Norwegian Sketches; 13

And. We invite you to join up for Norwegians get a. Programme of music and commentary produced from materials provided by the Wheaton Broadcasting Corporation. Featured on today's program as a commentary on The Life and Letters of just going to be on set. But first music by leaf G or Vaughan variations on a renaissance. The Norwegian broadcasting Orchestra conducted by live in Baghdad. Why.

Eh eh.

Eh eh. Eh eh. Eh eh. Eh eh. Eh eh. To go. To Glory. The Norwegian broadcasting orchestra performing variations on a renaissance theme by Leif JI or them or even Bellow was the conductor. Continuing with this programme of Norwegian Skechers DAW Gunderson a lecturer at the University of Oslo talks about the writer Young's journey beyond him. I shall fight for my land I shall dark for my land. These are

the opening lines in one of beyond Shaun's best known page Arctic songs they contain a pledge and a program that goes beyond John's own. Throughout his entire life but in this song he goes on to speak. We rather than I we have Sam shine enough. We have soil is rich enough. If bad we have an air of love to give to this land there is the urge to create to improve our estate. We are bound to succeed if together we stand. Fictions we give to the land where we live. To its present its future and past we are bound and our love it will grow in its soil here below and from love will spring love like a seed in the ground. This is our Song of Norway. But no description of the country except in general terms it tells rather more about the man who wrote it. Your enjoyment was above all an

active and creative man in his poetry and fiction. There is life there now people and animals. Nature itself is alive. There is song and love as a page. He isn't content to admire it what we have. He wants to be able to improve seeing a man's lifetime as he is working day and linking the present together with the past and the future as steps in a steady development. Beyond often emphasized the need for united action as he does in this song from 1868 Norway at that time was the weaker partner in a union with Sweden and he felt that by political bickering among ourselves we have are missing our chances to gain equality within the union. At this point let's take a closer look at the Norwegian Sea and beyond Sean's own

background in 1814 Norway got tired of our 400 years union with Denmark a constitution was drawn up it was passed on the 17th of May later to be celebrated as I were Independents Day and in a wave of national enthusiasm nor by it was proclaimed as sovereign state. Only a few months later we were forced into a new union. This time with Sweden it was no mean a union of two equal partners but Norway it was in many ways made dependent upon Swedish leadership. This never stopped Langley ing in page our big minds of our nation. It kept cropping up as an issue in the political and also the cultural debate and in the end it led to a complete break of the Union in 1005 it was impossible at least for enlightened people not to take sides one way or another

and the union was to play a most important part in beyond Shaun's public and literary activities. It forced him into politics and it brought political questions and events into his books and poems. The author and the politician could not be kept separate for long. When B and Sean entered the literary scene of Norway he was a young man in his early 20s. He was born in 1832 and lived his boyhood in various places in the country where his father was a minister of the Lutheran state church run of his earliest boyhood memories. Was that always father throwing out a local bully who hearing that the new minister was a strong man came into his home to fight him. The bunch on family it was all country stock through a long line of free holding farmers. They held themselves related to the ancient fair haired

line of Norse kings. Your own child was very proud of this. It was one of the things that made him feel and natural leader. Liar them the minister's oldest son wasn't to be found in the hold time ship. He was also a good reader and the farmers liked listening to what he read. If it was to their liking he would invent more of the same. As much as he thought they would like mostly it was about strong man and love that killed the minister's son was beyond shown himself. And this passage from one of his short stories is a glimpse of the author's early life among the farmers When beyond John had passed his university entrance examination. He felt that he was through with study. From now on he would be a writer. He had gone to live in all slow then called Christiania and he soon became known to the public as a newspaper correspondent as the editor of an illustrated magazine

and as the self-appointed leader of those who wanted Norwegian actors in the theater which up to them had followed Danish tradition and still had many Danish actors. The Christiania theatre feud was the first in a long series of heated debates and bitter disagreements that sprang up from time to time. So the most obvious life but this time he won. And for seven years he barked actively in the theaters all bag and also as manager instructor and playwright. This was much the same career as Hendrick Gipson had both of them got that thorough knowledge of the stage its possibilities and limitations and they made good use of all this knowledge in their dramatic works published his first book in 1857. That title was soon I was sold bokken or so and here it is the best known of all his country

