In his lifetime, Hans Christian Andersen was Denmark's most famous native son. Yet even after his fairy tales won him fame and fortune, he feared he would be forgotten. He need not have worried. This weekend, Denmark began eight months of celebrations to coincide with the bicentenary of his birth, and Denmark is eager that the world take note as it sets out to define the pigeon-holed writer in its own way.
The festivities began in Copenhagen on Saturday, Andersen's actual birthday, with a lively show of music, dance, lights and comedy inspired by his fairy tales before a crowd of 40,000 people -- including Queen Margrethe II and her family -- at the Parken National Stadium. The opening, called Once Upon a Time, will be followed by a slew of concerts, musicals, ballets, exhibitions, parades and education programs costing over US$40 million.
So more than in recent memory, Danes -- and, they hope, foreigners -- will be reliving the humor, pain and lessons to be found in evergreen stories like The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, The Little Match-Seller, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Shadow, The Princess and the Pea and others of Andersen's 150 or so fairy tales.
In organizing this extravaganza, of course, Denmark is also celebrating itself. After all, Andersen is still this country's most famous native son. Trumpeting his name and achievements not only draws attention to Denmark's contribution to world culture, but could also woo more foreign tourists to visit his birthplace in the town of Odense and to be photographed beside the famous bronze statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen's harbor.
And Denmark has even more in mind. Local guardians of the Andersen legacy evidently feel his stories have lost ground in recent years to the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and J.K. Rowlings's Harry Potter. Andersen's fairy tales may remain central to the Danish identity, serving as homespun guides to the vagaries of human behavior, but what about the rest of the world?
"What we really need is a rebirth of Andersen," noted Lars Seeberg, secretary general of the Hans Christian Andersen 2005 Foundation. "Two centuries after his birth, he still fails to be universally acknowledged as the world-class author he no doubt was. In blunt terms, Andersen's fame stifles his wider appreciation. His name puts smiles on peoples' faces around the world from China to the United States, but the smile is one of childhood nostalgia and memories of bedside storytelling."
Certainly, Andersen himself hoped for more. Having also written novels and plays, he disliked being tagged as a "children's poet." Indeed, while the fantastic quality of his fairy tales appealed to children, their darker elements were often aimed at adults. He wanted to be "a poet of all age groups" and, significantly, when a statue to him was erected on his 70th birthday, four months before his death, he insisted that it show him reading to unseen listeners.
Even at that stage, he saw himself as the outsider he had been all his life. Andersen was born to a cobbler and washerwoman in Odense on April 2, 1805; his childhood love of singing and theater led him to move to Copenhagen at 14. There he hoped to find work as a singer and dancer, but failure prompted him to try his hand at writing. Then, thanks to a chance meeting, he won a scholarship to school and university paid for by King Christian. When he graduated, poor but ambitious, he resumed writing.
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