Growing up in Copenhagen

pp. 1-16

in: Jörgen Pind, Edgar Rubin and psychology in Denmark, Berlin, Springer, 2014

Abstract

Edgar Rubin was born in Copenhagen in 1886 to Jewish parents. Rubin's grandfather, David, had come to Copenhagen in 1833 as a private tutor to the head rabbi of Copenhagen. In 1833, Denmark was beginning to gain some prosperity after the disasters of the Napoleonic wars, and the Danish "Golden Age" of Kierkegaard, H. C. Andersen, and others was just a decade away. Edgar Rubin's parents belonged to the group of reformed Jews which were to play a significant part in Danish intellectual and financial life at the turn of the twentieth century. This chapter deals with Edgar Rubin's primary and secondary education in Copenhagen as preparation for university studies. Finally, a brief history of the University of Copenhagen up to the end of the nineteenth century is provided.