland-outcrop). The first state formation in Denmark appears. Territorial battles and large arms offerings.
800s Population pressure, international trade, Viking trains. Denmark gathers to a national unit under King Godfred. The first city formations.
900s The royal power is consolidated under Harald Blåtand. Royal ring walls are erected. Christianity is introduced.
1000’s Knut the Great North Sea Empire. War trains cease. New clearances and village formation.
1104 Lund becomes the seat of the entire Nordic region.
1157-1241 Valdemarmer’s heyday, with strengthened central power and expansion in the southern Baltic Sea area.
about 1150 – about 1300 Several cities are founded.
13th and 1300s The Skåne market is culminating.
1241 Jyllands Act.
1241-1340 Weakened central power; finally national resolution.
1340-60 New national collection (Valdemar Atterdag).
1397-1523 The Kalmar Union, mainly in defense of German, especially Hanseatic, dominance in the Nordic countries.
1434-1523 Recurring civil disputes within and between the Union kingdoms.
The end of the 15th century Vornedskap (life trait) in parts of Denmark.
1536 Reformation.
1536-1660 The time of the noble empire, economically and socially, in connection with good agricultural economic conditions.
1563-1720 Denmark in battle with Sweden about hegemony in the Baltic Sea area.
1645 and 1658 Vital Danish (and Norwegian) parts of Sweden are lost to Sweden.
1660-61 Hereditary and royal monarchy is introduced.
Mid-17th century – Mid 17th century Aggravated agricultural economic conditions.
The estate owner loses in influence to the seat of office and citizenship.
1702 The dismantling of the gospel begins.
1733 The staveband is introduced.
1720-1807 Fred period.
The 1780s and 1790s The agricultural reforms (agrarian reform laws); better conditions for the peasant class, including by the removal of the stave band.
1807-14 Denmark participates on France’s side in the Napoleonic Wars, with Norway’s loss as a result.
1834 Advisory stand assemblies are set up for the islands, Jutland, Schleswig and Holstein.
1837-41 Act on municipal autonomy.
1848-49 A constitutional National Assembly draws up a constitution signed by Fredrik VII on June 5, 1849 (the “June Constitution”).
1864 After war with Prussia and Austria, Denmark is forced to resign Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg.
1870 Agricultural production is rescheduled with a focus on animal exports. Industrialization and urbanization are accelerating.
1871 A Social Democratic Party is founded.
1898 The Employers’ Association and the Cooperative Trade Unions are formed.
1901 Denmark gets its first parliamentary government.
1915 General and equal voting rights for men and women to the County Council and the Folketing are introduced.
1914-18 Denmark is neutral during the First World War.
1918 Iceland becomes an independent state in human resources union with Denmark.
1920 North Schleswig returns to Denmark after a referendum. The “Easter crisis” confirms the victory of parliamentarism.
1933 Thorvald Stauning, through the Chancellor’s Office, creates a broad collection around a national crisis policy.
1940 On April 9, Denmark is occupied by German troops. Cooperation policy begins.
1943 A German military coup sets the point for cooperation policy. The battle between the German armed forces and the resistance movement is intensifying.
1944 Iceland frees itself completely from Denmark.
1945 The German armed forces surrender on 4 May.
1948 The Faroe Islands gain internal autonomy.
1949 Denmark joins NATO.
1953 Parliamentarism is enshrined in the Constitution, single-chamber systems and female consecration are introduced.
1973 Denmark becomes a member of the EC. Against the backdrop of an international economic crisis, the old political parties are suffering tangible losses in this year’s general election, which will be a success for the newly formed Progressive Party and the Center Democrats.
1980 Greenland gets internal self-government.
1982 Poul Schlüter forms the so-called four-clover government and thus manages to stabilize the parliamentary situation.
1992 In a referendum, Denmark rejects the Maastricht Treaty (“a Danish skull against the Union”).
1993 Poul Schlüter is leaving because of the so-called Tamil business. Through referendum, Denmark approves the Maastricht Treaty in revised form.
1998 Denmark approves in the referendum the EU’s Amsterdam Treaty.
The Big Belt connection opens.
2000 The Öresund connection between Malmö and Copenhagen is opened.
2001 Anders Fogh Rasmussen forms a minority government where the nationalist right-wing party of the Danish People’s Party becomes a factor of power as parliamentary support.
2009 Anders Fogh Rasmussen is appointed Secretary-General of NATO and is replaced by Lars Løkke Rasmussen.
2011 The election results in a left-wing government with Social Democrat Helle Thorning-Schmidt as prime minister.