The Age
Hans Christian Andersen’s age (1805-1875) was one of great changes. He was born into a world where many didn’t survive infancy, where the king was law, illiteracy was widespread, and where technical and scientific development really got underway.
The swing plough etc. - from the exhibition section "The Age".
Hans Christian Andersen's age (1805-75) was one of great changes. He was born into a world where only approx. 60% of the population in Europe survived infancy, where the king was law, illiteracy was widespread, and where technical and scientific development really got underway. When he died in 1875, the power of the monarch had been broken, illiteracy was down to almost a minimum, and science and technology had made a distinct impact on society. But it was still a Europe where mortality and the level of poverty were terribly high, where sexuality was taboo, where the death penalty was taken as a matter of course, and where wars were still so common that they did not give rise to much coverage in the newspapers.
Canon balls and the map of Europe - from the exhibition section "The Age".
The spectacular historical room places the poet and his works in a historical context. Maps of Europe from 1805 and 1875 respectively illustrate the rapid changes in the national boundaries that took place in the space of these 70 years, with new national states emerging and others disappearing. The martial history of the period begins with Napoleon and finishes with Bismarck. The waves of revolutions in 1830 and 1848 are depicted. Those waves changed the old power structure and paved the way for democracy. Furthermore, scientific developments are revealed via such objects as lights for gas lighting, instruments for vaccination, the steam engine, swing plough, telegraph, and camera.
The first stamp: One Penny Black 1840.
Also on display - in a series of lightning strikes - are original documents written and inscribed by such great personalities of the age as Lord Nelson, Napoleon, Goethe, Jenny Lind, Ørsted, Karl Marx, and Wagner. This strange feeling of seeing something that was once present but is now past takes visitors back to the time when Hans Christian Andersen lived, when slavery was tolerated and death sentences were random.