62-640: Sigrid Undset ( Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈsɪ̂ɡːɾiː ˈʉ̂nːseːt] ; 20 May 1882 – 10 June 1949) was a Danish -born Norwegian novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928 . Born in Denmark and raised in Norway, Undset had her first books of historical fiction published in 1907. She fled Norway for the United States in 1940 because of her opposition to Nazi Germany and
124-694: A close friend of novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings . Following the Gestapo 's arrest and summary execution of Danish Lutheran pastor and playwright Kaj Munk on 4 January 1944, the Danish resistance newspaper De frie Danske printed protests from many famous Scandinavian intellectuals, including Undset. Undset returned to Norway after the liberation in 1945. She lived another four years but never published another word. Undset died at 67 in Lillehammer , Norway, where she had lived from 1919 through 1940. She
186-483: A historical context; the historic German-Danish struggle regarding the status of the Duchy of Schleswig vis-à-vis a Danish nation-state . It describes people of Danish nationality , both in Denmark and elsewhere–most importantly, ethnic Danes in both Denmark proper and the former Danish Duchy of Schleswig . Excluded from this definition are people from the formerly Norway, Faroe Islands , and Greenland ; members of
248-543: A long illness. The family's economic situation meant that Undset had to give up hope of a university education and after a one-year secretarial course she obtained work at the age of 16 as a secretary with an engineering company in Kristiania, a post she went on to hold for 10 years. She joined the Norwegian Authors' Union in 1907 and from 1933 through 1935 headed its Literary Council, eventually serving as
310-408: A minimum of camouflage, it tells the story of her own childhood in Kristiania, of her home, rich in intellectual values and love, and of her sick father. At the end of the 1930s, she commenced work on a new historical novel set in 18th century Scandinavia. Only the first volume, Madame Dorthea , was published, in 1939. The Second World War broke out that same year and proceeded to break her, both as
372-455: A modern nation identified with the country of Denmark. This connection may be ancestral, legal, historical, or cultural. Danes generally regard themselves as a nationality and reserve the word "ethnic" for the description of recent immigrants , sometimes referred to as "new Danes". The contemporary Danish national identity is based on the idea of "Danishness", which is founded on principles formed through historical cultural connections and
434-524: A passionate interest in the writings of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson , many of whose writings she would later translate into Norwegian. However, she did not turn to the established Lutheran Church of Norway , where she had been nominally reared. This is because, according to Geir Hasnes, Undset had always considered the Lutheran Church "anemic" and "detested the fact that every minister seemed to preach his personal version of Lutheranism ." She
496-446: A prominent part in the process. Two defining cultural criteria of being Danish were speaking the Danish language and identifying Denmark as a homeland. The ideology of Danishness has been politically important in the formulation of Danish political relations with the EU , which has been met with considerable resistance in the Danish population, and in recent reactions in the Danish public to
558-456: A share in government, and in an attempt to avert the sort of bloody revolution occurring elsewhere in Europe, Frederick VII gave in to the demands of the citizens. A new constitution emerged, separating the powers and granting the franchise to all adult males, as well as freedom of the press, religion, and association. The king became head of the executive branch . Danishness ( danskhed )
620-704: A writer and as a woman. She never completed her new novel. When Joseph Stalin 's invasion of Finland touched off the Winter War , Undset supported the Finnish war effort by donating her Nobel Prize on 25 January 1940. When Germany invaded Norway in April 1940, Undset was forced to flee. She had strongly criticised both Nazi ideology and Adolf Hitler since the early 1930s, and, from an early date, her books were banned in Nazi Germany . She accordingly knew her name
682-545: A writer. Having been granted a writer's scholarship, she set out on a lengthy journey in Europe. After short stops in Denmark and Germany, she continued to Italy, arriving in Rome in December 1909, where she remained for nine months. Undset's parents had had a close relationship with Rome, and, during her stay there, she followed in their footsteps. The encounter with Southern Europe meant a great deal to her; she made friends within
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#1732793772729744-533: Is initiated, she will become the second post-reformation Norwegian candidate for sainthood after Venerable Karl Maria Schilling . Sigrid Undset and the plot of Kristin Lavransdatter are important elements in the 2006 Academy Award-winning animated short film, The Danish Poet . Danish people Danes ( Danish : danskere , pronounced [ˈtænskɐɐ] ), or Danish people , are an ethnic group and nationality native to Denmark and
