Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Side 247

CHRONIQUE TRIMESTRIELLE
237
also to present a picture o£ the cul-
tural evolution through which the
Danish farming class had passed in
the hundred and fifty years since it
was set free. This was achieved by
means of a number of separate dis-
plays, each of them illustrating de-
velopments within some particular
sphere. These separate displays
were very comprehensive and illu-
strated the progress made in almost
every domain of agriculture and ge-
neral culture, including vegetable
growing and animal husbandry,
technical devices past and present,
buildings, schools, libraries and the
press, clothing, food, and hygiene,
and to this came large special dís-
plays illustrating the ramifications
of the technical and economic or-
ganisations of Danish agriculture.
There were also displays arranged
by institutions connected with agri-
culture, such as institutions con-
cerned with heath reclamation,
horticulture, the lifeboat service,
the planting of dunes, and many
others, concluding with special ex-
hibitions from Greenland and the
Faroe Islands, all consisting of ob-
jects from actual life, pictures, sta-
tistical tables and graphs, films,
etc.
And finally, there was the sepa-
rate historical exhibition, which
marked, as it were, the historical
background of the whole show and
contained an extremely rich and in-
teresting collection of documents,
pictorial matter from the past and
the present, and statistical tables
and graphs illustrating events and
developments since 1788.
During the ten days it was open
the Show was visited by 950,000
people from all parts of the coun-
try. Its success as a public attrac-
tion was, however, to a great extent
due to the remarkable interest taken
in it by the Metropolis and its press;
a striking evidence of the feeling of
confraternity which exists between
town and country in Denmark.
This feeling may be obscured by the
petty rivalries and controversies of
every-day life in economic, cul-
tural, and other spheres; but it
shows itself clearly in the face of
moments of national importance,
whether in the present or the past.
And this is all to the good.
And it was indeed one of the
great events in the history of the
Danish nation which was being cele-
brated: the abolition of the “Stavns-
baand”. What exactly does this
mean? It means the decisions and
events in the years about 1788, in-
cluding the cardinal decree of June
20th, 1788, which emancipated the
Danish peasant from a degrading
state of dependence in practically
all departments of life, a depen-
dence enforced both by positive pre-
cepts and by the abuses which were
committed with impunity under
them. These events may be com-
pared to Joseph II’s emanci-
pation of the serfs in Austria, to
the liberation of the French pea-
sants by the Revolution, and to
the events at the close of the eigh-