Alla vägar bär till fjälls : En undersökning om snö i det norska nationalprojektet under sent 1800-tal

Sammanfattning

All Roads Lead to the Snow-Capped Mountains: An Examination of Snow in Norwegian Nation Building During the Late 19th Century. Uppsala University: Dep. of History of Science and Ideas, Bachelor of Art’s thesis, spring term 2024. This essay examines three literary works by Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen. The purpose is to explore the ways in which snow played a part in Norwegian nationalism at the end of the 19th century. At the time that Nansen’s books were originally published, Norway had been at the political and cultural mercy of its neighboring nations for the past five centuries. An ambition for complete independence was brewing, and Fridtjof Nansen became part of a group of intellectuals tasked with creating a new national identity, one that was constructed through the creation of cultural borders and visions of a nation aligned with a perceived glorious past. National romanticism had a strong grip on Europe in general during this time, and infusing the national identity with a romanticized nature was commonplace. Norway is no exception to this, but the argument put forth here is that snow played a particular part in creating the new nation, aside from the rest of nature. Fridtjof Nansen personified, through his own activism and resistance to the unions, the Norwegian identity, and became in a sense synonymous with it. Through his personal relationship with snow, snow became personal to the nation.