Norway — 1) State boundaries; 2) ecclesiastical boundary; 3) railways.
| Regions (and Provinces or Fylder) | Area in sq. km. | Census population | Density per sq. km. |
| Northern Norway (Finnmark, Troms, Nordland, Nord-Trøndelag) | 134,954 | 494,163 | 3.6 |
| Central Norway (Sør-Trøndelag, Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Østlandet, Hedmark) | 105,670 | 797,879 | 7.5 |
| Southern Norway (Bergen, Hordaland, Rogaland, Vest-Agder, Aust-Agder, Telemark, Vestfold, Buskerud, Østfold, Akershus, Oslo) | 81,299 | 1,865,215 | 22.9 |
| Total (including inland waters) | 324,132 | 3,157,257 | 9.7 |
German missionaries. Under the reign of Olaf the Quiet, the bishoprics of Bergen, Oslo, and Nidaros (Trondheim) were established in the 11th century, remaining under the jurisdiction of Hamburg-Bremen until 1104, when they passed to the newly erected archdiocese of Lund. In 1152 the Holy See sent Cardinal Breakspear, the future Pope Adrian IV, as apostolic legate to Norway, who proceeded to establish the archbishopric of Nidaros with ten suffragan dioceses: Bergen, Stavanger, Oslo, Hamar, the Faroe Islands, Gardar in Greenland, Hólar and Skálholt in Iceland, the Orkney Islands, and the Isle of Man. The Church grew in importance in the life of the country.
From the 14th century onward, Norway’s history became closely intertwined, due to succession disputes, with that of Sweden and Denmark. The Kalmar Union of 1397 outwardly united the three Scandinavian states: the kings of Denmark were thereafter also kings of Norway. After the abdication of Christian II (1523), ties between Denmark and Norway were severed, and for a time it seemed that Norway would no longer be subject to Danish rule. The political energy of Frederick I and Christian III, however, reasserted Danish sovereignty over the country. Meanwhile, the Protestant Reformation had begun to spread in Norway. The first to preach the new faith there was a German monk named Antonius, who in 1528 made the first converts in Bergen. The spread of Lutheranism was opposed by the archbishop of Nidaros, Olaf Engelbrektsson, but the accession of Christian III, who in 1536 introduced the Reformation in Denmark and reasserted his rule over Norway by force of arms, forced the metropolitan to flee to Holland, where he died in 1538. The Catholic Church thus fell entirely under the control of the victor. Christian III expelled the bishops and confiscated ecclesiastical property. The Danish Church Ordinance of 1537 was enforced in Norway as well. Lutheranism was proclaimed the state religion. Danish liturgical texts — the Christian III Bible in Christiern Pedersen’s translation (v.), the Danish version of Luther’s Catechism, etc. — were introduced into the country. Only in 1607, under the reign of Christian IV, did Norway receive its own church ordinance, which, though essentially a revision of the Danish ordinance of 1537, took account of the country’s particular conditions.
The political rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, each seeking to assert dominance over the Baltic Sea and the straits leading to it, had repercussions in Norway, whose army participated in campaigns against Sweden. Norway, however, retained its territorial integrity and remained united with Denmark until the early 19th century. Religiously, Norway followed a course similar to that of Denmark after the Reformation. In Norway, as in Denmark, there was a struggle between the so-called crypto-Calvinists and the orthodox, who prevailed by the mid-17th century. In the 18th century, Pietism spread in the country, coming from Denmark and Germany. Economic difficulties, a direct consequence of the British naval blockade of European coasts during the Napoleonic era, contributed to the national awakening that had been growing stronger toward the end of the 18th century. Norway, suddenly isolated and threatened in the east by Sweden, an ally of England, and reduced to dire straits by the interception of its supplies by the British fleet, was compelled in 1807 to establish a government commission that negotiated a modus vivendi with England.
