February 20, 2009

Norwegians plan year-long acknowledgement of fact that Knut Hamsun existed

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Knut Hamsun being greeted by Josef Terboven, the brutal "reichskamsar" in charge of Norway

Knut Hamsun being greeted by Josef Terboven, the brutal "Reichskommissar" in charge of Norway

Norway yesterday launched a year of celebrations in honor of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Knut Hamsun, its Nobel Prize-winning native son who died destitute and disgraced because of his support of the Nazi regime that took over his country. As this Agence France Presse report notes, “Norway refused to honour him for the centennial of his birth, back in 1959 when the Scandinavian country was still licking its wounds after five years of Nazi occupation.” The article notes, however, that “Far from the thousands of sometimes grandiose events that marked the centennial of playwright Henrik Ibsen‘s death three years ago, the Hamsun celebrations this year are expected to remain low key.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

  • http://conversationsinthebooktrade.blogspot.com/ Finn Harvor

    Yes, this remains a sore point for Norwegians; my father, who lived with his mother and sister in Oslo during the war (my grandfather was separated from the others when war broke out) still gets emotional when talking about it. It’s something of an understatement to say that Nazis did far worse elsewhere. But they were pretty bad in Norway, too.

    Hamsun may have been blinded by Anglophobia at the beginning of the war. I don’t know what prompted his apparent continued support of Hitler (or Hitler’s ghost, or whatever) after it.

  • http://conversationsinthebooktrade.blogspot.com/ Finn Harvor

    Yes, this remains a sore point for Norwegians; my father, who lived with his mother and sister in Oslo during the war (my grandfather was separated from the others when war broke out) still gets emotional when talking about it. It’s something of an understatement to say that Nazis did far worse elsewhere. But they were pretty bad in Norway, too.

    Hamsun may have been blinded by Anglophobia at the beginning of the war. I don’t know what prompted his apparent continued support of Hitler (or Hitler’s ghost, or whatever) after it.

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