Artur Hazelius 1833–1901 & Sofi Hazelius 1839–1874
Know Yourself! is pregnant with the couple’s longed-for first child, but three weeks after their son Gunnar is born in 1874, she dies of childbed fever.
What a fearless, persistent person he must have been! When Artur Hazelius founds Nordiska Museet together with his wife, Sofi (née Grafström), neither of them has a fortune – they are rich only when it comes to ideas. Artur Hazelius’s father is an army officer and supporter of a movement that emphasises the proud legacy of the Nordic countries. The family lives in Stockholm, but the boy’s education includes travelling around the country to learn about its geography, history, folk art and craft. At university Artur Hazelius studies Nordic languages and falls in love with Sofi Grafström. She has a gift for languages, music and art, and was brought up in an educated home in northern Sweden – her father is a pastor who also writes poetry. The couple marry and Artur Hazelius works as a teacher of Swedish and Swedish literature, writes school textbooks and contributes to the modernisation of Swedish spelling rules. In 1872 they travel to Dalarna, a county associated with Swedish history and cultural heritage. Dalarna gave us beloved folk costumes and folk songs, the Dala horse and the colour Falu red, used for typical Swedish cottages. Now it is obvious that the modernisation of agriculture, industrialisation and emigration to America are depopulating the countryside. It strikes Artur and Sofi Hazelius that everything they see might disappear – houses, furniture, tools, handicraft, songs and traditions – bringing a centuries-old culture to an end. There and then they decide to create an ethnographic museum. Sofi Hazelius collects songs, melodies and children’s rhymes and games from the regions they visit, and they buy the museum’s first object – a homespun wool skirt. Artur and Sofi build the first exhibition together, and on 24 October 1873 the ScandinavianEthnographic Collection opens in central Stockholm. Sofi
6
THE N O R D I C STO RY
Above: Posthumous portrait of Artur Hazelius by Julius Kronberg, a Swedish artist often commissioned by Nordiska Museet and Skansen. Oil on canvas, 1920. Opposite: Sofi Hazelius née Grafström, portrait. Oil on canvas by Per Södermark, 1860s.
Now a single man with a small child and a growing museum, Artur Hazelius continues his collecting using what he calls ‘gatherers’ to rescue treasures from the Nordic countries, especially from Sweden and Norway, which were in union for his whole lifetime. The gatherers, mostly women, decide what to collect, acquire the needed items and take notes on who owned the object and how it was used. They also gather diaries, letters and stories about people, some of which are told in this book. ‘Know yourself’ is Artur Hazelius’s motto – to understand yourself you must know your origins. The premises are soon overloaded, so Hazelius begins planning for a larger museum and becomes known as ‘Sweden’s biggest beggar’. In 1880 he changes the name to Nordiska Museet, the Nordic Museum, and founds a friends’ association that after just one year has 4,000 members, many of whom are influential people with a great ability to donate. A popular lottery and bazaars are organised to raise money for the construction of Nordiska Museet. For one of the collections, his friend Frithiof Holmgren writes the poem that begins with the lines ‘The day may dawn when all our gold is not enough / to shape the image of the bygone era.’ We never know when times will be so grim that all we can think about is survival. But now is the opposite – Hazelius lives in a time when everything is possible,
K N O W YO U R S ELF !
7
Artur Hazelius 1833–1901 & Sofi Hazelius 1839–1874
Know Yourself! is pregnant with the couple’s longed-for first child, but three weeks after their son Gunnar is born in 1874, she dies of childbed fever.
What a fearless, persistent person he must have been! When Artur Hazelius founds Nordiska Museet together with his wife, Sofi (née Grafström), neither of them has a fortune – they are rich only when it comes to ideas. Artur Hazelius’s father is an army officer and supporter of a movement that emphasises the proud legacy of the Nordic countries. The family lives in Stockholm, but the boy’s education includes travelling around the country to learn about its geography, history, folk art and craft. At university Artur Hazelius studies Nordic languages and falls in love with Sofi Grafström. She has a gift for languages, music and art, and was brought up in an educated home in northern Sweden – her father is a pastor who also writes poetry. The couple marry and Artur Hazelius works as a teacher of Swedish and Swedish literature, writes school textbooks and contributes to the modernisation of Swedish spelling rules. In 1872 they travel to Dalarna, a county associated with Swedish history and cultural heritage. Dalarna gave us beloved folk costumes and folk songs, the Dala horse and the colour Falu red, used for typical Swedish cottages. Now it is obvious that the modernisation of agriculture, industrialisation and emigration to America are depopulating the countryside. It strikes Artur and Sofi Hazelius that everything they see might disappear – houses, furniture, tools, handicraft, songs and traditions – bringing a centuries-old culture to an end. There and then they decide to create an ethnographic museum. Sofi Hazelius collects songs, melodies and children’s rhymes and games from the regions they visit, and they buy the museum’s first object – a homespun wool skirt. Artur and Sofi build the first exhibition together, and on 24 October 1873 the ScandinavianEthnographic Collection opens in central Stockholm. Sofi
6
THE N O R D I C STO RY
Above: Posthumous portrait of Artur Hazelius by Julius Kronberg, a Swedish artist often commissioned by Nordiska Museet and Skansen. Oil on canvas, 1920. Opposite: Sofi Hazelius née Grafström, portrait. Oil on canvas by Per Södermark, 1860s.
Now a single man with a small child and a growing museum, Artur Hazelius continues his collecting using what he calls ‘gatherers’ to rescue treasures from the Nordic countries, especially from Sweden and Norway, which were in union for his whole lifetime. The gatherers, mostly women, decide what to collect, acquire the needed items and take notes on who owned the object and how it was used. They also gather diaries, letters and stories about people, some of which are told in this book. ‘Know yourself’ is Artur Hazelius’s motto – to understand yourself you must know your origins. The premises are soon overloaded, so Hazelius begins planning for a larger museum and becomes known as ‘Sweden’s biggest beggar’. In 1880 he changes the name to Nordiska Museet, the Nordic Museum, and founds a friends’ association that after just one year has 4,000 members, many of whom are influential people with a great ability to donate. A popular lottery and bazaars are organised to raise money for the construction of Nordiska Museet. For one of the collections, his friend Frithiof Holmgren writes the poem that begins with the lines ‘The day may dawn when all our gold is not enough / to shape the image of the bygone era.’ We never know when times will be so grim that all we can think about is survival. But now is the opposite – Hazelius lives in a time when everything is possible,
K N O W YO U R S ELF !
7
Joen Petri Klint c.1540–1608
Signs of the Apocalypse It is a magnificent book he is working on – with beautiful handwriting and dramatic illustrations showing how weather and the starry sky, diseases and crop failures are God’s comments on historical and political events, interpretable through careful reading of the Bible. For more than 50 years the Swedish vicar Joen (Jonas) Petri Klint works on his book: On the Signs and Wonders That Preceded the Liturgical Commotion. The Nordic countries have been Lutheran for several decades when Joen Petri Klint is ordained in 1564, but now a Catholic countermovement has gained momentum. In 1568 King Johan III seizes power after imprisoning his brother Erik XIV, and to create peace between the Roman Catholic and the Swedish Lutheran churches he introduces a new liturgy for the Mass. Joen Petri Klint is now vicar in the coastal parish of Östra Stenby in Östergötland, where he serves for 40 years, while also being a Member of Parliament, writing chronicles and letters to famous people, reading most of the books of the time, drawing and writing about political events, and travelling to study the wonders and signs of God’s will. For thousands of years, humanity has tried to understand how to satisfy God (or the gods). Vikings understood thunder as the god Thor’s anger, and the Bible has many examples of how God reprimands with natural phenomena such as floods, blood rain and grasshoppers. In 1523 Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon publish a treatise on signs of God’s displeasure with the Catholic Church. They urge their readers to study nature and be alert to the signs, leading to an intensive exploration throughout Protestant Europe. And there are certainly many to uncover, as the Little Ice Age is entering its worst era, with crop failures and famine.
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THE N O R D I C STO RY
Above: Joen (Jonas) Petri Klint and Death harvesting cabbages in Söderköping. Mural in Östra Stenby Church, copied by Nils Månsson Mandelgren, 1650. Opposite: Devils lead sinners to the abyss of hell while Saint Peter leads godly people to the gate of heaven in Life in Anticipation of the Last Judgment. Wood relief from Jutland in Denmark, c.1600.
In fact the entire world seems to be in turmoil – a new continent is (re)discovered, Copernicus reveals in 1543 that the Earth is not the centre of the universe and in 1572 Tycho Brahe notes a new star in the supposedly unchanging starry sky. In the second half of the sixteenth century all this leads to a fear that the Apocalypse is close. Souls saved from the burning lake will live in the light of God’s glory and be kings for eternity in the Day of Judgement, but before that false Christs and prophets will appear and war, famine and earthquakes will ravage. Many signs and calculations show that the world as we know it will end in the ominous year 1588.
his ship is struck by lightning that breaks off the mast. In Klint’s view signs can also be thoughtful warnings from God, such as the northern lights hinting at upcoming wars, or the sight of a skeleton harvesting cabbage at night at Söderköping, like many other events witnessed by Joen Petri himself: a sure sign of plague soon to come.
