Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Blaðsíða 180

REVUE LITTÉRAIRE
TAKING STOCK OF DANISH CIVILIZATION
Danmarks Kultur ved Aar 1940. Udgivet af Det Danske Selskab
under Redaktion af Svend Dahl. Bd. 1—8. Det Danske Forlag.
Kbhvn. 1941—1943.
When a nation reaches a critical
point in its life, it is natural for
it to pause in order to look back
on its past and to scrutinize its for-
tunes and its achievements in the
light of history; and this is speci-
ally the case when it is faced with
so momentous a crisis as that
through which Denmark is now
passing.
Every Dane who is not totally
devoid of any feeling of solidarity
with the nation to which he belongs
must ask himself the question what
staying power our national civili-
zation will be found to possess in
the future, and what chances our
country will have to contribute its
share towards the building-up of
a new world after the war. To
answer these questions it is neces-
sary first to realize, clearly and
soberly, exactly where we stood
when the storm broke over us. In
other words, it is necessary to take
stock of our national civilization.
To prepare such a stock-taking
was an obvious task for the Danish
Society, the association described in
the last number of “Le Nord,”
whose object is to spread a know-
ledge of Danish civilization among
other nations.
The word “civilization” is not
here to be taken, as it sometimes
is, as being identical with intel-
lectual culture, but rather in a sense
which has been aptly and succinct-
ly defined by the President of the
Danish Society, Mr. Frederik Graae,
as follows: “By civilization we
mean a comprehensive concept: the
conscious effort to make life fuller,
easier, and happier for the indi-
vidual and the community. It is
thus at the same time something
individual and something social,
something material and something
spiritual.”
It is Danish civilization in this
sense of the word which forms the
subject of a work which has been
prepared by the Danish Society,
and in which an attempt is made
to take stock of our national cul-
ture to-day. This work, which is
entitled “Danmarks Kultur ved
Aar 1940” (Danish Civilization in
1940), comprises nearly 3000 pages,
and was published in eight volumes
during 1941—43. It deals with
all aspects of Danish civilization:
social, technical, material, economic,
cultural, scientific, literary and
artistic.
The work falls in some twenty
sections. The first, which serves as
a kind of introduction, describes