Margrethe II

Queen of Danmark

The Danish monarchy is a unique institution. And not only in our own Danish history and selfнawareness. An unbroken royal line of fifty kings and two queens is actually a world record. More than a thousand years ago, King Harald founded the kingdom of Denmark. And even though not all the Danish kings have by any means been world champions, the Danish monarchy throughн out its thousandнyear history, from the Viking kings to the modern constitutional monarchy, has had an almost mythic ability to adapt to the social and political changes of the centuries. In many ways it has been the Crown that has preserved this small country at the tip of the European continent through wars, revolutions, reformations, and foreign occupation.

It was the Crown that held the realm together. It was, and is, in the purely personal relationship between the individual monarch and the people that kingship has its roots in Denmark. Historians have pointed out that kingship can survive only when the holder of the office becomes the peculiar embodiment of the qualities which the people regard as characteristic of themselves. That is to say, when in their king or queen the people recognize themselves.

In the long line of Danish monarchs, Margrethe II occupies a place apart. She is the first queen regnant of Denmark. Her predecessor and namesake, Margrethe I (1353н1412) ruled on behalf of her son Oluf. Margrethe II is also the first genuine creative artist to sit on the Danish throne. As the wellнknown Danish writer Suzanne Br°gger commented in an interview with the Queen on the occasion of her fiftieth birthday (16 April 1990), this gives her position as monarch a unique personal content. Two paths that intersect - with scintillating results.

The very fact that a reigning queen is even willing to embark on interviews with leading, sometimes controversial, Danish artists and intellectuals without any censorship before or after, is an indication that this is a woman who is unique, something special, not just by her position, but also because she has broken free of some of the restrictions that might have been her destiny.

Time and again Queen Margrethe has emphasized that first and foremost she is Queen, Head of State. That is her heritage, her job, her duty. But it is as an active artist that the Danes have come to know this intelligent, sensitive, and unorthodox female (as another wellнknown Danish author has called her) as a living and vibrant human being.

Queen Margrethe the artist had come a long way before she finally dared to show herself as a fully fledged artist with a potential that was still rich. Art critics have pointed out that, by her last few decades of intense work on her material and artistic effects, the Queen has grown in artistic stature and that she allows more and more of her complex personality to flow into the pictorial space she creates, whether she is painting, illustrating, or designing ballet scenography for TV and theatre.

The Danes were introduced to a deeply moved young woman when, on 15 January 1972, the 31нyearнold heir presumptive stepped out onto the balcony of Christiansborg Castle, where the then prime minister Jens Otto Krag proclaimed her the new Queen of Denmark. The previous day she had lost her father, whom she loved dearly: King Frederik IX is dead! Long live Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II. In the midst of her grief she had to take the reins: "And could I do it so that people need not be ashamed of me?"

No Dane will forget that cold January day when the young queen, in mourning and with tears in her eyes, began a close and intimate partnership with the Danish people, a partnership now approaching its silver jubilee. Her fear of becoming, as she put it herself, a spectator of life, has proved unfounded. The Queen may be head of state, but she is also the first citizen of the land, a human being who has not only kept abreast of the times but has left her mark upon them.

Margrethe Alexandrine Torhildur Ingrid, daughter of King Frederik IX (1899н1972) and Queen Ingrid (born in Sweden in 1910) was born on 16 April 1940, the eldest daughter of the popular Crown Prince and his consort, as they were then. The Germans were in the country. On 9 April Hitler's troops had attacked and invaded defenceless Denmark, and the birth of the little princess acquired a symbolic value as a ray of hope in a time of darkness.

But it could not then be foreseen that Margrethe might become Denmark's first queen regnant. The Danish constitution did not permit a woman to succeed to the throne. It was not until an amendment to the constitution was adopted in 1953 that a referendum approved the introduction of female succession.

It was a popular choice. In King Frederik, a man with the common touch and a gift for music, and in his wise and dignified consort, Queen Ingrid, Denmark had a royal couple who were loved and respected. And now their eldest daughter had to learn the craft of queenship. Her apprenticeship was planned with care and professionalism. A modern queen must possess many skills, and it is generally agreed that on the throne of Denmark there sits one of the world's bestнtrained monarchs.

The heir to the throne passed her matriculation examination in 1959, with distinction. Then came her student days, taking her from the universities of Copenhagen and ┼rhus to Cambridge, Paris, and London, where she studied on the same footing as her fellows and lived the ordinary life of a young student.

History, political science, economics, and languages, are disciplines that a modern queen must master. And today the Queen can converse with insight and on equal terms with her prime minister and foreign minister, whom she meets once a week for a report. Succeeding heads of government, of both left and right, have characterized the Queen as lively, wellнinformed, critical and open. The Queen has shown particular interest in the thaw in eastern and central Europe and in the young states that have now become part of a new, open Europe.

