I live in the city of Stary Oskol and in our region there is the city of Novy Oskol. It is logical to assume that if there is a territory called New Zealand, then Old Zealand must also be located somewhere.
Where is she?
Zealand Island lies between the Kattegat and the Baltic Sea. It is one of 409 islands in the Danish archipelago, the largest island in the Baltic Sea and the third largest after Greenland and the little-known Disko in the Kingdom of Denmark. It makes up one sixth of the total territory of the state. Zealand is connected by ferry service with Sweden and the Danish island of Funen. The Great Belt Bridge connects Zealand with Funen Island, Storström Bridge with Falster Island, Øresund Bridge with Malmö in Sweden.
Translated from the Danish language, the name of the island of Zealand means "Sea Land". The modern spelling of the island's name is consonant with the word Sjæl (soul), so Zeeland can be called the land of the soul.
The first known written records of the island of Zealand, located in the east of Denmark, are found in the ancient Scandinavian sagas. There are two main versions regarding the origin of this name, which in Danish, by the way, sounds like "Schellan" (in the Russian language the version in the German-Dutch transcription was fixed). According to some experts, "Zealand" consists of two words: "land" and "seal". It turns out that the island was called "the land of seals", which sounds plausible: a fairly large population of these mammals really lived here for a long time. According to another version, "Zealand" means "Sea land".
The shores of the island are low, with many bays, fjords and bays, the largest of which are Ise Fjord and Sayeryo Bugt. There are many lakes of glacial origin on the island, and some areas in the northwest are located below sea level. The longest river is the 82-kilometer Suus-Aa, but its depth is so shallow that only flat-bottomed boats and kayaks can move along it.
During the last ice age, the island was entirely under the ice. The glacier began to recede around the 12th millennium BC. e. and formed the current hilly-moraine relief of the island. The base of this part of the land is composed of limestone and clay.
Promotional video:
In Denmark, there is a beautiful legend about the origin of the island of Zealand. According to her, in ancient times, the supreme Scandinavian god Odin introduced the Swedish king Gulfe to the beautiful goddess of fertility Gefion from the Azov clan. King Gulfe fell madly in love with Gefion and commanded to give her as much land as she could plow in one day. The king clearly counted on the fact that the weak-looking beauty would not cope with this work. But Gefion turned out to be more cunning: she turned her four sons, born of a giant, into bulls. They plowed a huge area and made a deep furrow to cut it off from Sweden. Now all this land is called the island of Zealand.
Based on this legend, the largest fountain in Denmark was created, built in 1908 on the Larsens Plads waterfront in Copenhagen, which is located in the east of Zealand. The author portrayed a fragile woman controlling four bulls bursting with strength and health, from under whose hooves water streams cascade.
It can be assumed that Gefion's participation in the history of the island was not without. After all, Zeeland - the most densely populated territory of Denmark - today serves as an important economic center of the kingdom. Thanks to the fertility of the soil, agriculture is developed here: fodder crops, wheat, sugar beets, and potatoes are grown on local arable lands.
Many castle complexes have survived on the territory of Zealand, one of which was made famous by William Shakespeare.
The history of the development of Zeeland began at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, when the first settlements of the Bromme culture (about 9700-9000 BC) appeared here, so named after the Paleolithic site at the village of the same name in the west of the island.
Later, the Germanic tribes of the Angles and Jutes settled here, who later, however, moved to Britain. The subsequent history of Zealand is connected with the era of the Vikings, who turned the island into a springboard for trade and robbery raids to other countries. A Viking settlement with an area of 18 thousand m2 was found in the north of the island. Until now, paying tribute to their ancestors, Danish craftsmen make exact copies of Viking ships in the vicinity of Roskilde. Construction technology is respected down to the smallest detail: only analogues of the tools used in those ancient times are used in the work. Already created ships arrange water walks for everyone.
When the strengthening of royal power in Denmark began, in 950-985. King Harald I of Denmark Bluetooth (circa 930-986) incorporated Zeeland into the Danish kingdom. In the XI-XII centuries. on the island, gatherings of free people, called the "Danish court", at which the king was elected, begin.
The island's population was mainly engaged in coastal sea fishing and trade, taking advantage of the island's advantageous position at the outlet of the Baltic Sea. One of the key events in the history of Zealand was the emergence of the city of Copenhagen - the modern capital of Denmark. By the XIII century. Copenhagen received the first city rights, and a castle was built here a century earlier. Currently, the city is located on three islands at once: Zeeland, Amager and Slotsholmen.
