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Jutland (; , Jyske Halvø or Cimbriske Halvø; , Kimbrische Halbinsel or Jütische Halbinsel) is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein). It stretches from the Grenen spit in the north to the confluence of the Elbe and the Sude in the southeast. The historic southern border river of Jutland as a cultural-geographical region, which historically also included Southern Schleswig, is the Eider. The peninsula, on the other hand, also comprises areas south of the Eider: Holstein, the Saxe-Lauenburg of Lauenburg, and most of Hamburg and Lübeck.
Jutland's geography is flat, with comparatively steep hills in the east and a barely noticeable ridge running through the center. West Jutland is characterised by open lands, , plains, and peat , while East Jutland is more fertile with lakes and lush forests. The southwestern coast is characterised by the Wadden Sea, a large, unique international coastal region stretching through Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. The peninsula's longest river is the Eider, which rises close to the Baltic but flows in the direction of the North Sea due to a moraine, while the Gudenå is the longest river of Denmark. In order for ships not having to go around the whole peninsula to reach the Baltic, the Kiel Canal – the world's busiest artificial waterway, crossing the peninsula in the south – was constructed. Jutland is connected to Funen by the Old and New Little Belt Bridge, and Funen in turn is connected to Zealand and Copenhagen by the Great Belt Bridge.
Jutland as a cultural-geographical term mostly only refers to the Danish part of the peninsula, from Grenen to the Danish-German border. Sometimes, the northern part of Schleswig-Holstein down to the Eider (Southern Schleswig), is also included in the cultural-geographical definition of Jutland, because the Eider was historically the southern border of Denmark and the cultural and linguistic boundary between the Nordic countries and Germany from 850 to 1864.
In Denmark, the term Jylland can refer both to the whole peninsula and to the region between Grenen and either the Danish-German border or the Eider.
In Germany, however, the peninsula as a whole is only referred to as Kimbrische Halbinsel or Jütische Halbinsel, while the term Jütland is reserved solely for the cultural-geographical definition of Jutland.
Travemünde→Trave→Wakenitz→Ratzeburger See→Kleiner Küchensee→Großer Küchensee→Schaalsee canal→Salemer See→Pipersee→Phulsee→Schaalsee→Schaale→Sude→Elbe at Boizenburg→beginning of the estuary of the Elbe at the Geesthacht barrage
The islands of Læsø, Anholt, and Samsø in the Kattegat, and Als at the rim of the Baltic Sea, are administratively and historically tied to Jutland, although the latter two are also regarded as traditional districts of their own. Inhabitants of Als, known as Alsinger, would agree to be South Jutlanders, but not necessarily Jutlanders.
The largest North Sea islands off the Jutish coast are the Danish Wadden Sea Islands including Rømø, Fanø, and Mandø in Denmark, and the North Frisian Islands including Sylt, Föhr, Amrum and Pellworm in Germany. On the German islands, some North Frisian dialects are still in use.
Some circular depressions in Jutland may be remnants of collapsed that developed during the Last Ice Age .
Many Angles, Saxons and Jutes migrated from Continental Europe to Great Britain starting around 450 AD. The Angles gave their name to the new emerging kingdoms called England (i.e., "Angle-land"). The Kingdom of Kent in south east England is associated with Jutish origins and migration, also attributed by Bede in the Ecclesiastical History. This is also supported by the archaeological record, with extensive Jutish finds in Kent from the fifth and Sixth century.
Saxons and Frisii migrated to the region in the early part of the Christian era. To protect themselves from invasion by the Christian Franks emperors, beginning in the 5th century, the paganism Danes initiated the Danevirke, a defensive wall stretching from present-day Schleswig and inland halfway across the Jutland Peninsula.
The pagan Saxons inhabited the southernmost part of the peninsula, adjoining the Baltic Sea, until the Saxon Wars in 772–804 in the Nordic Iron Age, when Charlemagne violently subdued them and forced them to be Christianised. Old Saxony was politically absorbed into the Carolingian Empire and Obotrites (or Obotrites), a group of Wends Slavs who pledged allegiance to Charlemagne and who had for the most part Christianization, were moved into the area to populate it. Old Saxony was later referred to as Holstein.
