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This is an engaging, richly detailed biography of a family of Norwegian immigrant homesteaders in eastern North Dakota in the late 1800s.Educator and world traveler Aagot Raaen wrote this reminiscence late in her life.Like Giants in the Earth and Old Jules, Grass of the Earth deals frankly with a darker side of pioneer life on the prairie. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Scandinavian Studies, published by Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study on June 22, 1993. The length of the article is 21577 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Lord of Uraniborg: A Biography of Tycho Brahe. (book reviews)
Author: Jole Shackelford
Publication: Scandinavian Studies (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 1993
Publisher: Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study
Volume: v65Issue: n3Page: p421(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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field journal, tr Lise Lange Striar & Myles Striar ... Read more

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A vital key to Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen's innermost room
Wilhelm Dinesen, father of Karen Dinesen (later Karen Blixen) comitted suicide by hanging himself in Copenhagen at the age of 49 on March 28, 1895, only a few weeks before his second oldest daughter Karen's tenth birthday (April 17).

It is a well-known fact that the death of a parent at a young age, between the age of nine and fourteen in particular, is devestating to a child, and one that often continues to haunt the person for the rest of their life. William Styron is one famous example; his mother died from cancer when he was fourteen, and her death and his unresolved emotions stemming from the grief was partly responsible for the severe depression which came close to driving him to suicide many years later when he was around sixty.

Karen Blixen did not make a secret of how much her father had meant to her or that his death had a profound effect on her, but it was not until she became a writer/story teller that she truly dealt with her emotions. Pain turned into art as she herself stated.

When reading her father's - in Danish literature - classic "Letters from the Hunt", one is given a marvelous key to Karen Blixen's innermost room. When I read it (in my native Danish) I was immensely moved by his love of nature, his respect for it, and I was also delighted by his sense of humor. His personality and charm comes across so vividly today, more than a century later that I found myself seeing himself through the eyes of his wife Ingeborg and his daughter Karen, and fully understanding their undying love for him.

A note: Wilhelm most likely had extramarital erotic escapades. They were common and almost expected, and many men contracted various VDs from mistresses or prostitutes, but his love of his wife Ingeborg was by all accounts genuine, depite their different personalities. And: we cannot judge a late 19th century marriage (1881-95) by today's standard. Besides, things have not changed much since then. The only difference now is that both men and women engage in seeking sexual "spice" ouside marriage.

Ingeborg was left with five children to raise (with the help and support of family and household staff), but with her deep Unitarian faith and staying busy with homemaking, she seems to have survived with remarkably few emotional scars, although she was not a person to wear her heart on her sleeve and most likely grieved in privacy. Karen on the other hand never fully recovered from the loss. Ingeborg knew this and recognized her late husband's spirit and personality in their daughter. (In Blixen's "Letters from Africa" there is a wonderful letter from Ingeborg to Karen's brother Thomas in which she writes of this)

Karen did not search for a father figure in a partner, but for someone who could give her the same gifts that her father had given her when he would take her for walks around Rungstedlund, the garden and woods and meadows surrounding their home of the same name north of Copenhagen. He was often away in Parliament, on trips, or hunting with friends, but when he was home, she was clearly his favorite child and the one he felt closest to, despite the fact that he had two sons, Karen's younger brothers, but they were mere toddlers at the time.

His writing is that of a natural born writer; it seems to come easy to him (he himself is said not to have thought of writing as more than a hobby). The descriptions of the Danish and Swedish scenery are lyrical and yet wonderfully straightforward, as if he is painting a picture for us. Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen would later paint pictures for her readers of Africa, Denmark, and other places in much the same manner.

Wilhelm Dinesen's respect for the American Indian (he lived for three years in a cabin in Wisconsin and made friends with the native Americans there who named him Boganis (hazelnut - the name he later chose as his author pseudonym), for animals, and his love of women and admiration for soldiers (he fought in several Europeean wars as a young man) are all a joy to read. And in our politically correct times, a note: Yes, he was a hunter, but he was not a reckless, vain, boastful one.

