Danske salmetraditioner i Nord- og Sydslesvig

Abstract

Until 1864, the duchies Slesvig and Holsten belonged to Denmark. After The First World War, in 1920, the northern part of Slesvig came to Denmark after a plebiscite. The duchies had their own administration, and in Slesvig, the inhabitants were linguistically divided between Danish and German, also in church. In the southern part, the liturgical language was German, even where the people originally spoke Danish. The present border between Denmark and Germany can be said to follow the language boundary of 1920.

This essay wants to give an idea of the mixed use of Danish hymns and hymnbooks in the Danish-spoken territory from the Lutheran Reformation in the 16. century.

In Denmark, the official hymnbooks are normally authorised by the king (or queen). In Slesvig, they were not used; for centuries, the congregation sang by heart without organ accompaniment and sometimes in German. The first hymnbook in Danish came in 1717, but the most important collection was published in 1740 by the Pietist bishop Erik Pontoppidan. The principal contents of this hymnbook survived in later collections with supplements, which were edited and used, sometimes together in a single church to great confusion. In 1889, a qualified commission edited a hymnbook, Evangelisk-luthersk Psalmebog for de dansktalende Menigheder i Slesvig, which immediately came to be used in most congregations.

Today, the southern part of Denmark is using the Danish hymnbook, but the Danish congregations of the Danish minority south of the border also use Salmer på dansk og tysk. Deutsch-Dänisches Kirchengesangbuch, which makes it possible to sing in both languages together.