806-532: Is now northern Germany . The political and economic defeat ironically sparked what is known as the Danish Golden Age during which a Danish national identity first came to be fully formed. The Danish liberal and national movements gained momentum in the 1830s, and after the European revolutions of 1848 Denmark became a constitutional monarchy on 5 June 1849. The growing bourgeoisie had demanded
868-401: Is the concept on which contemporary Danish national and ethnic identity is based. It is a set of values formed through the historic trajectory of the formation of the Danish nation. The ideology of Danishness emphasizes the notion of historical connection between the population and the territory of Denmark and the relation between the thousand-year-old Danish monarchy and the modern Danish state,
930-643: Is typically not based on ethnic heritage. Denmark has been inhabited by various Germanic peoples since ancient times, including the Angles , Cimbri , Jutes , Herules , Teutones and others. The first mention of Danes within Denmark is on the Jelling Rune Stone , which mentions the conversion of the Danes to Christianity by Harald Bluetooth in the 10th century. Between c. 960 and
992-588: The German minority; and members of other ethnic minorities. Importantly, since its formulation, Danish identity has not been linked to a particular racial or biological heritage, as many other ethno-national identities have. N. F. S. Grundtvig , for example, emphasized the Danish language and the emotional relation to and identification with the nation of Denmark as the defining criteria of Danishness. This cultural definition of ethnicity has been suggested to be one of
1054-474: The German invasion and occupation of Norway, but returned after World War II ended in 1945. Her best-known work is Kristin Lavransdatter , a trilogy about life in Norway in the Middle Ages , portrayed through the experiences of a woman from birth until death. Its three volumes were published between 1920 and 1922. Sigrid Undset was born on 20 May 1882 in the small town of Kalundborg , Denmark, at
1116-666: The Kingdom of Norway , which included the territories of Norway , Iceland and the Faroese Islands . Olaf's mother, Margrethe I , united Norway, Sweden and Denmark into the Kalmar Union . In 1523, Sweden won its independence, leading to the dismantling of the Kalmar Union and the establishment of Denmark–Norway . Denmark–Norway grew wealthy during the 16th century, largely because of the increased traffic through
1178-702: The New Testament into Danish ; it became an instant best-seller. Those who had traveled to Wittenberg in Saxony and come under the influence of the teachings of Luther and his associates included Hans Tausen , a Danish monk in the Order of St John Hospitallers . In the 17th century Denmark–Norway colonized Greenland . After a failed war with the Swedish Empire , the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658 removed
1240-750: The Soviet Union via the Trans-Siberian Railroad before arriving as a political refugee in the United States . There, she untiringly pleaded occupied Norway's cause and the plight of European Jews in writings, speeches and interviews. She lived in Brooklyn Heights, New York . She was active in St. Ansgar's Scandinavian Catholic League and wrote several articles for its bulletin. She also traveled to Florida , where she became
1302-683: The Western United States or the Midwestern United States . California has the largest population of people of Danish descent in the United States. Notable Danish communities in the United States are located in Solvang, California , and Racine, Wisconsin , but these populations are not considered to be Danes for official purposes by the Danish government , and heritage alone can not be used to claim Danish citizenship, as it can in some European nations. According to
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#17327937727291364-620: The Øresund . The Crown of Denmark could tax the traffic, because it controlled both sides of the Sound at the time. The Reformation , which originated in the German lands in the early 16th century from the ideas of Martin Luther (1483–1546), had a considerable impact on Denmark. The Danish Reformation started in the mid-1520s. Some Danes wanted access to the Bible in their own language. In 1524, Hans Mikkelsen and Christiern Pedersen translated
1426-416: The 19th-century national romantic idea of "the people" ( folk ), a view of Danish society as homogeneous and socially egalitarian as well as strong cultural ties to other Scandinavian nations. As a concept, det danske folk (the Danish people) played an important role in 19th-century ethnic nationalism and refers to self-identification rather than a legal status. Use of the term is most often restricted to
1488-479: The 2006 Census, there were 200,035 Canadians with Danish background , 17,650 of whom were born in Denmark. Canada became an important destination for the Danes during the post war period. At one point, a Canadian immigration office was to be set up in Copenhagen . In Greenland , a self-governing territory under Danish sovereignty , there are approximately 6,348 Danish Greenlanders making up roughly 11% of
1550-470: The Hestviken tetralogy by Nunnally are retitled Olav Audunssøn (1):Vows ( The Axe ) , …(2) Providence , ( The Snake Pit ), …(3) Crossroads ( In The Wilderness ), and …(4) Winter ( The Son Avenger ). Both Undset's parents were atheists and, although, in accord with the norm of the day, she and her two younger sisters were baptised and with their mother regularly attended the local Lutheran church,