The Zeeland town of Helsingor, located in the northeast of the island, is no less famous. An international sailing regatta starts from here every year in the middle of summer. Helsingor is nicknamed "the city of Hamlet": here is the ancient Kronborg castle, which the fantasy of the English playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) turned into the setting for the play "The Tragic Story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark". The play in the castle itself was first staged in 1816, to mark the 200th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Now the play is performed regularly, mainly for numerous tourists.
Another famous Zeeland castle is Valais in the port city of Køge. Valais was the property of King Frederick IV (1671-1730). Later, Sofia Magdalena of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, wife of King Christian VI of Denmark and Norway (1699-1746), opened the “House of Old Maidens of Noble Origin” within its walls. Nowadays, elderly ladies are still given shelter here, but not necessarily of a noble family.
The most beautiful of the palaces in Zealand is Fredensborg (Peace Castle), which stands on the eastern shore of Lake Esrumsø. It remains the current seat of the Danish kings. One of the halls of the palace is called Russian: it displays a collection of paintings related to Russia. The collection includes a portrait of Emperor Nicholas II.
There is a province with this name in the Netherlands.
The province of Zeeland lies in the delta of the Meuse and Scheldt rivers. The territory of the province is mostly below sea level, many land areas have been reclaimed from the sea. The channel system is in place. Zealand is divided into three regions: North, Central and South (Zeeland Flanders). The name Zeeland has two versions of its origin. The toponym can be translated from Danish as “land of seals”, but the Dutch version - “sea land” - looks more convincing.
In the Roman era, the lands of the Celts who lived in Zeeland were divided into two parts, which entered the provinces of Lower Germany and Belgica. In the early Middle Ages, the Germanic tribes fell on Zeeland, and it went to the Franks. In the 11th century, the Meuse and Scheldt delta was divided between the counties of Flanders and Zeeland. However, if Flanders was a more or less noticeable figure on the map of Northwestern Europe, then the fishing and agricultural region of Zealand has always been dependent on more powerful neighbors: Flanders, Hainaut County, Holland County and others.
In the 15th century, dynastic strife among the neighbors of Zealand culminated in the annexation of the county to the possessions of the Habsburgs and the Seventeen Provinces. During the Eighty Years War, Zealand became one of the constituent states of the independent Netherlands (1572). In 1795 the County of Zealand was transformed into a department of the Batavian Republic.
A feature of Zealand is the fact that the entire territory of the province is under the threat of flooding due to subsidence of land and rising sea levels. Therefore, the reliability of the system of dams, sluices and dams between polders is of paramount importance to Zealand. The Delta dams (Grevelingendam and Osterheldekering) in the Scheldt Delta are grandiose, many kilometers of engineering structures included in the list of modern wonders of the world.
The ancient architecture of Zealand is concentrated in Middelburg. Its unique medieval appearance was restored after the German bombing of the Second World War. The 13th century abbey building dominates here. Zeeland also has places for green tourists - fishing villages and the Oostersheld National Park.
By the way, let's find out how the name New Zealand appeared.
New Zealand is one of the most late populated areas in the world. The first people settled on the island only in the 13th century AD. These were the Polynesian tribes traveling through the South Pacific Islands. The first Europeans landed in New Zealand in 1642 under the leadership of the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. Unfortunately, the very first skirmish with local tribes ended miserably for the Europeans - four of them were killed and several seriously wounded. Abel Tasman, along with his team, hastened to leave the inhospitable lands.
At the same time, Abel Tasman was sure that he had found one of the islands adjacent to South America - a strange opinion, given the distance from South America to New Zealand. Perhaps the seafarers were misled by the storm they encountered along the way.
Returning to the Old World, Abel provided the public with a travel report and told about the island he discovered, located, according to his calculations, not far from South America. The Danish cartographer and traveler Browver Hendrick, after analyzing the data of the expedition, came to the conclusion that the open island could not be located near South America, and decided to consider it not as part of the South American continent, but as a separate island, having named it after one of provinces of their country - Zealand ("Zeeland").
Gradually the word “New” was added to “Zealand” so that there would be no confusion in the atlases and reference books, and since then the name of the island has not changed. But few people know that New Zealand is named after a small province on the other side of the world, which is Old Zealand.
For more than a hundred years after Abel Tasman's expedition, the newly discovered island was not visited by a single European, until in 1769 James Cook sailed along its entire coastline, for the first time mapping more or less regular outlines of the island.