Joen Petri Klint has a less alarmist personality, but believes in an active God who punishes pride, greed, heresy and Catholicism without delay – the latter often with terrifying weather. He writes and draws about how the man who wrote Johan III’s Mass liturgy drowns just outside Bornholm, and when the king’s Catholic son Sigismund becomes the regent of Sweden, he shows how
WINTER
19
Joen Petri Klint c.1540–1608
Signs of the Apocalypse It is a magnificent book he is working on – with beautiful handwriting and dramatic illustrations showing how weather and the starry sky, diseases and crop failures are God’s comments on historical and political events, interpretable through careful reading of the Bible. For more than 50 years the Swedish vicar Joen (Jonas) Petri Klint works on his book: On the Signs and Wonders That Preceded the Liturgical Commotion. The Nordic countries have been Lutheran for several decades when Joen Petri Klint is ordained in 1564, but now a Catholic countermovement has gained momentum. In 1568 King Johan III seizes power after imprisoning his brother Erik XIV, and to create peace between the Roman Catholic and the Swedish Lutheran churches he introduces a new liturgy for the Mass. Joen Petri Klint is now vicar in the coastal parish of Östra Stenby in Östergötland, where he serves for 40 years, while also being a Member of Parliament, writing chronicles and letters to famous people, reading most of the books of the time, drawing and writing about political events, and travelling to study the wonders and signs of God’s will. For thousands of years, humanity has tried to understand how to satisfy God (or the gods). Vikings understood thunder as the god Thor’s anger, and the Bible has many examples of how God reprimands with natural phenomena such as floods, blood rain and grasshoppers. In 1523 Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon publish a treatise on signs of God’s displeasure with the Catholic Church. They urge their readers to study nature and be alert to the signs, leading to an intensive exploration throughout Protestant Europe. And there are certainly many to uncover, as the Little Ice Age is entering its worst era, with crop failures and famine.
18
THE N O R D I C STO RY
Above: Joen (Jonas) Petri Klint and Death harvesting cabbages in Söderköping. Mural in Östra Stenby Church, copied by Nils Månsson Mandelgren, 1650. Opposite: Devils lead sinners to the abyss of hell while Saint Peter leads godly people to the gate of heaven in Life in Anticipation of the Last Judgment. Wood relief from Jutland in Denmark, c.1600.
In fact the entire world seems to be in turmoil – a new continent is (re)discovered, Copernicus reveals in 1543 that the Earth is not the centre of the universe and in 1572 Tycho Brahe notes a new star in the supposedly unchanging starry sky. In the second half of the sixteenth century all this leads to a fear that the Apocalypse is close. Souls saved from the burning lake will live in the light of God’s glory and be kings for eternity in the Day of Judgement, but before that false Christs and prophets will appear and war, famine and earthquakes will ravage. Many signs and calculations show that the world as we know it will end in the ominous year 1588.
his ship is struck by lightning that breaks off the mast. In Klint’s view signs can also be thoughtful warnings from God, such as the northern lights hinting at upcoming wars, or the sight of a skeleton harvesting cabbage at night at Söderköping, like many other events witnessed by Joen Petri himself: a sure sign of plague soon to come.
Joen Petri Klint has a less alarmist personality, but believes in an active God who punishes pride, greed, heresy and Catholicism without delay – the latter often with terrifying weather. He writes and draws about how the man who wrote Johan III’s Mass liturgy drowns just outside Bornholm, and when the king’s Catholic son Sigismund becomes the regent of Sweden, he shows how
WINTER
19
Catarina Koberg 1736–1788
A New Female Wisdom Only 16 years old, Catarina Olofsdotter Öberg from Tornio in northern Finland marries the customs officer Johann Koberg, aged 23. Nine months later, the couple’s first child is born – Apollonia, named after her grandmother. In total Johann and Catarina will have nine children: three girls and six boys, of whom three die very young. Infant mortality remains high, and over the past hundred years, far too many lives have been lost to war, famine and disease. With the eighteenth century’s interest in reason, education, utility and equality before the law, scientists in Europe begin to consider how to solve the shortage of labour. A key question is: how can more children survive their first year? Reports, articles and scientific projects on the subject promote new ideas of cleanliness around childbirth, infant care and breastfeeding. France and Germany lead, and the Nordic countries follow suit. The doctor Johan von Hoorn grew up with a mother who assisted in childbirths, and as a boy he heard many tragic stories. After his medical education in Paris, he founds a non-profit midwifery training programme in Stockholm in 1708. From 1714 there is a similar programme in Copenhagen and during the 1750s official training for midwives in Sweden and Finland is established in Stockholm. To be accepted, one needs to be married, have given birth to at least one child and ideally be around 40 years old – experienced but still strong. In addition, the students need to be courageous, patient, calm, humble, meticulous and sober, and able to write as well as read. Most of the students are the wives of craftsmen, neither noble nor poor, and when qualified, they are given an unusual position in society. The prospective midwife swears an oath that ‘she
