There has always been a close link between science and politics in the polar regions. [1 This pertains not only to the research that individual nation-states have sponsored, but is also relevant to collaboration in international research. Science and exploration have often been used in a political way, for example, in nation-building processes. Yet polar researchers have also served as political actors, which is something that I will attempt to make clear in this article. I will use the Svalbard affair, or the process that led to the Norway assuming sovereignty of the archipelago in 1925, as the basis for such a discussion. [2] There are many factors to get a grasp on, including the following questions: In what sense have researchers been the driving force behind a certain policy, and to what end? Are there differences between various scientific disciplines, for example, cultural studies, history, international legal studies/jurisprudence and natural sciences? And are there differences between various countries with regard to the relationship between politics and research?
The Svalbard process, during which Svalbard’s status was changed from terra nullius to becoming a part of the kingdom of Norway, can be represented as a play with four acts: the first act includes the period from 1870 until 1890 (approximately), the second act goes from 1890 until about 1907-08, the third act from 1907-08 until 1918-19, and the last act would be concluded in August 1925, when Norway was formally granted sovereignty over the archipelago. Both research and researchers have been in some way involved in all of these turning points in the politics of Svalbard.
Research and commercial activities in the Scandinavian part of the Arctic noticeably increased during the final decades of the 1800s and up until the 1920s. Unsurprisingly, the idea of putting the largest group of the unclaimed Arctic islands, Spitsbergen, under Norwegian or Swedish control was introduced during this period.
In 1867, a Norwegian trapper applied for economic sponsorship to establish a permanent colony on Spitsbergen as a base for both trapping and scientific observations. The application was probably submitted in collaboration with the Swedish polar researcher, Adolf E. Nordenskiöld (1832-1901), who, in 1970, had himself applied to establish a colony by Cape Thordsen. Around 1870, meteorologists had become interested in the connection between climatic conditions in both the polar regions and in Europe The geographic community in Paris had initiated the idea of a meteorological station on Svalbard. The Americans also had their plans, as polar explorer Charles F. Hall planned an expedition to Spitsbergen, among other things.[3] Nordenskiöld thought that knowledge about the climate conditions in the polar basin was also critical for understanding Europe and Scandinavia’s weather conditions. Nordenskiöld was an ardent supporter of bringing Spitsbergen under Norwegian control, and the Swedish government also proposed in 1871 that sovereignty over the archipelago should be granted to Norway. Certain circles within the Swedish business community showed interest in such a campaign, and Nordenskiöld’s initiative happened in collaboration with them. In 1864, Nordenskiöld had found large deposits of coprolite near Cape Thordsen, which was sought to be exploited for commercial reasons.[4]Nordenskiöld’s initiative shows how important the Arctic Ocean environment in Tromsø was for him. Here, he procured skilled Arctic Ocean skippers and ice navigators who had many years of experience with maneuvering and getting by among the floating ice. Nordenskiöld planned to establish a Norwegian colony by Cape Thordsen. According to Nordenskiöld, establishing a permanent settlement with competent people from the areas surrounding the Arctic Ocean was a precondition for conducting research in the polar regions.
The story ended with Sweden proposing that Norway take over Spitsbergen. Yet opposition from Russia, among others, along with the palpable lukewarm reception the proposal received in Norway led to the initiative falling apart. Polar research was merely in its infant stages in Norway, and the Norwegian trapping and fishing industry had other interests than the Swedish capitalists in this area. In addition, this could turn out to be an expensive project.
