By Doug Pearson, for the CVPost
May is a month for special public events.
Among them are Cinco de Mayo (May 5), when Mexicans commemorate the victory of a small Mexican army over larger French forces), and Memorial Day (when Americans honor members of the military who have died in performance of their duties – on May 31 this year).
Right between these two comes Syttende Mai (17th of May), when Norwegians and their friends all over the world celebrate Constitution Day – usually with parades, banquets, orations, dedications, music and food.
The day has been marked in Eau Claire for more than a century. Often in the 1900s Norwegian immigrant Waldemar Ager was the featured speaker, earnestly exhorting the Norwegian community to support temperance, women’s suffrage or the use of the Norwegian language in everyday life.
A journalist, lecturer and author of several novels and collections of short stories, Ager is remembered to this day in Eau Claire in a museum bearing his name, at 514 W. Madison St. He died in 1941.
This year, Eau Claire will celebrate Syttende Mai virtually, with a “take home” Scandinavian meal and UW-Eau Claire Prof. Emeritus Ivar Lunde’s recorded program: “Bits and Pieces: Norwegian Music from 1814 – 2017.” Ticket sales for the event closed at the end of the day on Sunday, May 9, and no tickets will be sold at the door.
Click here for a link to an earlier story that provides more detail on the local celebration.
Drafting the Norwegian Constitution: April 10 – May 17, 1814
The decision to establish a Norwegian constitution came at a significant and complicated period in European history. In 1813, Norway was part of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway. With the defeat of Napoleon at Leipzig that year, Norway was ceded to Sweden and remained in a union with Sweden until 1905.
Nevertheless, for almost five weeks in the spring of 1814, an assembly of representatives from many parts of Norway worked together at Eidsvoll Manor to craft and ratify a constitution.
Getting there for the event was out of the question for those living in the North. The northernmost parts of Norway lie in the Arctic and border the Arctic regions of Sweden, Finland, and Russia. In addition, the date set for the meeting did not give those in the far north of Norway time enough to travel to Eidsvoll.
Even for those elected to the assembly and living relatively close, in Bergen (population 17,000) or Oslo (then called Christiania, population 12,000), It would have been a difficult journey on foot, horseback, and/or boat. (It would be 1854 before public railways were operating in Norway.)
Once in residence at Eidsvoll, however, stortinget (the storting, the constituent assembly) functioned comfortably in Eidsvoll Manor. The structure had recently been renovated and had rooms for subcommittee work and general sessions as well as space for dining and kaffeepause (coffee break).
The house itself must have been inspiring. The website Eidsvoll1814.no refers to the house as “a beautiful example of neoclassical architecture, whose design draws inspiration from the ideals of antiquity, and it is unparalleled in Norway.” It is currently operated as a public museum.
The ratified constitution
When the new constitution was ratified on May 17, 1814, it included separated powers: legislative, judicial and executive. The second oldest constitution in Europe, the Norwegian document contains some words and ideas derived from the constitution of the United States.
Articles 1 and 2 state that Norway “is a free, independent, indivisible, and inalienable realm” with a “limited and hereditary monarchy” (see en.wikipedia.org). Both king and church were limited in their powers to control the lives of ordinary citizens.
The constitution has six sections and 121 articles. Because Norway survived in a union with Denmark from the early 1500s until 1813, when it was ceded to Sweden, the constitution’s language was Danish.
Many of the representatives at the conference were civil servants; 37 of them were farmers, 26 were lawyers. Big business and the monarchy did not hold sway over the proceedings. One subcommittee drafted 115 articles, 80 of which were accepted unconditionally, according to research conducted by Eirik Holmøyvik.
Today, most of us think of Norway as that oil-rich country in Scandinavia, another one of those socialist democracies that seem implausible to many Americans. It’s the place where the word for superhighway is fjord. But it is also a place that the ski jumpers among us in Eau Claire consider the hotbed for ski jumping (Eau Claire has Silver Mine; Oslo has Holmenkollen, one of the world’s great ski jumps).
And years ago, the Eau Claire Ski Striders held an annual cross-country ski race named for Fridtjof Nansen (look him up).
Note: the home page photo shows Eidsvoll Manor, where the Norwegian constitution of 1814 was drafted and ratified.