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The home pages for the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.nordic

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Martin Hazelgrove wrote:

> What is it that Norwegians are really celebrating on National Day?

> Is it independance from the Danish empire? No! it's just an excuse
> for a jolly good piss up... and I wish I could have been in Oslo today
> to join them.

From: Hans C Hoff
Subject: Re: Norwegian National Day
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Date: Sat, 18 May 1996 12:39:56 +0200

1. Norway's liberation - an introduction

At the Kiel settlement in dec. 1813 the Danes ceded Norway to Sweden. This was the price for Bernadotte's (then the Crown Prince of Sweden) participation in the Napoleonic wars (particularly the Leipzig battle).

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Eidsvold's iron works

However, the Swedes attacked, and Norway was forced to surrender. The peace negotiations (at Moss) had as its main result a personal union between the two countries, with the Swedish king as sovereign. The two countries should also have a common foreign policy and diplomatic service. The constitution was altered accordingly.

This union was dissolved in 1905, when Norway on June 7th declared itself independent of Sweden.

HCH

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From: Stein J. Rypern 
Subject: Norwegian history 1814 (May 17th) (Was: Important dates)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 15:34:04 LOCAL

2. 1814 in Norway - A summary

Jan 14

The peace treaty of Kiel
Denmark-Norway was on the losing (french) side. Sweden was on the winning side. Sweden had lost Finland to Russia (also on the winning side) in 1809.

Denmark was ordered to give Norway to Sweden (in exchange for Rügen and the remaining Swedish territories in Vorpommern).

Jan 24

the regent of Norway, danish prince Kristian Fredrik, is ordered to prepare the surrender of Norway to the Swedes and to return to Denmark

He was rather unwilling to do so, and started preparing for declaring Norway independent with himself as king.

Feb

After consulations with a number of leading citizens, he became convinced that he couldn't just proclaim himself as sovereign. It was decided to convene a constitutional assembly at Eidsvoll on April 10th.

Apr 10

The constitutional assembly convened at Eidsvoll. 112 men of means. About half government employees, 40 or so farmers, and the rest mostly merchants or owners of sawmills or iron foundries. The electoral rules ensured that only men of means were elected. No representatives for northern Norway was able to get to the constitutional assembly, due to the poor communications.

There were 12 proposals for a new constitution, of which the most important one was authored by Johan Gunder Adler and Christian Magnus Falsen.

The main principles in the constitution were the same as in the US and french constitution - a division of power between an elected parliament who would give the laws and decide on the taxes, an executive (the king in our case) and the courts, which were to be independent of the legislative and executive branches.

Freedom of press and freedom of religion were established in principle, albeit with a very ugly exception: it was forbidden for "jews and jesuits" to enter the kingdom.

This paragraph was one the great poet Henrik Wergeland (who was born in 1808, his father was the priest at Eidsvoll) fought against all his life. Wergeland died in 1845, but the paragraph was not repealed until 1851.

Anyway, the assembly agreed upon the constitution fairly quickly, as the swedish-friendly party of Wedel Jarlsberg only had about 30 of the 122 members.

May 17

A copy of the agreed upon constitution was signed by all members of the assembly. The same day the election for king was decided and prince Kristian Fredrik was unanimously elected king of Norway.

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May 19

Christian Fredrik accepted the election as king of Norway. (Surprise, surprise :-)

May 20

The constitutional assembly took the oath: "united and faithfull until the Dovre mountains crumble". The crumbling of said mountains is rather unlikely to happen in the near future  :-)

Jun

The major powers (England, Russia, Austria and France ?) sent representatives to Copenhagen and to Norway to investigate whether this "rebellion" was a danish ploy to keep Norway part of Denmark.

An british representative was able to convince King Kristian Fredrik that he would not get any support for an independent Norway, but that the british would support constitutional guarantees for Norway.

Jun 9

The parliament was called in for an extra session to decide the matter of union with Sweden. It was decided to mobilize, partly as a signal to other nations, partly to reassure norwegian public opinion.

Jul 28

War between Sweden and Norway.

The war lasted only for about 2 weeks and both sides behaved in such a manner that the war became known as the "kitten war".

The norwegian army fell back from the area east of River Glomma and the two fortresses in this area - Fredriksten (Halden) and Fredrikstad were soon surrendered.

The norwegian forces won some minor skirmishes in the Kongsvinger area.

Swedish Crown Prince Karl Johan (born Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, a former marshall of Napoleon, and a man who had also tried becoming king of France) then offered very good terms for negotiations.

Aug 14

The treaty of Moss was signed.
The main points in the treaty was that the norwegian parliament would be reconvened no later than october 7th to negotiate with swedish representatives on what changes would have to be made in the constitution.

The swedish king promised to respect the new norwegian constitution apart from the changes neccessiated (sp?) by the change of status from Norway being an independent monarchy to a member of a union with Sweden.

Oct 10

King Kristian Fredrik abdicates and leaves Norway.

Oct 20

The union with Sweden was accepted in principle by the norwegian paliament after hard negotiations, which made sure the Kiel peace treaty was not accepted as the foundation for norwegian membership in the union, thus in principle making it a "voluntary agreement" which could later be cancelled.

This strategy was mainly the work of the president of the norwegian parliament, Wilhelm Frimann Koren Christie.

That is a reason for why his portrait was on all norwegian bank notes printed between 1901 and 1945.

Oct 30

The constitution was amended to allow for union with Sweden.

Nov 4

Swedish king Karl XIII was elected king of Norway too.

1815 onwards

The king never came to Norway in the four years between his election to king of Norway as King Karl II of Norway, and his death in 1818, and he left all matters of state to the crown prince, Karl Johan.

Karl Johan (King Karl XIV Johan of Sweden, King Karl III of Norway) was then king of the united kingdoms of Sweden and Norway until his death in 1844. The main street in Oslo is still named "Karl Johans gate".

In 1821 King Karl Johan suggested major changes in the constitution, but this was refused by the norwegian parliament on May 17th 1824, on the 10th anniversary of the constitution.

People celebrated the anniversary of the constitution. Karl Johan made it clear that he didn't really appreciate this :-) and for some years the celebrations were rather subdued.

But on 17 May 1829 there was an incident in Christiania (the then name of Oslo). It was a beautful spring sunday and a lot of people was out strolling on the quayside, and the coastal boat from the west coast was welcomed to town with greetings and cheering as the custom was.

But on that particular day the name of the boat was perhaps a little inflamatory :-)

It was the "constitution".

Some officials lost their head and ordered the crowd to disperse, having the riot act read out loud three times and then ordered cavalry to disperse the crowds.

This was done without casualties, but people were seriously pissed off by this treatment. Henrik Wergeland wrote a sarcastic play about "the battle of the city square" and questions were raised in parliament.

The parliament severely criticized the commander of the fortress of Akershus and the Swedish viceregent of Norway, the Swedish count Platen.

The effect of this "battle" was that the resistance against the celebration of the day was given up, and that it became politically impossible to appoint a new swedish viceregent in Norway when count Platen died later that year.

The position remained vacant until norwegian count Wedel Jarlsberg was appointed viceregent many years later. Platen was the last swedish viceregent of Norway.

In 1884 parliamentarism was introduced, as Selmer government was impeached by the parliament. This was part of the struggle between King and parliament, and parliament won.

In 1905 the norwegian parliament dissolved the union with Sweden and Norway again became independent.

Smile,

Stein

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