The book (which in fact is comprised of his two collections of Letters from the 1880s and 1890s)) is a beautiful and sublime volume which offers the reader more than just a glimpse into the mind of a remarkable man and a vital key to the innermost room of his daughter who was to become a world famous writer.

Karen Blixen found Wilhelm's equal in Denys Finch Hatton (they met in 1918, four years after her arrival to Africa; he died in 1931), and like her father, he too died well before their time, although perhaps Blixen herself, with her strong belief in fate, believed that their time had in fact come?) Fortunately, both of these larger-than-life men live on through Karen's life story and her writing, and for Wilhelm's part, also through his love "Letters" to nature and to life.

A must for anyone with more than a superficial interest in Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen.

Note: I have not read the book in translation, but sincerely hope that his words were not butchered in the process! ... Read more

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Scandinavian Studies, published by Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study on December 22, 2001. The length of the article is 513 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Leif Sjoberg (1925-2000) a bibliography: his books, articles, reviews, and translations into English of twentieth-century Swedish authors.(Obituary)
Author: Marna Feldt
Publication: Scandinavian Studies (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 2001
Publisher: Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study
Volume: 73Issue: 4Page: 577(2)

Article Type: Obituary

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Each chapter is a fairly independent guide to the corresponding drama. ... Read more

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Hans Christian Andersen’s stories have been the delight of children for generations.But even if Andersen had not written a single line of a single fairy tale he would still remain a tempting subject for a biographer.

In practical life he was essentially a shrewd, observant man of the world, who saw more than most people, because he took the trouble to keep his eyes open.Half his life was spent in traveling up and down Europe; he was more or less intimately acquainted with most of the leading men of letters of his day; he had at his finger ends the literatures of half a dozen languages, and he was as much at home in the prince’s palaces as in the peasant’s hut.Such a man can tell us a good deal, and is well worth listening to. ... Read more

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Elise Ottesen-Jensen broke with her conservative family and became an influential social reformer in 1923. This book chronicles her leap to prominence. Beginning as a family planning field worker in Sweden, she quickly gained respect from the medical community for keeping abreast with sexological research and safe, reliable contraceptive practice. By the 1940s, her grass-roots organization helped to introduce sex education instruction in the public schools and fought for liberal abortion and homosexuality legislation. After World War II, Ottesen-Jensen promoted the spread of family planning internationally, most notably by working with Margaret Sanger, Lady Rama Rau, and others to found and build the International Planned Parenthood Federation. The importance of bringing truthful sex education messages to youth was her most persistent theme. ... Read more

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When Germany invaded Lithuania in the late 1930s, young Ingrid and her parents weren't too concerned. After all, their country had been attacked many times, and they assumed their lives would go on as normal. How wrong they are! Ingrid is forced to join the Hitler Youth and watch in horror as the Nazi military machine gobble up one European nation after another. But when Hitler fails to conquer Russia, Ingrid and her family pay the price, fleeing in the night as Soviet troops approach their home. The author weaves a fascinating account of her forced travels throughout Germany, her heart-breaking search for the remnants of her scattered family, and her fresh start in a new country, America. The author's charming accent adds a sense of authenticity and warmth to this inspiring story of perseverance and family solidarity. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Scandinavian Studies, published by Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study on December 22, 1999. The length of the article is 959 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: In Memoriam P.M. Mitchell, 1916-1999.(Obituary)(Brief Article)
Author: Marianne Kalinke
Publication: Scandinavian Studies (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 1999
Publisher: Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study
Volume: 71Issue: 4Page: 504

Article Type: Obituary, Brief Article

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Book Description

"Childhood" was a scandal which became a classic. This book's revisionist look at the private lives of the founders of theSwedish welfare state was so scandalous it was almost suppressed inSweden. Sissela Bok's "Alva Myrdal" was written in response, to giveJan's mother's point of view on this fascinating, troubled family.

But Childhood is first of all a story about the intense experience ofchildhood stripped of all sentimentality, seen again with a child's naiveopenness to all of its sensual wonder, fantasies, and anger.