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THE N O R D I C STO RY
lectures on breastfeeding, infant care and ethical issues. The latter is important, as the midwives occasionally have to choose between saving the mother and the child. In Finland and northern Sweden, an unfortunate method of feeding infants is horn suckling: reindeer horns are filled with cow’s milk and mashed solid food for the child to suck on. When midwives advocate breastfeeding instead, and distribute information about how bacteria thrive, infant mortality drops significantly. Women giving birth tend to be suspicious of the new advice when it is offered by male doctors, but seem to trust the midwives, especially those from their own region. When Catarina Koberg has sworn her oath, she travels home and works as a midwife in Tornio. She passes away of a high fever aged only 52, but has already saved countless lives. promises her faithful, diligent and untiring service and assistance to everyone, poor or rich, high or low, night or day’. The vow includes obligations to ensure that the child is baptised, to report abuse and to seek help if any task in the work becomes too difficult. From now on, the survival of mothers and children depends not only on the will of God but also on the midwives’ knowledge and judgement. Though her youngest children Johannes and Maria are only three and one, Catarina Koberg travels the 1,000 kilometres to Stockholm to train as a midwife. Meanwhile, her small children are looked after by their older sisters Apollonia, 19, and Margareta, 16, full-time – travelling home for the weekend is not an option. During her training, Catarina Koberg reads medical literature about the anatomy of the female body, carries out dissections, assists in childbirths and listens to
Opposite: Etching showing a breastfeeding woman, by an unknown artist. Right: Travel pharmacy with glass jars, made in 1770 by the pharmacist Casten Julius Salberg at the Morianen pharmacy in Stockholm.
SPRING
49
Catarina Koberg 1736–1788
A New Female Wisdom Only 16 years old, Catarina Olofsdotter Öberg from Tornio in northern Finland marries the customs officer Johann Koberg, aged 23. Nine months later, the couple’s first child is born – Apollonia, named after her grandmother. In total Johann and Catarina will have nine children: three girls and six boys, of whom three die very young. Infant mortality remains high, and over the past hundred years, far too many lives have been lost to war, famine and disease. With the eighteenth century’s interest in reason, education, utility and equality before the law, scientists in Europe begin to consider how to solve the shortage of labour. A key question is: how can more children survive their first year? Reports, articles and scientific projects on the subject promote new ideas of cleanliness around childbirth, infant care and breastfeeding. France and Germany lead, and the Nordic countries follow suit. The doctor Johan von Hoorn grew up with a mother who assisted in childbirths, and as a boy he heard many tragic stories. After his medical education in Paris, he founds a non-profit midwifery training programme in Stockholm in 1708. From 1714 there is a similar programme in Copenhagen and during the 1750s official training for midwives in Sweden and Finland is established in Stockholm. To be accepted, one needs to be married, have given birth to at least one child and ideally be around 40 years old – experienced but still strong. In addition, the students need to be courageous, patient, calm, humble, meticulous and sober, and able to write as well as read. Most of the students are the wives of craftsmen, neither noble nor poor, and when qualified, they are given an unusual position in society. The prospective midwife swears an oath that ‘she
48
THE N O R D I C STO RY
lectures on breastfeeding, infant care and ethical issues. The latter is important, as the midwives occasionally have to choose between saving the mother and the child. In Finland and northern Sweden, an unfortunate method of feeding infants is horn suckling: reindeer horns are filled with cow’s milk and mashed solid food for the child to suck on. When midwives advocate breastfeeding instead, and distribute information about how bacteria thrive, infant mortality drops significantly. Women giving birth tend to be suspicious of the new advice when it is offered by male doctors, but seem to trust the midwives, especially those from their own region. When Catarina Koberg has sworn her oath, she travels home and works as a midwife in Tornio. She passes away of a high fever aged only 52, but has already saved countless lives. promises her faithful, diligent and untiring service and assistance to everyone, poor or rich, high or low, night or day’. The vow includes obligations to ensure that the child is baptised, to report abuse and to seek help if any task in the work becomes too difficult. From now on, the survival of mothers and children depends not only on the will of God but also on the midwives’ knowledge and judgement. Though her youngest children Johannes and Maria are only three and one, Catarina Koberg travels the 1,000 kilometres to Stockholm to train as a midwife. Meanwhile, her small children are looked after by their older sisters Apollonia, 19, and Margareta, 16, full-time – travelling home for the weekend is not an option. During her training, Catarina Koberg reads medical literature about the anatomy of the female body, carries out dissections, assists in childbirths and listens to
Opposite: Etching showing a breastfeeding woman, by an unknown artist. Right: Travel pharmacy with glass jars, made in 1770 by the pharmacist Casten Julius Salberg at the Morianen pharmacy in Stockholm.