The next turning point in the Svalbard affair first took place in the 1890s, when Spitsbergen’s political status was again brought up for discussion, this time from the Norwegian side through a confidential inquiry by the Minister of the Interior Wollert Konow (H) to Foreign Minister Lewenhapt in the spring of 1892. Konow feared that some of the superpowers would usurp Spitsbergen and threaten Norwegian economic and national interests. In 1898 and 1899, the German Deep-Sea Fishing organisation conducted studies on fishing in the areas around Bjørnøy, with positive results. This tempted two private companies to occupy Sørhamna on Bjørnøya. The plan was to establish a whaling station. [5] In 1896, several newspapers demanded that Norway take possession of Spitsbergen. These proposals were probably influenced by the high the nation felt after Fridtjof Nansen’s successful polar expeditions. Now that Norway’s efforts in polar research had received international recognition, it was time to claim sovereignty over Spitsbergen. Yet in contrast to Sweden in the 1870s, I cannot imagine that researchers in Norway were political actors in the way Nordenskiöld was.[6]
Indeed, some historians have committed their energies to the question regarding who discovered this archipelago. Was Wilhelm Barents really the first explorer to discover it? When Dagbladet proposed an international agreement that ensured Bjørnøya’s status as a no man’s land where everyone would be able to reap the natural resources under “the supervision and guarantee of all interested powers”,[7] opposition was raised among historians like Gustav Storm and Aleksander Bugge. They emphasised the historical relations, and linked the lines of connection back to the trips north made by the Håløyg chief Ottar to the White Sea, and to Norwegian and Icelandic sea voyages in the northern territories, where, according to Icelandic annuals, a new country was discovered in 1194, Svalbardi. Svalbard was Norwegian – in so many words. Thus, researchers in Norway played a more indirect, yet not a less important role in the increased Norwegian interest in Spitsbergen from the 1890s onward. Specifically, the aforementioned historians played a part in reinforcing the image and awareness of Norway as a polar nation. It was an important ideological and cultural backdrop for the national and economic political interests that eventually came to dominate the question of Spitsbergen in the years that followed. However, this increased interest did not lead to any change in Spitsbergen’s international legal status.
For decades, Norway had been involved in a great deal of the commercial activities on the archipelago, from trapping and fishing to tourism. Still, the Norwegian scientific efforts had been modest, especially in comparison with the Swedish efforts in this area. Yet - rather abruptly - in the years directly following 1905, when the union with Sweden ended and Norway was able to conduct its own foreign affairs, Norwegian researchers and mappers became interested in a scientific mapping of Spitsbergen.[8]
There were nearly annual expeditions up until the interwar period, from 1909 through the Norwegian state-sponsored expedition to Spitsbergen. Prior to 1911, the captain and topographer, Gunnar Isachsen, was the leader and driving force behind the Norwegian exploration of Spitsbergen. From 1911, the geologist Adolf Hoel took over the role as the great research entrepreneur with regard to Svalbard. Yet it was not merely as research entrepreneurs that the polar researchers, hereafter referred to as the Svalbard researchers, had an impact. During the period from 1906 until 1925, they increasingly became political actors, and partly activists on the matter of Svalbard.
The first Spitsbergen researcher who officially argued for a Norwegian takeover was Arve Staxrud, who was a topographer on Isachsen’s first Spitsbergen expedition. He did this in a lengthy article in Aftenposten in 1906. Expedition leader Isachsen officially supported the historians who were of the opinion that Norwegians/Icelanders had to have been the first ones on the archipelago.[9]
In January 1907, a Norwegian takeover of the archipelago was discussed in a meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where business people and politicians, and three renowned researchers and explorers, the geologist W.C. Brøgger, Captain Gunnar Isachsen and Fridtjof Nansen, were called in. The increased activity on Svalbard through coal mining and research had led to an acute need for a national power to instil order. This was then also the most important reason the meeting took place. However, Isachsen kept a low profile at the meeting. Nansen was quite sceptical to an occupation and Brøgger was absent. At this point, the polar researchers also did not bring research arguments into the debate, the way Nordenskiöld had done in the 1870s. The meeting concluded with the plan that Norway seek out an international arrangement to ensure calm and orderliness on the archipelago, regulating property relations and game hunting. None of the participants supported a Norwegian occupation.
