Bjornstjerne Bjornson

From Philosopedia

Bjørnson, Bjørnstjerne (8 December 1832 - 26 April 1910)

A major figure in Norwegian literature, Bjørnson championed the rights of the oppressed and was a freethinker who succeeded Ibsen as director of the Ole Bull Theater in Bergen.

The son of a Lutheran minister, he was born at a farmstead of Bjørgen in Kvikne, a secluded village in the Østerdalen district, some sixty miles south of Trondheim. In 1837 Bjørnson's father was transferred from Kvikne to the parish of Nesset, outside Molde in Romsdal. It was in this scenic district that Bjørnson spent his childhood. After a few years studying in the neighbouring city Molde, Bjørnson was sent to Heltbergs Studentfabrikk in Christiania to prepare for University, at the age of 17. He had realized that he wanted to pursue his talent for poetry, having written verses since age eleven. He matriculated at the University of Oslo in 1852, soon embarking upon a career as a journalist, focusing on criticism of drama.

He wrote the Norwegian national anthem, “Ja, vi elsker dette landet” (“Yes, we love this land forever”).

Bjornson wrote the first realistic contemporary play, with Ibsen following suit. Bjornson's plays were the first Norwegian works to be performed outside Scandinavia. Standing next to Ibsen in acclaim, Bjornson became what freethought historian Joseph McCabe termed "an aggressive Agnostic" in 1875, after reading Herbert Spencer and becoming a Darwinian. He was also influenced by Darwin and J.S. Mill. His story, "Dust" (1882), showed the harm of religious influence.

In 1882 Bjørnson published the first attack upon dogmatic Christianity published in Norway, a resumé of C. B. Waite’s History of the Christian Religion. In Beyond Our Power (1883), he attacked the Christian belief in miracles, and in Beyond Human Might (1895) he concluded that social change must originate in the schools. Also, he translated works by Robert Ingersoll and was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association. For three decades he was a leader of Norwegian republicans. In 1903, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1903

When Bjørnson died, the British literary weekly, Athenaeum, wrote that “European literature had sustained no such loss since Victor Hugo.”

(See entry for Scandinavian Unbelievers.)

{BDF; CE; FFRF; JM; JMR; JMRH; PUT; RE}