Christian Flor

Born in Copenhagen to Norwegian parents in 1792, Christian Flor studied theology, became a parish priest in 1822, and earned a doctorate in 1825. Soon after, he became a lecturer in Danish at the University of Kiel, where he began the work that made him historically significant.

From Kiel, he helped build the Danish national movement in North Schleswig together with Christian Paulsen. He was involved in publishing Danish newspapers including Dannevirke and Aabenraa Ugeblad, and he supported leading public figures such as Laurids Skau and Peter Hiort Lorenzen during the period of growing national debate in the 1830s and 1840s.

Flor also took part in politics as a member of the Danish Constituent Assembly and later the Rigsråd. In his later years, he devoted much of his energy to Rødding Højskole and to the continuation of that educational tradition at Askov after 1864. He died in 1875, remembered as both a national activist and an important early advocate of folk education.