Duchy of Schleswig - Name and Naming Dispute

Name and Naming Dispute

In the 19th century, there was a naming dispute concerning the use of Schleswig or Slesvig and Sønderjylland (Southern Jutland). Originally the duchy was called Sønderjylland (Southern Jutland) but in the late 14th century the name of the city Slesvig (now Schleswig) started to be used for the whole territory. The term "Sønderjylland" was hardly used between the 16th and 19th centuries, and in this period the name "Schleswig" had no special political connotations. But around 1830, some Danes started to re-introduce the archaic term Sønderjylland to emphasize the area's history before its association with Holstein and its connection with the rest of Jutland. Its revival and widespread use in the 19th Century therefore had a clear Danish nationalist connotation of laying a claim to the territory and objecting to the German claims. "Olsen's Map", published by the Danish cartographer Olsen in the 1830s that used this term, aroused a storm of protests by the duchy's German inhabitants. Even though many Danish nationalists, such as the National Liberal ideologue and agitator Orla Lehmann, used the name "Schleswig", it began to assume a clear German nationalist character in the mid 19th century – especially when included in the combined term "Schleswig-Holstein". A central element of the German nationalistic claim, was the insistence on Schleswig and Holstein being a single, indivisible entity. Since Holstein was legally part of the German Confederation, and ethnically entirely German, with no Danish population, use of that name implied that both provinces should belong to Germany, and their connection with Denmark weakened or altogether severed. After the German conquest in 1864, the term Sønderjylland became increasingly dominant among the Danish population, even though most Danes still had no objection to the use of "Schleswig" as such (it is etymologically of Danish origin) and many of them still used it, themselves, in its Danish version "Slesvig". An example is the founding of De Nordslesvigske Landboforeninger (The North Schleswig Farmers Association). The naming dispute was resolved with the 1920 plebiscites and partition, each side applying its preferred name to the part of the territory remaining in its possession – though both terms can, in principle, still refer to the entire region. Northern Schleswig was, after the 1920 plebiscites, officially named The Southern Jutland districts (de sønderjyske landsdele), while Southern Schleswig became a part of the German province Schleswig-Holstein.