1612-514: The Medieval Catholic Church is presented in a favorable light, with virtually all clergy and monks in the series being positive characters. In Norway, Undset's conversion to Catholicism was not only considered sensational; it was scandalous. It was also noted abroad, where her name was becoming known through the international success of Kristin Lavransdatter . At the time, there were very few practicing Catholics in Norway, which
1674-594: The Pre-Christian era. She had also published a Norwegian retelling of the Arthurian legends . She had studied Old Norse manuscripts and Medieval chronicles and visited and examined Medieval churches and monasteries , both at home and abroad. She was now an authority on the period she was portraying and a very different person from the 22-year-old who had written her first novel about the Middle Ages. It
1736-470: The age of 25, Undset made her literary debut with a short realistic novel on adultery , set against a contemporary background. It created a stir, and she found herself ranked as a promising young author in Norway. During the years up to 1919, Undset published a number of novels set in contemporary Kristiania. Her contemporary novels of the period 1907–1918 are about the city and its inhabitants. They are stories of working people, of trivial family destinies, of
1798-644: The areas of the Scandinavian peninsula from Danish control, thus establishing the boundaries between Norway, Denmark, and Sweden that exist to this day. In the centuries after this loss of territory, the populations of the Scanian lands , who had previously been considered Danish, came to be fully integrated as Swedes . In the early 19th century, Denmark suffered a defeat in the Napoleonic Wars ; Denmark lost control over Norway and territories in what
1860-526: The childhood home of her mother, Charlotte Undset (1855–1939, née Anna Maria Charlotte Gyth). Undset was the eldest of three daughters. She and her family moved to Norway when she was two. She grew up in the Norwegian capital, Oslo (or Kristiania, as it was known until 1925). When she was only 11 years old, her father, the Norwegian archaeologist Ingvald Martin Undset (1853–1893), died at the age of 40 after
1922-547: The circle of Scandinavian artists and writers in Rome. In Rome, Undset met Anders Castus Svarstad , a Norwegian painter, whom she married almost three years later. She was 30; Svarstad was thirteen years older, married, and had a wife and three children in Norway. It was nearly three years before Svarstad got his divorce from his first wife. Undset and Svarstad were married in 1912 and went to stay in London for six months. From London, they returned to Rome, where their first child
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1984-498: The death of Canute the Great in 1035, England broke away from Danish control. Canute's nephew Sweyn Estridson (1020–74) re-established strong royal Danish authority and built a good relationship with the archbishop of Bremen , at that time the archbishop of all Scandinavia . Over the next centuries, the Danish empire expanded throughout the southern Baltic coast. Under the 14th century king Olaf II , Denmark acquired control of
2046-515: The debut of his paintings at the Autumn Exhibition in Kristiania in 1902. After the debut, he competed regularly at art exhibitions, but supported himself and his family still also through decorative painting. Until approximately 1907, he balanced his career between being an artist and a decorative painter. Svarstad undertook numerous journeys abroad, during which urban scenes captivated his attention. His art began incorporating elements of
2108-566: The early 980s, Bluetooth established a kingdom in the lands of the Danes, stretching from Jutland to Scania. Around the same time, he received a visit from a German missionary who, by surviving an ordeal by fire according to legend, convinced Harold to convert to Christianity . The following years saw the Danish Viking expansion , which incorporated Norway and England into the Danish North Sea Empire . After
2170-415: The end, commits suicide. The other tells of a woman who succeeds in saving both herself and her love from a serious matrimonial crisis, finally creating a secure family. These books placed Undset apart from the incipient women's emancipation movement in Europe. Undset's books sold well from the start, and, after the publication of her third book, she left her office job and prepared to live on her income as
2232-517: The ethical decline of the age, towards Christianity. In all her writing, one senses an observant eye for the mystery of life and for that which cannot be explained by reason or the human intellect. At the back of her sober, almost brutal realism, there is always an inkling of something unanswerable. At any rate, this crisis radically changed her views and ideology. Whereas she had once believed that man created God, she eventually came to believe that God created man. Beginning around 1917, Undset developed
2294-439: The first at only 80 pages. She had put aside the Middle Ages and had instead produced a realistic description of a woman with a middle-class background in contemporary Kristiania. This book was also refused by the publishers at first but it was subsequently accepted. The title was Fru Marta Oulie , and the opening sentence (the words of the book's main character) scandalised readers: "I have been unfaithful to my husband". Thus, at
