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Statuette. Plaster.
Cast no. 148. Size 47,8 x 33,5 x 16 cm. Inv. no. 779. Gift of H. Haugstrup,
Vejen, 1984.
Exhibitions One-man show at the
Free Exhibition Building, 1901. Ceramic sketch.
Monument at Skibelund Krat As so often before, Niels Hansen Jacobsen endeavored to give a three-dimensional form to the intangible, "Our Mother Tongue." It is personified by two distinctive personalities from what after 1920 became North Schleswig: the poet Edvard Lembcke (1815-1897) and the historian A. D. Jørgensen (1840-1897). Between them stands a young woman wearing a crown, Our Mother Tongue, as described in Edvard Lembcke's song. She places her hands behind them, as if she were showing them off as examples of worthy users of Danish. A line from Lembcke's song is inscribed below: "She places on our lips each good and forceful word." The figures' names and dates are engraved on the plinth.
The monument's reception Niels Hansen Jacobsen was commissioned to create the monument by a bank director by the name of Heide from Copenhagen at the recommendation of the energetic businessman and director of the National Bank, Johannes Lauridsen, Niels Hansen Jacobsen's local patron. "Our Mother Tongue" was unveiled with great ceremony in 1903 and was given a good reception in the press. Since then, it has been one of Niels Hansen Jacobsen's best-known and most widely admired works. Niels Hansen Jacobsen designed a statuette version of the monument to be sold as a souvenir. This is the version found at the museum. The monument was also a favorite motif for post cards. Niels Hansen Jacobsen said in an interview in 1931: If I myself had received the money that has been earned from the sale of postcards with "Our Mother Tongue," I would now be a wealthy man.
Skibelund Krat Skibelund Krat is a memorial grove close to Askov. It contains monuments to men and women, especially those active in the folk high-school movement, who actively worked for Danish interests in North Schleswig. The first monument was erected in 1869, when the Danish border was set at the Kongeå River.
The nationalistic significance of the monument The monument to "Our Mother Tongue" has nationalistic significance. The Danish language proudly looks over the lands lost to Germany. The cultivation of a national identity and the nation state was typical of the period. Even today, it is important for the Danish minority in Schleswig to cling to the Danish language as an integral part of their Danish identity.
Thor Lange on "Our Mother Tongue" Folkebladet, July 24, 1903 Denmark has never had a more wonderful monument; it will outshine everything else. This is precisely how Our Mother Tongue should be depicted: confident of victory, powerful, united, and vigilant... The main figure is wonderfully light, pure, and simple, and the unification of the Greek herm form and the Nordic interlaced decoration in the men from North Schleswig at her side is effective. Nothing in the world pleases me more than a patriotic work of art like this!
Niels Skovgaard, "The Monument to Magnus" erected at Skibelund Krat, 1898
The monument was erected in 1898 on what at the time was an open hilltop. It was a thorn in the flesh of the guards on the other side of the border. Thor Lange was reprimanded, but the monument was allowed to remain. Shortly after, it was joined by "Our Mother Tongue," which is so decidedly oriented towards the south that it is almost looks like a relief. The last monument that Niels Hansen Jacobsen raised at Skibelund Krat - the "Monument to Reunification" - faces entirely towards the north. There was no longer any reason to provoke the south!
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