In medieval times, Jutland was regulated by the Codex Holmiensis ( Jyske Lov). This civic code covered the Danish part of the Jutland Peninsula, i.e., north of the Eider (river), Funen as well as Fehmarn. Part of this area is now in Germany.
During the industrialisation of the 1800s, Jutland experienced a large and accelerating urbanisation and many people from the countryside chose to emigrate. Among the reasons was a high and accelerating population growth; in the course of the century, the Danish population grew two and a half times to about 2.5 million in 1901, with a million people added in the last part of the 1800s. This growth was not caused by an increase in the fertility rate, but by better nutrition, sanitation, hygiene, and health care services. More children survived, and people lived longer and healthier lives. Combined with falling grain prices on the international markets because of the Long Depression, and better opportunities in the cities due to an increasing industrialisation, many people in the countryside relocated to larger towns or emigrated. In the later half of the century, around 300,000 Danes, mainly unskilled labourers from rural areas, emigrated to the US or Canada. This amounted to more than 10% of the then total population, but some areas had an even higher emigration rate.
The population of Jutland in 1840 was 548,698 inhabitants. In 1850, the largest Jutland towns of Aalborg, Aarhus and Randers had no more than about 8,000 inhabitants each; by 1901, Aarhus had grown to 51,800 citizens.
To speed transit between the Baltic and the North Sea, canals were built across the Jutland Peninsula, including the Eider Canal in the late 18th century, and the Kiel Canal, completed in 1895 and still in use.
In 1825, a severe North Sea storm on the west coast of Jutland breached the isthmus of Agger Tange in the Limfjord area, separating the northern part of Jutland from the mainland and effectively creating the North Jutlandic Island. The storm breach of Agger Tange created the Agger Channel, and another storm in 1862 created the Thyborøn Channel close by. The channels made it possible for ships to shortcut the Skagerrak. The Agger Channel closed up again over the years, due to natural siltation, but the Thyborøn Channel widened and was fortified and secured in 1875.
Some months before the invasion, Germany had considered only occupying the northern tip of Jutland with Aalborg airfield, but Jutland as a whole was soon regarded as of high strategic importance. Work commenced on extending the Atlantic Wall along the entire west coast of the peninsula. Its task was to resist a potential allied attack on Germany by landing on the west coast of Jutland. The Hanstholm Fortress at the northwestern promontory of Jutland became the largest fortification of Northern Europe. The local villagers were evacuated to Hirtshals. Coastal areas of Jutland were declared a military zone where Danish citizens were required to carry identity cards, and access was regulated.
The small Danish airfield of Aalborg was seized as one of the first objects in the invasion by German paratroopers. The airfield was significantly expanded by the Germans in order to secure their traffic to Norway, and more airfields were built. Danish contractors and 50,000–100,000 workers were hired to fulfill the German projects. The alternative for workers was to be unemployed or sent to work in Germany. The fortifications have been estimated to be the largest construction project ever performed in Denmark at a cost of then 10 billion kroner, or 300-400 billion DKK today (45-60 billion USD or 40-54 billion euro in 2019). The Danish National Bank was forced to cover most of the cost. Historien bag 10. batteri (in Danish) (History behind 10th battery), Vendsyssel Historic Museum After the war, the remaining German prisoners of war were recruited to perform extensive mine clearance of 1.4 million mines along the coast.
Many of the seaside bunkers from World War II are still present at the west coast. Several of the fortifications in Denmark have been turned into museums, including Tirpitz Museum in Blåvand, Bunkermuseum Hanstholm, and Hirtshals.
In Southern Jutland, parts of the German minority openly sided with Germany and volunteered for German military service. While some Danes initially feared a border revision, the German occupational force did not pursue the issue. In a judicial aftermath after the end of the war, many members of the German minority were convicted, and German schools were confiscated by Danish authorities. There were some instances of Danish mob attacks against German-minded citizens. In December 1945, the remaining part of the German minority issued a declaration of loyalty to Denmark and democracy, renouncing any demands for a border revision.
The local culture of Jutland commoners before industrial times was not described in much detail by contemporary texts. It was generally viewed with contempt by the Danish cultural elite in Copenhagen who perceived it as uncultivated, misguided or useless.
