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The article discusses several aspects of the history of women's boxing in Norway as of 2016, and it mentions the relationship between masculinity and boxing, as well as amateur boxing and international competitions for female boxers. Femininity, aggression, and violence in sports are examined, along with the inclusion of women's boxing in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England. The social development of women's boxing in Norway is assessed, along with gender equality policies in sports.

From the inauguration of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP) in 1950, until its termination in the early 1960s, Norway was among the main European beneficiaries of military assistance from the United States. Previous research on this subject has mainly seen the MDAP from the perspective of the recipient, analysing what effect the influx of large amounts of equipment had for the shape and development of the Norwegian Armed Forces. This article discusses the motives for US military assistance to Norway, and analyses this activity as an expression of US Cold War objectives concerning Norway and NATO's northern flank. The article also explores how these objectives influenced policy making relevant to military assistance, and gives particular attention to the role of US representatives in Oslo. These actors played an important role in highlighting the political and strategic benefits of extensive aid to Norway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Średniowiecze Polskie i Powszechne is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Slaskiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article discusses how the "unbound" and "multidirectional" memory of the Holocaust has contested, challenged, and reformed existing frames of memorialization of WWII in Norway. Through an analysis of the discussion on restitution, on Norwegian collaboration, on the establishment of Holocaust memorials and memorial sites, as well as an analysis of commemorative speeches, I show how the transnational memory of the Holocaust has transformed existing remembrance practices, however, without erasing or lifting national memory frames. For more than 50 years, Norway suffered from a "national consensus syndrome" in which the memory of the heroic Norwegian resistance during the 5 years of German occupation played a hegemonic role in Norwegian memory politics. The "global memory" of the Holocaust and the establishment of transnational memory networks such as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), however, have contested national memory practices, pushed to uncover Norwegian participation in the crimes of the past and for the incorporation of Holocaust remembrance into a wider concept of fighting for democracy and human rights. The site of the Akershus harbor and nearby fortress in Oslo is a striking example of that, as this article demonstrates. Moreover, adopting the transnational memory of the Holocaust and the universalistic perspectives of human rights and democratic values was not only a matter of memory politics. Adopting Holocaust memory and transforming existing remembrance practices became an essential part of Norwegian foreign policy and a legitimation of Norway's moral integrity as an international actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schmidt-hammer exposure-age dating (SHD) was applied to a variety of boulder-dominated periglacial landforms in an attempt to establish a local mid-/late-Holocene chronology for the Geirangerfjellet in South Norway. Landform ages were obtained by application of a local calibration curve for Schmidt hammer R-values based on young and old control points comprising fresh road cuts and a bedrock surface in proximity to the study area, respectively. The area was deglaciated ~11.5 ka ago according to independent age information. Investigation of age, formation and stabilization of the periglacial landforms and processes involved allowed assessment of the underlying Holocene climate variability and its relationship to landform evolution. Our SHD ages range from 7.47 ± 0.73 ka for glacially abraded bedrock at the valley bottom to 2.22 ± 0.49 ka for surface boulders of a rock-slope failure. All landforms shared negative skewness and largely have narrow tailed frequency distributions of their R-values. This points to either substantial reworking of the boulders within a landform or continuous debris supply. Our results show that most landforms stabilized during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (~8.0–5.0 ka). The findings do not support the hypothesis that rock-slope failures predominately occur shortly after local deglaciation. Instead, it appears that they cluster during warm periods due to climate-driven factors, for example, decreasing permafrost depth or increasing cleft-water pressure leading to slope instabilities. Periglacial boulder-dominated landforms in the western maritime fjord region seem to react sensitively to Holocene climate variability and may constitute valuable but to date mostly unexplored sources of palaeoclimatic information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Norwegian ethnonym Kven and the Finnish ethnonym Kainulainen occurred at latest in the first millennium AD. A tacit truth held today is that the ethnonyms represent the same ancient Finnish-speaking group, only named differently by Norwegians and Finns. The aim of the article is to find out whether the ethnonyms have been used to designate different groups of people. The Finnish-speakers in the nearby Tornedalen has