MYPLACE

May 2014

____________________________________

____________________________________

MYPLACE (Memory, Youth, Political Legacy And Civic Engagement) Grant agreement no: FP7-266831 WP2: Interpreting the past (The construction and transmission of historical memory) Deliverable 2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories report - DENMARK Author Version Date Work Package Deliverable Country Institution Dissemination level WP Leader Deliverable Date Document history Version Date 1 11 May 2014 2 29 May 2014

Carsten Yndigegn 2 29 May 2014 WP2: Interpreting the past (The construction and transmission of historical memory) 2.3 DENMARK University of Southern Denmark, Dept. of Border Region Studies PU Anton Popov and Dusan Deak 31 May 2014 Comments First draft Final version

Modified by Created by CY Edited by CY

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 1 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 2 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................. 4 1.1 1.2 1.3

2

RESEARCH CONTEXT AND PURPOSE STATEMENT ................................................................................................. 4 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND HISTORIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE ........................................................................ 6 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................................................... 9 RESEARCH FINDINGS................................................................................................................................. 10

2.1 FAMILY MNEMONIC CULTURE ............................................................................................................................ 10 2.2 ‘THE DIFFICULT PAST’ AND ‘GOOD OLD DAYS’ .................................................................................................. 15 2.2.1 Difficult past ............................................................................................................................................. 16 2.2.2 Good old days ........................................................................................................................................... 20 2.2.3 The ‘traumatic’ and ‘important’ events and periods in family memories................................................. 22 2.3 FAMILY MEMORIES AND ETHNIC/NATIONAL IDENTITY ....................................................................................... 23 2.3.1 National identity ....................................................................................................................................... 23 2.3.2 Danish minority identity ........................................................................................................................... 25 2.4 TRANSMISSION OF POLITICAL HERITAGE WITHIN THE FAMILY ........................................................................... 27 2.5 THE ‘PRESENT’ CONCERNS................................................................................................................................. 29 2.5.1 Extremism ................................................................................................................................................. 29 2.5.2 Immigrants ................................................................................................................................................ 30 2.5.3 News.......................................................................................................................................................... 32 2.5.4 Parties and politics ................................................................................................................................... 33 2.5.5 Current social crisis.................................................................................................................................. 34 2.5.6 The technological revolution .................................................................................................................... 34 2.6 WHAT IS FORGOTTEN/NOT TALKED ABOUT IN THE FAMILY ................................................................................ 35 3

CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................ 36

4

REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................. 37

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 3 of 39

MYPLACE

1 1.1

May 2014

Introduction Research context and purpose statement

This research report – deliverable 2.3 – contains the findings from the research that makes up the second phase of Work Package 2 of the Myplace project. The first phase – deliverable 2.1 – contained the findings from a case study that comprised expert interviews, focus group interviews, field observations and discourse analysis, all related to a key event in Danish national history, the war in 1864 that, following the cession of Norway in 1814, sealed Denmark’s destiny as kingdom and nation-state. With an 1864 memorial as starting point, the case study sought to trace young people’s knowledge of this historic event and its long shadows into modern history. From this point, the case study unfolded young people’s approach to national identity, the nation-state and its newer history. In two other working packages, WP4 and WP5, young people in two specific geographic regions have been approached for their judgment of the significance of historical events and their view of the role of history in their lives. This allowed a socio-demographic more comprehensive and a more in-depth scrutinizing of young people’s use of history. Finally, this research in the second phase of WP2 establishes knowledge about the intergenerational transmission of memory in families located in the WP4 and WP5 research area. Deliverable 2.3 has three main objectives: First, the intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories to young people from members of older generations; second, to relate the findings of the intergenerational interviews with the finding in the first phase of Work Package 2; and third, to triangulate WP2 findings with the finding from WP4 and WP5. The first objective is to present the findings of WP2 research on the intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories to young people, from both their parents and grandparents or other significant persons in older generations. The aim is to explore whether and in what ways young people’s political views and values, their approach to active civic participation and participation in politics are shaped by their families and older generations. A further ambition is to explore mechanisms of memory production in family and wider family network with the purpose of analysing possible relationships between family memories about past events and young people’s socialisation and adoption of particular attitudes towards politics and society. Family memory and intergenerational transmission of political heritage is a complex process. The memory of public history is shaped partly by memory politics and institutionalised forms of discourse, such as schools, academic research and dissemination, museums and other sites of memory. Dependent on experiences, perceptions, and attitudes of parents and acquaintances the official memory discourses might be enforced, modified or contradicted. First, the focus on the intergenerational transmission of memory within the family generations allows a tentative characterization of the mnemonic culture of the families. The concept ‘the mnemonic culture’ is defined by the WP leaders as ‘the dynamic relationships - framed by the family approaches to the past and practices related to the past - between family memories and institutionalised historical narratives’. Secondly, it will reveal which and how problematic or MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 4 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

difficult periods and events in the history are identified and remembered by the families, and thirdly, how such memory practices impact on young people’s perception of national history and contemporary society. Fourthly, the exploration of family memories will reveal whether there are any traditions of political and social activism that are transmitted between the generations and whether and how this heritage is interpreted, internalised and enacted by young people. The second objective is to relate the findings of the intergenerational interviews to the case-studies produced during the first phase of WP2 research activities and presented in the Deliverable 2.1 report. The findings of young people’s experiences of historical discourses about the ‘difficult past’ will be analysed and put in perspective to illicit whether and how the findings of the intergenerational research relate to the findings in the case-studies’ focus groups with young people. The third objective is to triangulate WP2 findings from the case studies and intergenerational transmission studies with the findings in WP4 and WP5. The findings in WP7 are not suitable for inclusion. In WP4 and WP5, we have tested how young people in the MYPLACE research fields experience the importance of national and international historical events. In the WP4 survey, knowledge was gathered about young people’s view on history. The young people were asked to rank a range of historical phenomena and events in Danish and international history due to their significance. The ranking shows that some items are ranked as important by almost all respondents. Nine of the eleven items are ranked as important by a majority of the respondents (cf. Table 1). WW2 is ranked as important by 95 per cent of the WP4 respondents, while WW1 is ranked as important by 67 per cent. Compared to this, the specific Danish events, the war in 1864 and the following unification in 1920, were ranked as important by 68 per cent and 62 per cent, respectively. Table 1 Personal evaluation of how important a range of events has been for the development Denmark’s history Historical event World War II (1939 - 1945) Membership in the European Union The New York terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001 Fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of socialist regimes (1989 - 1991) War in 1864 World War I (1914 - 1918) Reunion 1920 Cold War (1945 - 1989) Communism The Holocaust

Per cent very important or important 95 92 75 73 68 67 62 53 51 49

Fascism

32 Source: MYPLACE data, 2013 (n=936). Note: Scale: 1=very important, 2=important, 3=neither important nor not important, 4=not very important, 5=not at all important.

The remaining items are international events. It shows that recent events, such as the New York terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 and the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Communism, are considered as important by 3 out of 4, while older international events in the 20th century: the MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 5 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

Cold War, Holocaust, and Communism are considered important for the development of Danish history by every second respondent. Fascism, however, is only considered important by one out of three. The ranking shows that time plays a role in identifying the importance of events. Newer events are considered more important than older events. The respondents in the qualitative interviews (in WP5) did also consider WW2 to be the most important event in Danish history. These interviews gave a more nuanced view on historical memory. The young people focused on the cooperation policy of the Danish government and the Resistance Movement, and they reflected on the effect on Denmark’s reputation and position during and after the war. A critical stance on the cooperation policy was not very evident, although this has been an important issue in political discussions in the last decade. 1.2

Theoretical framework and historiographical outline

An early approach to the issue of historical legacy is based on Ernest Renan’s (1882) famous speech on national identity, where he distinguishes between remembrance of and forgetting the past. Remembering and forgetting are natural basic features in human existence that enable the individual to manoeuvre through life, but they are also socially constructed and embedded in social processes that are constitutive for what we conceive as basic societal structures, such as modern nations, nation-states, etc. Remembering is important for social communities to be formed. It is by remembering the past that the social community is constructed as a sociality with past achievements that bind the individuals together with loyalties, common goals and normative requirements. In its most simple form, remembrance of the past is transmitted from older generations to the younger through the tales of older people. This was the praxis of Tönnies’ Gemeinschaften, the traditional society (Tönnies 1926). The relation between the individual and social dimension of memory is addressed by Aleida Assmann (2010b). She develops a model that distinguishes between individual and collective memory – and, as a differentiation of the latter – social, political, and cultural memory. First, Assmann distinguishes between individual and collective memory. Individual memory is embedded in the person. It is part of the person’s biological habitus, and as such it dies with the person. Individual memory can be divided into synchronic and diachronic memory, which Assmann names semantic and episodic memory. Semantic memory is interactionist in its character. It is related to our learning abilities and thereby it establishes the connection between the individual and the surrounding world (Assmann 2010b). The episodic memory stores the autobiographical events in a person’s life. As Assmann stresses, episodic memory is truly personal, and it cannot be transferred from one individual to another. The individual can although tell about what is stored as episodic memory and thereby share it with others. Individual memory of history is particularised. Halbwachs uses a metaphorical picture to explain this. Ordinary people perceive history like passengers on a river boat observe the landscapes that the boat passes by. Afterwards, it is not possible for the passengers to reconstruct the landscape in its totality from the memory. It remains particularised (Halbwachs 1980).