Sweden, after the deposition of King Gustav IV, allied itself with Russia and the anti-Napoleonic coalition powers and declared war on Denmark, forcing it, in the Peace of Kiel (1814), to cede all rights to Norway in Sweden’s favor. The Norwegians initially refused to recognize this transfer of their country. Convening in a constitutional assembly at Eidsvoll, they drafted a constitution that proclaimed Norway a hereditary monarchy with a parliamentary system. They later reached an agreement with Sweden. From 1814 to 1905, Norway was united with Sweden in a union that guaranteed it full autonomy and independence based on the fundamental law of Eidsvoll, though with the king of Sweden as head of state (a personal union). The union was dissolved in 1905 after negotiations between the two states, and following a popular referendum favoring a monarchical form of government, Prince Carl of Denmark was proclaimed king as Haakon VII.
During World War I, Norway managed to preserve its neutrality. This was not the case in World War II: in April 1940, it was attacked by Germany. After fierce resistance, the sovereign was forced to seek refuge in England, and Germany installed a collaborationist government in Norway headed by Vidkun Quisling. After the war, Haakon VII returned to his country. In 1949, Norway was one of the signatory states of the North Atlantic Treaty.
*Apostolic Vicariate and Prefectures.* — On 23 September 1793, the apostolic vicariate of Sweden was erected, which also included Norway. On 7 August 1868, Norway was established as a mission *sui iuris*, elevated on 17 August 1868 to an apostolic prefecture, and on 11 March 1892 to an apostolic vicariate.
On 19 June 1913, the islands of Spitzbergen (or Svalbard) were annexed to the vicariate, which then took the name of the Apostolic Vicariate of Norway and Spitzbergen. By decree of 15 December 1925, it reverted to its former name. In 1931, the northern and central territories were detached to form the District of Central Norway (7 April 1931) and the District of Northern Norway (8 April 1931). The Apostolic Vicariate of Norway was Oslo (v.). The two apostolic districts became apostolic prefectures on 10 March 1944.
The Apostolic Prefecture of Central Norway, entrusted to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, has an area of 56,234 sq. km. and a population of 500,000, of whom 235 are Catholic. There are 5 priests, 49 sisters, 1 elementary school with 6 pupils, 4 chapels; the ordinary resides in Trondheim.
The Apostolic Prefecture of Northern Norway, entrusted to the Missionaries of the Holy Family, has an area of 176,760 sq. km. and a population of 360,000. Catholics number 226, with 8 priests and 27 sisters. There are 4 churches, 1 elementary school with 72 pupils, and 3 hospitals with 125 beds.
### III. LITERATURE
It is difficult to separate Norwegian literature from Icelandic literature at its very beginning, so much so that the comprehensive term “Norse literature” has been coined. Mythological and heroic material common to the entire Scandinavian world—and in part also to the Germanic one—is found in the songs of the Edda, and the Icelandic skalder were famous throughout the North; they soon replaced local skalder even in Norwegian courts. Even in the sagas in prose, which are so characteristic of Iceland, frequent echoes and memories of the Norwegian world recur, and it was an Icelander, Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241), who composed the first history of the kings of Norway, narrated in saga form from mythical origins to 1177 (*Heimskringla*). Also Icelandic was Karl Jonsson, author of the *Sverres Saga*.
With the conversion to Christianity and the introduction of writing, the prerequisites for a national literature seemed to be formed; yet during the Middle Ages, Norway—politically and economically in decline—produced nothing of note. When, around the sixteenth century, a revival also occurred in the cultural sphere, there was practically no longer a Norwegian language as such, only dialects, and the literary language was that of the conquering country, Denmark. For another two centuries, individual Norwegian authors would thus appear within the framework of Danish literature.