called the lower part of the Kalix River in northernmost Sweden the Kainuu River and the upper part Kaalas River after the original Sámi name of the river. According to theories on ethnicity they called the lower part the Kainuu River [Fin. Kainuunväylä] because they wanted to mark out the Swedish speakers of different ethnicity, who they called Kainulaiset. The latter mainly settled the lower part of the river in the Middle Ages and Finnish-speakers the upper part. The article reveals that the Sámi variety Gainolâš was used by the Sámi for depicting dominant majority populations of different ethnicity, especially Scandinavians, but sometimes also Finns. It also argues that Finnish settlers in southern Finland and the northernmost Gulf of Bothnia used Kainulainen for depicting Swedish settlers when the two language groups first encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many functional, organizational and ideational similarities between the labour services in Germany, the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD) and in Norway, Arbeidstjenesten (AT). There were numerous conduits for transnational transfers of ideas and practices, especially as the RAD oversaw the creation of the Norwegian obligatory service during the occupation. Although the German conception of labour service inevitably influenced the development of the AT, the AT was not simply a copy of a German model. Norway had its own history of voluntary labour services and the labour service idea resonated with existing structures in Norwegian society and politics. This article discusses what elements of the model were adopted and rejected. Contingencies, context and continuities also played a decisive role in shaping the Norwegian service, for which the German RAD served as an example of what a labour service should look like, but also what it should not look like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Second World War sabotage act targeting the production of Heavy Water (D20, deuterium oxide) in inland Norway, figure among the best known and best-remembered acts of sabotage in Norwegian history. This article considers the various acts of remembrance regarding this event and explores the intermedial intertwining of its trails of memory. It looks at the semi-documentary film released in 1948, the industrial factory turned World Heritage Site, and lastly the different hiking activities known as the Saboteur Marches. A central point is how these different acts of remembrance interact and reinforce each other, resulting in a plethora of media concerned with commemoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norwegian museums have large collections of chinaware, dating from the eighteenth century; most of it imported after the foundation the Danish Asian Company in 1732. I have selected a tea and coffee service in the collections of Norsk Folkemuseum: Norwegian Museum of Cultural History as a passageway to trace the entanglement of Norwegian consumers in cultural interactions with China. The service is part of a broader history of transculturation. This is a history of encounters and exchanges involving the cultural translation of Chinese designs in Europe, and Western designs in China. Into the transculturation is entangled the enthusiasm with Chinese porcelain in Europe, and the negotiations by which Chinese potters and painters translated European demands for particular shapes, decorative motifs and fashionable designs into porcelain products for export. Through the engagement of the Danish Asian Company in China, I will discuss the impact of these processes in Norway, and their influence on the tastes and preferences of Norwegian consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of the co-location of different kinds of assembly, such as Old Norse things, churches, games and markets, is a familiar debate in archaeology and history. A close connection between thing and church sites is recognized in Scandinavia suggesting that law and religion were closely connected. While the location of different assemblies seems to have been determined by logistical practicalities and the choice of certain kinds of topographic feature, power relations may also have played a crucial part in dictating their setting. After the eleventh/twelfth centuries in Norway, royal regulation of things and markets increased. The locations of many types of gathering remained consistent, however, but the thing system in particular seems to have offered a mechanism for consolidating royal power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the research history of the collection of medieval liturgical art belonging to the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway, in light of the political situation of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The impact of nation-building before and after Norway's independence in 1905 on art historical and conservation research of medieval objects is discussed, with a particular focus on objects dating to the late medieval period. Attitudes towards the later Middle Ages are explored through a discussion of Norwegian history education as well as the traditional grand narrative of Norwegian history. The German connection of the late medieval material is re-examined, leading to a more nuanced understanding of the display choices and research history of the collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant number of patients with intellectual disability (ID) were admitted to forensic mental health asylums during the period 1915-1987. Many of these patients stayed for more than a decade, because of previous