Today is Norway’s constitution day. On the 17th of May, 1814, a bunch of men signed our constitution in Eidsvoll, outside Oslo, as we stopped being part of Denmark and instead entered into a union with Sweden, under the Swedish king. Oddly, our independence day, the 7th of June 1905, when we shook the Swedes off our backsides, is rarely commemorated.
But yes, today is our day. Congratulations, Norway! We’ve come a long way, and our constitution has been revised any number of times. Among other things, we now have freedom of religion, which wasn’t originally in there. Or, rather, the bit about the state church has been reinterpreted and no longer means that we all have to be Lutheran. Or something.
To me, this day is a bit sad, because I always spent it with my dad. When I was little, he played in a brass band and was always marching with his soprano sax on the 17th. After he died, when I was eleven, there were several years where I spent the entire day indoors, didn’t want to be in the parade, didn’t want to be part of anything. But after a while it became easier, and I guess I sort of realised that just because he’s not here, that doesn’t mean I can’t take part in the festivities anyway. And besides, I get to spend part of the day with him anyway, if I want. I’m going to visit his grave later, give him flowers, light a cigarette (no, I don’t smoke, it’s just part of the tradition; dad was a chain smoker, so we always light a cigarette on his grave, every time we visit), tell him “Happy 17th of May”. It’ll be the third time I go there this spring. For some reason, I’ve been drawn there a lot lately…
When I was about nine or ten years old, I wrote a 17th of May song, for my school. It was all about sunshine and happiness and waving flags and marching bands and grandmothers, and it was based around what we used to do at the school I went to back then. It was about waiting for the parade to start, marching up to the castle, and then going back to school to have ice cream. I made the melody myself, my mum helped me a bit with the lyrics and made chords for me. I wish I could remember it now… It would have been a good 17th of May post, if I could record it and upload it. Oh, well. Maybe next year.
Oh, yeah, the photo is of an arrangement I made today, with apple blossoms and plum blossoms, in honour of the holiday.
5 Comments
The guy with a degree partly in political history butts in:
The reason we celebrate Constitution Day more than Independence Day is that our nation building, which created, almost from scratch, all our national myths, songs, clothes, paintings (even both our languages), started in the late 1700s and continued well into the late 1800s.
Our independence from Denmark and our constitution were seen as one of the victories for this movement.
By the time we ended our union with Sweden, the idea of a Norwegian nation with a Norwegian identity was already developed, so while it was a big deal at the time, it didn’t have quite as big an impact on our identity as Norwegians. Besides, by 1905, we had already established Constitution Day as our “national day”.
Thank you. That was informative and edifying.
I still have a copy of your 17th May song. Just have to figure out exactly where in this house it is. We’ll find it before the next Constitution Day, I’m sure.
@Mum: Hooray!
I love knowing things. Like this. Thank you for telling us about it!