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 6 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

Collective memory, a term that was first proposed by Halbwachs in the 1930s, has a life outside the individuals, and it can be transferred between generations (Halbwachs 1980). Novick roots the collective memory in the traditional society and explains the development of collective memory as the outcome of a tradition of oral narratives (Novick 2007). Assmann opposes this opinion. She claims that personal interaction is no requirement for the development of collective memory. It can be developed through all kind of symbolic communication, and one should add symbolic interaction (Assmann 2007). This is in accordance with the influential view of Benedict Anderson on the development of imagined communities (Anderson 1991). Halbwachs addresses the historical character of collective memory. Events that a person experiences as personal will be perceived as historical by the children and grandchildren. Further, social events are experienced differently during the life course. Memories are transferred through generations, and again position and perception influence how these transferals take place. Collective memory is embedded in the social web, or the social frame, and individuals’ memories are supported and defined by them (Assmann 2010b). This conception of collective memory corresponds with the social behaviourist thinking of Mead and his successors. Collective memory is possible, while individuals are rooted in social relations. Although in certain periods, individuals have perceived themselves as unique individuals, who were freed from collective bindings (Riesman 1961), the individual is not thinkable without the social frame that defines it as an individual and allow the individual to define its identity (Mead 1934, Berger and Luckmann 1967). The intergenerational transmission is in fact a multigenerational transmission. In traditional societies the grandparents had daily contact with the children, often serving as care-takers while the parents worked. To Halbwachs, this explains how collective memory links across the generations. The transmission can jump over a generation instead of being a linked linear generational transmission of memory. The cross-generational transmission of memory explains more clearly why the perception of history as a change develops. Because the world that the grandparents told about has disappeared, it can only be transmitted to the grandchildren as memories of a past that is gone (Halbwachs 1980). Memory, knowledge of the past, informs the present and works as guidelines for present actions. Connerton sees remembrance as a tool that helps individuals to be guided through present day events. Without knowledge of the past, the individual would have no way of understanding the present situation; the present gets meaning by reflexively being positioned towards the past (Connerton 1989). Modern societies are not able to rely on oral tales and direct oral transmission. In modern societies, the transmission of the past has become institutionalised. Museums and archives are founded as memory containers and agents in the intergenerational transmission of memory. They perform a double role in managing the collective memory. As archives, they are passive repositories for the society’s memory artefacts. As museums and exhibition centres they are active transmitters of the past, of the historical canon. Assmann calls this the working memory. A canon consists of the cultural artefacts, and it is the outcome of a long-term stable process of evaluation among historians and cultural scientists (Assmann 2010a). The stability of the canon is secured when it survives the transition from generation to generation. This means that the canon is stable and able to survive the change of generations, because each new generation will have to reinterpret it in accordance with the time they are living in. This idea was developed by Karl Mannheim in his famous theory of generational transitions (Mannheim 1928), and it was later the corner stone in Inglehart’s theory of postmodern intergenerational value shifts MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 7 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

(Inglehart 1977). Commemorative activity, according to Gillis, is memory politics, because it is always the result of one group’s ability to expose its version of history (Gillis 1994). Decisions about storing information and keeping such information as historical artefacts reflect power positions in society. Power over the archives not only gives control over the past, it is also powerful tools in planning the future (Assmann 2010a). This leaves a role for intergenerational transmission of memories, where the older generations may serve as supplementing, substituting or corrective agents in the new generations’ inheritance and interpretation of collective memory.

Museums might take on different roles in remembering the past. This is a continuing discussion whether the museums are passive exhibitors of historical artefacts wrapped in scientific annotations – so-called vertical books – or they are dynamic disseminators of knowledge and experience by displaying information in a lively and interactive way (Daugbjerg 2011). The question of what turns memory into something traumatic, and how such memory maintains itself, is addressed by Jay Winter. He notes that the traumatic incident is kept alive through the tales that are repeated synchronically and transmitted diachronically (Winter 2010). Story telling keeps the remembrance of the trauma alive. It maintains the personal identity that was otherwise threatened by eradication through the suppression and abuse. Oral memory thereby becomes a measure in formulating the identity politics (Handler 1994). Some memories are so traumatic that the memory politics enforce a cross-generational approach to them. This is for example the case with German WW2 memories (Lowenthal 1994, Welzer 2010). Modern Danish history is characterised by a lack of traumatic events in the sense of historical events that divide the population and undermine the stability of the state (cf. Hofmann et al. 2010). There was no minority that held totalitarian power in the 20th Century. In fact, the critical period of the German occupation 1940-45 kept the homogeneity of the population intact. Denmark’s modern history is not characterised by internal divisions, but rather by the threats against the internal cohesion imposed from outside. This is best explained by one specific epoch in the history of the country: the defeat in 1864. This single event turned the multinational and multicultural, imperial composite state of Denmark into a small, homogeneous nation-state. The historical outlook, the national self-conception and identity that developed from this incident have guided the political thinking thereafter, and this thinking is deep-rooted in the public consciousness. Further, the event developed an easily ignited animosity against Germany and Germans. The battle of 1864 established the framework for understanding the Danish foreign policy and foreign relations since then. It is a framework that allows an interpretation of the Danish policy of international cooperation, in particular the fragile relation to the political goals of the European Union. Denmark has, on the one hand, supported the creation and work of international organizations (UN, NATO, the Council of Europe), but on the other hand, thwarted the European political integration process from a fear of loss of national self-determination. This has been and still is notable in the EU sceptical political movements and in the EU sceptical political discourse. Lorenz (2010) claims that methodological nationalism is immanently present in the thinking of most historians of the nineteenth century. Such framing might also explain the widespread homogeneity in the historiography of this part of the Danish history until recent decades. MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 8 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

Until recently, main political issues were still fuelled by the shadow of 1864. The roots of the antiimmigration movement, which started in the mid-1980s and since then has set the agenda in Danish immigration policy, lie in the national identity discourse developed in the aftermath of 1864 (Engelbreth Larsen, 2001). Secondly, the policy has led to a government initiated development of a national Canon on culture and history as a state led national identity building project. However, the so-called activist foreign policy that was introduced after 9/11 was justified by arguments opposing the consequence of the long-term withdrawn Danish foreign policy. This might indicate the end of the long shadows after 1864 (Jahnke and Møller 2011). A few remarks need to be added about the relationship between WW2 and 1864. The WW2 stands as the most traumatic event in the last century. Its lasting consequences were mainly mental, but it remains in contemporary historical lay memory as the most important event in newer history. However, there is no doubt that 1864 is much more important for the development of the Danish nation-state than the Occupation during WW2. The consequences of the Napoleonic wars, where the Danish king lost sovereignty over Norway, and the subsequent Schleswig wars, where the king lost the duchies, in both cases were that the kingdom of Denmark survived, although this was not sure during the process. The outcome of WW2 could have been a German annexing of Denmark, but only in case of German victory. So, where Denmark in the 19th century felt the consequences of its own political decisions, the outcome of WW2 was completely dependent of the actions of the allied. As in 1814 and 1864, Denmark could have ceased to exist in the 1940s, but contrary to the 19th century, it would not have been a consequence of its own decisions. Therefore, the events in the 19th century were extremely important, but because of the time distance, this is little known today. 1.3

Methodology

The selection strategy for participants in the intergenerational interviews had to take into consideration that it was not possible to sample from the focus groups that were involved in the first phase of the WP2 research. This might have been an ideal construction, but because the participants in the focus groups were located in different areas of Denmark and were no longer to be found in the institutional settings where they were located for the focus groups, it was decided to construct a new sample of young people located in the WP4/WP5 research fields, which were the centre and eastern part of Odense, the third largest municipality in Denmark. Seven young people that frequent a municipal activity centre were selected by assistance of the local management. Five of the selected young persons accepted the invitation to participate themselves and got the parents’ accept of participation. The two remaining young people because of different reasons could not be included. By assistance of parents, two grandparents were included in the research. In the remaining three cases, due to different reasons it was of not possible to include grandparents. All the young people ended up being young men. They were all about 16 years old, they were all in the 10th class (secondary school), and they all attended organised activities at the activity centre. The participating parents were divided into four men and one woman. They were in the 40s and 50s. All parents were academics, but within different fields. None of the parents were born in the research area. One parent was not a Danish citizen. The grandparents were one man and a couple; all in late 60s. One still in employment, the others retired. The grandparents’ level of education was a level lower than their children. Due to their decision, all young people and parents were interviewed outside their home; it was in institutions, at work places or in other public spaces. The grandparents were interviewed in their home. All interviews with the young people and with one MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 9 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

parent were conducted by B.Soc.Sc. Anastasia Michelsen. The rest was conducted by the WP2 researcher, Carsten Yndigegn. The interviews followed the guidelines prescribed by the working package leaders, and the interview guide was specified to reflect the Danish contexts. Our intergenerational research differs from known research by constructing the cases from the perspective of the youngest generations. The young people were selected by all being socially active in the municipal youth activity centre. Their form of activity has not been taken into consideration. The parents’ willingness to participate was a requirement for the young person to be entitled to participate. However, parents are included by their own choice of whether the father or mother should participate, and grandparents are included by recommendation from parents and by their own acceptance. This introduces coincidence in the likelihood that the families contain rich stories to be transmitted through the generations. People are termed ordinary people when they do not take up representative positions in public life, but besides that there is no ordinariness in a person’s life. When one start to investigate personal life stories, it is obvious that they all contain fascinating elements. Although they might not be closely related to general history, some might contain affiliations to history; other might contain life events and developments that are enriching as such (Bertaux and Kohli 1984, Bietti 2010). Through the interviews, conversations got deep into family histories. Nothing revealed issues that could compromise the ethical principles that guide the research, but it has anyhow been important to underline in the engagement with the interviewees that nothing would be revealed in publication that could compromise the absolute anonymity of the interviewees. Analysing the five intergenerational life stories has further raised some ethical considerations that will be addressed here. The interviews are anonymized to prevent identification. Further, it has been decided to simplify and disguise the socio-demographic and geographical description of the interviewee to prevent identification.1 2 2.1

Research findings Family mnemonic culture

There are some general characteristics in the five families. Tales of family history are not in the foreground in the conversations in the narrow or extended family. Family history belongs to family knowledge, and therefore it has been transmitted, but it is not in the centre of family conversations. Family conversations focus on current affairs, but in-between the knowledge of family history is brought about. Although, they do not generally think about it, the young people know a lot about the older generations. They do not construct grand narratives, but they assemble bites of information to create a picture of the families. However, in some families, family history is

1

The interview persons have been given artificial names (initial letters A-E). It is further indicated which of the five families the person belongs to (F1-F5), and which generation: G1=young person, G2=parent, and G3=grandparent. For example, Asger, F1G2 is the parent in the first family.

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 10 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

interwoven with national history. Thereby, it entails more layers and complexity, and maybe even a mythical dimension is added to the historical habitus of the ancestors. The mnemonic culture in the families relates to ancestors. This is examples of how social memory is created as a family memory about the culture and history of the family. Such mnemonic culture is established through transmitted family narratives. The core narratives relate to the internal history of the families. They point at significant events in the family history or big artefacts that establish a narrative frame, such as the places, the houses, and the like. A grandparent’s house by a lake becomes an important artefact in family memory culture. It signifies the connection between homeland, historical past, family past, and the childhood idyll. It becomes so to speak a place of origin for the family culture: He lived in such a small thatched ... an old thatched house down to the lake. He had legitimate access to the sea and had his rowboat lying at the shore. And then we got up in the morning at 4 o’clock, and the lake was so completely glassy and we rowed to the other side and sat there and fished perch until the sun rose. It was amazing. (Asger, F1G2) The childhood experiences are memorable and an asset that is inherited by the children. There are other small stories in the narratives of the young people. One associates the grandparent with something they were served for lunch. Another remembers driving a long way on bicycle to make a visit. Migration and immigration is a widespread issue in all the families. None of the parents or grandparents is located in the same geographical area where they were born. All parents have migrated to Odense from other parts of the country. Even the represented grandparents have migrated. It is although characteristic that the parents have lived the recent twenty years in their current location, and the represented grandparents have lived their adult life in their current location. Mobility has mainly been part of their youth to adulthood transition. In the youngest generation, future mobility was only addressed by one of the young people. His intention is going abroad. The high degree of mobility diminishes the daily interaction between first and third generation. In a traditional society, the extended family consisted of three generations allowing daily contact. Modern families, given a low mobility, still allowed this family interaction model. Late modern families with at least one extensive mobility transition are dispersed geographically. As it is the case with all families participating in the intergenerational interviews, the parents have moved from different places to Odense, where they have lived for several decades. All the young people are born in Odense. Divorce both among the grandparents and among the parents induces further diversity. However, in relation to stability in the primary family structure, the families are special while 4 out of 5 of the young people are living with both their father and mother. The parents’ of the fifth young person were divorced soon after the birth, and he has never had contact with his father. Besides territorial distance and some divorced grandparents, cross generational interactions between third and first generation might no longer be possible because of death. Some of the young people have only a limited memory of their grandparents from their early childhood, and only a few have a frequent direct interaction with the grandparents. Although, the parents are the primary source of MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 11 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