offending behaviour. We investigated the daily lives of 262 patients with an ID using casebooks. Two of the patients were studied more in detail. The available documents describe most of these patients as sociable, well-behaved and socially engaged although they missed having contacts outside the hospital. Long-stay patients were studied more in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coast of northern Norway was an important dried-cod production area during the Medieval period. During the Iron Age, marine resources had also played a vital role in the economy of the inhabitants in the region. The increase in marine harvesting post c.AD 600, as substantiated by archaeological finds, suggests that mass maritime goods, in addition to those goods of a prestigious character, were a significant part of the chiefly provisioning system of the Iron Age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Romanian Journal for Baltic & Nordic Studies/Revista Romana de Studii Baltice si Nordice is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scholars have long regarded nativism – the concerted marginalization of foreigners in preference for natives – as a major factor in Norway’s national movement in the late Middle Ages. While anti-foreign statements and policy reforms introduced by the country’s aristocracy demonstrate the existence and function of nativism in political discourse, historians have exaggerated or misconstrued its role in cases of popular unrest. This article challenges the theory that peasants frequently and ardently resisted foreign officials in the 15th century. Taking the one known case of popular nativism – Amund Sigurdsson’s uprising of 1436–1437 – as reference, it examines another nine well-known incidents of peasant activism in order to determine a similar degree of antipathy toward foreigners. It is argued that while there is very little empirical evidence to support the nativist theory, there is ample material to inspire more focused examination of socio-economic and structural developments, and the role these played in Norway’s turbulent national awakening. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is concerned with the impact of the activities of so-called Barbary states on the political discourse on a separate Norwegian civil ensign in the union of Norway and Sweden, 1814–1821. In this parliamentary discourse, the argument was made that the Barbary states’ practice of selling treaties of safe passage in order for Christian states to avoid their ships being captured and crews enslaved could endanger the internal political stability of the union. Political measures were taken to avoid such a situation occurring. This case is an indication of how established modes of coexistence between Europe and North Africa could become problematic with the advent of modern constitutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the Spitsbergen treaty of 1920, Norway acquired sovereignty over the Spitsbergen Islands. Rather than Woodrow Wilson, the American president, the architects behind the treaty were Robert Lansing, Wilson’s secretary of state, and, behind the diplomatic scene, the mining investor, John M. Longyear. In 1906, Longyear established a mining company to exploit the coal deposits at Spitsbergen. He induced Congress, the State Department, and the White House to forge an American policy for the European Arctic, including the appointment of Lansing, an international lawyer, as a counsel in the State Department. Lansing was a leading expert on both international law and the lack of state authority at theterra nullius, Spitsbergen. In 1915, he became secretary of State and, at the Paris Peace Conference, decided American policy regarding the Spitsbergen question. This analysis shows how the outcome of the Spitsbergen question was a result of American mining interests, supplemented by Norwegian-American shared interests in conflict resolution based on international law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Middle Ages, the Norwegian kingdom developed into a European Latin Christian Kingdom but entered the Kalmar Union with Denmark and Sweden in 1397. Norway's outcome of the union was loss of its political independence in 1537. Norway is a mountainous country. Thus, one have to consider the long coastline and rich fisheries to understand why a Norwegian Kingdom could be founded and exist as an independent political unit for centuries. The main royal revenues were taxes, crown lands, fines and customs. Norway's total population in the Middle Ages was probably half a million people just before the Black Death and approximately 200 thousands at the lowest around 1500. Like any other kings in medieval Europe, the Norwegian king was ambulant. We can discern a pattern where the king and the court stayed in certain towns for shorter or longer periods. Bergen was the largest town and became the most prominent royal residence after the end of the civil wars in 1240. Both domestic kings and the bishops built stone castles. We know few aristocratic stone castles. Due to the landscape, economy, political and military situation four royal castles made up a sufficient administrative network for a royal military and administrative control of Norway. The formal Norwegian aristocracy was never numerous; and the upper ranks (the nobility), were always few. The weakness of this group in the beginning of the 16th century is one of the main reasons for Norway's loss of independence in 1537. Norwegian peasants were free men, but the majority of them became tenants during the high Middle Ages. The Hanseatic dominance of