‘RATIONAL NORWEGIAN PATRIOTISM’ IN THE 1780s

Abstract

Being a non‐arguing comment to the ongoing debate on patriotism and nationalism this paper presents a short book, written in 1787, by a Norwegian civil servant on the meaning of phrases like patriot, love for the fatherland and civic virtue. The author gives us his definition of patriotism and connects his understanding very closely to central political issues of the time. He recommends his rational patriotism as the solution to a developing tension and antagonism between being an obedient citizen in the extended Danish/Norwegian community and being a passionate patriot on behalf of his Norwegian fatherland.

Notes

1. Tyge Rothe was an active participant, and his first contribution Tanker om Kierlighed til Fædrenelandet, published in 1759, may be regarded as a starting point. In 1767 Eiler Hagerup wrote his Brev om Kierlighed til Fædrenelandet, and in the 1770s a dramatic piece by Johan Nordahl Brun, Einer Tamberskiælve, stimulated the debate. In the 1780s and 1790s it was for a great part related to the Norwegian request for a university.

2. Some examples: Feldbæk 1991 and 1998, Rerup 1991, Lunden 1992, Storsveen 1997, Damsholt 2000, Lyngby 2001, Engelhardt 2007, Hobsbawn 1990, Smith 1991 and 1998, Viroli 1997, Hastings 1997, Kidd 1999, Bell 2001, Ihalainen 2005.

3. We must always keep in mind the censorship of the time: lifted under Struensee (1770–1771), regulated in 1784 and in the late 1790s. In 1787 nobody would think of criticizing the King, but in practise there were few other topics not to be touched upon without risking reprisals.

4. Samling af Skrifter, udgivne fra det Nordiske Selskab i London. Vol. 1. Copenhagen 1788, pp. 4–5.

5. Arentz 1787.

6. Friedrich Arentz was married to Catherine Holberg, related to Ludvig Holberg.

7. Arentz 1756.

8. Røgeberg 2003.

9. Supphellen 1979.

10. Strøm 1763/66.

11. Arentz 1785.

12. An excerpt of this work has fairly recently been included in Bull 1999.

13. See Feldbæk 1998, p 282 ff.

14. The bank and university issues were the greatest Norwegian symbolic causes in the late 1700s, and the university issue was of particular interest from 1788 onwards – the year after Arentz's book was published.

15. Lyngby 2001, Damsholt 2000.

16. When Juliane Engelhardt, having studied patriotic societies, writes, in Engelhardt 2007, p. 220, that ‘there were two competing identities in the Danish state at the end of the Enlightenment area: the patriotic identity and the budding national identity’, and (p. 221) that ‘you could become a patriot’, Arentz with his Norwegian background would not have agreed.