2356-417: The increasing influence of immigration . The Danish diaspora consists of emigrants and their descendants, especially those who maintain some of the customs of their Danish culture. A minority of approximately fifty thousand Danish-identifying German citizens live in the former Danish territory of Southern Schleswig ( Sydslesvig) , now located within the borders of Germany, forming around ten percent of
2418-575: The local population. In Denmark, the latter group is often referred to as "Danes south of the border" ( De danske syd for grænsen ), the "Danish-minded" ( de dansksindede ), or simply "South Schleswigers". Due to immigration there are considerable populations with Danish roots outside Denmark in countries such as the United States, Brazil , Canada , Greenland and Argentina . Danish Americans ( Dansk-amerikanere ) are Americans of Danish descent. There are approximately 1,500,000 Americans of Danish origin or descent. Most Danish-Americans live in
2480-435: The manager's desk and exclaimed, "This is the best book ever written! It has to be translated into Norwegian!" Whether or not the story is merely apocryphal, Undset's own translation of The Everlasting Man was published in 1931. At the end of this creative eruption, Undset entered calmer waters. After 1929, she completed a series of novels set in contemporary Oslo , with a strong Catholic element. She selected her themes from
2542-469: The milieu in which they were raised was a thoroughly secular one. Undset spent much of her life as an agnostic, but marriage and the outbreak of the First World War were to change her attitudes. During those difficult years she experienced a crisis of faith, almost imperceptible at first, then increasingly strong. The crisis led her from clear agnostic skepticism , by way of painful uneasiness about
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2604-531: The modern era, such as telephone wires, gas tanks, and factory chimneys, reflecting his fascination with these developments. Together with fellow artist Søren Onsager he ran an art school from 1926 to 1929. He was also an art critic and sat on the Council of the National Gallery of Norway and Artist House and as director of Oslo Art Society . He is represented in the National Gallery of Norway and
2666-505: The original English translation by Charles Archer excised many of these passages. In 1997, the first volume of Tiina Nunnally 's new translation of the work won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in the category of translation. The names of each volume were translated by Archer as The Bridal Wreath , The Mistress of Husaby , and The Cross , and by Nunnally as The Wreath , The Wife , and The Cross . Subsequent translation of
2728-649: The outbreak of the war. Bjerkebæk was requisitioned by the Wehrmacht , and used as officers' quarters throughout the Occupation of Norway . Undset's library had already been secretly divided between her closest local friends. The books were hidden at great risk throughout the Nazi occupation and were returned to her after the Liberation of Norway. In 1940, Undset and her younger son left neutral Sweden then crossed
2790-554: The public debate on topical themes: women's emancipation and other ethical and moral issues. She had considerable polemical gifts, and was critical of emancipation as it was developing, and of the moral and ethical decline she felt was threatening in the wake of the First World War . In 1919, she moved to Lillehammer , a small town in the Gudbrand Valley in southeast Norway, taking her two children with her. She
2852-522: The public debate, going out of her way to introduce the ongoing Catholic literary revival into Norwegian literature . In response, she was swiftly dubbed "The Mistress of Bjerkebæk" and "The Catholic Lady". Undset's essays about Elizabethan era English Catholic martyrs Margaret Clitherow and Robert Southwell were collected and published in Stages on the Road . Furthermore, Undset's Saga of Saints told
2914-410: The reasons that Denmark was able to integrate their earliest ethnic minorities of Jewish and Polish origins into the Danish ethnic group with much more success than neighboring Germany. Jewishness was not seen as being incompatible with a Danish ethnic identity, as long as the most important cultural practices and values were shared. This inclusive ethnicity has in turn been described as the background for
2976-407: The relationship between parents and children. Her main subjects are women and their love. Or, as she herself put it—in her typically curt and ironic manner—"the immoral kind" (of love). This realistic period culminated in the novels Jenny (1911) and Vaaren (Spring) (1914). The first is about a woman painter who, as a result of romantic crises, believes that she is wasting her life, and, in
3038-540: The relative lack of virulent antisemitism in Denmark and the rescue of the Danish Jews , saving 99% of Denmark's Jewish population from the Holocaust . Modern Danish cultural identity is rooted in the birth of the Danish national state during the 19th century. In this regard, Danish national identity was built on a basis of peasant culture and Lutheran theology , with Grundtvig and his popular movement playing
3100-577: The small Catholic community in Norway. But here also, the main theme is love. She also published a number of weighty historical works which put the history of Norway into a sober perspective. In addition, she translated several Icelandic sagas into Modern Norwegian and published a number of literary essays, mainly on English literature, of which a long essay on the Brontë sisters, and one on D. H. Lawrence , are especially worth mentioning. In 1934, she published Eleven Years Old , an autobiographical work. With