Norway's foreign trade probably hindered a national merchant group developing. The Norwegian merchants ended up as mediators in the Norwegian trade system. Besides merchants, the towns had royal and ecclesiastical representatives, aristocratic residents, different artisans and workers. As elsewhere in medieval Europe the Kingdom and the Church both cooperated and rivalled as "state institutions". The Church's dominant position in Norway came into reality because of the king being a Union king not a domestic king after 1397. Norway became one of the few hereditary monarchy in medieval Europe. One reason was probably the balance of resources and power between different groups in Norway due to Norway's landscape and natural resources. Due to relatively scarcity of natural resources, the Norwegian political system was probably more vulnerable to challenges from a political union with neighbor countries than for instance Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the special issue ‘Slavery, Servitude and Freedom in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies, 1672–1848’, edited by Niklas Thode Jensen and Vibe Maria Martens, situates the five essays in the issue in the framework provided by previous research. It begins with a historiographical overview of research carried out since c. 1950 concerning Caribbean and Danish-Norwegian West Indian racial slavery, and continues to locate the essays within this field and its recent historiographical trends. The introduction ends with a brief overview of the history of the Danish-Norwegian and later the Danish West Indies to provide the general context for the five essays. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The early Norwegian kings are scarcely attested in sources earlier than the twelfth century, in contrast to the rich and varied descriptions of them from twelfth- and thirteenth-century sources. It will be argued that the historical narrative of their reign had direct relevance for at least two contemporary issues during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. One was the precedence of sons of kings in the order of succession to the Norwegian throne. This claim was strengthened by the genealogical lines of the Norwegian kings which existed from the 1120s or 1130s onwards and demonstrated that the Norwegian monarchy had always passed to heirs in the direct male line. Another important issue was the aspiration of the Norwegian kings to extend their rule to Iceland in the thirteenth century. Paradoxically, at this very time the view gained ground in saga narratives that Icelandic settlers had been opponents of the earliest Norwegian kings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration studies have predominantly investigated the socio-cultural incorporation of lows-killed migrants and refugees, fuelled by concerns that these migrants may pose a burden on the state and a threat to social cohesion. Few studies have investigated the socio-cultural incorporation of skilled migrants, perhaps assuming that they will fare well in a country of destination. Using the petroleum industry in Norway as a case study, this article examines the workplace as a key site of transmission of norms and values of the host society. We investigate firm initiatives for the socio-cultural incorporation of skilled migrants and analyse the challenges that these workers experience in the workplace. We then discuss the roles of non-state actors in the incorporation process and offer suggestions that may enhance the socio-cultural incorporation of skilled migrants into the host society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to investigate how terrorism countermeasures have been justified and reasoned for in the public arena, specifically in Norwegian media discourses from 1993 to 2007. Changes in the media discourse on the terrorism threat and terrorism countermeasures have been investigated by analyzing the changes in the media representation of the terrorism threat and the arguments behind the implementation of counterterrorism measures. The analysis shows that the media’s framing of terrorism has gone from presenting terrorism mainly as a threat against specific people or delimited events related to international conflicts in the 1990s to a threat against civilians and whole sectors of society after 9/11. Terrorism is presented through the media after 9/11 as an omnipresent, societal threat that citizens should be protected from no matter how low the probability of this terrorism might be. In parallel, counterterrorism measures have gone from being described as threats against civil liberties in the 1990s to a necessity after 9/11. The media articles have given a picture of terrorism countermeasures as a topic not defined on the basis of traditional normative risk criteria. As presented in the media, these measures seem beyond rational evaluation and assessment. They have primarily been described as necessary and independent of the risk; factors such as precaution, compliance, solidarity, and moral obligations have been the dominant underpinning arguments behind their implementation. This approach to counterterrorism might (if unquestioned) pave the way for further implementation of such measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the design and analysis of the rune-inscribed whetstone from Straum, Norway and the possibility that the inscriptions are not a agricultural work song but some military item. Topics include the archaeological and early runic context of the Straum whetstone, and an analysis of the symbolism of whetstones by the scholar Stephen Mitchell.

