Talk:History of Norway

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Contents

[edit] Organization of the article

Hello everyone. I think we should make the following changes to organization of the article:

  • The opening paragraph should be moved under a headline called "Etymology".
  • The opening paragraph should then be some sort of a brief summary of Norway's history, but more satisfying than the part of the main article on Norway (this article).

The reason for doing this is simply a part of my viewpoint on how an encyclopedia should be: Each article should have some sort of summary at the start contemplated by the following text which goes deeper in describing the subject. It makes things easier for everyone, I think.

What do you think?

cun 01:27, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

One vote for etymology header and new summary.
It does rather look like the article grew organically rather than being organized (probably because it did). Here's one vote for the etymology header and a new summary. Williamborg 18:39, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

An interesting link: Where do Finns come from, not just about Finland.


   The history presented is very much event-based, first this happened and than that happened and so on..  Would it be meaningful to 
   expand the article's view on history and include more about society in general, how this evolves, and how politics, economics  
   and culture changes though time? It's not really helpful for anyone wanting to know anything about Norwegian history before WWII.   
   The topic "Viking kings" is not too meaningful when its content includes the medieval period by the way.

[edit] Peer Review invitation

Greetings.

There is a peer review started on Wikipedia:Peer review/Viking/archive1 and any interested party is invited to take part in reviewing the article. If you know the history of scandinavia, then please stop by and help the peer review of the artile Viking

Thank you for your time. --OrbitOne [Talk|Babel] 22:36, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Karmoy???

For the record: The claim that the name Norway originates from the short strait by Karmoy, is at its best a SPECULATIVE thesis. The root word is more likely to mean "direction", and was applied to the entire coastline. There is no evidence for this claim!

--Sparviere 19:01, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I was bold, and removed the speculative references to Karmøy. As Sparviere notes, this notion is far from generally accepted, and cannot be proved. --Barend 06:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] -way

I'm afraid that saying some sources is a bit too vague. I also doubt that the -way in Galloway, Kennoway or Galway derives from Old Norse is dubious at best. They all have original Irish/Gaelic names on which the English names are based. If someone suggests that the Celtic names are based on Old Norse, sources would be needed to support that claim JdeJ 15:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Could anyone mention which sources suggest nor -ay is a viable etymology for Nóregr? It doesn't seem to make much sense. Island in old Norse is 'ey'. So that should make something like Nórey. Not Nóregr. I am very tempted to delete the whole sentence unless someone can come up with a source.--Barend 22:25, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
No one has come up with a source, so I am deleting this highly dubious sentence. --Barend 19:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kingdoms

I would like to see some citations showing that Norway was divided into 'Kingdoms' per se before the 7th, or even the 9th century. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.166.181.194 (talk) 15:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

Its totally non-controversial statement. Sources like Snorre's Sagas, other Icelandic sagas give accounts of the division into petty kingdoms. --H@r@ld 09:06, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
This is non-controversial. The number of kingdoms, dating of some of them and some other details might be cloudy, but not that any existed.Inge 10:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
This is a question of definition. Personally, I am uncomfortable with the word 'Kingdoms', as it implies that they were more organised than they actually were. Anyway, let me quote "Jernalderen i Norge" (The iron age in Norway) by Bergljot Solberg (Oslo, 2000, p. 278). The book is in Norwegian, so I'll try to translate. It is on the reading list for archaeology-students at the university of Bergen:
Det som kjennetegner den politiske situasjonen først på 800-tallet, er at landet var delt opp i en rekke småriker, hvert med sitt eller sine maktsentre. (...) Vi vet ikke hvor mange riker og maktsentre det var først på 800-tallet. På Vestlandet har arkeologen Bjørn Ringstad (1986) anslått at det var ni småriker i vikingtiden. Det er derfor neppe å ta for hardt i om vi regner med minst 20 i hele landet. Vi kan heller ikke nødvendigvis regne smårikene som "norske". Mye tyder på dansk overherredømme i Sørøst-Norge i hvert fall i deler av perioden.
The main feature of the political situation in the early 9th century, is that the country was divided into a number of small realms, each with its own centre, or centres, of power. (...) We do not know how many realms and centres of power there were in the early 9th century. Archaeologist Bjørn Ringstad (1986) has estimated that there were nine small realms in western Norway in the viking age. It is therefore probably not a stretch to estimate at least 20 in the whole country. We can also not necessarily define the small realms as "Norwegian". There are many indications of Danish overlordship in southeastern Norway for at least parts of the period.
On a side note, concernin Snorre and the other Icelandic sagas: They were written from about 1180 onwards - more than 300 years after the first unification of the kingdom. The further back in time, the less reliable they are as historical sources. For the 9th century and earlier, one must be very cautious in using them as historical sources - observe for instance how Heimskringla and Fagrskinna contradict each other in their accounts of Harald Fairhair's conquests. --Barend 19:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] help needed

there is much to copy here from the parralel Norwegian article. Acidburn24m 17:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV tag

I have added the NPOV tag to this article since it completely ignores the history of the Sami and Kven people. I believe there are two possible solutions to this problem:

  • Add the history of these peoples to this article.
  • Rename the article to the History of the Norwegian people.