Of the scant medieval literature in Latin—more than a few historical works, collections of laws, and sermons—it is worth recalling some fine religious hymns, including the sequence in honor of St. Olaf, *Lux illuxit laeta-bunda*, still sung in Norwegian Catholic churches. The numerous *Folkveiser*, handed down orally for generations, are probably no more than a local reworking of Danish *Folkveiser*; of native Norwegian origin, perhaps, are the so-called *Trollveiser*, with their more fantastic inspiration. Numerous translations and adaptations of medieval European chivalric poems circulated in Norway: more interesting is a *Kongespellet* (*Mirror of Kings*) from 1260 and a *Draumkvædet* (*Vision*), of apocalyptic tone, composed around 1300. Norway had little to contribute, either politically or literarily, during the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. A slow awakening of letters and national consciousness was due to Humanism, but the Reformation soon followed, welcomed everywhere without opposition and without any need felt for a national translation of the Bible.
Among the works produced by humanists are *Om Norges Rige* (*On the Kingdom of Norway*) by Absalon Pedersson Beyer (1528–75), also known for his *Diary*, and *Norges Beskrivelse* (*Description of Norway*) by the Protestant pastor Peder Clausson Friis (1545–1614), translator of Snorri’s sagas of the Norwegian kings, which entered the national heritage. Greater diffusion outside Norway, because written in classical Latin, was enjoyed by *Chronicum regum Norvegiae* by Hallvard Gunnarsön (1545–1608). The Protestant pastor Peter Dass (1647–1707) achieved great popularity with his poetic work *Nordlands Trompet* (*Trumpet of the North*), in which the nature and inhabitants of northern Norway are described for the first time. Dorothea Engelbretsdatter (d. 1716) wrote Baroque and sentimental psalms.
If the lyric poetry of Peter Christopher Stensön (1723–76) and Christian Baumann Tullin (1728–65) may be considered Norwegian, the work of the playwright L. Holberg (1684–1754)—a Norwegian by birth—belongs to Danish literature, as do the writers of the so-called “Norwegian Society,” founded in Copenhagen in 1772 by Norwegian students (Norway did not have its own university until 1811) with vague literary and nationalist aims. Rather than to Germany, from which the first Romantic voices arrived, these young men looked to France for their literary models: epigones of French classicism, albeit in a vaguely preromantic atmosphere, are considered J. Nordal Brun and Niels Krogh Bredal, authors among other things of tragedies in that classicistic style so well parodied by J. H. Wessel (1724–85) in *Kærlighed uden Stromper* (“Love without Stockings”). Of the others belonging to the group, it will suffice to mention Claus Fasting, Jens Zetlitz, and E. Storm.
Norway was the last of the Scandinavian countries to accept, not without reservations, the new Romantic creed, brought to the North by the Norwegian H. Steffens (1773–1845). The Romantic concept of “nation,” however, contributed to the national revival: not a few members of the “Norwegian Society” would take an active part in the proclamation of independence in 1814.
Amid political struggles and new national problems, two currents also formed in the literary field: that of the “intellectuals,” culturally linked to Denmark and, through it, to Germany and Europe, and that of the “patriots,” interested only in what was Norwegian, as shown by the short stories of Mauritz Hansen and the works in Norwegian dialect by H. Anker Bierregaard. The truest representative of the new Norwegian world in formation is H. Wergeland (1808–45). A brilliant and vital temperament, gifted with great powers of persuasion and real poetic talent but incapable of formal rigor and self-criticism, he enthusiastically embraced the contemporary nationalist movements in Europe, yet what truly interested him was Norway and its people. Of his output, now largely outdated, more than the cosmic drama *Skabelsen, Mennesket og Mesias* (*Creation, Man, and the Messiah*) of 1830—where the figure of Christ is presented in the light of the new political and social ideas that would lead in France to the July Revolution—it is worth recalling the two poetry collections *Første Ring* and *Anden Ring* (“First Ring,” “Second Ring”).
Opposite in temperament was the other representative of Romanticism, J. S. Welhaven (1807–73), who, in violent polemic with Wergeland, contributed greatly to the development of literary life in Norway. For him, severing ties with Denmark and Germany meant the end of Norway. Although he indulged in the Romantic nationalism of the day, his sense of measure kept him ever opposed to any rhetorical exaggeration regarding the documents of the national past, the study of which he nonetheless urged upon young people. Yet Welhaven is chiefly valued as a lyric poet, as shown by the four poetry collections published between 1839 and 1860.
