Volapük in Hotel Tivoli: World Language Utopianism in 1880s Denmark Volapük, the ’world language’ constructed by the German Catholic priest Johann Martin Schleyer in 1879, never became the main language of international communication. Yet, during the late 1880s the Volapük project gained some support, growing into a tiny, transnational language movement that must be understood in the context of a broader trend towards modern cultural internationalism. In other words, the Volapük project was a key chapter in the long-standing quest for a global means of communication as a crucial aspect in the quest for better societies, i.e., what we may term world language utopianism. The Danish Volapük movement shows how such utopian elements circulated transnationally and were actively received and integrated into pre-existing positions within a specific national context. During the initial Danish reception of Volapük in 1885-87 there were close ties between the Volapük cause and the Liberal opposition with its demands for democratization and peace, while Conservatives tended to warn against Volapük as a threat to national languages. The Volapük cause was depoliticized towards the end of the decade as it turned out that initial accusations of socialist implications in the Volapük movement were unfounded (Marxists were mostly critical of Volapük). Nevertheless, small signs of interest in world languages within the growing Socialist labor movement did indicate potential affinities between Socialist conceptions of class internationalism and the longstanding quest for universal means of communication. However, the rapid demise of the Volapük movement in the early 1890s prevented such potentials from developing, and the Esperanto movement carried the mantle of world language utopianism into the following century.

Disputatsopposition: Knud Rasmussen og Grønlands kolonihistorie

På 2010-tallet fikk menstruasjon en stadig større plass i den offentlige debatten. Dette sammenfaller med etableringen av det tverrfaglige akademiske feltet kritiske menstruasjonsstudier. Internasjonalt har historikere gjennom årene bidratt til både offentlig og akademisk diskurs omkring menstruasjonens folkloristikk, produkter og medisinske behandling. Men hva er status for menstruasjonshistorien i Norden? Denne artikkelen plasserer den økende offentlige debatten i Norden omkring menstruasjon inn i en historiefaglig kontekst. Vi undersøker menstruasjonshistoriens historiografi i regionen, land for land, for å belyse hvordan dette fagfeltet utvikler seg, og hvilke regionale særegenheter som karakteriserer forskningen. Til slutt deler vi våre refleksjoner om fremtidig nordisk menstruasjonshistorisk forskning.

Artikkelen bygger på et forskningsprosjekt utført ved Grinimuseet i perioden 2022–2025, der formålet har vært å undersøke hvor mange menn som ble arrestert og fengslet for seksuelle relasjoner med andre menn i perioden 1940–1945. Dette er den første systematiske studien som er gjort om tysk straffeforfølgelse av homoseksualitet i Norge under okkupasjonen. Funnene som presenteres, bygger på en grundig gjennomgang av registre og fangeprotokoller fra norske fengsler og fangeleirer administrert av det tyske sikkerhetspolitiet (Sipo), og viser at antallet menn som ble arrestert for likekjønnede seksuelle relasjoner, var betydelig høyere enn det man hittil har trodd. Foruten en presentasjon av de kvantitative funnene gjøres det også en kvalitativ undersøkelse av bevarte rettssaksdokumenter etter domstolen SS- und Polizeigericht Nord (IX). Undersøkelsen viser at okkupasjonsmakten kun involverte seg i de tilfellene der minst én part var knyttet til Wehrmacht eller SS, eller på en annen måte arbeidet for tyske bedrifter og interesser. Norske menn som hadde seksuelle relasjoner med andre norske sivile menn, ble ikke straffeforfulgt av Sipo. I alle saker er det den tyske straffeparagrafen 175 som blir lagt til grunn, og som de anklagede ble dømt, eller eventuelt frikjent, etter.

J. Goldstein & Søn was Denmark’s oldest fur wholesaler, and also its largest before and during the Second World War. Until the Nazi takeover in 1933, Leipzig had been the global capital for the fur trade, and Nathan Philip (1883–1951), the owner-manager of J. Goldstein & Søn, spent several weeks there each year. After the first Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany in April 1933, Nathan Philip redirected sales to London, engaging a former employee as his agent. He also established a branch in Malmoe, Sweden, which became especially important to him after the German occupation of Denmark on April 9th, 1940.In September 1943, as the German authorities prepared to deport Danish Jews, a warning was passed through Jewish networks. While most were incredulous and unprepared, Nathan Philip enacted the plan he had prepared in advance. On September 20th, he signed a power of attorney, making accountant Eske Hansen his legal guardian with full authority over all his assets. On September 30th, Eske Hansen sold J. Goldstein & Søn to O. Storm-Nielsen, his right-hand man, and the company’s name was changed to O. Storm-Nielsen. The agreed price was just over 1 million DKK, to be paid in ten 100,000 DKK transfers on stipulated dates (it seems that only three such installments were actually paid). On the night of October 1st, Nathan Philip and his family escaped to Sweden. On Philip’s return to Copenhagen in May 1945, Storm-Nielsen wished to continue the company in partnership with Nathan Philip. This led to embittered negotiations between the two men with accountant Eske Hansen as assistant and notetaker. In the end, Nathan Philip bought out Storm-Nielsen for half a million DKK and reestablished J. Goldstein & Søn with himself as the sole owner. The sales contract from 1943 had been robust enough to withstand potential forced aryanization, and remained legally binding to the extent that it could not be dismissed as mere pro forma after the war.