This study illuminates how the the identity and functioning of the Norwegian Seamen’s Mission was influenced by developing national sentiments in the period from the start of the Mission in 1864, until the aftermath of World War I c. 1920. The central hypothesis that the Mission must be understood within the broader cultural, political and economic context of Norway in the 19th century, was confirmed on the basis of extensive research of the correspondence between the pastors of the Mission working in the field and its headquarters in Bergen, Norway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the history of Norway since its independence in 1814, and discusses how the Church played an important role in the development of the Norwegian constitution which is considered as the most liberal constitution in all of Europe.

This article examines how researchers from the humanities and social sciences have perceived and projected the changing identities of seafarers, ships and localities in ‘Norwegian-owned’ merchant vessels, 1939–2014. Down to the late 1960s, these researchers regarded Norwegian ships and seamen as a part of Norway in international waters, with the national flag flying at the stern. But the shipping crises of the 1970s and 1980s encouraged shipowners to ‘flag out’ their ships in foreign countries, and to resort to manning companies in Hong Kong and the Philippines to recruit seafarers from low-cost countries. This gave the ship and her crew a multinational identity, with Norwegian officers and Filipino or Chinese ratings. Even the researchers’ point of view changed. During the shipping crises, they advocated building up the Norwegian fleet so that it could compete with foreign fleets. Now their aim was not only to understand the ship as a hierarchical work place, but to contend that a more democratic working community on board would foster more efficient and satisfied employees willing to accept a new manning scale with fewer people working harder to compete with low-cost seafarers. But although the Norwegian-owned fleet in Norwegian and foreign registers never had been larger than in 2014, the researchers and the Norwegian Ship Owners’ Association understood that Norwegian shipping was becoming increasingly dependent on new markets, shipbuilding and labour in the Far East. At the same time, the researchers themselves moved to universities in China and the Philippines to undertake ‘action research’ with Asian cadets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Offering a systematic comparison of the history of the differing rural gender orders that have developed in Norway and Sweden since 1750, this article considers the complex interconnections between gender and capitalist relations. It begins by highlighting the contrasts between these two Scandinavian countries’ settlement patterns, agricultural structures and rural gender orders, in spite of the similarities in their environments, social-democratic policies and commitments to gender equality. Within a theoretical framework focused on the persistence of simple commodity production by farming families within capitalist economies, it considers the gender division of labour, commodity systems, and laws of succession and inheritance as they bear upon the positions of farm women in Norway and Sweden. Tracing the development of stratification in the countryside and the history of farmers’ political activism at the national level illuminates the salient differences between these two countries’ histories from the early 19th through the late 20th centuries. This comparison demonstrates that gender as well as the mobilization of rural citizens shaped the transition to capitalism and that, in turn, agricultural and settlement policies reshaped rural gender relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the creation of national myths in Norway in the aftermath of the establishment of Norway and during its growth. It examines the lack of success of the Pan-Scandinavian movement in Norway during the 19th century, the role of historians in the creation of national myths, particularly during the Viking era and Middle Ages, and the survival of Norwegians despite oppression visited upon them by Danes. The article discusses followers of the Danish poet N.F.S. Grundtvig and the link between religion and the nation, the Norwegian education system and the presentation of a heroic national history, and what is referred to as the cult of St. Olaf. It also discusses the link between sport and religion in national identity.