Labongo 15:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

You are absolutely right. I would prefer solution #1, adding the histories of the peoples. 96T 17:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I also prefer the #1 solution, but it requires more work. Currently the Sami history article needs to be improved before content is added to this article, but the Kven people has an OK description of the Kven history that could be added to this article.Labongo 12:17, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I believe that an NPOV tag is inapropriate. The article is lacking an important piece of Norwegian history and needs to be expanded, but such a tag is to be used when the information already present in the article is POV.Inge 11:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I personally think the tag is appropriate as a warning to readers that this article unintentionally represents a POV that the history of Norway is only about one ethnic group. But the important thing is that the article needs to be expanded to resolve this "dispute".Labongo 17:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Two smaller issues:
  • does the subsection "Post-war Social policy" have any significant historical information?
  • did the Norwegian King rule exclusively over Finnmark from 1000-1300AD?
Labongo 17:44, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not going to quibble over the NPOV tag, because I obviously agree that Kven and Sami history deserve attention. But I'm not sure it's the right tag, because the article doesn't suffer so much from bias as being incomplete. Which can be said about many other aspects of the article as well. For example, the first Norwegian town was not Tunsberg, but Kaupang; and there are other minor problems as well. --Leifern 15:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology

So, it's fairly settled what the English etymology of Norway is, but the Norwegian word forNorway is quite unrelated; Norge, coming from "Nor rige", that is, northern realm, realm of the northmen or even realm of Nor (mythical person) I'm no expert here, but if anyone knows anything, please add this as it is laughable not having the etymology for a nation's name in its own language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.90.254.184 (talk) 18:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear, no, Norge most definitely does not come from "Nor rige". The Old Norse form was Noregr, this is undisputed. "Norrige" is a Danish distortion of modern times. The etymology of Noregr is quite commonly explained in the same way as English "Norway" - Way to the north. They are not unrelated at all, they are the same.--Barend (talk) 22:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article should be rewritten

This article could almost be used as a showcase for Wikipedia's inherent bias towards military and political history, as described by the historian Roy Rosenzweig in his article: Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past

  • Most scholarly and popular books about the history of Norway devout less than 5% to the events of WW2. In this article 25% covers WW2!
  • 500 years of Norwegian history, i.e. The Kalmar Union + The Oldenburg dynasty/union with Denmark + the inter war years + post WW2 time, doesn't receive any serious treatment.
  • The monarchy is get a lot of attention, whereas the living conditions for the people is barley mentioned.
  • A fairly unexceptional anecdotes concerning the treatment of German POW in the late 1940s get more coverage than the entire post-war period.
  • Social history? Economic history? Cultural history? Demographic history?

H@r@ld (talk) 02:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

You raise interesting points, but on the whole I don't agree with you.
On the one hand, there is the problem that some periods get undue attention. The WWII-section is very long, I agree, and could probably do with a trimming, and moving parts into the specialised articles about Norway during WWII. But the main reason for the imbalance between different periods is that some sections haven't been written about yet. The period 1380-1814 needs more extensive work, and also the post-war period. The problem is, basically, that no one has got around to writing about those, while they have written about the middle ages and WWII. So it's not that the whole article needs a rewrite, it's these periods that need an extension, and I'm sure in time they will come. (I have myself been planning to write more about 1380-1536, but finding the time...)
On the other hand, the bias towards political and military history, and lack of social, cultural and demographic history, "living conditions for the people". I think you have a wrong expectation about what an encyclopedia-article should be. One cannot expect a thorough synthesis of all aspects of history in an encyclopedia, certainly not an open-source one. For that, read a history book. An encyclopedia should primarily be a place to look up facts. The articles should contain facts, such as years of important events, names of rulers and so on. And in cases where the facts are not hard and clear (as is most often the case in history), the article should ideally present the main alternative viewpoints. Social history, cultural history, the "living conditions for the people" don't lend themselves to NPOV-descriptions. You have to take a viewpoint in order to write history like that, you have to make choices, that sort of history doesn't contain many hard facts, and will inherantly be debatable and controversial. If you look in wikipedia for historical synthesis, you are looking in the wrong place - it's a bit like going to a steel mill and expecting to buy a car (if you get my metaphor).--Barend (talk) 11:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Since the 1970s, most academic historical scholarship has moved past political/military history towards emphasis on cultural history, social history and economic history. Socical history isn't inherently biased to NPOV anymore than political history. E.g. the current version of the article's discussion on the Black death: "After the Black Death Norway entered into a period of decline. The Royal line died out and the country entered into two unequal unions from 1396 until 1814". It fails to mention that perhaps 60% of the population died (!), instead, the article goes on discussing royal lineages etc.
The best English language reference work for a rewrite of this article is (still) probably Norway: A History from the Vikings to Our Own Times, written by five eminent history professors from the University of Bergen.
H@r@ld (talk) 18:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)