2019 Ivy York Möller-Christensen

With books, reviews and lectures, Ivy York Möller-Christensen has been at the forefront of international Hans Christian Andersen research for decades. Already her PhD-thesis from 1991 established her as leading expert on Andersen’s relationship to his German-speaking readership. The book later published under the title Den gyldne trekant. H. C. Andersens gennembrud i Tyskland 1831-50(1992), taught us how important Germany was for Hans Christian Andersen’s international breakthrough in general.

As a professor of Danish teaching at the Europa-Universität in Flensburg, in the ancient German-Danish border region of Schleswig, Ivy York Möller-Christensen represents the strong ties between two closely related cultures like few other scholars today. She has made Hans Christian Andersen a symbol of our common Danish-German and indeed European cultural heritage.