Nils Arne Sørensen

Narrating the Second World War in Denmark since 1945

After the liberation in 1945, two conflicting narratives of the war experience were formulated. A consensus narrative presented the Danish nation as being united in resistance while a competing narrative, which also stressed the resistance of most Danes, depicted the collaborating Danish establishment as an enemy alongside the Germans. This latter narrative, formulated by members of the resistance movement, was marginalised after the war and the consensus narrative became dominant. The resistance narrative survived, however, and, from the 1960s, it was successfully retold by the left, both to criticise the Danish alliance with the ‘imperialist’ United States, and as an argument against Danish membership of the EC. From the 1980s, the right also used the framework of the resistance narrative in its criticism of Danish asylum legislation. Finally, liberal Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen started using it as his basic narrative of the war years (partly in order to legitimise his governments decision to join the war against Iraq in 2003). The war years have thus played a central role in Danish political culture since 1945, and in this process the role of historians has been utterly marginal.

Book Review: Volker R. Berghahn, Europe in the Era of Two World Wars. From Militarism and Genocide to Civil Society 1900—1950, Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford 2006, 163 pp., 6 ill., 069112003X, £15.95

history up to the reign of Catherine the Great gets very short shrift. Bartlett is forthcoming about his goals, which are to focus upon the history of Great Russia (as opposed to the entirety of the Russian empire and its successor USSR), with particular emphasis upon her political culture, and the relationship of the state to the peasant masses. His narrative is meant to be balanced, respectful, and non-judgemental; and for the most part, it is just that. To be sure, Bartlett has his preferences and aversions. For instance, his account is based on the assumption that Russia is part of Europe, rather than Asia or even Eurasia. He has an affinity for the ‘peasant state’ theories of the sociologist Gerd Spittler and an aversion to the ‘totalitarian’ model of Zbigniew Brzezinski et al. It seems to me that Bartlett makes too much of popular support for Stalin’s rule and the degree to which it facilitated upward social mobility. In general, on issues relating to the Soviet era, Bartlett appears to belong to the left wing of Russian studies in the West (especially as exemplified by the revised position of Sheila Fitzpatrick), although he does take into account the recent damaging revelations about the early history of Bolshevik rule and Lenin’s alleged good intentions. In sum, Bartlett provides a good brief synthesis and overview of Russian history based on selected secondary sources. His book is written in clear English prose; it is factually accurate, and not overly didactic or opinionated. The text includes 11 maps and three tables to help orient the general reader. Since its intended readers are not specialists in the field, it should not be expected to add anything new to the scholarly discourse.