transmission of family memory to the young people, there has been a cumulative transmission from grandparents to the young people: I guess I generally have told much to my kids about my childhood and what I came from. And my mother and father have also told a lot about different experiences. And as I said, my father did not tell it all. In return, my mother knew much about it, so she has told something also about my father that he might not have wanted to tell you. (Asger, F1G2) As in this case, the interaction between the grandparents secures transmission of memory that would otherwise have been suppressed and forgotten. Family conversation communicates all sorts of information between the generations. At first, it is the general information about life situation and conditions of life. Social mobility is a general characteristic of the generational change, and it should not come as a surprise that it can be both upwards and downwards. Some of the parents tell that the general development of wealth in society is reflected in the generational development in their families. My father has told how his father ... on the living conditions they had ... as peat farmers ... in the old, old days ... so both about the major milestones in the history, but also about the daily ... yes everyday life. (Carl, F3G2) The memory transmission is in this case between the second and third generation, and it is about the life conditions of an older fourth generation. Stories told by the third generation relates in general directly to the fourth generation: My parents, at least when we were kids, they were poor ... but this is not something that we have felt, but after what they have told us, they were poor, and my mother went out to serve and to clean, and ... and they went out chopping beets and things like that, and it was the same with my grandparents. (Else, F5G3) The examples illustrate the development of the Danish society from a poor farmer and fisher society to a modern industrial and information society where welfare is part of the common social wealth. This is stressed by some of the parents that welfare is an indispensable core of the society that they have been taking part in the creation of. This is although not the only perspective of family history. Others can report about a branch of the family encompassing persons with high cultural and economic capital: ‘I know we had some mayors on my grandmother's side, and we had some lawyers on my grandfather's side.’ (Dennis, F4G1). This remembrance by a first generation young person is atypically. There is little evidence that memories of social conditions of the older generations are present among the young people. In one case there is an expressed awareness about the family’s economic condition.

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 12 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

Mostly, the social level has been maintained in the families, and in some of the families a continuing social upward mobility has been the case. However, family memories reveal that there have also been incidents of sudden social downfalls: And my grandmother, she became a widow with six children, as grandfather died when he was 36 years old. [...] She had to support them. [...] He had earned very well and they had servants and all sorts of things, but she had to go out and do laundry for the people [...]. She never remarried. (Else, F5G3) Social mobility and spatial mobility is closely connected. While all the young people are born in Odense, all of the parents have moved to the city from different parts of the country. In one case, it was from abroad: I know that it was the only reason that my father came to Denmark, that he was offered a position here. ..... Otherwise, I am not sure of much more. I know he has worked a lot abroad, both in France and in the United States ... but it is not something I know a lot about. (Dennis, F4G1) This is not the only case where family mobility has led to border crossing. Spouses from abroad are mentioned, but also branches on the family tree reach out to different parts of Europe. Immigration can be recent, but it can also be century old, as for example with potato farmers from southern Germany. Even the mix of classes is represented: ‘Someone once found out that we are descended from a German, a German noblewoman who had an affair with a groom’ (Asger, F1G2). Similarly the current family network contains of family members in Europe and abroad. Family memory is a social memory that is constructed and maintained through intergenerational story telling. Family memory can be interwoven with national cultural and political memory through family members acting and interacting in key historical events or life practices in the continuing everyday life. In the latter sense, family memory can be related to certain persons with a public reputation in the home village and surrounding area. The person could gain reputation from possessing powerful positions in society, but the person could as well be known for a specific skill or form of behaviour that was remarked among ordinary citizens: There is something with a ... my mom told me about it. He was called the musician from [city name]. .... Therefore she was called [city name]. That is what I know. That is at least what she tells me about the musician from [city name]. That is what I actually know about it; otherwise I do not know anything about my past family. (Bent, F2G1) In the research, intergenerational transmission of memory deals with transmission of memories from the grandparents’ generation to the younger. Tschuggnall and Welzer have analysed a specific German case and demonstrated how personal experiences of involvement in national traumas are transformed in the transmission to younger generations. The distorted transmission is a result of a two-way communication process, where both how memories are told and how they are received play a crucial role in the transmission process (Tschuggnall and Welzer 2002).

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 13 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

In the art, such themes have been addressed recently. Most prominent, it is the case in the German author, Günther Grass’, novel Im Krebsgang, where an East Prussian survivor from the refugee ship Wilhelm Gustloff fuels right wing activist tensions in her grandchild with her stories about the tragedy. The influence from grandparents is also a theme in David Wnendt’s movie Kriegerin about a young woman in the neo-Nazi movement. Both the scientific research and the artistic products establish a one-way line of influence. It goes from the older to the younger generation. The question is how the older generation influences perceptions, attitudes and mobilisation motives among the young. The influence might be broader, but the older generations are sources to historical past through their transmission of personal and cultural memory. Although different in approach, science and arts, the common denominator is that the older generations are targeted by the younger generations because of their role as transmitter of cultural memory. It is further a characteristic that the two cases deal with the interplay between first and third generation. The second generation plays no significant role in the cases. However, the transmission between adjacent generations is important. This is a well-established knowledge from political socialisation research (McDevitt and Chaffee 2002). Like we know from family socialisation research, family communication is not a one-way street. Communication might develop because children prompt their parents or grandparents about the family history: Now, if there is something, that is, for example, I have some questions about some family related story, and then my grandmother really knows a lot. Often, if we are down there, I ask sometimes about it. There are very, very many things she knows. Perhaps it is about some great-great-grandparents. And then I ask about it, how it is so and in what way. You know what the story is behind it, because it always used to be really exciting […]. There have been some ... some very ... at least on my father's side of the family; there have been some very colourful people who have left their mark on history in some ways ... at least from what I've got told. (Dennis, F4G1) The same experience is reflected from the perspective of a grandparent. He stresses the process of repetition in the construction of family memory. It is the continuous repetition of family stories by several family members that turn the stories into a family memory canon, a codified set of persons and events over a longer or shorter period of time: It has been said so many times that it must have a strong presence in them, also because such a thing is said many times. One tells no such family history only once. It will be repeated at different ... even when my brothers are with my children, or they are with their children, then there will be a remark, which then leads you to tell it just one more time. (Claus, F3G3) Family memories are not just an archive of stories. Family stories have several layers that contribute not only to transmit factual knowledge about the past. The stories also contain knowledge of the good, the heroic, the powerful, the luckiness, the altruistic and their opposites. It could be expected that the two-sidedness of this evaluative dimension in the family memory was suppressed. The dark MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 14 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

sides are forgotten like Renan mentions that the dark sides of nation-states are forgotten, or they are displaced in the gestalt of the family dark sheep who is no longer in the family and about whom only the most brief stereotypes remain. The mnemonic culture in the families contains events that involve the relation between family history and national history. The war in 1864 is mentioned as a significant episode in national history, but not as a historical event that family members had been involved in, as far as it is remembered. With newer historical events, it is different. Both world wars are remembered as events that ancestors had been involved in. Especially in one of the families, because ancestors belonged to the Danish minority in Germany, male family members were forced to be enrolled in the German army in both WW1 and WW2. They survived, but the experiences were so strong that the stories repeatedly have been told in the family. The stories are told with different perspectives and accents in the family generations. To the young person, it is the great grandfather who is remembered. It is maybe because it is the story that is closest to his time; maybe because the story contains elements of danger and heroism. To the parent, besides telling the story of his grandparent, it is important to locate it in the history. So he brings the children to sites of memory, both the 1864 sites of memory in Dybbøl, and various historical sites in southern Schleswig, which is now German and homeland for the Danish minority. Maybe, the Danish minority has fostered a story telling culture by using the narratives to maintain the national identity, which was necessary to protect the minority boundary that distinguishes it from the majority. From other sources, it is known that this is a social reality that has changed, but for the grandparent who was a child in the post-war years, this experience is remembered: I think that when we sat down at the table, we were 6 children and a mother and father, and there we ate and talked ... and could we get our father to tell about it, it was fantastic. He was a real good storyteller as a teacher, but also at the table. And it was South Schleswig and it was war ... despite not being exposed to something violent, so could we get him to talk about the war and his experiences and how he was the worst soldier in Germany – it was his own attitude to it – the day was made. (Claus, F3G3) The great grandparent had no reservations against telling about his experiences during the war. It was maybe because he never ended up in situations that forced him to compromise his moral, although being forced to join the army of the foreigners has still been stressful. Other war participants feel so overwhelmed by the discrepancy between experiences and the after war life that they maintain complete silence about their experiences. Seldom insights in such secret knowledge reveal how the cleavage between the real war experiences and post-war acceptable war experiences might be unbridgeable and therefore leave no room for sharing the experiences with uninvolved (Neitzel and Welzer 2012). 2.2

‘The difficult past’ and ‘good old days’

Memories of the past can be divided into periods and events that can be characterised as difficult or traumatic, and periods that can be termed nostalgic past or ‘good old days’. Although it seems simple, the definition of what can be labelled by the predicates are more complicated. MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 15 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

At first, labelling history requires the same perspective on the events. The ideas of national canons follow the premises that there are some events that are judged the same way by everybody. This is although rare exceptions. Social history divides between political and economic opponents. A stereotypical distinction would be between the working class and capitalist class in early industrialism, but studied more in detail, more refinement is required. The general point is that the same historical period may be characterised quite differently by different groups in the population. Although the recent years have been described as crisis, the consequences of the crisis are felt quite differently by the population. Large groups escape unaffected, some have even managed to improve their situation, while others have been hit like in an accident that was unforeseen and affected those that were on the wrong place at the wrong time. 2.2.1 Difficult past Looking back on history, the periods and events that could be characterised as traumatic, would divide a population. An economic crisis is traumatic for those hit by poverty or serious decline, but not for the unaffected or those who gained from it. Living under dictatorship is traumatic for the suppressed, but glorious for the suppressors and their followers. Big historical events in Denmark cause few problems of interpretation. Looking at the Danish history, the 1864 events are by all considered as traumatic, because those who had a divergent view were no longer part of the Danish composite state. Inside Denmark, more than hundred years have been necessary to allow some nuances in the black-white picture of evil Germans and heroic Danes. The Occupation is similarly an undisputed traumatic event, because the traitors were few in numbers. However, the disputes about historical revision started early about the uprightness of the resistance movement and the ethics of the official collaboration policy. Newer Danish history only contains historical events that would be positioned in the lower end of a scale that is ranking traumatic or difficult past. A lot of events have divided the population politically and challenged either conservative or cultural-radical values, but the confrontations have remained at the discourse level.2 WW2 is without doubt the most important traumatic event among the members of the five families. The approach to the war is different, but in some cases related to critical experiences in the families. The most all-encompassing is the experience in one family of a great grandfather, who was forced to enrol in the German army, because members of the Danish minority in Germany technically are German citizens. The father reports this incident in a neutral way, with the necessary facts, but also with a certain distance: My grandfather was deployed as a German soldier during World War II, and was involved in crossing the border and occupying Denmark, even though it was his country, so to speak. So, the Second World War has always had a strong presence in his 2

Recently, one of the political controversies have been subject to memory politics, because a parliamentarian majority in 2006 funded a research centre with the purpose of conducting further research in the Cold War politics in Denmark. It should clarify the influence of the Eastern bloc on Danish policy makers, and particularly, it should investigate fundamental contradictions in politics, in the media and in the public debate, including their domestic and external sources of inspiration. The most distinct result of the research was a claim that the parliamentary majority in the 1980’s forced the (minority) government to adhere to a policy that was directly and indirectly orchestrated by the Soviet Union.