Jan Myrdal's novels about his childhood have already become classics inSweden, where the most recent history of Swedish literature called them"one of our literature's most remarkable descriptions of how a self iscreated."

Myrdal insists that this book is "a story about childhood, not anautobiography." And it is not necessary for the reader to know that theAlva in the book is the Alva Myrdal who won the Nobel Peace Prize and theGunnar is the Gunnar Myrdal who wrote "An American Dilemma" and won theNobel Prize for Economics.

But it is part of the background of the book that the Myrdals asindividuals, not as a family, have had a dominating intellectualinfluence in Sweden since the end of the 1920s.

It is also part of the background of this book that it was a majorscandal. "Childhood" takes you into the private life of Sweden'sintellectual and political establishment, showing it to you through theyes of a child unimpressed by its pretensions, a child who was to become"Jan Myrdal, the insolent, the intolerant, the merciless critic ofSwedish social-democracy" (Le Monde).

Although Myrdal was already a best-selling author in Sweden, he had tofight to get "Childhood" published, and it was almost marginalized in asmall, limited edition. But he circumvented attempts to suppress the bookby reading it on the radio and serializing it in a major daily, forcingthe controversy into the open. "Childhood" soon became a best-seller andlater was accepted as a classic.

The second book in Myrdal's childhood series, "Another World," won theLiterature Foundation's Great Prize for the Novel. The Third, "TwelveGoing on Thirteen," won the Esselte Prize for Literature and wasdistributed free to 100,000 of Sweden's middle school children-a strangefate for Sweden's most outspoken oppositional figure.

Myrdal's autobiography about his teenage and adult years, "Confessions ofa Disloyal European," was chosen by The New York Times as "one of tenbooks of particular significance and excellence in 1968." The celebratedFrench critic Bernard Pivot selected it as one of the Scandinavianclassics in his TV series/book/exhibition, La bibliotheque ideale. ... Read more

Book Description

Born in the village of Tchongraw in 1930 in the southern Crimea, Lise spends her childhood under the spell of the mysterious, ancient Krymskiye Gory mountains of the Black Sea. Her Dutch-German people have been trapped in Russia for generations and Lise is challenged by her beloved grandfather to bring the story with her to freedom. Love of family, faith and determination bonds two uncles and 120 women and children of Lise's people into a spiritual force that empowers them to escape Russia with the help of German soldiers. Chased by the Red Army forces that explode out of Warsaw, Lise's mother saves her children in an extraordinary race for freedom. Her mother emerges a heroic figure who could have stepped from the pages of a Tolstoy classic. This is also the story of childhood sweethearts who reunite in freedom in 1949. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

The Foreword
A foreword for this 2nd printing is written by Nancy K. Splain, J.D., Liaison to the American Bar Association's Far Eastern Project - Ukraine. Dr. Splain lived in Ukraine 2001 and 2002. She has traveled many of the same by-ways as Lise did during her escape with her Mennonite people. In this unusual foreword, Dr. Splain describes the lush hills of Crimea where Lise was born and her passion for this book is obvious. Dr. Splain's foreword is an outstanding addition to this award winning book.

Survival
Escape to freedom. Survival. How might we lose our freedoms? This author tells it all.

Universal appeal - reads like a mystery
has written this true story in Lise's own, up-lifting and charming words as a child of Dutch-German parents trapped in Russia. I consider it an important addition to the unknown, unadmitted history of Russia's people and Lise's escape with 140 of her people is an amazing story for all ages. This exciting, well crafted book is hard to put down. It is both relevant and powerful. How difficult it is to earn freedom -- how easy to lose it! I Heard My People Cry is felt in the hearts, and seen upon the faces of all mankind. So relevant for day!

From a reader in Virginia, Minnesota
I Heard My People Cry is fast becoming the one book everyone in your "home town" wants to read. Congratulations Elizabeth.