Although, according to tradition and the constitution, the Queen is above the everyday partyнpolitical skirmishing and does not express any political views, the woman who meets her ministers weekly in the Council of State, who represents her country on visits abroad, and who is host to visiting heads of state is no milkнandнwater queen. In speeches and at personal meetings the Danish queen expresses herself in line with, for instance, Vсclav Havel, the writer president of the Czech Republic, on the values that help to shape a nation. Here, Queen Margrethe has tested the limits of her freedom of expression, as she likewise has done in her New Year speeches, in which she carries on a running debate with the Danish people on the ethical and moral questions of the day. In her views on refugees and aliens she has confronted the Danes with truths which may not have been well received but which have created respect for her courage and determination not to be merely complaisant to her subjects.

The New Year speeches, delivered in vigorous, innovative language, are often subjected to analysis in the daily press. Even though they have been approved by the government, they are written by the Queen and composed in her quite personal style with increasing assurance and conviction. A mature, clearнheaded human being is making her report on the year that has passed.

The Queen is a person of many talents. In her youth archaeology was the object of her great interest. If in those years she had had to choose a career, she would probably have made an outstanding archaeologist. She has been a very active participant in a number of excavations, for instance in Rome with her maternal grandfather, King Gustav VI Adolf (1882н1973) the late King of Sweden, and also in Sudan.

But it is in the field of art, and as an active artist, that Queen Margrethe emerges as an exceptional Dane, whom the Danes would hasten to elect their president, if the unthinkable should happen and somebody should decide to abolish the Danish monarchy. Actually, that is a subject that is not at issue, even among the most leftнwing socialists in Denmark. Another reason is that the Danish royal family has prudently avoided providing copy to the gutter press. From that angle, the Danish monarchy is a boring monarchy. People just behave themselves in the Queen's family.

The Queen's encounter with the fairyнtale world of J.R.R. Tolkien was crucial for her development as an artist. She corresponded personally with Tolkien and later pointed out how Tolkien's words as if by an inner compulsion transformed themselves into pictures. In 1977 The Lord of the Rings was published with illustrations by Ingahild Grathmer, a pseudonym which the Queen used for her first works.

Now she dares to work under her own name and has shown her works at a number of exhibitions both in Denmark and abroad. Alongside painting, the Queen has worked with handicrafts, book illustrations, embroidery, Christmas seals, and church textiles, in which she has renewed the old traditions and paved the way for a new generation of artists.

In 1991 the Queen plunged into uncharted seas, when at the request of the Royal Theatre she undertook to design new scenography for Bournonville's national fullнlength ballet "Et Folke Sagn". The Queen not only supplied the sketchнdesigns for the production. While attending to the affairs of the Realm, she went to work daily at the Royal Theatre, where she joined the professional team who created one of Danish theatre's greatest hits.

With "Et Folke Sagn", the Queen completed her apprenticeship as a scenographer, demonstrating to herself and to the world around that she is more than a talented amateur. She has to be taken seriously. The doubt and restraint have disappeared.

As the Queen has put it herself, "Something or other has happened. Things have begun to hang together better. It seems as if my position as Queen and the side of me that likes art and expressing itself artistically are beginning to fuse together."

In 1981, Denmark's largest publisher, Gyldendal, issued a translation of the French author Simone de Beauvoir's great work All Men Are Mortal. The translation had been done by H.M. Vejerbjerg, whose true identity was not revealed until several weeks after the publication. Queen Margrethe and her husband Prince Henrik had translated the intractable French prose into Danish. The critics agreed that the translation fully lived up to the quality and intellectual standard of the original.

Queen Margrethe has also translated the Swedish author Stig StrЎmholm's trilogy about the fall of the Roman Empire. She holds honorary doctorates from several universities abroad, and she has lectured at the British Museum in London.

Being the hyperactive person she is, the Queen is always busy. Her diary is packed with meetings and official duties. But the Queen always tries to keep Thursday afternoons free to attend paintingнclasses and to pursue her other artistic interests. She keeps herself in trim by dancing ballet once a week, dancing with style and grace. And once a year the Queen sets off for Norway. With Queen Sonja of Norway she makes a tough weekнlong skiingнtrip, on which they spend the nights in primitive huts and cook their own meals. The two queens have also tried skiing in Greenland.

The August summer holiday in southern France is a tradition, a break for two busy people who are prevented from seeing much of each other by the many duties of everyday life. Here it is Prince Henrik who is master of the house. In Cahors, Prince Henrik's home region, the royal couple have restored a small chтteau, and while Prince Henrik tends his vineyards, the Queen goes to market to buy food for lunch and dinner.

The Queen and Prince Henrik are a goodнlooking couple. They obviously enjoy each other's company, spur each other on, help and support one another. The Queen calls Prince Henrik her best and severest critic, even in matters of art, and Prince Henrik's voice can still take on a soft tone when he speaks of his wife, the Queen of Denmark.

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