British translations, travel accounts as political literature and translations around 1905
The Norwegian constitution served as an argument, an example and a model not only within a German constitutional discourse but also within a British nineteenth-century context, with the Chartist movement and later the Irish Repeal and Home Rule movements of clear relevance. The first English translation of the Norwegian November constitution was as part of a travelogue, confirming the socio-political dimension of the genre.
1 A French translation of the constitution was a part of British and Foreign State Papers, 1814, intended for the government and the diplomacy. In 1841 this series was republished to make it accessible to the common reader. British and Foreign State Papers 1: II (1812‒1814), (London, 1841), pp. 926‒41. British travel accounts from Norway flourished during the first half of the nineteenth century, depicting Norway as an utopian model.
2 P. Fjågesund and R. A. Symes, The Northern Utopia. British Perceptions of Norway in the Nineteenth Century (Amsterdam, New York, 2003), p. 99‒101. Among the most politicised of those, and with a transnational impact, was Samuel Laing’s
Journal of a Residence in Norway, published 1836, where the Norwegian constitution and liberal political system are highly praised, not least compared to his account of a despotic government in Sweden.
3 S. Laing, Journal of a Residence in Norway During the Years 1834, 1835, & 1836: Made with a View to Enquire Into the Moral and Political Economy of that Country, and the Condition of Its Inhabitants (London, 1836, with several later editions). His critique of Sweden, expanded on in a separate account, was met by a counter-publication by the Swedish politician Magnus Björnstjerna. Laing’s travel accounts from Norway and Sweden were also translated into German and his Swedish account into Norwegian. See also B. Porter, ‘Virtue and Vice in the North. The Scandinavian Writings of Samuel Laing’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 23 (1998), 3‒4. The political background for Laing’s descriptions was the controversial British policy towards Norway around 1814, when Great Britain supported Sweden in forcing the Norwegians into the union. Laing calls it ‘the foulest blot, perhaps, in British history’, and argues that ‘Norway has a claim morally and politically upon the British nation’.
4 S. Laing, Journal, iv. Laing presents the Norwegian constitution as a model but does not include the constitutional text as such. His contemporary Robert Gordon Latham, who travelled in Norway in the mid-1830s, includes a translation of the whole constitution, which he terms ‘the most democratic constitution in Europe’, in his two-volume account
Norway and the Norwegians, published in 1840.
5 R. G. Latham, Norway and the Norwegians (London, 1840), vol. 1, p. 3. The constitution is reprinted in vol. 2, pp. 61‒100. After reprinting and commenting on the constitution Latham enthusiastically underlines the prominent position the constitution had among ordinary people, not least through different printed formats:
Such is the Norwegian Constitution, of which every man, woman, and child in the country knows the import and the value … The whole Constitution is printed upon a single sheet. I never went into a farm-house of the better, and rarely into one of the humbler sort, without seeing it glazed and framed, hanging against the wall like an ordnance map, or a family picture at home.
6 R. Latham, vol. 2, p. 102.~
Plate 10.2. In his travel account after visiting Norway in the 1830s, Robert G. Latham described the prominent position of the Norwegian constitution of 1814, also among ordinary people, as it was common to have an affiche of it hanging on the wall at home. Several different constitution posters were produced after the mid-1830s (‘Grunnlovsplakat’ (constitution poster), 1836, by J. C. Walter).
Along with these poster versions there were also smaller mobile formats, Latham notes: ‘Happy too are the children of the North! that have a Constitution as portable as a pocket-handkerchief.’
7 Ibid.The next translations into English, it seems, came around the turn of the century, connected to the emerging political crisis leading to the dissolution of the Norwegian-Swedish union during the second half of 1905. The first of these, published 1895, is probably also the first translation published in the United States. It was translated and published by the Norwegian-American Knute Nelson after his election as the first Scandinavian-born American to the United States Senate and before the Congress convened at the end of that year. There is no introduction to this translation.
8 The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway: adopted by the Convention at Eidsvold on the 17th day of May, 1814, and amended and ratified by the Storthing on the 4th day of November, 1814, with all subsequent amendments incorporated, translated from the Norwegian by K. Nelson (Chicago, 1895), republished 1899. The next one, however, published in London in April 1905 by the Norwegian journalist and later vice consul in London, Hans Lien Brækstad, does include a
‘historical and political survey’.
9 H. L. Brækstad, The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway: an Historical and Political Survey: with a complete translation of the Norwegian constitution and the act of union between Norway and Sweden (London, 1905). The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway was distributed, like the pamphlets in 1814, to politicians and editors as a public diplomacy measure with the aim of improving the knowledge of the constitution abroad and influence British opinion. The introduction refers to the lack of available translations abroad:
During the last twenty-five years, whenever the many conflicts between the Norwegians and the Swedes have attracted attention in the English and in the Continental press, it has been only too apparent from the articles that have appeared on the subject that the writers, for the most part, have been unacquainted with the Norwegian Constitution and with the Act of Union between Norway and Sweden. Nor is this to be wondered at, as the text of these important documents has not been accessible to English readers.
Samuel Laing’s praise of the Norwegian constitution in his travel account serves as an additional argument for publishing a translation of this constitution in 1905, as ‘the most liberal of constitutions, one of which any modern nation might boast’.
10 Ibid., p. viii.In addition to Brækstad’s translation, which seemingly served as a semi-official publication, the Norwegian constitution was translated into French and German and published in Norway during the spring and the ongoing political conflict with Sweden.
11 Staats-Grundgesetz des Königreichs Norwegen gegeben am 17. Mai 1814: mit späteren Änderungen bis zum 25. Mai 1905: nebst der Reichsakte vom 6. August 1815 (Kristiania, 1905); Constitution du royaume de Norvège adoptée le 17. Mai 1814: Avec les changements et additions y apportés jusqu’au 25 Mai 1905: Suivie de l’acte d’union du 6 aout 1815 (Kristiania, 1905). The updated translations comprised amendments made to the constitution until 25 May 1905. On 7 June the Norwegian parliament unilaterally declared the union dissolved, followed by negotiations with Sweden. On 26 October both parliaments sanctioned the results of the negotiation, hence securing a peaceful solution. The only Norwegian constitution published this autumn was a photolithography of the original handwritten document of 17 May 1814, kept in the Parliamentary archive.
12 Fotolitografisk Gjengivelse af det i Storthingets Arkiv opbevarede Original-Haandskrift af Kongeriget Norges Grundlov af 17:de Mai 1814 (Kristiania, 1905). On 18 November 1905 the original first article of the constitution was reinstated, proclaiming Norway, again, as a ‘free, independent and indivisible Realm’.