tapes and has been translated into many languages. About the same time he published his first play called Between the battles. It is mainly with our family conflict and has a turbulent period. Norway's old history as its background. From our home for 15 years you and Sean used what has been termed his crop rotation method alternately publishing country tales and historical plays the plays are generally on the tragic side with unhappy endings. The country tales have serious even tragic passages but they all end happily. John had always believed that the characters all the old Norse Sawgrass still existed among the peasants always on time. So society had changed through centuries old Danish influence. But the country people who had lived all unchanged speaking their own language and carrying the old

traditions. As a writer he found that he had a double task to elevate our history through its greatest and most characteristically Norwegian men and to draw pictures of our daily life. Later on in life he said I began. Within there during all this saga and the farmer letting the wall illustrate the other which at that time was new. With a special background beyond Sean Bell's eminently equipped to portray farmers and rural life is country tales are still classics in Scandinavia though influenced by the literary trend all the time the so-called national romanticism. Young Sean it was one of the first who didn't try to glorify the farmer and his life but showed him realistically he put in glee fights poverty and drinking and thereby shocked and embittered many readers. But he did so with a purpose. He

wanted to show that man can rise above those sordid surroundings that he has the power to go from ignorance and squalor to knowledge and culture. And that is why our lives can be tempered by Genet all city and compassion and excellent example I'll be on John's way of presenting his ideas is a very short story called The father which tells how a man through personal tragedy wins a great model story. Into his novels Sean put many obvious poems on songs before they were presented as songs. And today they are in all our song books in 1859 when he wrote the one beginning yes we love this land you first thought of including it in the country tales are now which are about them writing but he soon found that this song was too powerful to fit into something else when it was finished.

After several changes it was indeed a monument of Norway the land the people and its history its cousin the drug route the melody. Little knowing that he was setting to you and to the national anthem. It was an occasion our great happiness to be on Sean when in 1864. The song was first used in the 17th of May celebration. He valued our Independence Day most highly in 1870 he organized the first trailed NC 17 Zalmay processions that even today form an especially festive part of the celebration. Early in the 1870s bureau and Shawn finished writing country tales and historical plays he now turned to realism and chose his subjects from the society in which he was now living. And from the ideas that held his interest in a play from 1875

bankruptcy he takes his subject from business life at the time. This was a new and rather surprising subject to the public. He shows how dishonest business methods lead a man into a spiral of increasing dishonesty and fraud but also how this man is able to train and to build a new life for himself and his family. In a glob from 1883 he attacks the dubious most reality that brands a woman with their so-called past but tolerates it in a man beyond Sean demands an equally high moral stand that in both sexes before and in marriage with this play he made enemies both in conservative society where he was found far too outspoken and in the radical Bohemia of Christiania where his standards were found much too rigid in beyond human power. The first part from 1883 attacks their religious

belief in miracles. In the second part from 1895 the conflict is between an industrialist of the Nietzsche and master type and a socialist fanatic. Young John shows that neither of them can win. Most of the time it was absorbed in an idea but the idea itself changed from the time he would live with it and show it in his work. Then he would be led on to something else either by advents or by his own temperament. Sometimes these changes are interest implied by complete reversal of his former opinions. He's really just development is a case in point. He grew up as a regular state church member for years. He took a warm interest in the optimistic and earthy religious trend that had originated in the Danish Bishop grew intrigues ideas and was centered in the so-called People's

colleges which were independent high schools for gifted country youth. But in time he found the ceiling too low. As he said after a long and painful period he came out an agnostic and remained so for the last 30 years always life. We're not keeping any new found insight to himself beyond Sean would try to convert other people as well. Time and again this added You would last him many of his best friends and won him new ones. He always had bitter enemies. This often caused him pain but he never doubted either his right to do what he felt he had to or that it was right to think new thoughts run of his problems begins. The poet does the Prophet's deeds when things got too rough at home. Young children would go to live abroad in Germany Italy and France sometimes for long periods. He could still