The greater political stability that followed 1840 helped to soften the harshness of literary controversies; even ancient documents were now studied with genuine scholarly interest. Thus arose the collections of national folktales and legends by Asbjørnsen and Moe (*Norske Folkeeventyr; Folkesang*), while the *Folkeviser*, still transmitted orally in the countryside, were transcribed and published by Landstad and Bygge. The desire for a national language and the growing interest in dialects led to the opposition between the “Riksmaal,” which, despite efforts to differentiate itself, remained very close to Danish, and the “Landsmaal,” artificially created as a literary language but scientifically grounded in the oldest dialectal traditions of the country. The creator and codifier of the new language was Ivar Aasen (1813–96), author of the *Norske Folkesprogskrammatik* (“Grammar of the Norwegian Folk Language,” 1848) and the *Ordbog over det norske Folkesprog* (“Dictionary of the Norwegian Folk Language,” 1850), as well as poetry in “Landsmaal.” Despite the contributions of O. Vinje (1818–70), the “Landsmaal” struggled to establish itself as a literary language and never fully replaced the “Riksmaal.” While Vinje’s *Ferdaminni paa Sumaren* (“Travel Memories of the Summer”) already foreshadowed naturalism, a conventional romanticism persisted in the dramas of A. Munch (1811–84), who also wrote fine lyrics, and in the works of J. Moe (1813–82), the collector of folk legends.
He addressed exclusively the political and social problems of his time. Hailing from the upper bourgeoisie, his wealth provoked in him a near sense of guilt that led him, at least in his literary works, into the democratic camp, which he soon abandoned in disappointment. Gifted with a refined sense of form, he did not neglect to refine his style through contact with French naturalism, though he used literature as a means of struggle. Evidence of this can be seen in his two best novels, *Garnam og Worse* (1880) and *Skipper Worse* (*The Skipper Worse*, 1882).
More significant than Elster, who continued in Norway the work of Jacobsen, and than Amalie Skram, who also focused on the problems of women and marriage, is Arne Garborg (1851–1924). A mystic and intellectual at once, raised in a strict pietist environment and thus hostile to Brandes and Bjørnson, in his youth he could not resist the influence of European naturalism before later turning to symbolism and a vague aesthetic religiosity. His opposition to naturalism is also evident in his lyric poetry.
Heir to the now-established Norwegian narrative tradition, though he began his literary career by protesting against the “Four Greats” (Ibsen, Bjørnson, Lie, Kielland) in favor of younger writers, was Knut Hamsun (b. 1859). An admirer of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche and bound by a near-physical love for his native land, after a brief sojourn in America he combined in his protest industrialization, laziness, socialism, pacifism, feminism, and internationalism, which he contrasted with an unbridled individualism on one side and the most ancient values of the land and ancestors on the other, viewed through the lens of romantic nationalism. His novels achieved great success throughout Europe; his utopian *Markens Grøde* (*Growth of the Soil*, 1917) earned him the Nobel Prize.
United with Hamsun in protest against the leveling of modern life but far removed from him in his conclusions was Hans E. Kinck (1868–1926), a fine writer and astute investigator of the soul of his people. In his wake, or rather in Hamsun’s, many novels of what might be called “stubbornly rural” type have appeared in recent years in Norway: worthy of his European fame is *Den sidste Viking* (*The Last Viking*, 1899) by Johan Bojer (1872), which depicts the harsh life of the fishermen of the Lofoten Islands.
The deeply Christian Norwegian Middle Ages, though largely rooted in pagan tradition, live again in the grand historical novel *Kristin Lavransdatter* (*Kristin, Daughter of Lavrans*, 1920–22) by Sigrid Undset (q.v.; 1882–1949), the first Norwegian woman writer and the first Catholic Scandinavian to receive the Nobel Prize.