In 1908, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs approached other interested countries and asked for negotiations with the intention of achieving an international agreement concerning Spitsbergen. In anticipation of any reactions towards the Norwegian initiative in this regard, it was important for the country to intensify its activity on the archipelago, especially through scientific mapping. The purpose was to occupy a stronger position in potential negotiations. In 1909 and 1910, extensive research expeditions were equipped with solid state support, and also with the help of private sponsors. Like in 1906-07, the expeditions were led by Gunnar Isachsen. Even though it has not been explicitly stated, there is little doubt that the political game that Norway in 1907 had set in motion through its request that any interested countries come to an international agreement about Spitsbergen was the most important reason for why the two-year long research expedition was swiftly equipped with solid state support and private sponsors backing them up: “Now that the question regarding the settlement of ownership and other relations are of current interest for obvious reasons, it is precisely the time to get started.”[10]
Norway’s all-out effort with regard to Svalbard research was an attempt to overtake the lead Sweden had procured for itself through its solid research efforts during the decades before 1905. For political reasons, it was important to equalise this imbalance between the two countries. Isachsen was especially impressed by the Swedish plans for the International Geological Congress in 1910 in Stockholm. There, the research material from Spitsbergen was to be presented on a broad basis. Among the twenty-something excursions the arrangers of the event tempted the 800 participants with, the most spectacular one went via Narvik to Spitsbergen. Those who accepted the opportunity to make three-week long excursion were well pleased.[11]
Despite the fact that it was not explicitly stated, there is a pretty clear premise underlying Isachsen’s focus on Swedish research. An escalation of Norwegian research would in the long run weaken the Swedish rhetoric that the country held a unique position on the archipelago, thanks to longstanding efforts by Swedish polar researchers. At the same time, Isachsen’s strong emphasis on the imbalance between Norwegian and Swedish scientific activity was a direct admission that the Norwegian research expeditions also had political objectives. This had been claimed on several occasions by Swedish scientists, including Axel Hamberg. The fact that Swedish scientists were caught in the same net when they made such a big deal out of Swedish research in the contest over Spitsbergen was something that Hamberg apparently had not thought of. [12] It had now become clear that when the negotiations over Spitsbergen commenced, Sweden had also used its scientific efforts to strengthen its position.
According to Isachsen, economic conditions also called for a powerful stepping up of research efforts. Norwegian interests were involved in whaling, fishing, the trapping industry, tourism and coal mining. Yet if Norwegians were still to be able to reap the natural resources in this unclaimed country, it was necessary to “participate in its exploration.”[13] The objective of the expedition was therefore also to generate hydrographic, topographical and geological mappings of the region. The drafting of proper navigational charts, as well as topographical and geological maps would enable a more effective exploitation of the natural resources. As a result, these were the factors that were given the most emphasis in both the Foreign Ministry and the budget committee. The ongoing discussion about the political status of Spitsbergen was only mentioned in passing by Prime Minister Gunnar Knudsen during the debate in Parliament, where the sought -after amount of 25.000 kroner was unanimously granted. In addition, a marine vessel, “Farm”, was furnished to the expedition for use both in 1909 and 1910.[14]
It was not difficult to get the Norwegian Parliament to grant money towards the research expeditions. Until Spitsbergen formally became subject to Norwegian sovereignty in 1925, these expeditions to the region received their grants largely without any major discussion. This could not have been without reason, which is something the Swedes also noted.[15]Adolf Hoel, who took over the leader role after Gunnar Isachsen, also did not encounter any major problems in obtaining state sponsorship. And he was totally explicit about the connection between science and the politics of Svalbard : “our expeditions are included as a part of such efforts toward the Norwegianisation of Spitsbergen”.[16] Thus, the fact that the Norwegian scientific and economic advances on Spitsbergen corresponded with the competing interests in the island is hardly surprising. Yet it is not always easy to separate the causes form the effects. Were Norwegian politics with regard to Spitsbergen motivated by the growing Norwegian economic and scientific efforts there, or was the increased activity on the archipelago the result of a more active and persistent Norwegian polar politics? It is also not easy to determine the order of such factors with regard to the relationship between economy and science.