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 16 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

head, and in my father's head, and, it is actually therefore, even in my head. (Carl, F3G2) The young person in the family adds other details than the father. The Occupation part is omitted, but then other aspects are added: Well, the only thing I remember about my great grandfather, this is what my grandfather has told. He told a lot about how he fought in WW2. And a story that I certainly remember was that he pretended he was dead, when lying in a ditch, and then he ran away, because he …, my great-grandfather was extremely Danish, but he belonged to the Danish minority in Germany, and then he had to fight for Hitler, and he did not want to do that. (Chris, F3G1) The young person focuses on the schism of the Danish minority, which serves a legitimization purpose, and on the desertion that allowed the escape from the combat; an escape which contains elements of adventure, danger and heroism. The grandfather, who has the story at first hand from his father, adds more facets to the story: He liked to tell about it. Of course he mingled with some. There were two brothers who deserted to ... or fled to Denmark before being conscripted, and hided throughout the Occupation. My father wanted to go away from Denmark, and he asked for a reassignment to Russia; you could apply to come to Russia as a soldier. Luckily, he did not. Then he came to France, and he deserted down there in '44. (Claus, F3G3) The grandparent, and father less detailed, focusses on the precarious situation the great grandparent unattended has been brought into, while the young person focusses on the heroism of the great grandparent. A vague interpretation could identify a development from a realistic complex over a generalised to a symbolised narrative. The different narratives could be attributed literary genres. Still, the material does not allow for more than a preliminary hypothesis. The young person’s great-great-grandfather had similar experiences with dark periods in the history. Being formally a German citizen, but Danish by conviction, the outbreak of WW1 placed him in a dilemma. To avoid going to war, he would have to leave Germany, and it was believed by the Danish movement that only inhabitants in Schleswig would be entitled to decide about the future national belonging of Schleswig in a referendum that they fought and hoped for. Therefore many convinced Danes decided to stay and participate in the war, and many lost their lives. The story of the great-great-grandfather is only mentioned by the grandparent in the family. He mentions a single event about the great-great-grandfather his grandparent. It has remained in his memory like a snapshot picture. When the great-great-grandfather returned from war after the ceasefire and the German defeat, he arrived at the driveway to the farm and saw that the SchleswigHolstein flag was raised and before he embraced his wife, he ran to the flagpole and draw down the flag. The grandparent tells the story with a certain pride, because this showed how deep the greatgreat-grandfather’s national conviction was rooted.

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 17 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

Memories about WW2 are also mentioned by members of the other families. It is not the war as such that is mentioned, and all the restrictions that were put on the population during the Occupation seem to be forgotten. Some specific incidents are mentioned, because they contained some challenging or maybe even dangerous experiences. The government’s collaboration policy is also mentioned. However, most memories concentrate on one single issue, family members that were active in the resistance movements: He went into hiding over there [in the capital]. He was a dishwasher and then gave food to these resistance fighters ... from the back door, so he continued a little in that way. That is all you hear. You hear it never completely, but it has always been said, because he had some pictures of these friends he had in Copenhagen. He had some old pictures from there; ‘yes him, he was a gangster’, he said. We do not know what it meant. We have never been told. Now he is dead, so I have not heard the story. It’s a shame. (Birte, F2G2) The story has references to certain types in the resistance movements that served as killers when traitors and informers had to be liquidated. They are portrayed in a recent movie, ’Flammen og Citronen’ (the flame and the lemon), named after the nicknames of two well-known resistance fighters who eventually were killed in a gunfight. The movie draws a heroic picture of the two main characters. Others recall critical experiences that their ancestors have had. A grandparent served as coast watch and found an English pilot: They had to pick one up. I am not quite sure whether it was an Englishman they fished up [...] It was a plane, and they had been a few in any case ...The result was that my father was taken prisoner when they came home ... they had discovered it ... the Germans. (Erik, F5G3) It appears that the minute details in the story have either never been probably told or have been forgotten. But it has obviously been an impressing event. Being imprisoned by the Germans might have had immeasurable consequences. In this case, the person and his family were left more frightened than hurt. After a few weeks in prison, he was released, so the consequence was not fatal. Others put their life at risk by sailing illegal transports across the sea from Jutland to Sweden. This grandparent did that as well, and this is what is remembered by the youngest generation. It shows that the young person is well-informed about the merits of his ancestors. He states: My great-grandfather lived up in [Northern Jutland] ... He helped sailing Jews to Sweden ... I know ... otherwise I do not know that much about it. (Ejnar, F5G1) Not all the young persons have direct family memories about exceptional experiences during WW2. Those young people address WW2 more generally, and have some general remarks about the Occupation:

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 18 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

During WW2, for example, the Danish Government, it was ... they ceased completely for Hitler ... If he had not been overthrown, Denmark would still have a Nazi rule ... or have been under Nazi rule. (Einar, F5G1) The resistance movement and the post-war trials receive negative remarks from a parent. In his opinion, this has cast a stain on national history. The resistance movement is criticized for despotism and being led by revenge motives. It is characteristic that almost none of the respondents mention traumatic periods after WW2. Some of the events that could have been mentioned are refused when respondents are prompted for a judgment about them. The oil crisis and the poverty in the 1980s are not identified as a difficult period. As it is mentioned, people who were not affected might remember the periods as quite prosperous. One of the respondents has a clear remembrance of the oil crisis, because his work was so important for society that he got an exemption from the ban of private car driving on Sundays. There are a few exceptions where phenomena from the post-war period are mentioned as problematic. One of the parents recalls how the awareness of the nuclear threat occurred in the early 1980s: I realized the nuclear threat about, it has been in 1983-84 or so ... There I was really scared. I remember that I saw a movie called 'The Day After' a nuclear attack; this left its mark. It is like the first innocence that was taken from me. So, ‘hey this may happen’; it is not just cops and robbers. Something very serious may happen. (Carl, F3G2) The awareness of the threat of nuclear war was not prevalent, but a movie could change the perception. Another exception concerns the Cold War. In the young generation, one of the respondents expresses a knowledge attitude to the Cold War: We could take the Cold War as an example. All European countries were in a massive conflict. The whole world was in a giant controversy, and people feared what would happen tomorrow. [...] Because it is major conflicts ... and you have the weapons, for example. A nuclear bomb can just wipe out ... or four nuclear bombs would obliterate Denmark. [...] It is fatal in the sense that they are on opposite sides and threaten each other with something, where they can actually destroy each other. (Einar, F5G1) Such critical attitude is unusual, when compared to statements made by the respondents in our WP5 sample. One of the respondents, a grandparent, reports about a very special situation that her father experienced when he was working at a military surveillance facility during the Cold War. When he was driving home on his moped, he was met by a foreign diplomatic car, and pictures were taken of him. ‘He felt uncomfortable about that’, the respondent says, but is unable to tell much more, because the father never revealed information about his work in the military intelligence agency.

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 19 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

Besides the previously mentioned, a few events have an iconographic status as ‘dark’ in the national discourse. The respondents mention WW1, where producers of cheap canned food earned high profits. This is shameful. The British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807 is an open wound in national memory (Glenthøj 2003). Prior to that, the slave trade and establishment of a slave colony, on what is today the American Virgin Islands, is considered being part of the shameful past. 1864 is mentioned as a traumatic event by several respondents. Some has been inspired by a newly published bestseller, but one respondent maintain a more classic nationalist perspective on the event: The Schleswig wars and the deep injustice. From a historiography viewpoint we now see it in a slightly different perspective, where I can read that it was because we made a fool of ourselves. Danish politicians were stupid back then, but I do not really think so. (Claus, F3G3) It is no surprise that the grandfather is holding this view and dissociates himself from the revisionist perspective that was made popular by Buk-Swienty (2008, 2010). The discourse, both the popular and for many years also the scholarly, has interpreted the event in a national perspective (Adriansen 2012). 2.2.2 Good old days The 1960s are considered as the quintessence of good old days. It was the decade where television and the automobile had their breakthrough, women entered the labour market, and literally full employment was reached. The society turned into a consumer society, leisure and holidays became widespread goods, and life styles became modern. The 1960s were the decade of youth culture, rock music, student revolts and hippies. The 1960s were also the epitome of generation gap. Youth were associated with values and life styles that caused a scandal. The older generations condemned the youth for its drug use, long hair, musical taste, dress, sexual freedom, feminism, and cultural and political radicalism. The 1960s hold no resonance among the young persons. Even for most of the parents it is before or part of their early childhood. However, to one it is a recognised historical heritage. Looking at it from contemporary perspective allows a reflexive evaluative approach: Yes, the happy 1960s. Well, that is where a lot is happening that makes you think about things a little differently, including that women's liberation are beginning. You became more individualistic. You begin to separate yourself from ... that you no longer need to think now we are a nuclear family. Maybe it is where it all starts to break up. Whether it is good or bad, it is up to each person to decide. For many it has been good with women's liberation, [...] but we are very individualistic today, and we have some ideals we must constantly look up to, and I think that it stems from the emancipation in many ways. (Birte, F2G2) Prompted about the 1960s, her son immediately recalls the heritage that enriches his current life, where he works goal directed towards a career as rock musician. The 1960s are characterised by rock music and that is the best to be remembered. MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 20 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