Fairly good data enable us to estimate mid-16th-century homicide rates (to between 10 and 15 per 100,000). Data from the earlier centuries, documents from the standardized process for homicides, and occasional other mentions are at first sight not promising, but can be treated with advanced statistical methods. With these, the homicide rates for the region and period in question can be estimated to between 8 and 13 per 100,000 for the part of Norway that they cover: southern rural Norway. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The two pre-Napoleonic Nordic polities are best understood as empires. Drawing on recent analytical and historical scholarship on empires, I argue that 17th and 18th century Denmark, on which the piece concentrates, was very much akin to the other European empires existing at the time. Read in this light, national identities within the fragments of the empire appear similar. Nationalisms are all shaped directly on the Danish model, having at the same time Denmark as their constitutive cultural other. The introduction notes that, where all European imperial experiences are concerned, overseas territories had the most wounds inflicted upon them. We would not know this if we considered Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian nationalism in isolation. These polities, Norway in particular, participated in and benefited from the colonial policies of the empire. This notwithstanding, their national identities insist that these nations were on the receiving – as opposed to the imposing – end of imperialism. This is a historically unwarranted and ethically problematic stance requiring further discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Norwegian government created the Abel Prize in Mathematics in 2002 in memory of mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802-1829). The aim was to establish the annual Abel Prize as the world's leading prize in mathematics. The creation of the prize was the result of a short and successful campaign in the spring and summer of 2001, which presented the prize as 'the missing Nobel Prize in mathematics.' The prize was very well received, both by the international mathematical community and Norwegian politicians. Sweden's Nobel Foundation, however, found repeated references to the new prize as 'a Nobel in mathematics' to be quite inappropriate. This article focuses on how the prize was successfully established in Norway, a country considered by some to be at the mathematical periphery, and to what extent the Abel Prize has been able to live up to the high expectations during its first 10 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article discusses discourses on criminal responsibility in Norway in the 19th and 20th centuries, in light of Michel Foucault's regimes of power and knowledge: the apparatuses of law, discipline and security. The passing of two criminal codes, in 1842 and 1902 marks a development from neo-classical law to a law influenced by positivist criminology. In these consecutive ways of thinking law, the figure of the irresponsible criminal constituted a contentious issue. From being a figure marking the limits of the law, the irresponsible criminal became an object to be disciplined and a security threat. This redefinition of criminal responsibility created or was created by new groups of experts speaking from positions increasingly close to the criminals. The most important professional group was of course the psychiatrists, that emerged in Norway as a distinct professional group in the second half of the 19th century, and whose influence in the legislative process culminated in the 1920s. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The history of education in a number of industrialized countries during the first part of the 20th century testifies to the political will behind school centralization and the closure of small and non-graded rural elementary schools. A closer examination shows that school centralization throughout these countries can be associated with the development of a more unified educational system and that a unified school system is in turn seen as a political tool for the advancement of social welfare. In particular, this article discusses the development of the Norwegian non-graded elementary school. It examines the nature and the effects of the applied policies, and analyses the rationales – both political and educational – behind political decisions on education. The overall conclusions can be linked to and complement international research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To establish a library and a museum were key aims when the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters was founded in 1760 in Trondheim, then Norway’s second largest city with 7,000 inhabitants. Bishop Johan E. Gunnerus (1718–73) took a bold initiative in starting the Society; Norway was a dependency of Denmark and such activity could be construed as subversive. In 1761 the first issue of the scientific journal Skrifter (Transactions) appeared, and is still regularly published as one of the main activities of the Society. Steps towards creating a library and a museum were taken in 1778 when the Society was allocated an auditorium in the Cathedral School in the city. A significant advance occurred in 1866 when the Society moved into its own building. By that time, 25,000 people lived in the city, and it was estimated that half of the city’s population visited the first public exhibitions at the newly-opened museum. School pupils were an important segment of the visitors, and this continues to be the case today when some 170,000 people live in the city and its vicinity. From 1984 the museum has been managed by the University, providing a sense of stability. However, we describe here the upheavals that Norway has experienced and the impact that they had on the Society and its museum. We refer to the Union with Denmark until 1814 and with Sweden up to 1905, the occupation in the Second World War (1940–45), and the period of rapid modernization up to the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the history of the colonization of parts of northern Sweden, Finland, and Norway that used to be the home of the Saami people by Swedish and Finnish settlers, starting in the mid-seventeenth century. The author highlights that these areas were colonized by non-Saami peoples only comparatively late, in some instances only in the early nineteenth century. Themes addressed include the establishment of churches and the role of religion in colonization, the creation of a written Southern Saami language, and ethnic relations in the area.

