Historical transfers: Ludwig Albrecht Gebhardi and the transformations of his late eighteenth-century histories of Denmark and Norway

Abstract

The divide between universal history and national history in the eighteenth century was not insurmountable. This was demonstrated by the popular English Universal History (1736–1765), both through its serialized format and through the numerous adaptations it inspired in Continental Europe. Still, what were the circumstances that facilitated the transition of historical works from one genre to another and their successful transfer across borders during this era? The transformations of the Lüneburg historian Ludwig Albrecht Gebhardi's histories of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, from a contribution to the German adaptation of the English Universal History, to a history in Danish chronicling the realms and territories of the Oldenburg monarchy, help us shed light on these questions. This chapter highlights the importance of the entrepreneurial spirit of Gebhardi's Danish publisher and the alignment of his project with the political views of the faction in power at court in Copenhagen. It also gauges the distance between the historical cultures of Denmark-Norway and the North German lands, probing Gebhardi's relationship to prominent Danish and Norwegian historians and his adherence to their contentious historical theories.