None of the grandparents remember the 1960s as a time of change: '68 went past my nose. It did not interest me. What would I rebel against? I had had a good childhood, and things were as they should be. I should be a teacher, and I did. It was a closed world I was inside. And the one [fellow student] who came from Copenhagen, because he had been kicked out of the seminary there, he smoked marijuana. It was very strange, it really was, and we agreed on it in class. Well he was a nice guy, but how could he start something like that? Then he got a follower in the class. I could just not understand that. (Claus_F3G3) This confirms the observation of Mannheim that to be part of a generation is not enough just to belong to the same age group; it is also required to share the same generational location (Mannheim 1928). The Viking Age is perceived by some of the young persons as a glorious past: We were of course pretty strong back then, when we called ourselves the Vikings. We could go out and rob, and we could actually loot anything. Today we cannot just go out and loot anything, because we are not very strong. We are a very small country, but at that time we had also Norway and a small part of Sweden, and we had the North of England. There, we were nicely strong. So I think that it was a good time. (Chris, F3G1) Being proud of the Viking Age was also observed in the WP5 interviews, and although it is not a widespread tendency, it is worth analysing why this period in Danish history arouses admiration. Until 1864, the self-perception of the Danes was that they belonged to a powerful nation. Although being defeated and territorial diminished throughout the centuries, it was not until 1864 that the reality was recognised in the Danish public. The small state mentality has been a burden in the public discourse since Thatcher and Reagan introduced a social development that questioned the ideals on which the Danish welfare state was build. Liberalism and individualism contradicted ideas of equality and modesty. Now it became correct to claim distinction and excellence. Maybe here, the Vikings connote a personality type that fulfils such ideals. A parent holds a different view on the Viking Age: I think that there have been a lot of things that we cannot be particular proud of, you might say. Should I point out a few things - if we go back to the Viking Age, where we went out and ... it is something we boast of today, faced with the Viking helmet on football stadiums and things like that, but basically it was indeed not very flattering. (Asger, F1G2) This parent is not supporting raw liberalism, he still praises the deeds of the welfare system, and he works actively to strengthen the civil society. One of the parents has a background as an immigrant from another European country. He underlines the national framing of the concept of good old days. To him, the good old days are MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 21 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

measured by the standards of his country of origin, and it might differ or even be in opposition to the view of the Danes. He also takes pride of the cultural and artistic contributions of his country of origin. He recognizes that being aware of this is part of his national patriotism, but it might also be negatively received by his Danish compatriots, who perceive it as critique (Dan, F4G2). Denmark is notorious for an interpersonal control mechanism, called Janteloven (the law of Jante), which in the name of the group condemns all sorts of deviation. It is the ugly face of group pressure.3 The immediate post-war period is not associated as good old days by young persons and parents, but for one of the grandparents, the 1950s was the quintessence of luck. 1950s. I was a vacation child at Zealand because the South Schleswigians were to be fattened up and learn the language. ... I was so fortunate to be on a farm. ... I was fortunate to be at a great place. It was so Danish; everything was cream. There was no evil in the world. There was a surplus and you had everything. So the 1950s was a good time for me; seen through my child's eyes. (Claus, F3G3) Despite the lightly suppressed sarcasm about learning the language, what is said is literally meant. Childhood and good old days are normally synonymous, but the vacation children from South Schleswig had a special position in the Danish post-war discourse, and they were welcomed with open arms. They were not the only children that were covered by such special treatment. Also children from the capital got sent out during summer vacation. The population supported the welfare state; there was a distinct and widespread will to support those who needed it, also from abroad: the children from the Danish minority in Southern Schleswig, the Norwegians (‘brothers’), who had suffered during and after the Occupation, and Hungarian refugees in 1956. 2.2.3 The ‘traumatic’ and ‘important’ events and periods in family memories It is the Occupation and the post-war period that constitute the common memory frame of the family generations. Some families have divergent frames that stretch further back in history. In one family this is the WW1 and the unification, in another family, it is memories that relate to other national histories. The most common memory frame is WW2. It is remembered through involvement of older family members. It is characteristic that the family involvement has not been undramatic. All the involved might have risked their lives if conditions at certain points in the events had been unfavourable. It is astonishing how downplayed the events have been told. The risk involved and the possible consequences are not emphasized when the stories are told. And even when prompting for it, it is not commented more than briefly. In one case, the aftermath might have been negative, at least due to bad reputation, but the great grandparent managed by personal efforts to change the unfavourable situation to a favourable that could be told about and remembered as a quasi-heroic history. And the family memories recall the heroic dimension. As an indication that cross-generational memory transmission is at play, it is the 3

The expression the Law of Jante was created by the author Aksel Sandemose in the novel A fugitive crosses his tracks (1933); cf. http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Kunst_og_kultur/Litteratur/Nyere_motivskikkelser/Janteloven; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janteloven (accessed 28 May 2014).

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 22 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

grandparent and the young person that stresses the adventurous and heroic aspects of the story, while this is ignored by the parent. It is obvious that these stories have been mentioned in the intergenerational family communication. Family memory and official memory seem not to diverge. They are both positioned within the dominant discourse about the period. Although in recent decades, more nuanced views have been published on the period, it does not influence the families’ memories. However, it could be discussed whether this is true for one of the family memories. One of the parents tells about a grandparent that was in the resistance movement during the war, but this story has never become a prominent part in family memory, because the person did not talk about it. However, the little that has been told indicates that it might have been a thick story. It is although not to tell, because the person died before he was asked to tell the story. Events in newer history are rarely present in the family memory. While a political critique of the Danish Cold War politics in the 1990s has been prominent in the government’s memory politics in the 2000s, it could have been expected that this would have aroused some opinions, but this is not the case. The family memories neither contain confirmative or oppositional views on the thematic, it is simply absent. The Cold War is present in one of the families’ memories, but it is as a delimited topic that covered one aspect of the problematic. The story, however, gives an insight into how international politics are localised; in this case when a local worker on a military installation is surveyed by people from a foreign embassy. The events that constitute the national discourse about the post-war period are to a large degree absent in the family memories. The 1960s is represented as a post-war boom and welfare period, but this is not represented. None of the social movements from the anti-nuclear weapon marches in the end of the 1960s, over hippies, student protests and anti-Vietnam-war to the anti EEC movement in the beginning of the 1970s are represented. Further, the economic crisis in the 1970s is not represented as a traumatic event. It seems that neither the grandparents’ nor the parents’ did have their constitutive years as a generation in the 1960s and 1970s where the large social movements developed. The grandparents lived different lives and the parents were too young. Only one parent was active in youth, where he participated in local new social movement activities in the 1980s. 2.3

Family memories and ethnic/national identity

2.3.1 National identity Danish national identity used to be a strong identity. Since the fatal war in 1864, Danes could perceive themselves as one nation in one state. Possessions in the Virgin Islands and the northern Atlantic that could disturb the picture were so distant and the populations so small in number that they easily could be forgotten. The class struggle dissolved in several transformations. In the 1930s, the Social Democrats pronounced that their politics was ‘Denmark for the people’. The Communists were defeated after mobilizing a general strike in 1956. Their influence crumbled away because of the Hungarian Rising and the Moscow hearings. The aftermath of WW2 contributed to the strong national identity. The post-war discourse paid homage to the resistance movement and let the collaboration policy sink into oblivion. Then the economic recovery gathered speed and the national identity took the shape of economic welfare state redistribution and allotment idyll. MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 23 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

Following the roaring 1960s, the 1970s founded a stable division between the cultural radicals and the traditionalists. Then in the 1980s, the immigration issue evolved, and it became the most important political issue in the following decades. It determined the change in government in 1993 and 2001. Danish People’s Party, a dissident faction of the populist Progress Party, was founded in 1995 with anti-immigration as its core political goal. It claims to be the party that protect Danish values and identity. This development has turned national identity into a precarious political theme. It has been part of the young persons’ reality all their life, but the parents and grandparents have experienced the evolvement of the immigration issue. One of the parents reflects about how his picture of national identity has been destroyed: It has been destroyed by Danish People's Party. In my head it is Danish to flag for birthdays and sing when we are together … when we are together in all sorts of contexts. But I've never really ... the idea that Denmark is the only right, I have never subscribed to that. ... It is a one-eyed notion that Danish culture and Danish national identity is something quite unique. It has mostly been when there has been an international match in football. (Carl, F3G2) The national identity discourse has changed from being uniting to dividing. The Danish People’s Party maintains the picture of a national identity that is closely connected to a collectivistic welfare state society. It is a society where the village population is still considered to be an important part of the society. The underlying disagreement is about the multicultural development and the negative approach to European integration. The following quote takes a different approach. It is more supportive of the tradition, but still deviant from the position of Danish People’s Party: I'm not a nationalist, but I think that Dannebrog is a great flag, and it is as much because it unites; it's a symbol. I am not a royalist, but I think it's great that we have a royal family. If one starts to dissect the royal family, and how much money we spend on it, then it may well be that one says that one supports the Liberal Alliance instead, and so we eliminate it all. ... I think that inclusiveness means we have room for everyone. ... It makes high demands on ourselves, but also on those we want to share our space with. (Eskild, F5G2) The viewpoint is expressing a moderated version of tolerance. Tolerance should be reciprocal. Both those who should include and those who should be included should be inclusive and thereby tolerant. One grandparent reflects on how we interact with each other as a way to define our national character: Community singing, which unfortunately is vanishing [...], I think that is the strength of Danishness; our Folk High School songbook, and our hymn book for that matter. It is Danish. And then all my young colleagues who do not know them, it's a disaster. So it's probably a tradition that is fading out. (Claus, F3G3) MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 24 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

Community singing was part of the national mobilisation in Schleswig after it was conquered and annexed by the Prussians. The tradition has been widespread adopted, for example in the Baltic States, when mobilisation towards independency was initiated in the 1980s. Community singing has been common in Denmark in associations, and sometimes in institutions. When meetings were held, they were opened with a song. In the schools, it was common to begin the day with a song. In general, the parents have a reflexive approach to national identity and national traditions. They do not subscribe to the banal ethnocentrism that accompanies national identity. They take a critical stance to interpretations of national identity that implies being better than others: I guess that many think about us that we are more liberated in some way, but the others may also like to hear about what traditions we have, what we get to eat on Christmas Eve and other traditions, and how we work; how our work ethic is. For example, we are very punctual. There are many who are not. ... We are also much tied in that way, I think. (Birte, F2G2) The everyday cultural habits become reflexive when a person acts in multicultural groups. Then it is obvious that everyday conversation builds on shared cultural context. The joke is not funny when the group contains an immigrant that does not understand the humour. It becomes obvious that Danes share a common cultural frame that makes them comfortable and relaxing; they call it ‘hygge’, and it implies cosiness, but cannot be translated to cosiness. A grandparent mentions another example of how cultural practices are confronted: We have been to the christening of the oldest of their children, who were baptized there [in southern Europe]. But they do not invite guests at home, they meet in the city, and it is not nice if you could say it in that way. Yes, everything takes place outside home. (Birte, F2G2) The young people interpret traditions as collective behaviour. First and foremost, it is Christmas traditions, but more general the national food culture: Meatballs - No, I cannot name a Danish tradition. Herring - I cannot, I can only mention food. I cannot name a Danish tradition that way. We have Danish holidays, but otherwise I do not know really any traditions. (Bent, F2G1) Traditions as such cannot be verbalised without being prompted for. There is a canon for Danish food culture. Meatballs, herring, and minced beef with onions are food that constitutes Danish identity. It is quite indicative that the young person hesitates when he is prompted for food that signifies national identity. There is a clear discrepancy between the food mentioned, which is traditional food, and the food eaten today. The identity defining food is the food of the grandparents. 2.3.2 Danish minority identity National identity in the Danish minority is different from that of the majority. In the minority, the national identity is inseparable from territoriality, but it is separated from the territory they identify MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 25 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

