Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
INDEPENDENT NORWAY
Norway may have spent much of the previous centuries as the subservient vassal of foreign
occupiers and its days as a world power had long ago ended, but not all was doom and
gloom. It took almost a century after their first constitution, not to mention nine centuries
afterHaraldFair-Hairfirstunifiedthecountry,butNorwegiansweredeterminedtoonceand
for all become masters of their own destiny.
A Confident Start
During the 19th century, perhaps buoyed by the spirit of the 1814 constitution, Norwegians
began to rediscover a sense of their own, independent cultural identity. This nascent cultural
revival was most evident in a flowering of musical and artistic expression led by poet and
playwright Henrik Ibsen (
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), composer Edvard Grieg (
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) and artist Ed-
vard Munch (
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).
Language also began to play its part with the development of a standardised written form
of Norwegian known as
landsmål
(or
Nynorsk
). Norway's first railway, from Oslo to Eids-
voll,wascompletedin1854andNorwaybeganlookingatincreasedinternationaltrade,par-
ticularly tied to its burgeoning fishing and whaling industries in the Arctic North.
Norway was still extremely poor-between 1825and 1925,over 750,000Norwegians re-
settled in the USA and Canada - but the wave of national identity would not be stopped.
In1905aconstitutionalreferendumwasheld.Asexpected,virtuallynooneinNorwayfa-
voured continued union with Sweden. The Swedish king, Oskar II, was forced to recognise
Norwegian sovereignty, abdicate and reinstate a Norwegian constitutional monarchy, with
Haakon VII on the throne. His descendants rule Norway to this day, with decisions on suc-
cession remaining under the authority of the
storting
(parliament). Oslo was declared the
national capital of the Kingdom of Norway.
Newly independent Norway quickly set about showing the world that it was a worthy
international citizen. In 1911 the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South
Pole. Two years later Norwegian women became among the first in Europe to be given the
vote. Hydroelectric projects sprang up all around the country and prosperous new industries
emerged to drive the increasingly healthy export economy.