SPRING
49
About Summer 1773–1898 A question is asked in the Nordic Midsummer Night: how is it possible to sleep when the sun never sets? A few methods are suggested: hang a blanket over the curtains, sleep in a windowless space, pull a sweater over your head … But who wants to sleep when nature is enchanted and anything can happen in the bright night? According to the old Norse calendar summer starts at the end of April, when the month of the harp begins. In Iceland the national holiday ‘Sumardagurinn fyrsti’ (the first day of summer) is celebrated on the Thursday between 19 and 25 April. And yes, with May’s divine scent from blooming gardens and nature, summer is approaching. But its undeniable starting point is Midsummer, when poles are dressed with leaves and flowers in Sweden, and then danced around. Herring, potatoes, gravlax, schnapps and strawberries are necessities, while placing nine wildflowers under the pillow in order to meet one’s future spouse in the following night’s dream is an option for the unmarried. In Iceland, Norway and Denmark Midsummer is celebrated with an old Norse tradition: lighting fires to scare away evil spirits – in Finland supplemented with a sauna to cleanse body and soul, followed by an outdoor swim. The sea, rivers and lakes were once reasons for people settling in the Nordic region – fishing and shipping have always been essential for people’s 50
The Wave VI. Oil painting by August Strindberg, 1902 (detail).
livelihoods. In coastal areas, farmers have always supplemented their incomes by fishing in the winter, and herring is eaten on a daily basis. During the nineteenth century, to be a fisherman becomes a profession and a distinct social group. Fishing and producing fuel from cod-liver oil is industrialised and soon the oil is one of the Nordic countries’ largest exports. Still today Norway, Denmark and Iceland are among the world’s most important fishing nations. With high summer come high expectations of bathing in the very same seas, rivers and lakes that once led people to move to the Nordic countries. Summer weather has always been crucial: a harvest big enough to last the whole year requires sun and a little rain, but not so much as to rot the grain. Nordic schools have long summer vacations so that children can help with the harvest. Now in the 2020s few do, but the feeling that everything is at stake stays with us. Colonialism is in full bloom when our historical ‘summer’ begins in 1773. The nobility and bourgeoisie have taken pleasure in the luxury goods shipped across the oceans for decades, and now their habits spread to the lower classes. The precondition for this new lifestyle is that great European powers have competed in taking colonies in Asia, Africa and the Americas. The two Nordic kingdoms are not as expansive, 51
About Summer 1773–1898 A question is asked in the Nordic Midsummer Night: how is it possible to sleep when the sun never sets? A few methods are suggested: hang a blanket over the curtains, sleep in a windowless space, pull a sweater over your head … But who wants to sleep when nature is enchanted and anything can happen in the bright night? According to the old Norse calendar summer starts at the end of April, when the month of the harp begins. In Iceland the national holiday ‘Sumardagurinn fyrsti’ (the first day of summer) is celebrated on the Thursday between 19 and 25 April. And yes, with May’s divine scent from blooming gardens and nature, summer is approaching. But its undeniable starting point is Midsummer, when poles are dressed with leaves and flowers in Sweden, and then danced around. Herring, potatoes, gravlax, schnapps and strawberries are necessities, while placing nine wildflowers under the pillow in order to meet one’s future spouse in the following night’s dream is an option for the unmarried. In Iceland, Norway and Denmark Midsummer is celebrated with an old Norse tradition: lighting fires to scare away evil spirits – in Finland supplemented with a sauna to cleanse body and soul, followed by an outdoor swim. The sea, rivers and lakes were once reasons for people settling in the Nordic region – fishing and shipping have always been essential for people’s 50
The Wave VI. Oil painting by August Strindberg, 1902 (detail).