A very different milieu is evoked by the social novels of the proletarian writers Johan Falkberget (1879) and Kristofer Uppdal (1878), while Olaf Duun (1876) attempted in *Juvikfolket* (*The People of Juvik*, 6 vols., 1918–23) to create a powerful saga-like epic spanning from prehistoric times to the present day.
The spiritual and economic malaise of the postwar period is reflected in both the narrative and dramatic works of Helge Krog and Sigurd Hoel (1890), who, as radicals, participated in the struggles of those years and soon found their revolutionary enthusiasm tragically dashed. A similar experience is reflected in the poetry of Arnold Øverland (1889), who expressed in a classically restrained form his prophetic anguish over what loomed over the world. More direct was the revolutionary polemic of Rudolf Nilsen (1901–29).
Lyric poetry, on the whole, remained inferior to narrative fiction, despite the excellence of some poets, not least Ibsen and Bjørnson. Nothing essentially new is found in the sentimental poetry of Nils Collett Vogt (1887), inspired by Wergeland, while more inspired are the symbolist poems of Sigbjørn Obstfelder (1866–1900), expressing the hypersensitive temperament of a poet overwhelmed by a sense of anguish before the mysteries of the universe (of him should also be noted the novels *Korset* [*The Cross*] and *En Præst og Hans Døgn* [*A Priest and His Day*]). At the beginning of the century, the influence of the great Scandinavian lyric poets—Drachmann, Jacobsen, Fröding, and Heidenstam—was considerable; direct was the influence of Danish poets on Herman Wildenvey (1885). The greatest of the modern Norwegian poets is undoubtedly Olaf Bull (1883–1933). Among poets writing in “Landsmaal,” the greatest is Olaf Ankrust (1883–1929).
Turning back to the novel, around 1930 the echo of the world crisis also made itself felt in Norwegian literature: social concerns, psychoanalysis, American fiction, and journalistic style were the experiences of novelists such as Nils Johan Rud, Aksel Sandemose (1890), Arthur Omre, Johan Borgen, and Gunnar Larsen. Less modern in this sense but interesting for their psychological analyses and a near-religious sense of guilt are the novels of Sigurd Christiansen; the long path toward women’s definitive emancipation is again charted by Cora Sandel in her cycle of novels about Alberta.
Among the novelists most directly engaged in social struggle and, later, in the fight against the German invaders, the most prominent is Nordahl Grieg (1902–43), who tragically fell over Berlin before his great love for his country and his communist beliefs could have caused any conflict within him.
IV. ART
From prehistoric ages (since the Stone Age) Norway preserves numerous artistic testimonies in the form of engravings and cave paintings with exceptionally vivid animal representations. In historical times, bronze and iron were introduced early, probably in the pre-Roman period. During the Migration Period (400–800 A.D.) and the Viking Age (800–1050), the type of civilization and art is more clearly manifested through the objects found in the ships of Viking chieftains.
Particular importance attaches to the *stavckirkker* (whose origin is traced to the architectural type of those in the British Isles, from which Christianity was imported by Olaf Tryggvesson, who became king and introduced it by law in the 10th century). Of the wooden churches, which are said to have numbered 322 in the Middle Ages, 24 examples were preserved in 1893; many of them had been abandoned after the introduction of the Lutheran Reformation in 1537. One of these is preserved in the Industrial Museum at Bygdö, near Oslo. Among those still standing in their original locations are: the church at Urnes, founded in 1100; the three-aisled church at Borgund, founded in 1150; and the church at Torse (Hallingdal), founded in 1200, which is richly decorated with paintings. The tradition of wooden churches continued even after stone churches began to appear.
The stone churches are in a heavy but characteristic style: the church of St Mary in Bergen and the most important church in the North, St Olaf’s in Trondjem, which for centuries was the church where Norwegian kings were crowned, now almost in ruins. As for civil architecture, the palaces of the nobles, fortifications, and simple dwellings were likewise built of wood; the first royal palace in stone, at Bergen, was built by King Haakon Haakonsson in the 13th century.