The first two examples of children’s magazines that were affiliated to the missionary movement in Norway,
For Ungdommen (For the Youth, 1846–9)
and the previously mentioned
Missionsblad for Børn (1847–8), were both established and edited by Johan Christian Johnsen.
1 K. Aukrust, Menighetsblad og andre religiøse og kirkelige tidsskrifter i Norge: en foreløpig oversikt (Oslo, 1991), p. 14; J. B. Halvorsen, Norsk Forfatter-Lexikon 1814–1880: paa Grundlag af J.E. Krafts og Chr. Langes ‘Norsk Forfatter-Lexikon 1814–1856’, vol. 3: I–L. (Kristiania, 1892), p. 164. A newspaperman and politician, Johnsen (1815–98) is today mostly known for his efforts to promote general knowledge and education. He initiated and established several periodicals, his most successful by far being the illustrated and widely read weekly
Almuevennen (The Friend of the Common People), which he edited from 1848 until 1893.
2 Johnsen also issued a Norwegian translation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1861–2 (Onkel Toms Hytte eller Negerlivet i de amerikanske Slavestater). Although not credited, it is possible that Johnsen himself translated the text: a decade earlier he had written a series of articles in the weekly Morgenbladet entitled ‘Nord-Amerika, dets Folk og Institutioner’ (North America, its People and Institutions, 1852–3).For Ungdommen was published in Stavanger and anticipates
Almuevennen in that it features assorted texts on various topics that all qualify as general knowledge.
3 As such, the magazine is comparable to Billed-Magazin for Børn (Picture Magazine for Children, 1838–9), the first children’s magazine in Norway (see J. S. Kaasa, ‘“Saavel fra fjerne Lande som fra vort eget Hjem”. Importert materiale i Billed-Magazin for Børn’, in A. M. B. Bjørkøy et al. (eds), Litterære verdensborgere: Transnasjonale perspektiver på norsk bokhistorie 1519–1850 (Oslo, 2019), pp. 310–29). The religious and edifying purpose of the magazine, however, is clear from the very beginning: in the first issue of July 1846 Johnsen invites his readers to join him on a journey, more specifically ‘the life journey’: ‘I have already told you what I consider to be the destination of my life journey, namely Heaven, and it would be dear to me if you agree: because only if this is so, could we travel together.’
4 ‘Jeg har allerede ovenfor sagt eder, hvad jeg anseer som min Livsreises Maal, nemlig Himmelen; og det skulde være mig kjært, hvis I deri være enige med mig: thi kun I dette Tilfælde kunde vi reise med hinanden’ (‘Livsreisen’, For Ungdommen, July 1846, pp. 1–2). Later the magazine is presented as the very means to help prepare the young readers for such a journey – ‘to look towards the eternal life, that will be the task of this magazine’
5 ‘at rette Blikket mod det evige Liv, – det vil være dette Skrifts Opgave’ (For Ungdommen, July 1846, p. 8). – to guide them towards Heaven, and to make sure that their role as divine citizens does not yield to that of world citizens. This life journey, then, makes up the framework for the magazine’s miscellaneous contents with stories on topics such as zoology, history, geology and geography as well as fables, poetry and biographical texts. Knowledge of the human world, Johnsen explains, makes for a better world, but more importantly it prepares the young reader for the journey towards their heavenly home. In this way, the staging of the child reader as a world citizen is made subordinate and preparatory to what Johnsen considers to be the child’s main role, namely that of the heavenly citizen.
The magazine’s evangelical tone and emphasis on the child’s journey towards eternal life are recognisable in many of the religious children’s magazines and in the missionary magazines particularly. However,
For Ungdommen does not associate with the missionary cause until it returns after a halt in publication with a third volume in 1849 by an unknown editor.
6 Aukrust, Menighetsblad og andre religiøse og kirkelige tidsskrifter i Norge, p. 14; Økland, ‘Norske barneblad’, p. 99. Now the magazine’s subtitle has been somewhat altered and mentions the missionary cause explicitly:
Et Maanedsskrift for opbyggelig og underholdende Læsning, med særdeles hensyn paa Missionssagen (A monthly for edifying and entertaining reading, with particular regard to the missionary cause). The change is also noticeable in the magazine’s contents, with several of the stories now describing the works of missionaries in various parts of the world. Early in the next year, in January 1850, however, the subtitle is changed back to
Et Maanedsskrift til Befordring af sand Dannelse (A monthly for promotion of true education), again leaving out any reference to the missionary cause. Still, the magazine keeps a certain emphasis on missionary work in its contents.
Given the fact that
For Ungdommen did not underline its missionary aspects until, and only in, 1849, Johnsen’s
Missionsblad for Børn is probably Norway’s very first missionary magazine for children. The magazine was issued monthly in 1847 and 1848, and in 1849 under the title of
Missionsblad for Ungdommen (Missionary Magazine for the Youth).
7 H. L. Tveterås, Norske tidsskrifter. Bibliografi over periodiske skrifter i Norge inntil 1920 (Oslo, 1940), p. 91. Unfortunately, the holdings of Missionsblad for Børn at the National Library of Norway, the University of Oslo Library and NTNU University Library are incomplete and consist only of the issues from January to July 1847 (bound together) and from February to March 1848 (single issues). I have not been able to locate any copies of Missionsblad for Ungdommen. Like
For Ungdommen, it was printed in Stavanger and appeared as twelve-page leaflets in the duodecimo format, featuring usually one or two woodcuts in each issue. The preface to the trial issue of January 1847, which unfortunately has been cut mid-sentence due to the joint binding of several issues, presents
Missionsblad for Børn as a translation of the German
Missionsblatt für Kinder (1842–1918) by Christian Gottlob Barth (1799–1862), who was a prominent figure in the hugely successful evangelical press and missionary society in the southern region of Württemberg.
8 N. Hope, German and Scandinavian Protestantism 1700–1918, in H. and O. Chadwick (eds), Oxford History of the Christian Church (Oxford, 1995). Comparing the issues of
Missionsblad for Børn from January to July 1847 to the German issues from January to July 1842, it becomes clear that texts and illustrations in the Norwegian magazine have all been taken and translated from the German publication. In this way, the first Norwegian missionary children’s magazine, like so many other early publications for children in Norway, is not Norwegian at all in the sense that there is no original material here, only translated texts and imported illustrations.
9 See J. S. Kaasa, ‘“Saavel fra fjerne Lande som fra vort eget Hjem”’, pp. 310–29. However, the German publication also seems to have foreign models: in his introduction rendered in the translation, Barth writes about how he in the making of the magazine was presented with examples from England, ‘where specific missionary magazines for children are issued, and where there are even missionary associations consisting only of children’.
10 ‘Man har anført mig Englands Exempler, hvor der ogsaa udkommer særskilte Missionsblade for Børn, og hvor der endog gives Missionsforeninger, der bestaa blot af Børn’ (Missionsblad for Børn, January 1847, p. 3). As such,
Missionsblad for Børn illustrates the transnational contexts for early printed children’s literature in general and its exchanges across linguistic and cultural borders.