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'She really gives the young people in Greenland a voice': Here are six people from Greenland you should know | Culture | DR From great politicians to innovative writers. Greenland has fostered many distinctive personalities over time. We often cultivate the great personalities. At home, everyone knows who Queen Margrethe and Mette Frederiksen are. And most can probably also mention up to several American actors, musicians and writers. But maybe you can not just list a large number of prominent Greenlanders? The program series 'History of Greenland and Denmark' is trying to change that. Here we are taken through our more than 300 years long common history - and "meet" along the way many significant figures who have shaped the course of history. And there is plenty to choose from! We have selected six of the most significant with the help of Peter Toft , who is a Ph.D. and project researcher at, where he researches in Greenland, among others, and Kirstine Eiby Møller, who is a PhD fellow at Greenland and the Archives, where she researches colonial cultural encounters. One of the prominent people from Greenland's history is John Møller. Kirstine Eiby Møller from Greenland and the Archives calls him "a wild figure": - He was born in 1867 and is the first photographer in Greenland. His father is trained in the art of printing by Rasmus Berthelsen, and John himself works a lot in printing as a young man and is very interested in it, but he ends up being trained in photography in Copenhagen. - When he returns to Nuuk, he works both as a photographer with his own studio, and then he has a side job of stuffing birds. Thus, there are actually still "huge collections" of birds in both Greenland and Denmark, which are stuffed by John Møller. However, he became really interesting in his older years, when he enters politics, says Kirstine Eiby Møller.- He goes very much into the conditions of the prisoners - who lived by catching seals and whales. He wants to preserve the kayak culture so that you do not only use the fishing cutter. He is very involved in cultural preservation, sports associations and so on. He goes back to the original culture - among other things, kayaking and throwing harpoons. - He also has a fire speaker printed in the newspaper Atuagagdliutit in both Danish and Greenlandic to emphasize how important it is for him to preserve these cultural expressions. John Møller died in 1935.2 Never before has a Greenlandic author won the prestigious Nordic Council. Not until Niviaq Korneliussen won it in 2021 for the novel 'Blomsterdalen'. In 'Blomsterdalen', a young woman is followed in the last months before she commits suicide. And the many suicides in Greenland were precisely the main theme of Korneliussen's speech of thanks when she won the award back in November: - I have written the speech for children and young people at home. You're the reason I got this award. We have the highest suicide rate in the world, she said in her speech of thanks. And it is precisely the commitment to Greenland's youth that makes Niviaq Korneliussen very special, assesses Peter Toft. talks so much about internally in Greenland because they are - in particular sexuality and young people's struggle with identity formation, he says and elaborates: - She really gives the young people in Greenland a voice, but she also describes some issues that are in focus outside Greenland. Her way of writing is easy to relate to - even if you are a young person everywhere other than Greenland. That is why her books have also been published in all kinds of languages. Niviaq Korneliussen was born in 1990 in Nuuk, but grew up in the southern Greenlandic town of Nanortalik in a family where she is the middle of three sisters. 'Blomsterdalen' was published in 2020 and is Korneliussen's second novel . The first, 'Homo sapienne', was published in 2014 and was also to the Nordic Council for its portrait of the LGBT + community in Greenland.3One of the important ones to mention is Augo Lynge. He was among the first two Greenlandic members of .- He is one of the great political and cultural personalities in recent Greenlandic history, says Peter Toft from .On the one hand, Augo Lynge wanted a modern, developed Greenlandic society through greater integration with Denmark. At the same time, he also had a strong focus on the national and preserving Greenlandic culture. However, many had a hard time understanding this duality: - Augo Lynge pointed out that many other new states around the world chose to secede completely from their former colonial masters. But he believed that it was in Greenland's best interests to remain connected to Denmark and argued for this until the constitutional amendment in 1953. - Nevertheless, he was to a large extent also Greenlandic-minded and concerned with preserving Greenlandic culture. It is seen by many as a kind of duality, but that is not how he saw it himself. For him, it was not a contradiction to want to develop Greenland and preserve Greenlandic culture at the same time. He believed that the development of Greenlandic society was