livelihoods. In coastal areas, farmers have always supplemented their incomes by fishing in the winter, and herring is eaten on a daily basis. During the nineteenth century, to be a fisherman becomes a profession and a distinct social group. Fishing and producing fuel from cod-liver oil is industrialised and soon the oil is one of the Nordic countries’ largest exports. Still today Norway, Denmark and Iceland are among the world’s most important fishing nations. With high summer come high expectations of bathing in the very same seas, rivers and lakes that once led people to move to the Nordic countries. Summer weather has always been crucial: a harvest big enough to last the whole year requires sun and a little rain, but not so much as to rot the grain. Nordic schools have long summer vacations so that children can help with the harvest. Now in the 2020s few do, but the feeling that everything is at stake stays with us. Colonialism is in full bloom when our historical ‘summer’ begins in 1773. The nobility and bourgeoisie have taken pleasure in the luxury goods shipped across the oceans for decades, and now their habits spread to the lower classes. The precondition for this new lifestyle is that great European powers have competed in taking colonies in Asia, Africa and the Americas. The two Nordic kingdoms are not as expansive, 51
Maikki Friberg 1861–1927
Women, Let’s Vote! Some people achieve more in life than others. Some are also able to turn adversity into advantages – like Maikki Friberg, who had key roles in modernising Finnish school education, Finland’s emancipation from Russia and making it the first nation in the world with full women’s suffrage. Maria Elisabeth Friberg, always called Maikki, is born in Kankaanpää in the interior of western Finland. In these agricultural and forest regions with harsh winters and poor soil, education for girls is not a priority, but when Maikki is 12 years old her father dies and the family moves to the coastal town of Tampere, where her mother opens a boarding house. The move is life-changing for Maikki – she can continue at school, and aged 14 she gives private lessons. A few years later she is accepted into a teachers’ college for women in Helsinki, where the headmaster believes that society needs women’s social responsibility. Already fluent in Finnish and Swedish, Maikki now learns German, French and English. The universities in imperial Russia’s Finland do not admit women students, so for further study Maikki needs to go abroad. Between 1894 and 1897 she attends the universities of Berlin, Zurich and Bern, and later writes in her memoirs about an ‘extraordinary desire’ to be among the people who plan the future and shed new light on human life. ‘When I noticed that the cost of living there was not more expensive than in Finland, quite the opposite, I went to the big cities of Europe to meet these people who were “preparing a new era”.’ At the lectures in Berlin she is often the only woman, but at the universities in Switzerland she encounters female academics from all over Europe. She completes her doctorate in Bern, studies French in Paris and attends lectures at the University of Brussels.
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In just a few years, Maikki Friberg builds an invincible network. Among others she becomes friends with the Danish suffragette Matilde Beje, who, like Camilla Colett in Norway, Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir in Iceland and Ann-Margret Holmgren in Sweden, plays a major role in the women’s rights organisations founded in all Nordic countries in the late 1800s. Maikki Friberg joins the Finnish Women’s Federation in 1889 and then co-founds a group with three goals: women’s suffrage, equal pay and freedom from prostitution. Above: Maikki Friberg. Photograph by Eric Lundström, Helsinki, 1890. Opposite: ‘Suffrage Necklace’ given to Ann-Margret Holmgren at her 60th birthday, 1910. It consists of gold plaques from all the suffrage associations she started – one from each city.
Maikki Friberg never marries nor has children. Free as a bird, she both teaches in Finland and attends congresses and delivers speeches all over Europe, conveying knowledge in two directions: Europe learns about Russia’s oppression of Finland, and Finland receives the most upto-date educational research and methods.
By now a resistance movement has awakened, warning that women’s suffrage would profoundly change politics, and Maikki Friberg thinks that the fight is going too slowly. In 1905 she founds the magazine Naisten Ääni (Women’s Voice), where she publishes articles urging women to embrace suffrage for the betterment of society. It pays off: in 1906 Finland is the first country in the world to have full women’s suffrage. New Zealand allowed women to vote in 1893, but the Finnish reform is wider – conferring equal rights to vote regardless of status and gender – and women can stand for election. As a result, the number of people eligible to vote increases tenfold and 19 women are elected to the Finnish Parliament. And yes, the critics were right – women’s suffrage does change politics. Social reforms and family policies are implemented, at a large cost to society – but in the long run it leads to increased GDP and tax revenue.
SUMMER
71
Maikki Friberg 1861–1927
Women, Let’s Vote! Some people achieve more in life than others. Some are also able to turn adversity into advantages – like Maikki Friberg, who had key roles in modernising Finnish school education, Finland’s emancipation from Russia and making it the first nation in the world with full women’s suffrage. Maria Elisabeth Friberg, always called Maikki, is born in Kankaanpää in the interior of western Finland. In these agricultural and forest regions with harsh winters and poor soil, education for girls is not a priority, but when Maikki is 12 years old her father dies and the family moves to the coastal town of Tampere, where her mother opens a boarding house. The move is life-changing for Maikki – she can continue at school, and aged 14 she gives private lessons. A few years later she is accepted into a teachers’ college for women in Helsinki, where the headmaster believes that society needs women’s social responsibility. Already fluent in Finnish and Swedish, Maikki now learns German, French and English. The universities in imperial Russia’s Finland do not admit women students, so for further study Maikki needs to go abroad. Between 1894 and 1897 she attends the universities of Berlin, Zurich and Bern, and later writes in her memoirs about an ‘extraordinary desire’ to be among the people who plan the future and shed new light on human life. ‘When I noticed that the cost of living there was not more expensive than in Finland, quite the opposite, I went to the big cities of Europe to meet these people who were “preparing a new era”.’ At the lectures in Berlin she is often the only woman, but at the universities in Switzerland she encounters female academics from all over Europe. She completes her doctorate in Bern, studies French in Paris and attends lectures at the University of Brussels.