keep in touch with Norwegian affairs. He could write just as well abroad and as long as he had his family around him he was at home anywhere. He once compared himself to us nailed carrying his home with him. Red amber he travels. Abroad he could find the peace and the admiration that was often denied him at home. The great newspapers and magazines of Europe and the United States were open to him abroad. He could keep abreast of the developments in the arts and sciences. And there he was eagerly sought as a speaker going on lecture tours gave him a double opportunity. He could present his ideas and improve his economy which was often in a mess. In 1980 he was invited to the United States for several months. He was to stay in Cambridge Massachusetts to read and rock them

to go on a lecture tour of the Midwest. He looked forward to gathering a lot of new information on this trip as soon as he arrived. He began studying American institutions and I great variety of subjects. Universities Plaisance hospitals working conditions machine technology. He even took part in the presidential campaign as a Republican speaker. John had been interested in America for many years. He had formed some opinions about it in his play. The new system published in 1879 shortly before his research to the United States one of the characters is described as an American and it is said of him he doesn't believe you know authorities. That's American I know. After his trip the fresh knowledge appears in his books especially in the novel flags are flying in town and harbor from 1884. Here at the

American educational system is praised for modern methods for giving women equal opportunity beyond Sean's lecture tour in America was a financial success at $100 a meeting but not altogether a personal one. Rumors that he was an agnostic had gone before him in the Midwest so that he had the church against him when he arrived. He also got tired of the exhausting schedule and to numerous receptions. The Winter away team 81 was a particularly rough one and for the whole week he was snowed in at North Springs Iowa. But people came to his lectures processor's asked must be Anderson. Always comes in. Considered him to be one of the greatest if not League greatest orator that Norway has ever had one of his subjects was called the Norwegians. Swedes and Danes having listened to beyond Sean Professor Anderson said that all regions in his audience thank

God that they were Norwegians the Swedes were delighted to know they were from Sweden and the Danes would rather be Danes than anything else in the world. Though beyond Sean it was a man of changing interests. Some central ideas remained with him. He believed in evolution. He also believed in world peace and that conflicts should be settled without war. One of his finest poems is entitled father wounded. It begins as still a procession goes I made the battles booming its arm the Red Cross shows it praise in many forms of speech and bending over the fall brings peace and home to each. This poem ends with a prayer that love and loving deeds may conquer strife and passion. Sean was always ready to help particularly those who couldn't help themselves.

The unfortunate the victims whether individuals or groups he hated injustice and would go to any lengths to denounce those he thought were behind it. Time and again he took up the law cases of people he felt had been unjustly sentenced and he got Samara a lot of them commuted or pardoned. He spoke up for nations or groups that he felt were being unfairly treated by other countries for the Icelanders against Denmark for the day insults last week who were on the Germany father pose against Russia and father Athenians against Poland in cases of this nature Bianchi and came to be looked upon as I Courts of Appeal always own the Slovak people who were being harshly treated by the Hungarians. I appealed to him to be their spokesman and he argued their case in the European press. He had by now one verdict fame as an author a journalist and a

speaker. In his later years he had the attention of world opinion as hardly anyone else. For a lifetime of literary activity beyond Shawn in 1930 it was I wanted the Nobel Prize in Literature. He went on writing to the end when he died in Paris in 1910. He was planning a poem but had only completed the title. It was the good deeds save the art yarn Shawn was himself a man of good deeds and good will. He was a writer first and foremost but he approached life about literature dog Gunderson lecturer at the University of Oslo talking about the Norwegian writer youngster Jani Bianca. Which concludes this programme of Norwegian sketches. This programme was prepared at the University of Michigan by Marion woods a. Likable supervision by

Robert Byrd. This is Fred finally join us again next look at the. Bigger. The. Bigger. This is an easy arm of the national educational radio.