En ny verden set fra udkanten: Europa-forestillinger hos Snorri Sturluson

A New World Seen from the Edge: Snorri Sturluson and Images of Europe:In the beginning of the 13th century, the Icelander Snorri Sturluson wrote the Prose Edda. The prologue to this text describes how the linguistic, political and religious preconditions for Northern Europe were to be found in Asia. Snorri’s perspective was determined by his position in the Christian world, and his work articulates both Christianity’s universality and history’s teleological character. Like other learned people in Medieval Europe, Snorri was guided by his knowledge of the high cultures, Antiquity’s and Christianity’s, and these were decisive for the description he gives of the North. This essay shows how the Nordic countries, positioned on the periphery of the Christian world, through the assimilation of Trojan emigrants and pre-historical Nordic people, were in the Edda assigned a status equivalent to those of the high cultures. Through a cultural translatio, Snorri modified the prevailing centre-periphery division of the world and the view that the North was subordinate to the high cultures

Middelalderisme og erindring – Oehlenschläger og den nordiske mytologi

 This article investigates points of intersection between medievalism and memory. It mainly focuses on the formative period of the 19th  century when the Norse past, the so-called Viking Age, as well as Old Norse mythology became integral parts of Danish national identity. The article homes in on Adam Oehlenschl.ger’s rejuvenation of the mythological materials and his reflections on the usefulness of the local mythologies, both for a national spirit and for poetic renewal. It is demonstrated that 19th  century medievalism, with its focus on mythology, essentially was a project of cultural memory, that is, of recollecting knowledge from culture’s childhood, and, additionally, that poetry, and with that imagination, plays a prominent role for the construction of a meaningful past

Politiske og æstetiske aspekter i Rimkrøniken

Political and Aesthetic Aspects of the Rhymed ChronicleAlthough the The Danish Chronicle, commonly called ”The Rhymed Chronicle”, from the second half of the fifteenth century, is among the first historical works written in Danish and presumably the first printed book in the Danish language, neither historians nor literary scholars have evidenced much interest in it. The present article discusses why this is so and points out two reasons. Firstly, from a modern perspective the work lies on the border between historical and literary research; secondly, it is considered unoriginal in the sense that it adds nothing substantial to earlier texts. None the less, closer scrutiny of both its political and aesthetic aspects indicates that the Chronicle deserves rehabilitation as an appropriate object of study in both fields of research. Its traditional relegation to a limbo at the interstices of history and literature is due to a post-Medieval boundary drawn between literary and non-literary texts, whereas today, under the impact of new theories and methods (e.g., the Linguistic Turn), that borderline has become fluid. It is shown how elements of the Chronicle which have been difficult to fit into modern categories become meaningful, once they are examined in the light of the Medieval practice of fusing history and aesthetics.The article points out how the Chronicle’s political bias and background pose relevant research questions, when the text is understood in the context of its times, where past deeds were envisaged and related in aesthetic forms that included fictional devices and a wealth of tropisms. In this respect the study emphasizes two striking instances of fictionalized content. The one is its monologist form: the history of Denmark is narrated in a series of monologues, in which 115 monarchs, one after the other like successive voices beyond the grave, tell the story of their life and death, each prefixing the tale with moralizing aphorisms against which their deeds and misdeeds can be mirrored. The monarchs alone are allowed to speak; there is no intervening third-person narration or commentary. The other interesting trait is the structural form of the Chronicle: although the single monologues are presented in strictly chronological order and apparently could in principle continue indefinitely with the addition of every subsequent king, a superimposed, implicit tripartite periodization emphasizes the paramount importance of the last figure in the series, (the presumably still reigning) King Christian I, at the apex of Danish history. At a time when historical writers vied with one another in promoting the interests of competing powers it can be argued that the Rhymed Chronicle, with the deft use of these and other current aesthetic forms, was intended to enhance the superior power and authority of the Danish Monarchy in the face of threats not only from its neighbouring lands (Schleswig and Holstein as well as its partners in the Kalmar Union, particularly the rebellious Swedes), but also from the restless Danish nobility.Translated by Michael Wolf

Islændingesagaer og erindring

Based on the assumption that the longstanding discussion about history/fiction has exhausted itself, this article suggests an alternative approach to the sagas of Icelanders. It approaches the sagas from a memory perspective and illustrates how two concepts of memory: cultural memory and artificial memory, provide us with useful methodological tools for opening new dimensions of saga narratives.     

Risk of being granted disability pension among incident cancer patients before and after a structural pension reform:A Danish population-based, matched cohort study

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to examine the risk of being granted a disability pension (DP) among incident cancer patients up to five years after diagnosis compared to a match control group, before and after the structural reform of the Danish Disability Pension Act in 2013. METHODS: All 20–60-year-old incident cancer-diagnosed individuals from 2000 to 2015 were identified in the Danish Cancer Registry. A control group, not previously diagnosed with cancer, was identified in Statistics Denmark matched by gender, age, education, and household income. Risk differences (RD) in cumulative incidence proportions of being granted a DP between cancer patients and controls were analyzed before and after the reform. RESULTS: In total, 111 773 incident cancer patients and 506 904 controls were included in the study. Before reform 10 561 cancer patients and 11 231 controls were granted DP; and 2570 cancer patients and 2646 controls were granted DP after the reform. The adjusted RD of being granted DP was significantly higher for cancer patients versus controls at all time points before the reform. The RD increased the most during the first (RD 3.6, 95% CI 3.5–3.7) and second (RD 7.2, 95% CI 7.0–7.4) follow-up year and levelled off the remaining three years. After the reform, the adjusted RD were lower for all 1–5 follow-up years compared to before the reform (RD range 2.8–7.7, 95% CI 2.6–8.1). CONCLUSION: The 2013 reform of the Disability Pension Act reduced the risk of cancer patients being granted DP. The impact on a personal level should be further explored

The incidence of hip fractures in Norway -accuracy of the national Norwegian patient registry

Published version of an article in: BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. Also available from the publisher on SpringerLink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2474-15-372Background Hip fractures incur the greatest medical costs of any fracture. Valid epidemiological data are important to monitor for time-dependent changes. In Norway, hip fractures are registered in the Norwegian Patient Registry (NPR), but no published national validation exists. The aim of the present study was a national validation of NPR as a register for hip fractures using diagnostic codes (ICD-10 S 72.0-2) and/or procedure codes (NOMESCO version 1.14 NFBxy (x = 0-9, y = 0-2) or NFJxy (x = 0-9, y = 0-2). Method A nationwide, population-based cohort comprising a random sub-sample of 1,000 hip fracture-related entries for the years 2008–09 was drawn from the NPR. 200 entries were defined by a combination of diagnostic and procedure codes (subsample 1), 400 entries were defined by diagnostic codes only (subsample 2) and 400 entries were defined by procedure codes only (subsample 3). Accuracy was ascertained through comparison with discharge summaries, procedure notes and X-ray reports requested from 40 health institutions. Comparisons between groups were done by chi2 for categorical and t-test for continuous variables. Results 792 health records from 32 institutions were reviewed. High accuracy (98.2%, 95% C.I. 96.5-99.9%) was found for subsample 1, a combination of diagnostic and procedure codes. Coding errors were prominent in other subsamples. Defining fractures by a combination of diagnostic and procedure codes, annual average hip fracture incidence in Norway was 9,092 (95% C.I. 8,934 -9,249), excluding only 6.5% of all hip fractures defined by wider definitions. Conclusions Based on current coding practice in Norway, a reliable national estimate of hip fracture incidences is found by a combination of relevant ICD-10 and NOMESCO codes in the NPR. This method may be used for monitoring epidemiological changes