a prerequisite for Greenland to become less dependent on Denmark in the future. In addition to being a politician, Augo Lynge was also both a poet and a writer. Among other things, he published the book 'Ukiut 300-ngornerai' in 1931. '(' Greenland in the 300th anniversary of Hans Egede's arrival '), where he describes what a modern Greenland would look like almost a century into the future. A new Greenland with modern city life, business and not least between Greenlanders and Danes. Augo Lynge died in 1959, when the ship Hans Hedtoft went down and disappeared. © DRIf you want to know more about Greenland and Denmark's common history ...... can you get to know much more in 'The History of Greenland and Denmark'. The series looks more closely at some of the events and people who have shaped the Greenlandic-Danish history. From the first meeting in 1721, when the pastor Hans Egede went ashore, to the struggle for self-determination and home rule in 1979. Watch the program every Sunday at 20.00 on DR1 or .4In the middle of the 19th century, education was something most people had to dream about. Not least in Greenland. But Rasmus Berthelsen, who was born in 1827 and grew up in a prison home in the town of Sisimiut, was one of the lucky few: - He is one of the first Greenlanders to receive a major academic education, says Peter Toft and explains: - The interesting thing about him is that it happens out of his own desire - and contrary to his father's desire for what he should. His father, on the other hand, wants him to be a reindeer hunter just like himself. However, Rasmus Berthelsen did not dream of following in his father's footsteps. From an early age he had a desire to become a teacher. And in school Berthelsen was such a good student that in 1844 he was sent to Denmark, where he received two years of training with a teacher on Amager. - At the catechism seminar in Nuuk he gets the title of assistant teacher and is only allowed to teach some more general Greenlandic subjects. The Danish teachers, on the other hand, take care of all the theological, which he is not entirely satisfied with, Peter Toft elaborates. During the same period, Berthelsen became editor of Greenland's first newspaper, which was called Atuagagdliutit. And even though Rasmus Berthelsen died way back in 1901, many in Greenland still know especially his hymns, for which he himself wrote poems and wrote melodies. The most famous is the Christmas hymn 'Guuterput', which is as well known and loved in Greenland as 'Dejlig er jorden' is in Denmark.5 At first glance, the name Elisabeth Johansen may sound like a fairly common name. But the Elisabeth Johansen, who was born in 1907 in Uummannaq and died more than 80 years later in the same place, was far from any ordinary woman. She was the first woman ever to be elected to the Greenland National Council. The National Council was the forerunner of Greenland, which has since been replaced by the country's current, Inatsisartut. with a dog sled or boat to give election speeches in various towns and villages. was also a strong opponent of the so-called place of birth criterion, which means that traveling Danes receive a higher salary than Greenlanders for the same work. In this connection, she became known as "the only man" in the Greenland National Council. Elisabeth Johansen, however, not only made a name for herself as a politician in her more than 80-year-long life. That same year, as a 23-year-old, she returned to the childhood town of Uummannaq to devote herself to her duties. However, it required her woman to be a midwife in northern Greenland at that time. hospital. Elisabeth Johansen had a total of five children - two of them followed in their mother's footsteps and also became politicians. She died in 1958.6The dream you may not have heard of Judith from the Herrnhut Brethren before. But it is a shame, says Kirstine Eiby Møller. For Judith - who has no surname, to which we return - was in the 18th century nothing less than one of the first female leaders in Greenland: - The religious congregation that missions in Greenland, at this time has not been persuaded the Inuit to live the way they think one should live. But Judith is simply introduced to the Herrnhutian way of life in the congregation. This means, among other things, that you live in houses divided by gender and status.- Because of her, it continues to live for twenty years, even though it is not natural for Greenlanders to live like this, Kirstine Eiby Møller explains.- Just as soon she dies, it falls apart, and one begins to live in single-family homes, as one has done before. But it testifies that Judith has been a pretty woman at this time because she has been able to trump - and maintain - the other way of life for so many years. She has had at least as much power as the male missionaries. Back to that with the missing surname: The Herrnhuters did not use surnames at all, Kirstine Eiby Møller explains. - It is only when the Herrnhuters leave Greenland around 1900 that one is forced to get surnames, because there you become part of the Danish church. Judith died in 1758, just 36 years old.