3162-549: The territory's population. The most common Y-DNA haplogroups among Danes are R1b (37.3 %) and I1 (32.8 %). [REDACTED] Media related to Danes at Wikimedia Commons Anders Castus Svarstad Anders Castus Svarstad (22 May 1869 – 22 August 1943) was a Norwegian painter, most frequently associated with his urban landscapes. Anders Castus Svarstad was born at Lille Svarstad in Hole , in Ringerike . He
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#17327937727293224-507: The union's chairwoman from 1935 until 1940. While employed at office work, Undset wrote and studied. She was 16 years old when she made her first attempt at writing a novel set in the Nordic Middle Ages . The manuscript, a historical novel set in medieval Denmark, was ready by the time she was 22. It was turned down by the publishing house. Nonetheless, two years later, she completed another manuscript, much less voluminous than
3286-433: The whole of Norwegian history through the lives of Norwegian Saints and Venerables. In May 1928, Undset travelled to England and visited G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc , both of whose writings she would soon translate into Norwegian. According to legend, Undset once walked into the office of the manager of the monolithic Aschehoug publishing company. Undset then threw a copy of Chesterton's The Everlasting Man on
3348-794: Was a pupil at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry in Kristiania (now Oslo) from 1886 to 1889 and worked for a time as decorative paints, including time spent in Chicago at the World's Columbian Exposition (1892–94). He studied in Paris and the following year with Laurits Tuxen in Copenhagen (1897-1898). At the end of the 1890s, he was a student at the Académie Colarossi in Paris . He made
3410-547: Was an almost exclusively Lutheran country. Anti-Catholicism was widespread not only among the Lutheran clergy, but through large sections of the population. Likewise, there was just as much anti-Catholic scorn among the Norwegian intelligentsia , many of whom were adherents of socialism and communism . The attacks against her faith and character were quite vicious at times, with the result that Undset's literary gifts were aroused in response. For many years, she participated in
3472-549: Was born in January 1913. A boy, he was named after his father. In the years up to 1919, she had another child, and the household also took in Svarstad's three children from his first marriage. These were difficult years: her second child, a girl, was mentally handicapped , as was one of Svarstad's sons by his first wife. She continued writing, finishing her last realistic novels and collections of short stories . She also entered
3534-475: Was buried in the village of Mesnali , 15 kilometers east of Lillehammer, where also her daughter and the son who died in battle are remembered. The grave is recognizable by three black crosses. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Oslo in close collaboration with the Dominican Order in Norway have started initial steps in investigating and opening a possible sainthood cause for Sigrid Undset. Once her cause
3596-425: Was completed, along with a large fenced garden with views of the town and the villages around. Here she was able to retreat and concentrate on her writing. After the birth of her third child, and with a secure roof over her head, Undset started a major project: Kristin Lavransdatter . She was at home in the subject matter, having written a short novel at an earlier stage about a period in Norwegian history closer to
3658-462: Was on a list of those to be rounded up in the first wave of arrests and had no wish to become a target of the Gestapo . She accordingly fled to neutral Sweden. Her eldest son, Norwegian Army Second Lieutenant Anders Svarstad, was killed in action at the age of 27, on 27 April 1940, while defending Segalstad Bridge in Gausdal from German troops. Undset's sick daughter had died shortly before
3720-548: Was only after the end of her marriage that Undset wrote her masterpiece. In the years between 1920 and 1927, she first published the three-volume Kristin , and then the 4-volume Olav (Audunssøn), swiftly translated into English as The Master of Hestviken . Simultaneously with this creative process, she was engaged in trying to find meaning in her own life, finding the answer in God. Undset experimented with modernist tropes such as stream of consciousness in her novel, although
3782-647: Was received into the Catholic Church in November 1924, after thorough instruction from the Catholic priest in her local parish. She was 42 years old. She subsequently became a lay Dominican . It is noteworthy that The Master of Hestviken , written immediately after Undset's conversion, takes place in a historical period when Norway was Catholic, that it has very religious themes of the main character's relations with God and his deep feeling of sin, and that
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#17327937727293844-433: Was then expecting her third child. The intention was that she should take a rest at Lillehammer and move back to Kristiania as soon as Svarstad had their new house in order. However, the marriage broke down and a divorce followed. In August 1919, she gave birth to her third child, at Lillehammer. She decided to make Lillehammer her home, and within two years, Bjerkebæk, a large house of traditional Norwegian timber architecture,
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