While the peasantry of eastern Denmark was dominated by the upper feudal system, manifested in large estates owned by families of nobility and an increasingly subdued class of peasant tenants, the farmers of Western Jutland were mostly free owners of their own land or leasing it from the Crown, although under frugal conditions. Most of the less fertile and sparsely populated land of Western Jutland was never feudalised. East Jutland was more similar to Eastern Denmark in this respect. The north–south ridge forming the border between the fertile eastern hills and sandy western plains has been a significant cultural border until this day, also reflected in differences between the West and East Jutlandic dialect.
When the industrialisation began in the 19th century, the social order was upheaved and with it the focus of the intelligentsia and the educated changed as well. Søren Kierkegaard (1818–1855) grew up in Copenhagen as the son of a stern and religious West Jutlandic wool merchant who had worked his way up from a frugal childhood. The very urban Kierkegaard visited his sombre ancestral lands in 1840, then a very traditional society. Writers like Steen Steensen Blicher (1782-1848) and H.C. Andersen (1805–1875) were among the first writers to find genuine inspiration in local Jutlandic culture and present it with affection and non-prejudice.
Blicher was of Jutish origin and, soon after his pioneering work, many other writers followed with stories and tales set in Jutland and written in the homestead dialect. Many of these writers are often referred to as the Jutland Movement, artistically connected through their engagement with public social realism of the Jutland region. The Golden Age painters also found inspiration and motives in the natural beauty of Jutland, including P. C. Skovgaard, Dankvart Dreyer, and art collective of the Skagen Painters. Writer Evald Tang Kristensen (1843-1929) collected and published extensive accounts on the local rural Jutlandic folklore through many interviews and travels across the peninsula, including songs, legends, sayings and everyday life.
Peter Skautrup Centret at Aarhus University is dedicated to collect and archive information on Jutland culture and dialects from before the industrialisation. The centre was established in 1932 by Professor in Nordic languages Peter Skautrup (1896-1982).
With the railway system, and later the automobile and mass communication, the culture of Jutland has merged with and formed the overall Danish national culture, although some unique local traits are still present in some cases. West Jutland is often claimed to have a mentality of self-sustainment, a superior work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit as well as slightly more religious and socially conservative values, and there are other voting patterns than in the rest of Denmark.
Musicians and entertainers Ib GrønbechIb Grønbechs whole catalog of songs are performed in his homestead dialect of Vendelbomål. () and Niels Hausgaard, both from Vendsyssel in Northern Jutland, use a distinct Jutish dialect.Dialect researcher brands Hausgaard as ambassador of dialects. ()
In the southernmost and northernmost parts of Jutland, there are associations striving to conserve their respective dialects, including the North Frisian language-speaking areas in Schleswig-Holstein.
Steen Steensen Blicher wrote about the Jutland rural culture of his times in the early 1800s. Through his writings, he promoted and preserved the various Jutland dialects, as in E Bindstouw, published in 1842.
Danish social realist and radical writer Jeppe Aakjær used Jutlanders and Jutland culture in most of his works, for example in Af gammel Jehannes hans Bivelskistaarri. En bette Bog om stur Folk (1911), which was widely read in its time. He also translated poems of Robert Burns to his particular Central Western Jutish dialect.
Karsten Thomsen (1837–1889), an inn-keeper in Padborg with artistic aspirations, wrote warmly about his homestead of South Jutland, using the dialect of his region explicitly.
Two songs are often regarded as regional anthems of Jutland: Jylland mellem tvende have ("Jutland between two seas", 1859) by Hans Christian Andersen and Jyden han æ stærk aa sej ("The Jute, he is strong and tough", 1846) by Steen Steensen Blicher, the latter in dialect.
Jutland native Maren Madsen (1872-1965) emigrated to the American town of Yarmouth, Maine, in the late 19th century. She wrote a memoir documenting the transition, From Jutland's Brown Heather to the Land Across the Sea.
Publisher Frederick William Anthoensen was born in Torland, South Jutland. He moved to the United States with his parents in 1884. Guide to the Fred Anthoensen Collection, 1901-1969 – Bowdoin College
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