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THE N O R D I C STO RY
In just a few years, Maikki Friberg builds an invincible network. Among others she becomes friends with the Danish suffragette Matilde Beje, who, like Camilla Colett in Norway, Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir in Iceland and Ann-Margret Holmgren in Sweden, plays a major role in the women’s rights organisations founded in all Nordic countries in the late 1800s. Maikki Friberg joins the Finnish Women’s Federation in 1889 and then co-founds a group with three goals: women’s suffrage, equal pay and freedom from prostitution. Above: Maikki Friberg. Photograph by Eric Lundström, Helsinki, 1890. Opposite: ‘Suffrage Necklace’ given to Ann-Margret Holmgren at her 60th birthday, 1910. It consists of gold plaques from all the suffrage associations she started – one from each city.
Maikki Friberg never marries nor has children. Free as a bird, she both teaches in Finland and attends congresses and delivers speeches all over Europe, conveying knowledge in two directions: Europe learns about Russia’s oppression of Finland, and Finland receives the most upto-date educational research and methods.
By now a resistance movement has awakened, warning that women’s suffrage would profoundly change politics, and Maikki Friberg thinks that the fight is going too slowly. In 1905 she founds the magazine Naisten Ääni (Women’s Voice), where she publishes articles urging women to embrace suffrage for the betterment of society. It pays off: in 1906 Finland is the first country in the world to have full women’s suffrage. New Zealand allowed women to vote in 1893, but the Finnish reform is wider – conferring equal rights to vote regardless of status and gender – and women can stand for election. As a result, the number of people eligible to vote increases tenfold and 19 women are elected to the Finnish Parliament. And yes, the critics were right – women’s suffrage does change politics. Social reforms and family policies are implemented, at a large cost to society – but in the long run it leads to increased GDP and tax revenue.
SUMMER
71
Jens Evensen 1917–2004
A Statue For Every Home The Depression of the early 1930s hits Oslo’s workingclass neighbourhood Grønland hard. Many live on the verge of starvation, and when Jens Evensen helps in his father’s butcher’s shop he is told not to slice the sausages too far: the ends go to the poor and are probably the only meat they eat. Compared with his friends, Jens is well off, and early on he develops a strong belief in society’s duty to care for its weakest. Expected to take over the family business, he is sent to Oslo’s commercial high school, but the headmaster says he ‘could be a good lawyer but would become a poor businessman’. So Evensen studies law at the university and defends his first clients in Nazioccupied Norway: female factory workers facing execution for illegal abortions. He gets them all acquitted. As the Nazi-aligned government forces unmarried women to work in northern Norway, Jens Evensen marries his girlfriend Sylvei Brun Lie earlier than planned. She supports his resistance work throughout the war, such as running an illegal newspaper from the law firm where he is employed and producing forged documents for the resistance movement. After the war Evensen serves as a state prosecutor in the ‘Quisling case’ against Nazi collaborators. He then studies international law in New York and at Harvard, and his skills come in handy when Britain challenges Norwegian maritime claims at the International Court of Justice, and Evensen is hired as an assistant lawyer. The British invoke the ‘cannon shot rule’, which fixes territorial limits three nautical miles from a country’s coast, and argues that Norway’s ‘straight baselines’ across deep fjords and tiny, uninhabited islands violate their trawlers’ right to fish. His discovery of the lack of common practice leads Norway to secure a landmark victory. Still young and without diplomatic experience, Evensen becomes the head of the Norwegian Ministry
86
THE N O R D I C STO RY
of Foreign Affairs’ legal department; he is chosen in the hope he can expand Norway’s sea rights to 12 nautical miles. But in 1962 the issue becomes larger than fishing: an American oil company wants to explore the Norwegian continental shelf. Politicians are highly uninterested – an official investigation has shown that no coal, oil or sulphur could be found in Norwegian waters. But Evensen thinks differently. He knows that many nations have lost their natural resources to foreign companies, and that corruption risks are high. A major problem is that the Geneva Conventions state that nations are entitled to a zone of 200 metres’ depth off their coast, but just off the south coast the ‘Norwegian runner’ goes down to 725 metres – international waters could be claimed within sight of the shore! Evensen writes a royal resolution declaring that, based on a median line between countries, natural resources off the Norwegian coast belong to Norway. In 1965 Britain agrees to the principle, and after laborious negotiations so does Denmark. Evensen writes another royal resolution: 50 per cent of drilling revenues will belong to Norway. In 1966 drilling begins, but the government still doubts oil will be found, and one company after another withdraws. Phillips Petroleum has funds for one last attempt, and on Christmas Eve 1969 oil gushes from an area that without the 1965 agreement would have been Danish. Later, Evensen’s negotiations lead the UN to set the international maritime boundaries at 200 nautical miles, which has great significance for all coastal nations. When Evensen dies, the Government Pension Fund of Norway (the oil fund) is worth about 100 billion euros. As Jan Kjærstad writes in his novel The Conqueror: ‘It would not have been entirely unreasonable if all Norwegians, out of pure gratitude, had a bust of Jens Evensen in their homes.’