Faith and Perseverance: A Story of Our Times
Set in Eurasian history, this remarkable story of faith, courage, perseverance and love could easily have happened--and is happening--today. A mother's love and determination, a child's lost innocence, a tale of harrowing survival. What should never have occurred again is as fresh today as it was then. I couldn't put it down the first time, and I continue to pick up my favorite parts to read them over and over as a source and basis for my own faith. The words are so clear, the vision so real. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Northern Crowns: the Kings of Modern Scandinavia
This is an excellent book! It is full of important historical information, dates, names and descriptions of key figures in Royal history, and the like. If you are doing research on recent Scandinavian monarchs, this is a great place to begin! If you want to know how a Danish prince came to be the first 20th century King of Norway or how the son of a German Duke became King of Denmark, you can find out from this book. Detailed information on family relationships is included, and there are a number of highly entertaining anecdotes about several Kings in all three Scandinavian families.
The only problem I saw in this book is that it's language and grammer may sometimes be slightly intimidating; this is NOT a book for those accustomed to reading only in the vernacular. The occasional difficulty in the reading, though, is offset by the pure wealth of information offered. For a small and handleable book, it has a lot to offer. I believe it is one of the best like it on its subject.

Interesting but not great
The title may be catchy but don't expect to get a book on modern day kings like Arthur. My humanities teacher assigned this book and our first impression was something along the lines of a movie but it really wasn't. This book is just about the people and influences that make a big influence in modern day Scandanavia. I am not saying that this book was stupid and horrible because it wasn't. If you're looking for something whimsical and romantic, then keep browsing. ... Read more

Book Description

Stefan Heym was Hitler's youngest literary exile. This book, the first full-length study of Heym to appear in English, outlines his exciting career, which culminated in his becoming the major dissident of the German Democratic Republic. It focuses primarily on his journalism and his novels, some of which have been translated into over twenty languages, but also discusses his earliest, almost unknown, poetry and drama. Peter Hutchinson pays special attention to the way in which Heym's defiance of a repressive regime inspired others and paved the way for the new Eastern European literature. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

About an eternal dissenter
This book comes along rather cautiously and quite drily. It is a work of scholarship, not one for the huge audiences. For me, having read most of Stefan Heym's novels and essays in German, (not really realizing that he wrote all of his books in English first) it was a surprise to me to learn that a book about him should be published in English.

Well, now it is, and it is a work well worth mentioning. The author, Peter Hutchinson, covers all the aspects worth knowing about Stefan Heym, connects Heym's life to his writings, adds reality to Heym's relations to democracy, the Nazis (and the pre-Nazis), the workers' movement, Communism, Stalinism, the US military, the two Germanies.

Heym was not the one to compromize. He had his ideals, and he followed them. Even after the re-unification of Germany in 1889 he asked his questions.

Peter Hutchinson managed to describe Heym's life, always connecting it to Heym's works, making his book a source of information about German-German relationship.

Well worth reading. For scholars of Heym: the bibliography is a real treasure. ... Read more

Book Description

101 proverbs from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland. Hand calligraphied. ... Read more

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101 Scandinavian Proverbs
This award-winning, beautiful little book includes 101 Scandinavian proverbs designed in calligraphy. Printed on ivory acid-free paper, the ink used is blue and rust, colors favored by Scandinavian folk artists.

Scandinavian Proverbs won first place in the trade book division of a contest sponsored by the Chicago Women in Publishing Association.

Julie Jensen McDonald, the author, writes that the hours she spent in libraries to compile the book were "more like picking wild strawberries than serious research."

"That which is loved is always beautiful." -Norwegian

"God did not create hurry." -Finnish

"The twigs are rarely better than the trunk." -Icelandic

"Don't sail out farther than you can row back." -Danish

"A life without love is like a year without summer." -Swedish

Julie Jensen McDonald is the author of ten published books. Her mother's parents emigrated from Denmark in the 1880s, and her father came from Denmark when he was nineteen. Mrs. McDonald is also the author of the Penfield Press book, Definitely Danish: Denmark and Danish Americans.

Calligrapher Esther Faske, M.F.A. graduate of the University of Iowa, designed the book. The proverbs are reproduced in her calligraphic style. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. ... Read more