with. To be fulfilled, the separate parts have to be united. More prosaic, the border should be moved to include the now excluded minority in the state of the majority. The border was drawn in 1920 following the outcome of a referendum. After the end of WW2, demands were raised in Denmark for a border revision. It turned into a governmental conflict in Denmark, but in the end status quo was maintained. The grandparent recalls this decision as a shock: Then came the decision that the border is fixed. It was a blemish in me. We did not understand it, but he [the grand grandparent] told that the border is fixed. How can they say such a thing? Now that we are here and will return to Denmark, and then we are told that it is fixed. It was a bucket of cold water in the face. (Claus, F3G3) The grandparent expresses the true feelings of being a national minority. The wish to be reunited is unilateral and non-reciprocal. Fulfilling one’s wish does not take into consideration that others have to be forced against their will. Border politics is power politics. Few years later, the border issue was solved when the Danish and German government exchanged declarations where they guaranteed the rights of the minorities and that national belonging could not be tested by the governments. The parent with a heritage in the Danish minority says that minority policy is not something being talked about in the family anymore: Maybe it's because I have had enough of it. I have been dragged to the annual meetings every year. They're far more Danish than we are north of the border. So I think maybe I have been a little vaccinated, so I really do not think it's so interesting. Yes, I think it's interesting as an example of how a minority can exist and be respected without problems when you look at other borders or issues. So in that sense, it is interesting. ... I do not think there is any reason for one or the other minority to go out and wave their flag and say remember us now, we are still here. The struggle for recognition of the Danish minority that was important, but it is won. (Carl, F3G2) The parent has got a more reflexive perspective on Danish minority after leaving home and homeland. Seen from a distance, and set in perspective by more cosmopolitan views, the minority issue cannot any longer be framed as suppression that needs a camp to survive. Even the grandparent recognises that camp thinking has been predominant in the minority. He compares the inner life in the minority back then with other strongly coherent groups: political or religious. There is no division in the camp between private and public network. If a person breaks out or breaks the rules, the whole network is lost: I have not seen it that way before, but I can see it now. So I should not find me a German girlfriend. Yes, [my father] had tolerated it, but tolerated is not the same as being happy about it. (Claus, F3G3) The protection of the minority was equally strict. One of the critical factors in maintaining the national identity was perceived to be the ability to speak Danish and the willingness to use the Danish language in an everyday context. This required a certain force: MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 26 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

No one should speak German in the school yard, and what you would get if you spoke German? ... A few on the head ... it was a fair punishment for that. ... I could not dream of speaking German in the school yard; there were not many who did that. I do not recall that there was someone who did it, but there has probably been. But today, when you hear them being interviewed, what are you - German or Danish? ‘I do not know’ ... it also hurt me that they do not know. (Claus, F3G3) The grandparent does not regret the lost camp identity, but he regrets the blurred national identity. This change is partly a consequence of the changed social situation of the minority, partly a consequence of opening the minority institutions for German citizens who declare themselves as belonging to the Danish minority when they enrol their children, but in many cases remain fairly unable to speak Danish. I have called this current minority identity a postmodern, almost cosmopolitan identity (Yndigegn 2006). However, the grandparent perceives the change as a loss, which it is if minority is perceived as a property and not a relation. 2.4

Transmission of political heritage within the family

The saying ‘good old days’ is used by older generations to characterise the past that has gone. Generational change implies that the world of yesterday becomes history for younger generations and a nostalgic past for the older. This could be interpreted using the binary concepts of familiarity and unfamiliarity. For a child and a young person, the present situation and the present place of living is the familiar. It is known and confident. The past is the unfamiliar seen from a time perspective. The past or the history is memories about a time that has been, and which was built upon different norms and values, different technologies and different resources. To the young, the past is fascinating because it is different. It is seldom attractive as such. It might be attractive if compared to today it implies more wellbeing, more safety and more wealth. It might not be attractive if compared to today it implies less wellbeing, less safety and more poverty. Both cases might be possible, it is only the enlightenment myth of continuous progress that always sees every historical step as an improvement. However, more often unsimultaneity is the case. Progress and the opposite follow different development patterns and allow an interpretation of the past as both improvement and the opposite. The older generations had the same experience of their youth, but growing older implies that younger generations have entered the field and compete about the space. Confronted with new modes and behaviours, they might experience the present times as unfamiliar and view back on the past with nostalgic feelings. Not because everything was better then, but because it was familiar. Living in the present time is living with challenges of today and an unknown future. Looking at the past, the risks and the multiple options have turned into a given trajectory. Other directions might have been taken, but history marks out the outcome of the decisions taken; they get justified by their existence. This gives a different generational perspective on the past. The old generations find history important because it recreates the trajectory of their life history. History is a materialised learning process. The younger generation is faced with the risk of handling the future as if it was an unchanged extension of the past instead of a dynamic reproduction. Therefore generations are divided in their view on history and whether and how it works as a learning process. MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 27 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

The five families have quite different ways of transmitting history. In one family, transmission of history is a conscious act. It has been a conscious act to secure that the younger generation got knowledge about the past. Not to learn from the past, but to learn about the past. Transmission of historical memory served the purpose of creating a cultural and national identity. It has been important to show and tell how previous generations have fought and worked for the creation of cultural assets and social frames. It appears however that such transmission processes rely on space. The cultural values and behaviours are anchored to a specific spatial setting. Mobility, moving away from the homeland, reframes the living space and the premises of the learning process. In the other families, the transmission happens through direct contact with members of older generations. During family visits casual storytelling contributes to memory transmission. Memory transmission happens indirectly through everyday conversations where parents inform their conversation by means of past experience. The past experience show as internalised values, for example gender equality, tolerance towards immigrants, or attitudes to social and economic inequality. One parent gives an example on how such conversations might occur and develop: Yes, it is often something about the future, about how the world can develop, actually. If now we have got this civilization for so long? This is my son who would like to talk about something, so he tells me a lot of things about how it can develop into something; very wild in between. But otherwise, it can often be WW2, we get in to it with Hitler, or often it is communism in Russia; it is often something with Russia, we always end up over there, I do not know why. And who were Lenin and Stalin? But it is many times we end up with the WW2; I do not know why, but it happens so often. (Birte_F2G2) The discourse shows that the reflexivity occurs in the dialogue situation. The dialogue is often initiated by the young person, and it contains elements of prefiguration of the future and remembrance of the past. This sort of past-future dialogue is invented by the young person and the parent. The parent recalls that the conversations with her parent were restricted to the past: I guess, actually, that I have always been told a lot of history; perhaps that is why I am interested in it. I have always been told a lot about the past, but not about the future, which we [she and her son] talk a lot about. It was a lot about the past that we [she and her mother] have spoken. My mom has always known all these stories about kings and queens, and a lot more things. We talked a lot about what had happened in Denmark. And that is the difference, perhaps, that it is the future we talk a lot about now. (Birte_F2G2) This is not reflected by the parent, but this quote precisely demonstrates the dilemma of the present times. The awareness has become more future-oriented. This is in accordance with sociological theories about the risk society and reflexive modernity (Beck 1986, Giddens 1991, Beck et al. 1994, Beck et al. 2003).

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 28 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

What the young people seek is the open, informed dialogue about the present challenges. This is not necessarily what the young people get. Therefore, it is reflected upon when it is experienced: For example, it is very typical when we eat dinner. There will always be a discussion. It may then end friendly, or we get into an argument. Many times I have had friends over, and they say that the best part of being at home with me, that is when we eat dinner because we always sit and discuss something. It is not always we agree, which is why I also think we learn a lot from each other. At least, I learn a lot from my parents about political issues. (Anders_F1G1) In the interview with the father, he did also mention the discussions around the dining table as valuable. The significance of history as such is stressed most in the grandparent generation; it is also stressed in the parent generation, but it is ignored, maybe even objected by the young people. However, this does not mean that the young people ignore history. It just needs to be meaningful for them. A striking example is given by a young person. It is although not in the field of politics or social issues, but in the field of rock music, where he finds inspiration in the past: Well, now I really like rock music, and there were a lot of cool rock music back in the 1970s and 1980s. I think that you should have lived back then with all the wild parties and all the freedom that I imagine that they had back then. My parents have to stop my thoughts and say that it was not that cool. They tell that it was not as free as most people imagine, and the time was unlike today. ... However, I imagine that it was free, and there are many times when I think that I should have lived back then. ... But then when I think about it again, once I have children, if I do, then they might think back on my time, and think that it was then you had to have lived. ... I think that no matter how far you go, the younger generation will look back at their parents' generation and think it was cool at that time. (Anders_F1G1) It appears that rock music has a halo effect on the young person’s perception of the past. The enthusiasm about the rock music is generalised to a fascination about the period as such, and it is the parents that have to put things into perspective. 2.5

The ‘present’ concerns

2.5.1 Extremism Knowledge of extremism in politics and judgments made about it were part of the questions the family members were asked. It is although little that the respondents were able to report. It is the general message that there is little activity on the political wings in Odense. The parents are the best observers concerning political activity, but they have fairly little to report. One parent characterise the activity as concentrated around deviant single individuals: I sense that those who appear in public, that it is some idiots round about. It may well be that it is wildly naive, but if there is an underground movement, then it's probably MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 29 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

around the Danish party, or those who are now thrown out of Danish People's Party for being too extreme. Compared to other places in Europe, we got nothing of it. The problem is more a creeping growing nationalism among some and negative attitudes to foreigners in a sort of everyday racism. However, I do not really believe that most of them are serious about it. (Carl, F3G2) Another parent noticed some activity related to the most recent municipal elections. Some extremist parties ran for election, and they had followers, but their support was low: Free Denmark, I think they call themselves. There are actually two to three hundred who voted for them. So there may well be some groups, but it is not someone we have heard so much about in the media. (Birte, F2G2) A third parent was more directly involved with some of these right wing parties in an election meeting. He met a spokesperson from every group, but no followers that could bring an impression of a party with informed members: We have been in contact with a few groups in our election meeting here in November [municipal elections] ... It is not my impression that they are much more than a standard-bearer and then maybe a couple ... that comes equipped as the thin beer. I do not have the impression that there is any neo-Nazi or national-socialists. (Eskild, F5G2) One of the young people expresses knowledge about the radical political groups: There is the Danish Defence League, which is quite extreme. So there is, I cannot remember what they are called, but Enhedslisten [The Red-Green Alliance] has such a youth party, which also sometimes appears with some pretty extreme opinions. (Dennis, F4G1) The youth party he is thinking about is SUF (The Socialist Youth Front), which is not formally affiliated with Enhedslisten (The Red-Green Alliance). The other young people all define extremist politics within the range of parties that is represented in the parliament. On the left they discuss whether the politics of Enhedslisten is extreme, and on the right, it is Danish People’s Party that is mentioned for holding extreme political views. The grandparents are familiar with political extremism in the past, but today they have not observed any extremism. Neither adult nor young people support the idea of preventing extremist politics through legislation. 2.5.2 Immigrants Immigration issues are high on the public agenda in Denmark. Today 15 per cent of the population are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. The concentration is higher in urban areas, and in Odense, 19 per cent of the population are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. In 1983 a new immigration act passed the parliament, and it got an overwhelming influence on Danish politics. A MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 30 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