The article discusses changes and revisions of the Norwegian official Grand Narrative, as portrayed in primary school hjstory textbooks. The selected corpus of textbooks of 1885- 1940 shows narrative and historiographical changes supporting a hypothesis of a development from a Narrative of Suffering towards a Narrative of Growth. The reconfiguration of the Norwegian Grand Narrative plot is illustrated by the Association Norden's pioneering history textbook revision, which aimed at removing old national enemy images such as the Swedish arch-enemy and antagonist in the Norwegian Narrative of Suffering. The Normc textbook revision shows that a political call for more peaceable narratives between former enerllies has to be addressed more comprehensively, respecting both narrative implications and time needed to reconfigure a grand narrative of collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fidelity to fair play informs a Norwegian national passion for OL, the Olympic games, that embraces popular engagement, organizational skill, and athletic prowess. Yet dominance in ice-and-snow sport has siphoned attention from Norway's initial Olympic engagements that, up to 1924, were summer only. These reflected an uneasy push-pull dynamic shaped by internal politics, socio-cultural traditions, and regional tensions. The nascent Olympic stage gave Norway, which split acrimoniously from Sweden in 1905, needed visibility in an age of ascendant nationalism. However, the elitist early modern Olympic world also clashed with egalitarian impulses and indigenous traditions that revered idræt, the vigorous but non-competitive pursuit of athletic endeavor. A wider values conflict was telescoped into the Norwegian debate during formative decades, while tensions with Sweden formed a little-known political backdrop to the 1912 Stockholm games. Only from the 1930s could Norway make peace with the Olympic project and forge its Hegelian-like postwar synthesis in which sporting professionalism has eclipsed yet not eradicated traditional idræt elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors comment on a paper by archaeologist Håkon Glørstad on the important role of boats, specifically log boats, in the colonization of Norway. They compare the similarities between the climate, physical features, and general coastal environment of western Scotland and south-west Norway. They argue that the exploitation of coastal resources does not require boats per se.

The author comments on a paper by archaeologist Håkon Glørstad on the important role of boats, specifically log boats, in the colonization of Norway. He criticizes the failure of Glørstad to tackle the fact that boats were more than a floating device between destinations. He also compares the functions and features of log and skin boats.

The author comments on a paper by archaeologist Håkon Glørstad on the important role of boats, specifically log boats, in the colonization of Norway. He argues against the use of recent umiak-equipped Inuit and upper Palaeolithic cultures with no surviving coastlines as a reference for the colonization of Norway. He also discusses boatbuilding technology and kinship and demography during the Mesolithic period.

Ergotism, the disease caused by consuming Claviceps purpurea, a highly poisonous, grain-infecting fungus, occurred at various places scattered throughout Norway during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By focusing on these cases we chart the changing interpretations of the peculiar disease, frequently understood within a religious context or considered as a supernatural (e.g. ghostly) experience. However, there was a growing awareness of the disease ergotism, and from the late eighteenth century onwards it was often correctly interpreted as being due to a fungus consumed via bread or porridge. Also, nineteenth-century fairy-tales and regional legends reveal that people were increasingly aware and fearful of the effects of consuming infected grain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reviews various museum exhibitions and museums, including the exhibition "Views: Norway Seen from the Road 1773-2020," at the Norwegian National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway, the Cobb & Co Museum in Toowoomba, Queensland, and the exhibition "Visions of Empire: the quest for a railroad across America, 1840-80," at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

New media technologies are often met with political and public ambivalence, as they are perceived to threaten established activities, values and institutions, as well as bring progress and improve political, cultural and social life. Taking the Norwegian history of television as an empirical case study, this article relates to an international research agenda focusing on the cultural political debates in the early phases of broadcast media. The article is structured according to five key conjunctures where significant new media and technologies were introduced with corresponding political debates: the introduction of television (1940s–1950s), of colour television (1960s–1970s), of satellite, cable and commercial television (1980s), of digital distribution (1990s–2000s) and the expansion of television to new platforms (2000s). The article addresses the key arguments and dividing lines in these political debates, as well as the change in the perception of television when the medium is no longer new, but has become an integrated part of people's everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]