Above left: Jens Evensen rowing. Photograph by his wife, Sylvei Evensen, née Brun Lie. Above: Allan doll, 1966 – the year test drilling in Norwegian seawater began. Left: Sylvei and Jens Evensen in Oslomarka, where they used to make excursions on foot and skis. Photograph by his sister, Inger Hanna Lønnum.
AUTUMN
87
Jens Evensen 1917–2004
A Statue For Every Home The Depression of the early 1930s hits Oslo’s workingclass neighbourhood Grønland hard. Many live on the verge of starvation, and when Jens Evensen helps in his father’s butcher’s shop he is told not to slice the sausages too far: the ends go to the poor and are probably the only meat they eat. Compared with his friends, Jens is well off, and early on he develops a strong belief in society’s duty to care for its weakest. Expected to take over the family business, he is sent to Oslo’s commercial high school, but the headmaster says he ‘could be a good lawyer but would become a poor businessman’. So Evensen studies law at the university and defends his first clients in Nazioccupied Norway: female factory workers facing execution for illegal abortions. He gets them all acquitted. As the Nazi-aligned government forces unmarried women to work in northern Norway, Jens Evensen marries his girlfriend Sylvei Brun Lie earlier than planned. She supports his resistance work throughout the war, such as running an illegal newspaper from the law firm where he is employed and producing forged documents for the resistance movement. After the war Evensen serves as a state prosecutor in the ‘Quisling case’ against Nazi collaborators. He then studies international law in New York and at Harvard, and his skills come in handy when Britain challenges Norwegian maritime claims at the International Court of Justice, and Evensen is hired as an assistant lawyer. The British invoke the ‘cannon shot rule’, which fixes territorial limits three nautical miles from a country’s coast, and argues that Norway’s ‘straight baselines’ across deep fjords and tiny, uninhabited islands violate their trawlers’ right to fish. His discovery of the lack of common practice leads Norway to secure a landmark victory. Still young and without diplomatic experience, Evensen becomes the head of the Norwegian Ministry
86
THE N O R D I C STO RY
of Foreign Affairs’ legal department; he is chosen in the hope he can expand Norway’s sea rights to 12 nautical miles. But in 1962 the issue becomes larger than fishing: an American oil company wants to explore the Norwegian continental shelf. Politicians are highly uninterested – an official investigation has shown that no coal, oil or sulphur could be found in Norwegian waters. But Evensen thinks differently. He knows that many nations have lost their natural resources to foreign companies, and that corruption risks are high. A major problem is that the Geneva Conventions state that nations are entitled to a zone of 200 metres’ depth off their coast, but just off the south coast the ‘Norwegian runner’ goes down to 725 metres – international waters could be claimed within sight of the shore! Evensen writes a royal resolution declaring that, based on a median line between countries, natural resources off the Norwegian coast belong to Norway. In 1965 Britain agrees to the principle, and after laborious negotiations so does Denmark. Evensen writes another royal resolution: 50 per cent of drilling revenues will belong to Norway. In 1966 drilling begins, but the government still doubts oil will be found, and one company after another withdraws. Phillips Petroleum has funds for one last attempt, and on Christmas Eve 1969 oil gushes from an area that without the 1965 agreement would have been Danish. Later, Evensen’s negotiations lead the UN to set the international maritime boundaries at 200 nautical miles, which has great significance for all coastal nations. When Evensen dies, the Government Pension Fund of Norway (the oil fund) is worth about 100 billion euros. As Jan Kjærstad writes in his novel The Conqueror: ‘It would not have been entirely unreasonable if all Norwegians, out of pure gratitude, had a bust of Jens Evensen in their homes.’
Above left: Jens Evensen rowing. Photograph by his wife, Sylvei Evensen, née Brun Lie. Above: Allan doll, 1966 – the year test drilling in Norwegian seawater began. Left: Sylvei and Jens Evensen in Oslomarka, where they used to make excursions on foot and skis. Photograph by his sister, Inger Hanna Lønnum.
AUTUMN
87