few years later, the priest Søren Krarup launched a campaign against the law, and a circle with a similar view founded the Danish Association. A few years later, the minister of law decided to stop family reunions of Tamil refugees despite it was against the law and the parliamentarian majority. As a consequence, the government had to resign, but the new government did not turn the tide. Danish People’s Party that was founded in 1995 brought the anti-immigration policy into parliament, and after the election in 2001, the new government’s immigration policy was highly influenced by the Danish People’s Party, and Denmark joined the forefront of anti-immigration countries. The young people and their parents belong to the part of the population that maintain a different view on immigration. They have kept tolerance as a basic value, although they are not naïve in their view on the immigration issue. One of the young people react against the more restrictive policy that has resulted in spectacular cases where young people, some even born in Denmark, have been returned to the country of their or their parents’ origin: I just think that sometimes it is unfair who can get into Denmark and who cannot, or who will be sent home and things like that. (Bent_F2G1) The critique is directed at Danish People’s Party, which successfully have managed to enforce the policy change and taken credit for the policy change, although there has been a parliamentary majority behind the changes. This is made explicit by another young person: As long as they come up here and get a good education, then we have no problem. I do not think there's anything wrong with that. ... In general, I do not like the Danish People's Party’s way of dealing with immigrants. ... I do not think it is okay to talk like that. Well, I do not think they are special nice toward immigrants. I think on the contrary that we should welcome them with our arms open. (Chris_F3G1) This view is supported by a cosmopolitan attitude, where it is not accepted to discriminate people due to nationality. This is a radical interpretation of the idea of universal human rights. One of the young people registers that although it is not intended, his family cannot ignore the negative discourse in the political debate: Now my parents are both immigrants in Denmark ... I know that at least they do not vote for Danish People's Party. (Dennis_F4G1) The young people express themselves in accordance with the view of their parents. Some of them are teachers, and they are critically aware that a proper line has to be outspoken and followed in daily conversation. Another parent tells how beloved national symbols loose attraction by being instrumentalized in an anti-immigration discourse. It is a common phenomenon that if a person or an organisation MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 31 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

successfully adopts a word, an expression or a symbol, they will become Barthesian meta-signs where the metonymic meaning can no longer be separated from such dominant connotations (Barthes 1972). For this parent, the traditional connotations of the national flag have been overwritten by the new populist discourse: I have a flagpole at home, and I have hoisted the Danish flag every time there is birthday at home. It has Kjærsgaard4 ruined for me. Well, she is so Danish that it will be embarrassing to be Danish, if you understand, because of her attitude. It is un-Danish to look at the strangers as she does. (Asger_F1G2) One of the parents recalls how attitudes to immigrants were formed in the 1980s, where immigrants fleeing from the consequences of the Iranian Islamic revolution came to Denmark: I remember when the first Iranian refugees arrived in the town, and the town's thugs stoned them out of the house they lived in. ... I was very red at the time, and we went on the street to say that we will not accept that. There is room for everyone, and people who come from a war hell, they should be allowed to be here. (Eskild_F5G2) There were several cases where the sudden appearance of Middle East refugees were met by violent reactions by what at that time imprecisely was termed racists and right radicals. Such actions could involve several hundreds of attackers (Johansen 1985), which is different from what is seen today. 2.5.3 News One of the fathers reflects upon the difference between his childhood and now. The newspaper was only briefly read: sports and cartoons, and maybe a glance on the local pages. Today, internet gives the young people access to more broad news coverage, but it is more particularised. It is his impressions that in the days of television monopoly, the whole population shared the same framework. At least they were exposed to the same information. It established a sort of collectivity. The parents are Mertonian cosmopolitans in their news interest. They are most interested in international news. Some of them ignore local news, others follow that as well. National news is self-evidently followed. The young people differ in their news interest. In one end, there is no interest at all, then follows a general scanning of the internet, but with no special accents. Finally, there are some who primarily are interested in international news and follow the development of current issues: I think that international politics and international events, such as the current crisis in Ukraine, are very fascinating. Usually, when it comes to elections then it interests me what the different parties think. Outside election periods, it is not [national] politics I take an interest in, it is more the international. (Dennis_F4G1) 4

Pia Kjærsgaard was the founder of the Danish People’s Party and its chairman until 2012. The party has proposed a strong anti-immigration policy. In its promotional campaigns and on its website, the party has used the Danish flag to symbolise its protection of the national identity. Among other political proposals, the party wants national flags on driver licence cards and number plates (http://www.bt.dk/politik/df-kraever-dannebrog-paa-koerekortet, http://politiken.dk/indland/politik/ECE1872216/df-kraever-dannebrog-paa-nummerpladerne/, accessed 28 May 2014).

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 32 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

Not all of the young people have an interest in political news. One of the young people is only interested in technical issues. 2.5.4 Parties and politics The young people in the families are too young to vote, but most of them are interested in politics, although more in international politics than in national. There is although awareness about national politics and it is characteristic that a common theme is mentioned by the young people. It is the lack of credibility of the government. They had expected a different policy: It does not go so well for the current government. They have messed up a lot since they were elected. We had the blue government for 10 years, and people would like to have something new, and it is not because the old government did not make mistakes, but when you read about [the current government] in the newspapers, it is just one failure. (Dennis_F4G1) The first approach is the lack of credibility that occurs when a change in government does not lead to a change in politics. The young people cannot understand why there is such a discrepancy between what was promised before the election and what is carried out afterwards: They have promised various things when they formed the government. It was some agreements and promises that they have not kept quite yet. ... The good things we voted at them for, it is not really something that they have complied with, and there I might like to see a change. (Anders_F1G1) The third of the young people is also frustrated about how political debates are performed. Calling politicians a bunch of chickens is disrespectful, but he justifies his opinion in the way he experiences political debates: There are debates where they all talk at once. ... They seem like a bunch of chickens, I think, that just stands and cackle. So rather read what they have written instead of listening to them when you cannot even hear what they say. (Bent_F2G1) One of the parents does also express lack of satisfaction with the political debates that involve the centre parties. He finds them empty, and he prefers debates that involve parties that have some opinions to express. This does not imply that he agrees. He just needs some opinions and arguments that may challenge him: Party politics interests me when it deviates from the centre. I think by now that the major parties will resemble each other so much that it really is the little things we sit and discuss. Therefore, it becomes exciting when Liberal Alliance is on the field with something, or the Red-Green Alliance and the Danish People's Party, when we're talking value policy. (Carl_F3G2)

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 33 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

One parent reflects on the conditions that young people are offered when they involve in politics. He perceived politics as designed by spin doctors. He remembers a time when the parties where organised on the basis of a policy, instead of today where the parties develop policies to attract voters. It is somewhat more complicated, I think, for the youth of today to be certain where they belong in the political spectrum. Even I am more in doubt today than I was before. … Although you are older, you may as well be in doubt with the kind of policies that are led today. When I was young, you said what you meant and acted political in accordance to that. Today, we have spin doctors to find out what the voters are thinking, and then that’s the politics. (Asger_F1G2) 2.5.5 Current social crisis None of the young people mention the crisis; it might be because none of the families are affected by the crisis. The crisis is not mentioned by grandparents either; they are of different reasons shielded against the crisis and share the experiences of the young people. Reflections about the current economic crisis are only found in the parental generation. Of reasons just stated above, they reflect upon it as an observant. One parent expresses a political critique of the neo-liberal ideology that blames the unemployed instead of blaming the banks and the politicians that aroused and enforced the crisis. Another parent has got a more nuanced view on the consequences of the crisis by being engaged with people all over Europe. Hearing about the consequences in other European countries where the crisis hits much harder, it has set the development in Denmark in perspective and nuanced the view on contemporary social issues. One parent expects that financial crisis will have a huge impact on the future. The unspoken security and the all-encompassing transition of the welfare state into a competitive state can be measured as a crisis in human well-being: It is frightening that so many students see a psychologist while they go to high school. And it simply cannot be true that this is the way we should go. In this way, I definitely think that we are in the process of developing a community I do not like to look at. I like to say it very loud, as often as I can get to it, including to those that might be able to do something about it, because this is not a society humans can participate in. (Asger_F1G2) 2.5.6 The technological revolution Technology plays a major role in the lives of the young people, but also in the lives of the parents. For one of the young people, technology is the only interest, for others it is a substantial part of their activity, and again for one, it is just a necessary companion in everyday life. It is also perceived as an unavoidable ingredient in daily life. As one of the young people says, in their family they are all occupied by a computer in the evening. Some of the young people are engaged in more innovative interactions with new technology. The young people themselves just focus on the activity, but one of the parents reflects on the MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 34 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

perspectives of such activities. Two of the young people participate in a group where they learn and work with 3D-modelling. They have been together at a world conference in the USA. The father reflects on how new technology has allowed these young people to join a world-wide network that previously would have been inaccessible because of the transaction costs. Today, they can establish closed fora on the net, where they can exchange information with people of similar interest all around the world: It is in the youth centre, there is this network. The friends they have got down there, they work with 3D modelling. They make some movies that they put up on YouTube. Then there are some who like them, and then they begin to work in a network where they share movies across the world. (Eskild, F5G2) This is an innovative development that contradicts Putnam’s (2000) decline thesis about the development of social capital, because the frame of analysis cannot any longer be restricted to coherent spaces, but have to be extended to global networks like it has been extensively theorized by Castells (2000). To young people this seems natural to work in global fora. The parent put this development in perspective of his own career as youth activist: They have got a new network set up, and it is interesting, because they use modern utilities, so to say, to have created a network. They are progressive, slightly ahead of the curve. What we did by physical attendance, the young people do with Twitter today. ... So, in one way or another, they are alternative, just like we were. It is just in another way than we were. The physical appearance is no longer relevant; it is just that you are present in some media. Well, I was present at one time at a certain place where we made a funky association, a local radio, or an amateur theatre. They are present in a forum on the web. They have another platform. So in fact it might be that just the platform has changed, but the way to be young is still the same. (Eskild, F5G2) 2.6

