Anarchism in Norway first emerged in the 1870s. Some of the first to call themselves anarchists in Norway wereArne Garborg andIvar Mortensson-Egnund. They ran the radical target magazine Fedraheimen which came out 1877–91. Gradually the magazine became more and more anarchist-oriented, and towards the end of its life it had the subtitle Anarchist-Communist Body. The anarchist authorHans Jæger published the book "The Bible of Anarchy" in 1906, and in recent timesJens Bjørneboe has been a spokesman for anarchism – among other things in the book "Police and anarchy".[1]
The history of anarchism in Norway can be traced back to the beginning of the labor movement in 1848, whenMarcus Thrane started the country's firstworkers' union inDrammen. The following year he founded the "Arbeider-Foreningernes Blad". The magazine brought extensive excerpts from the writings of the French anarchistPierre-Joseph Proudhon, theutopian socialism of the tailorWilhelm Weitling, thecommunist creed ofEtienne Cabet, references toHenri de Saint-Simon,Louis Blanc, and the works of other early socialists. Thrane was an admirer of Proudhon, whom he characterized as "arguably the greatest genius of our time", but he did not perceive himself as an anarchist. He is considered Norway's first socialist, and the father of thecooperative movement. At the end of June 1850, the workers' unions had 20,854 members in 273 unions. In 1851, Thrane was arrested and eventually imprisoned. The workers' unions were closed down or their grades changed. Thrane was released in 1859, and emigrated to the United States in 1863. He distanced himself from the assassinations of some anarchists after theHaymarket riots in Chicago in May 1884. Thrane personally knew one of those hanged.[2]
Søren Jaabæk founded the first peasant friends' association in 1865, inMandal. The peasant friends stood for acommunist orlocalist tendency, with emphasis ondecentralization andlocal self-government. The co-operative movement was an important element in the peasant-friend policy.[3]
Arne Garborg,Ivar Mortensson-Egnund andHans Jæger were some of the first to refer to themselves as anarchists.[4] They ran the magazineFedraheimen which was published in 1877–91.[5] Garborg's interest in anarchism is based on Døleringen, which arose in the environment aroundAasmund Olavsson Vinje andErnst Sars and was a counterpart to the political and culturalnationalism that prevailed in Norway in the 1860s.[6]
The student and newspaper manRasmus Steinsvik was one of Garborg's apprentices, and in 1887 he established the radical target magazineVestmannen in his hometown of Volda. Steinsvik tried to merge anarchism with unity and cooperation in the rural community. He advocated that smaller regional and local units should govern themselves through a fully developed local democracy. He called this freedom of government. In 1889, Steinsvik believed that Norway had to leave theunion, the sooner the better. The anarchists in Norway were convinced that behind the shaky contemporaries there was a separate Norwegian form of society with an underlying message of equality, justice and the right toself-determination. At the same time, the anarchists were extremely international in their basic attitude, but they established themselves completely when their views were to be linked at the same time with national identity and self-assertion. The Norwegian anarchist movement "died out" after this, although there were traces of it in the Liberal Party's national democratic project.[7]
The Federation of Anarchist Youth (FAU) started up inKristiansund in 1966/67, but it was only after thestudent uprising in Paris in 1968 that interest in anarchism was really revived.Jens Bjørneboe wrote the essay "Anarchism as a future" in 1969. In 1971 he gave an introduction to the Student Society in Oslo on the topic "Anarchism… today?". Bjørneboe had a great influence on the new budding anarchist movement.[8][4]
The following projects are related to anarchism or anarchists:
