The Danish Peace Academy

Holger Terp: Danish Peace History

Working paper 1

The Danish history research and communication

Könecken is neither recorded in Jacob ter Meulen's “Bibliographie du movement de la paix, 1480-1776”, in the “Catalouge de la bibliotheque l' institut Nobel Norwegien” from 1912, in Swinne’s “Bibliographia Irenica 1500-1970”, or in my bibliography “Peace in Print”, and to my knowledge Jesper Baltzarsen Könecken is not mentioned in the text books on the history of the peace movements, peace research and pacifism or in popular Danish history books²⁸.

The early press of Denmark is recorded in the literature historian P. M. Stolpe (1832-1918): “The Press in Denmark”. Stolpe’s history of Danish newspapers also includes a commented bibliography of books and leaflets from 1482 to 1671 and mentions some 150 Danish and foreign newsletters published in the years 1657-1660. No mention of Könecken.

Fr. Hammerich’s historical lecture on “Christian II in Sweden and Charles X in Denmark” has a most important bibliography of contemporary hand-written and printed sources to the war between Denmark and Sweden. Hammerich even index “the most important” newspapers Stolpe not recorded²⁹.

Historical research and historical publications are indexed in the “Danish Historical Bibliography” and there is great interest in Denmark for writing about historical subjects. The Danish historical Bibliography, 1943-1947 alone index 9343 titles, two articles on political pacifists can be used in our study: one on Lars Bjørnbak and one on Viggo Hørup and two articles on Frederik III are useful³⁰. Diaries and biographies on Frederik III? The Danish historical Bibliography was taken over by the Royal Library and made online from 1990.

Most Danish academic research fields have their own research guides and specialised magazines, with the exception of the peace movement. The history of the international peace movement is more or less left undone except for Danish historians studying parts of the Danish peace movement. There are some learned prefaces to a dozen or so academic theses.

The main reason for this poor situation is the missing peace (research) education in Danish universities. According to Robin's Directory of College and University Peace Studies Programs, there is only a International Peace University Programme c/o Copenhagen Peace Research Institute.

Also there are no peace libraries and peace archives in Denmark, though some libraries and archives have publications and archives from the peace groups. The most important are The Royal Library, the Record Office and the Labour Movement Library and Archive all in Copenhagen and the State Library in Aarhus.

Even though it is possible through long and complicated studies of history, social movements, administrative history, agricultural history and so on it is possible to find single visionary individuals who have misunderstood the policy of the rulers, they are according to myth the exception, which proves that the myth is right³¹.

However, reading of history prove, that Danes both before and after Jesper Baltzarsen Könecken protested against wars, conscription, the burden of militarism and that these protests are recorded in the most unusual places, some in criminal and military records. As early as 1584-1585 skilled labours deserted from conscripted service; the building of ships for the navy³².

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