What is forgotten/not talked about in the family

Goffman’s concept of saving one’s face (Goffman 1967) delivers an approach to an analysis of forgetfulness in the families. Events may be shameful or they may be too traumatic to be told. Some sort of loyalties might also be an explanation of why stories are kept secret. A sort of forgetting is telling stories in distorted forms. Welzer and colleagues have shown how such distorted narratives are articulated in the reworking of traumatic memories (Tschuggnall and Welzer 2002, Welzer 2010). Face work in relation to memories about social events or family members’ involvement with societal issues are barely present in the family narratives. There are as previously described several examples that knowledge about the more precise details of a phenomenon has been left untold, but the existence of the phenomenon has not been hidden. It is the case with a great grandparent who never reveals details about the life as a resistance fighter, and it is the case with a great grandparent that never reveals details about the job on an observation station during the Cold War. In the first case it was probably the feeling of loyalty that made the grandparent keep the story secret. In the latter case, the grandparent could not violate his duty of confidentiality. In the first case, it was a MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 35 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

moral obligation, but there are indications from the literature that the silence could also be part of a person’s face work. In the latter case, it was a judicial obligation. A third example of forgetfulness in the family narratives is a father’s rebellious youth, which is an exception in the participating families. It is activities that took place in a specific life phase. They stopped when the parent made the transition to adulthood, and it seems like the memories of the youth activism has been left untold; it holds no place in the subsequent life trajectory. The forgetting occurs when such memories are not told. The reason is not that the case is traumatic or shameful. In fact, the opposite is the case. Being proud of what one has done is often the motivation for telling stories. Therefore, when such stories are not told, the explanation might be found in the fact that they have lost their value. They add no explanation to how the person’s life trajectory developed later on, and they do not fit in to the present situation. If they at a later time get actuality, they might be reworked into memory, for example as a grandparent’s storytelling. 3

Conclusion

In the WP2, we approach the civic and political engagement of young people from the perspective of historical heritage. We look at the reception of historical memory by young people and how intergenerational transmission of historical memory informs young people’s knowledge and perception of the past. The young people in the five families continuously assemble bites of information to create a picture of the families’ histories. Family narratives cover all facets of the family past. In one family, one branch of the family contained ancestors that have had important societal positions, but this does not influence contemporary family life. The memory about these ancestors positions them as exotic. All families hold such memory. It shows that family histories contain a wealth influences, also from abroad. The families are characterised by life stage mobility. They have all moved to Odense more than a decade ago, and the participating grandparents have made a similar transition in their early adulthood. The primary story telling is about everyday life. Stories are told about the ordinary life, and young people’s remembrance about older family members relates to everyday life situations. However, as part of these narratives, information about more extraordinary events is provided, such as experiences that relate to dark periods in history. In the Danish WP2, we have established an approach to the Danish history that claims that 19th century’s event, especially 1864, but also 1814, is the most important for the understanding of how the Danish nation state and national identity has developed (Østergård 2004). We claim that it is more important than WW2 that mainly reinforced the conceptions that were already established. However, as Assmann has stated, lay people’s remembrance of the historical past may differ from that of the historians. Like the members of the five families in the intergenerational interviews, many of the WP5 respondents referred to grandparents that were active in the resistance movement. Strong emotional opinions from the older to the younger generations are conveyed through this. The story of the resistance movement communicates experience about the effect of activism; it creates respect and MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 36 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

furthermore is strengthens the feeling of national identity. It is therefore no surprise that two recent movies about the resistance movement, Flammen og Citronen and Hvidstensgruppen, are mentioned in many WP5 interviews. In the families, the transmission of historical memory is mainly focused on WW2 and some newer events. In one family the transmission is also related to older events, because the family origins in southern Schleswig, and therefore both 1864 and WW1 are part of the family memory. In one family, specific aspects of the Cold War are remembered, but it is not transmitted in a way that influences present day’s attitudes. It is further an astonishing observation how few of the past half century’s list of events that could qualify as problematic or ‘golden days’. It has to be explained by the persons’ age at the time the events happened. It appears to be a generational effect. The persons’ life trajectories have not allowed them to be part of the events. It is not possible from the intergenerational interviews to confirm that young people’s present civic engagement is informed by transmission of specific historical memory. In the parent generation, there are examples that the past have informed their engagement, but then it is by taking an oppositional stand. The parents themselves concentrate on delivering interpretative frames in the interaction with their children, and they provide no evidence that these interpretative frames are explicitly informed by family or general historical memory. It is in the grandparent generation that we see an outspoken example of the use of and transmission of historical memory in the interaction between the generations. The memory politics in a national minority family seems to be very comprehensive and the influence and impact have been strong. It has been performed in a wide variety of situations and relations. However this seems also to be fading out and it has lost its impact in the youngest generation. The young people in the families are all about to establish a new generational frame that significantly differs from previous generations’. They are fully an IT and internet generation. They are also a cosmopolitan generation. They use the opportunities that the new technologies provide, and their activities indicate that they will dislocate in space. They interact in global fora and they orient themselves toward the international. They prefer to inform themselves about international events, and at least one of the young persons has outspoken ambitions of moving abroad. 4

References

Adriansen, G., 2012. Working paper on the 1964 discourse. Sønderborg: University of Southern Denmark. Anderson, B., 1991. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. Assmann, A., 2007. 'Response to peter novick'. GHI Bulletin, 40, 33-38. Assmann, A., 2010a. 'Canon and archive'. In Erll, A. & Nünning, A. (eds.) A companion to cultural memory studies. Berlin ; New York: De Gruyter, 97-107. Assmann, A., 2010b. 'Re-framing memory: Between individual and collective forms of constructing the past'. In Tilmans, K., van Vree, F. & Winter, J.M. (eds.) Performing the past: Memory, history, and identity in modern europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 35-50. MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 37 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

Barthes, R., 1972. Mythologies. London,: J. Cape. Beck, U., 1986. Risikogesellschaft: Auf dem weg in eine andere moderne. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. Beck, U., Bonss, W. & Lau, C., 2003. 'The theory of reflexive modernization: Problematic, hypotheses and research programme'. Theory, Culture & Society, 20 (2), 1-33. Beck, U., Giddens, A. & Lash, S., 1994. Reflexive modernization: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order. Cambridge: Polity Press. Berger, P.L. & Luckmann, T., 1967. The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press. Bertaux, D. & Kohli, M., 1984. 'The life story approach: A continental view'. Annual Review of Sociology, 10, 215-237. Bietti, L.M., 2010. 'Sharing memories, family conversation and interaction'. Discourse & Society, 21 (5), 499-523. Buk-Swienty, T., 2008. Slagtebænk dybbøl: 18. April 1864 - historien om et slag [slaughter bench dybbøl: 18 april 1864 - the history of a battle]. [Kbh.]: Gyldendal. Buk-Swienty, T., 2010. Dommedag als: 29. Juni 1864 - kampen for danmarks eksistens [doomsday als: 29 june 1864 - the struggle for the survival of denmark]. [Kbh.]: Gyldendal. Castells, M., 2000. The rise of the network society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Connerton, P., 1989. How societies remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Daugbjerg, M., 2011. 'Playing with fire: Struggling with ‘experience’ and ‘play’ in war tourism'. Museum and society, 7 (1), 17-33. Giddens, A., 1991. Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gillis, J.R. (ed.) 1994. Commemorations: The politics of national identity: Princeton, N.J. ; Chichester: Princeton University Press. Glenthøj, R. 2003. 'Da terroren slog ned i københavn' Berlingske Tidende, 27.05.2003. Goffman, E., 1967. Interaction ritual: Essays in face-to-face behavior. Chicago: Aldine. Halbwachs, M., 1980. The collective memory, 1st (ed.). New York: Harper & Row. Handler, R., 1994. 'Is 'identity' a useful cross-cultural concept?'. In Gillis, J.R. (ed.) Commemorations: The politics of national identity. Princeton, N.J. ; Chichester: Princeton University Press, 27-40. Hofmann, B., Wezel, K., Hammerstein, K., Fritz, R. & Trappe, J., 2010. Diktaturüberwindung in europa: Neue nationale und transnationale perspektiven. Heidelberg: Univ.-Verlag Winter. Inglehart, R., 1977. The silent revolution: Changing values and political styles among western publics. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Jahnke, C. & Møller, J.F. (eds.) 2011. 1864 - og historiens lange skygger: Den dansk-østrigskpreussiske krig i 1864 og dens betydning i dag = 1864 - und der lange schatten der geschichte : Der österreichisch-preußisch-dänische krieg von 1864 und seine gegenwartsbedeutung, Husum: Ihleo-Verlag. Johansen, M.B., 1985. Racismens sommer [summer of racism]. Socialistisk Arbejderavis. 2. Lorenz, C., 2010. 'Unstuck in time. Or: The sudden presence of the past'. In Tilmans, K., van Vree, F. & Winter, J.M. (eds.) Performing the past: Memory, history, and identity in modern europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 67-102. Lowenthal, D., 1994. 'Identity, heritage, and history'. In Gillis, J.R. (ed.) Commemorations: The politics of national identity. Princeton, N.J. ; Chichester: Princeton University Press, 41-57.

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 38 of 39

MYPLACE

May 2014

Mannheim, K., 1928. 'Das problem der generationen'. Kölner Vierteljahreshefte für Soziologie, 7, 157-185; 309-330. McDevitt, M. & Chaffee, S., 2002. 'From top-down to trickle-up influence: Revisiting assumptions about the family in political socialization'. Political Communication, 19 (3), 281-301. Mead, G.H., 1934. Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Neitzel, S.n. & Welzer, H., 2012. Soldaten : The secret world of transcripts of german pows. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Novick, P., 2007. 'Comments on aleida assmann’s lecture: Comment delivered at the twentieth annual lecture of the ghi, november 16, 2006'. GHI Bulletin, 40, 27-31. Putnam, R.D., 2000. Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of american community. New York; London: Simon & Schuster. Renan, E., 1882. Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?: Conference faite en sorbonne, le 11 mars 1882. Paris: Calmann Levy. Riesman, D., 1961. The lonely crowd. New Haven: Yale University Press. Tönnies, F., 1926. Gemeinschaft und gesellschaft, grundbegriffe der reinen soziologie, 6. und 7. Aufl. (ed.). Berlin,: K. Curtius. Tschuggnall, K. & Welzer, H., 2002. 'Rewriting memories: Family recollections of the national socialist past in germany'. Culture & Psychology, 8 (1), 130-145. Welzer, H., 2010. 'Re-narrations: How pasts change in conversational remembering'. Memory Studies, 3 (1), 5-17. Winter, J.M., 2010. 'Introduction: The performance of the past: Memory, history, identity'. In Tilmans, K., van Vree, F. & Winter, J.M. (eds.) Performing the past: Memory, history, and identity in modern europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 11-23. Yndigegn, C., 2006. 'Nationale identiteter i en globaliseringstid: Review of lars henningsen (ed.) bonn-erklæringen og de unge. Elevberetninger fra duborg-skolen 2005 '. Sønderjysk Månedsskrift, 2006 (1), 34-35. Østergård, U., 2004. 'The danish path to modernity'. Thesis Eleven, 77, 25-44.

MYPLACE: FP7-266831 www.fp7-myplace.eu Deliverable D2.3: Intergenerational transmission of political heritage and historical memories (Denmark) Page 39 of 39