If we look in the Foreign Ministry’s archives, we can see how infiltrated these factors were . While in 1909, the Foreign Ministry wholeheartedly rallied around Isachsen’s expedition in order to strengthen Norway’s position on the archipelago, it was much more reserved in the fall of 1910 toward a similar expedition out of consideration for the international consultations that were taking place as a result of the first Spitsbergen conference in Oslo during the summer of 1910. Thus, Norwegian research on the archipelago depended on the international process regarding Spitsbergen.[17] Another example of how disorderly these factors were has to do with the question about whether the expeditions could annex land for themselves or on the behalf of other people. Hoel and Holmsen had unceremoniously worked as scientists and economic entrepreneurs in 1908. In 1909, Holmsen was again on Svalbard on an assignment from the company A/S Kulspids. Adolf Hoel, who was employed as a geologist on Isachsen’s expeditions in 1909 and 1910, travelled to the archipelago in 1909 for up to a month before the others to aid The Norwegian Coal Company Ltd, Green Harbour, a company in which he himself had ownership interests, with starting up coal mining. Neither Hoel nor Holmsen saw anything wrong in this. On the contrary, Hoel claimed that he was advised by his colleague and elder within geology, Professor Amund Helland, to try and economically exploit his discovery of coal on Spitsbergen. Helland also gave him tips about where he should go to stir up capital.”[18]
In the spring of 1910, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was eager for the fields in Bellsund to be secured for Norwegian subjects. Plans had circulated within the Ministry to provide grants through “hidden expenses” toward supporting Norwegian annexation of the coal fields, in order to prevent large Swedish occupations, among other things.[19] It is unclear what position the Foreign Minister, Johannes Irgens, had on this. At the same time, the Foreign Ministry was careful to emphasise that the state itself could not carry out occupations, and that this also pertained to state-supported research expeditions. Isachsen disagreed with this. In any case, on June 6th, he carried out an annexation that encompassed all of northwest Spitsbergen: all of the land west of a line drawn from the center of Van Mijen fjord in the south to Verlegenhuken on Mosselhalv island in the north, excepting the other occupations that had been carried out by others within the same area.
The Foreign Minister deemed it necessary to alert to Isachsen to the fact that he found it impossible for his occupation to be respected, due to its “enormous size”. Isachsen was also made aware of the fact that his position as a Norwegian civil servant, and leader of a state-sponsored expedition made his occupation venture a “most dubious affair”.[20] During the meetings in the Ministry prior to Isachsen’s annexation, he had also implied that there had been additional occupations on Spitsbergen during the summer of 1910. After reflecting on the matter, he wrote a letter from Green Harbour in July 1910 to Foreign Minister Irgens, and promised he would not carry out further occupations.[21] Later, Isachsen claimed that he had submitted this report so that Norway could refer back to it in the event that foreign actors should advance similar annexation demands.[22] The Foreign Ministry’s position can be explained by the fact that they had absolutely no desire to provoke any of the participants at the Spitsbergen conference, which was to take place in Kristiania a few weeks after “Farm”, with Isachsen’s expedition on board, had started making its way toward Spitsbergen.[23] This concern about provocation then caused the Prime Minister to come out against the viewpoints of the historian Macody Lund. Lund had published an article right in the middle of the Spitsbergen conference, where he claimed that Spitsbergen was an old Norwegian land, and that the government should not enter into any negotiations about it. He repeated the viewpoints that historians and others had previously advanced without having caused any uproar. Yet the timing, and the fact that Lund’s article was printed in a newspaper that was closely affiliated with the government, generated strong reactions. Fridtjof Nansen attempted on behalf of foreign leaders to point out that Lund’s viewpoints were not representative of the Norwegian government, but did not make the situation any better in saying that he himself agreed that the archipelago actually were old Norwegian land.[24]
The expedition in 1910 ended up being Isachsen’s resignation as a researcher of Spitsbergen, even though he would make a strong comeback as a Norwegian expert during the peace negotiations in Paris. His expeditions to the country with the cold coasts ended up being a great triumph in research, but for Isachsen, it was sad exit.
The man who was to take over Isachsen’s role within Norwegian exploration on Svalbard was Adolf Hoel. He was born on May 15, 1879, as the first of six in Sørum municipality in Akershus. His father, Martin Hoel, was a railroad official, and the family moved between different station towns in Østfold, while Martin rose up the ranks. On one occasion in the 1890s, they arrived in Kristiania, where the oldest son took his university qualifying exams as an independently educated student at the Cathedral School, Adolf Hoel was ready to commence his academic career. It became an academic career that ended with him becoming the headmaster of the country’s only university, a career that, for most others and under normal circumstances, would have been a success. For Adolf Hoel, it became a tragedy that ended with a verdict of treason after the war that lasted from 1940 to 1945.[25]
During the years from 1910 until 1914, three international meetings were held concerning Svalbard, in which the objective was to achieve an international administration and reach a legal settlement for the area. However, no agreement was reached at this point either.
Nevertheless, the World War from 1914-1918 helped the question of Svalbard re-emerge in a new light. Activities on Svalbard had changed during the war. Since 1910, Norway had taken over Sweden’s leading role with regard to scientific activities, and, during the war, Norwegian companies took over most of the coal production. Further, Norwegian hunters and trappers were completely dominant.
