Terp, Holger: Danish Peace History - Det danske Fredsakademi

Danish-Norwegian censure, established during the church reformation in 1536, was
not complete 28 . Privileged could read Marsilius of Padna: “Defensor Pacis”. Basle,
1522; which later was destroyed during the British terror bombardment of
Copenhagen in 1807 29 and a Danish translation of Immanuel Kant’s “Zum ewigen
Frieden” published in 1796 and employees in the foreign office could read a copy of
Hugo Grotius: “De Jure Belli et Pacis 30 ” from 1696 31 . Jesper Baltzarsen Könecken
explained to the court, that before he wrote “De bellis Christianorum Novi
Testamenti”, he had read one German book with the title “Irenicum” by an unknown
author. If I read Jacob ter Meulen right, the author could be Daniel Zwicker, whose
“Irenicum irenicorum” first was published in Amsterdam in 1658, short time before
Könecken’s sermon, but there are another English book by Jeremiah Burroughs from
1653 with the same title: Irenicum : to the lovers of truth and peace : heart-divisions
opened in the causes and evils of them. I don't know if this volume has been translated
into German 32 . The early Danish conception of peace and pacifism needs to be
investigated.
The state gave up as late as in 1849 and with the new Danish constitution granted
religious and political freedom, but according to a classic study by church historian
Bjørn Kornerup: “Quaker propaganda in Denmark and Norway in older times”, the
Quakers were not accepted by the church of Denmark before 1924, when pacific bishop
Valdemar Ammundsen (1875-1936) wrote the preface to Anne Vedde's book “the
Quakers” and by then there even was a Christian peace group in Denmark; but on the
other hand most of the fiction works of Count Leo Tolstoy was translated and
published in Denmark from the 1880s onward to the first world war.
During World War One, youth socialist Niels Johnsen was rewarded two months
prison for the authorship of the booklet “the Fight against Conscription” 33 . This is as
far as I know the last direct censorship of pacific publications in Denmark.
Danish history research and communication
Könecken is neither recorded in Jacob ter Meulen's “Bibliographie du movement de la
paix, 1480-1776”, in the “Catalouge de la bibliotheque l' institut Nobel Norwegien”
from 1912, in Swinne’s “Bibliographia Irenica 1500-1970”, and to my knowledge
Jesper Baltzarsen Könecken is not mentioned in the text books on the history of the
peace movements, peace research and pacifism or in popular Danish history books 34 .
28
Iversen, Max: Forbudte bøger: To Aarhundredesbeslaglagte og konfiskerede Værker : En annoteret
Bibliografi, 1948. - 200 pp.
29
http://www.mik.dk/Din_guide/Fokus/Det_Kongelige_Bibliotek/Det_Kongelige_Bibliotek_defensor_paci
s.aspx
30
http://www.archive.org/details/hugonisgrottiide00grotuoft
31
Kjølsen, Klaus: Udenrigsministeriets historiske bogsamling i Eigtveds Pakhus : Det Griis-
Bernstorffske Bibliotek. In: Spor - arkiver og historie: Afhandlinger tilegnet Nils Petersen på 65årsdagen
den 23. august 1987 p. 167.
32
http://www.archive.org/details/irenicumtothelov00burruoft
33
Johnsen, Niels: Kampen mod Værnepligten, 1915.
34
Arup, Erik: Danmarks Historie. vol. 2 1282-1624, 1932. pp. 184-185.