The state, the nation, and the narration of colonial history: mnemonic efforts of Danish and Dutch history canons from the 2000s until today

In the early 2000s, politicians in Denmark and the Netherlands argued that young people lacked sufficient knowledge of national history. While several other countries introduced national history standards at this time, only Denmark and the Netherlands introduced “history canons”, i.e. lists of key historical figures and topics intended to help structure history teaching in schools. These canons thus provide explicit examples of state-determined narratives of national history, but they have never been systematically compared. This article analyses four canons, the Dutch and Danish original canons from the 2000s and the revised editions implemented in 2020 and 2023, respectively. The comparative analysis pays close attention to the interpretation of colonial history and more specifically to the question of to what extent Ministries of Education have been willing to include critical reflections about colonial history into the national history canons. The article highlights three mnemonic practices embedded in the canons, i.e. heroic, self-critical, and inclusive. While both countries initially adopted canons that expressed heroic mnemonic efforts, the revision of the Dutch canon in 2020 reflects an increasingly self-critical and inclusive approach to the ministry’s state-led mnemonic efforts. In contrast, the Danish canon of 2023 remains predominantly heroic.