The peace settlement after the World War brought about a number of territorial changes, even in northern Europe. It also opened up the opportunity for resolving the Spitsbergen question once and for and all. Norway changed its position in the course of a few months after the weapons had been put down on the Western Front, moving from working toward some form of collective governance to demanding sovereignty over the archipelago, that is, complete control.[26]
Gunnar Isachsen was selected as an advisor during the final negotiations in the spring of 1919. On behalf of the Norwegian government, he was asked to travel to Paris. He was to assist the Norwegian legation “concerning Spitsbergen’s economic conditions, the occupations there, and scientific expeditions.” Together with international law expert Arnold Ræstad (1878-1945), he immediately began his task: to assist Norwegian negotiators under the leadership of ambassador Wedel Jarlsberg in the work of securing Spitsbergen for Norway. Ræstad was one of the many international law attorneys who submitted arguments on behalf of Norwegian polar politics during the interwar period. Ræstad’s studies of international law were closely linked to Norwegian political interests in the Arctic.
Ræstad was part of a small, yet very competent group of Norwegian international law attorneys who played an important role during the period between 1905 and 1940, and who were drawn in as experts in the two big foreign policy cases in the decades before the Second World War: the case of Svalbard, and the case of Greenland. In addition to Ræstad, this circle of people consisted of the following: Professors Frede Castberg, Nikolaus Matias Gjelsvik, and Jon Skeie, as well as Supreme Court Judge Helge Klæstad.
Like Arnold Ræstad, Helge Klæstad (1885-1965), cand.jur. in1908, also had experience from the Ministry offices. He was at the Ministry of Justice for several years before he was employed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1921. Klæstad had been an expert on maritime law, and the Foreign Ministry’s foremost expert in negotiating territorial limits with England in 1924-25, but had a huge fall out with Prime Minster and Foreign Minister Mowinckel, who, according to Klæstad, was far too compliant. From 1929, he was a Norwegian member of the arbitration court of law before he became an extraordinary judge in the Supreme Court in 1931. He became a permanent judge of the Supreme Court in 1935.[27]
The three professors from the Faculty of Law represented a broad spectrum of authority, especially within international law, where they made up the country’s finest experts at the time. The youngest of them, Frede Castberg (1893-1977), became a Counselor of International Law in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1925, and was appointed to professor in 1928. He was a key figure in Norwegian jurisprudence during a large part of the 1900s. Jon Skeie (1871-1951) and Nikolaus M. Gjelsvik (1866-1938) were both senior members of the faculty during this time. They were the sons of farmers, and grew up being greatly influenced by the political polarisation that existed during the final decades of the 1800s, which resulted in parliamentarism, political parties and the dissolution of the union in 1905. Both Skeie and Gjelsvik belonged to Venstre (the Left Party), and they were supporters of the language New Norwegian, and nationally radical with regard to the union. Frede Castberg was the son of a man who supported Venstre, Johan Castberg, who was also a member of parliament and a cabinet minister. He had also grown up being greatly affected by the radical nationalism in the years around the dissolution of the union. “Politics was the air we breathed,” he says in his memoirs, “the national view of hostility towards the union was obviously the correct one, as valid as a religious belief.”[28]
Arnold Ræstad received his law degree in 1900 after just three years of study. After his studies, he worked as a deputy judge and deputy attorney, and studied abroad. In 1906, he became secretary in the new Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he worked until 1910. In 1912, he defended a dissertation in history regarding the Norwegian territorial waters, “The King’s Stream”. The dissertation resulted in the Nansen Award and a distinction from the Institut de France. In 1912, he also published a dissertation about “Norway’s sovereignty over Svalbard”. Ræstad based his dissertation on primary sources, and received recognition for being a thorough, sharp and imaginative attorney who was rich in ideas. It was as an attorney of international law that he received the most recognition, but he also occupied himself with a large number of other matters. He wrote not only about Greenland and Svalbard, territorial limits, and whaling, but also about the legal and political aspects of civil war and asylum rights, trade, neutrality and collective security, as well as international recognition and the rights of stateless people. From 1913 to 1918, he was a university scholar in international law and trade policy. During a brief period at the beginning of the 1920s, he was the Foreign Affairs in Blehr’s government.
