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Seven things you need to know about Norway’s national poet
Henrik
Wergeland
,
who is commemorated on the country’s national day – 17 May
1
Henrik Wergeland was born on 17
June 1808 in Kristiansand, Norway,
into a celebrated family: his father Nicolai
was a pastor, writer and politician; his
sister Camilla Collett is seen as Norway’s
first feminist writer, while younger brother
Joseph was an advocate of military skiing.
2
In 1829, Wergeland graduated from
the Royal Frederick University,
published his first volume of poems and
was involved in the “Battle of the Square”
in Christiania (Oslo today) on 17 May,
when troops clashed with demonstrators
celebrating Norway’s banned national day.
3
Wergeland’s politics and lyrical style
had their opponents. In 1838, a riot
broke out when officials tried to disrupt a
performance of his play
Campbellerne
(
The
Campbells
)
in Christiania.
4
Oslo’s Jewish community traditionally
celebrates Wergeland on 17 May due
to his campaign to remove a paragraph
from the 1814 constitution that banned
Jews from the kingdom.
5
In 1839, he married the 19-year-old
daughter of an innkeeper, Amalie Sofie
Bekkevold, the inspiration for a book of
Wergeland’s love poems. He later found
work as the head of the national archive.
6
Wergeland continued writing poetry
until his death of tuberculosis on
12
July 1845. Students carried his coffin
to Our Saviour’s Cemetery, Oslo, and
thousands attended the funeral. In 1848 his
grave was moved to its current spot.
7
On the 100th anniversary of
Wergeland’s birth, identical statues of
him by Norwegian artist Gustav Vigeland
were unveiled in Kristiansand and Fargo,
North Dakota, where local Norwegian
émigrés to the USA paid for the memorial.
Henrik
Wergeland
This statue of Wergeland near Oslo’s
Nationaltheatret was unveiled
on 17 May 1881 and dedicated by
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, who wrote the
lyrics of Norway’s national anthem
17
June 1808
12
July 1845
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