The trio Wedel-Jarlsberg, Isachsen and Ræstad also drew in scientists like Hoel, and the geologist/geographer Werner Werenskiold (1883-1961) in the work documenting Norwegian commercial activity and science in Spitsbergen. As is already known, the result of the negotiations in Paris was that the Svalbard Treaty was signed there in February of 1920. It gave Norway sovereignty over the archipelago, indeed with certain limitations with regard to economic activities, tax conditions and military activity. However, an entire five years passed before Norway was formally able to take over Spitsbergen. The treaty first had to be approved by Parliament, and a mining settlement had to be prepared. In addition, the approval of Germany and Russia had to be obtained.[29]
Norway’s national political ambitions in the north appear to have grown in conjunction with its economic and scientific activity there. What role did science play in the Svalbard case? There is no reason to claim that the natural sciences distinguished themselves from history, cultural studies and law with regard to the Norwegianisation of the Arctic, the way some researchers have done.[30] In connection with the Svalbard Treaty, the journal Nature printed a number of articles about the scientific mapping of Spitsbergen and the Arctic, a broad documentation of Norwegian Arctic research in fields like climate, geology, biology, topography/geography, history of research and history. The first issue contained, among other things, an article about the discovery of Spitsbergen, authored by none other than Fridtjof Nansen. His conclusion was the following: “It is probable that Spitsbergen first was discovered by Norwegians…”.[31]
Several of the articles about the seemingly neutral scientific topics also seem to be written from the basic attitude that Spitsbergen was Norwegian. The geologist Olaf Holtedahl claimed in his article in Nature that it was true that many of the younger geological formations on Svalbard were essentially different from Norway and northern Europe, but, on the whole, the geological conditions were strongly connected to our own country.[32] Thus, even in a geological sense, Spitsbergen’s mountains were Norwegian.
Or they were made Norwegian. The first of Adolf Hoel’s disembarkments in Kongsfjord on Spitsbergen during the summer of 1907 became a reminder that this was not Norwegian territory. Fuglehuken (Vogelhook), which make up the northern tip of Prince Karl’s Forland, was given that name by the Dutchman Barentsz as early as 1596, and, in 1818, the Englishman Scoresby had established the name Cape Mitra. In this area of Svalbard, there was hardly a place name that indicated Norwegian activity, but when the French/Norwegian expedition that Hoel took part in was finished with its mapping work, which took place over two short summer months in 1906 and 1907, the area between Forlandssundet in the south, Magdalena fjord in the north, and Liefdefjord in the northeast had received 86 new place names. Renowned scientists, expedition members, and family members had places named after them, and of these 86 people, 49 were Norwegian. Adolf Hoel had his name attached to a peninsula and a mountain, while the leader of the Norwegian part of the expedition, Gunnar Isachsen, generously used his own family to give names to the area. The Norwegianisation of Spitsbergen had seriously gotten started due to Norwegian topographers, surveyors and geologists.
Thus, in the contest to win Svalbard, Norwegian authorities deliberately used both research results and activities to argue that Spitsbergen was Norwegian. Yet Spitsbergen researchers also worked systematically for a Norwegian conquest of the archipelago, first economically and culturally, but ultimately, politically.[33] They operated both independently and on assignment by the government, as did their colleagues in other countries. The scientific activity was an important part of the consolidation of the nation-state and in the attempts to put new countries under their control.
Literature:
Norsk Biografisk Leksikon. Oslo, 1999-2003.
Anker, Peder, "Norsk Polarhistorie " Isis 96, no. 4 (2005): 662.
Berg, Roald, Norge På egen hånd. 1905–1920, Bd 2 Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie. Oslo1995.
Drivenes, Einar-Arne, "Norsk polarforskning på 1900-tallet." Tromsø, 1989.
Drivenes, Einar-Arne, Harald Dag Jølle, Into the Ice-The History of Norway and the Polar Regions. Oslo Gyldendal, 2006.
Drivenes, Einar-Arne, Harald Dag Jølle, red. Norsk polarhistorie. 3 bind . Oslo Gyldendal, 2004.
Fure, Odd-Bjørn, Mellomkrigstid. 1920–1940. Vol. 3 Norsk Utenrikspolitikks Historie. Oslo1996.
Hoel, Adolf 1966, Svalbards Historie 1596–1965. Oslo 1966.
Isachsen, Gunnar, "Om Opdagelsen Af Svalbard." Det Norske Geografiske Selskabs Aarbog (1906/07).
Mathisen, Trygve, Svalbard i internasjonal politikk 1871–1925. Oslo1951.
"Norsk Biografisk Leksikon Bd. Vii. Oslo Mcmxxxvi."
Reusch, Hans, "Et par ord om geologkongressen i Stockholm. Turen Til Spitsbergen." 7/9 1910.
Ræstad, Arnold, Grønland og Spitsbergen. Kristiania1923.
Storm, Gustav, "Ginnungagap i mythologien og i geografien." Arkiv för nordisk filologi (1889).
"Stortingsforhandlingene 1909. Innst. S. Nr. 34." 1909.
" Ud. Boks 5175. P 7d/09. Rittmester Isachsen Spitsbergenekspedisjon 1909-10. Notat 18/10 Og 25/10."
Summary:
Research and commercial activity in the Scandinavian part of the Arctic increased appreciably during the last decades of the 19th century and up until the 1920s. Not unexpectedly, the idea arose during this period to bring the largest group of the as yet unclaimed Arctic islands, Spitsbergen, under Norwegian or Swedish control.
Norwegian political ambitions in the far north seem to have expanded proportionally with its economic and scientific activity there. (Ive translated this to: “Norway’s national political ambitions in the north appear to have grown in conjunction with its economic and scientific activity there” on page 13. I don’t know if you want to use the same wording?) What role did science play in this process? In the contest to win Svalbard, Norwegian authorities deliberately used both research results and activity as justification/to argue that Spitsbergen was Norwegian. Also, Spitsbergen researchers worked systematically towards a Norwegian conquest of the archipelago, economically and culturally at first, but ultimately politically.
Key words: Spitsbergen, Svalbardsaken, polarpolitikk, polarforskning, interessepolitikk, vitenskap og politikk.
Einar-Arne Drivenes, Professor at The Department of History and Religious Studies, University of Tromsø.
Research areas: History of Science linked with the exploration of the Arctic and Antartica in the 19th and 20th centuries; social and economic history in the 1800s and 1900s; political history linked to the labour movement and regional uprising in Northern Norway; and ethnohistory and minority history, particularly in connection with Laestadianism
Greater publications (author og editor): Fiskarbonde og gruveslusk 1985, Nordnorsk kulturhistorie (2 vol.) 1994 , Norsk polarhistorie (3 vol.)2004, Into the Ice- The History of Norway and the Polar Regions 2006.
[1] Trygve Mathisen, Svalbard i internasjonal politikk 1871–1925 (Oslo 1951), 45; Roald Berg, Norge på egen hånd. 1905–1920, Bd 2 Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie (Oslo 1995); Einar-Arne Drivenes, Harald Dag Jølle, red., Norsk polarhistorie, 3 vols. (Oslo Gyldendal,2004).
[2] Drivenes, Jølle, red., Norsk polarhistori and Into the Ice, The History of Norway and the Polar Regions 281-315; Berg, Norge på egen hånd. 1905–1920, Bd 2 Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie, 150 ff.
[3] Mathisen, Svalbard i internasjonal politikk 1871–1925, 24.
[4] Ibid., 24.
[5] Ibid., 45.
[6] Ibid. 24, 26, 151 ff; Narve Bjørgo, Øystein Rian, Alf Kaartvedt Selvstendighet og union. Fra Middelalderen til 1905, Bd. 1 Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie (Oslo1995), 319 ff; Berg, Norge på egen hånd. 1905–1920, Bd 2 Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie, 150 ff; Willy Østreng, Økonomi og politisk suverenitet. Interessespillet om Svalbards Politiske Status (Oslo1974). 17; "Dagbladet." 8.august 1899; ibid., 4. august 1899; ibid. 8., 16., 20. og 21 august 1899. Forfatteren kan ha vært histrikeren Alexander Bugge; Gustav Storm, "Ginnungagap I mythologien og i geografien," Arkiv för nordisk filologi (1889).
[7] Dagbladet," 4. august 1896
[8] Drivenes, Jølle, red., Drivenes, Jølle, red., Into the Ice -The History of Norway and the Polar Regions,282;
Norsk polarhistorie, bind 2, s 177.
[9] Gunnar Isachsen, "Om opdagelsen af Svalbard," Det Norske Geografiske Selskabs Aarbog (1906/07).
[10] "St.Prp. 1 1909. Hovedpost V. Bilag Nr. 6 : Plan for Den norske Spitsbergenekspedition 1909 Og 1910. ," (1909).
[11] Hans Reusch, "Et par ord om Geologkongressen i Stockholm. Turen til Spitsbergen," 7/9 1910
[12] Drivenes, Jølle, red., Drivenes, Jølle, red., Norsk polarhistorie, bind 2, 241; Into the Ice -The History of Norway and the Polar Regions, 285-289.
[13] St.Prp. 1 1909. Hovedpost V. Bilag Nr. 6 : Plan for Den norske Spitsbergenekspedition 1909 Og 1910. ."
[14] Stortingsforhandlingene 1909. Innst. S. Nr. 34," (1909), s 54 ff; Einar-Arne Drivenes, "Norsk polarforskning på 1900-tallet," (Tromsø1989).
[15] Berg, Norge På Egen Hånd. 1905–1920, Bd 2 Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie. 161
[16] Drivenes, Jølle, red., Norsk polarhistorie. bd 2, 197; Into the Ice -The History of Norway and the Polar Regions, 287.
[17] " Ud. Boks 5175. P 7d/09. Rittmester Isachsen Spitsbergenekspedisjon 1909-10. Notat 18/10 Og 25/10."
[18] Adolf 1966 Hoel, Svalbards historie 1596–1965 (Oslo1966), 738.
[19] Ud. Boks 5227. P7-C 03/10. Rittmester Isachsen: Spm. Spm. om okkupasjon av kulfelter på Spitsbergen. Pm Datert 27/5 Og 30/5 1910. Ra.."
[20] Ibid.
[21] "Ud. Boks 5227. P7-C 03/10. Rittmester Isachsen: Spm. om okkupasjon av kulfelter på Spitsbergen. Brev fra Isachsen til utenriksminister Irgens 1/7 1910."
[22] "Ud. Boks 5227. P7-C 03/10. Rittmester Isachsen: Spm. Om okkupasjon av kulfelter på Spitsbergen. Internt Notat 24/2 1919 og brev fra Isachsen 12/1 1926. Ra."
[23] Mathisen, Svalbard i internasjonal politikk 1871–1925, 114 ff.
[24] Berg, Norge på egen hånd. 1905–1920, Bd 2 Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie, 170.
[25] Drivenes, Jølle, red., Norsk polarhistorie, bind 2, 188; Into the Ice -The History of Norway and the Polar Regions, 306.
[26] Berg, Norge på egen hånd. 1905–1920, Bd 2 Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie; ibid; Arnold Ræstad, Grønland og Spitsbergen (Kristiania1923); Leiv Amundsen, Det juridiske fakultet. Lærere og forskning. Universitetet i Oslo 1911–1961 (Oslo1961); Morten Ruud, "Svalbardtraktaten i norsk og internasjonal Svalbardpolitikk," Speculum Boreale. Skriftserie frå Institutt for historie, Universitetet i Tromsø. 5(2004).
[27] Odd-Bjørn Fure, Mellomkrigstid. 1920–1940, vol. 3 Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie (Oslo1996), 84; "Norsk biografisk leksikon Bd. Vii. Oslo Mcmxxxvi.."
[28] Norsk biografisk leksikon (Oslo: 1999-2003), bind 2.
[29] Berg, Norge på egen hånd. 1905–1920, Bd 2 Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie. 287.
[30] Østreng, Økonomi og politisk suverenitet. Interessespillet om Svalbards politiske Status. 97 f.
[31] Fridtjof Nansen, "Spitsbergens opdagelse," Naturen. Illustrert maanedskrift for populær naturvidenskap (1920).
[32] Olaf Holtedahl, "Spitsbergens og Bjørnøens geologi," Naturen. Illustrert maanedskrift for populær naturvidenskap (1920).
[33] Berg, Norge på egen hånd. 1905–1920, Bd 2 Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie. 299; Østreng, Økonomi og politisk suverenitet. Interessespillet om Svalbards politiske status. 97 f.
