Christian Lous Lange

Christian Lous Lange

Christian Lous Lange (17 September 1869 – 11 December 1938) was a Norwegian historian, teacher, and political scientist. He was one of the world's foremost exponents of the theory and practice of internationalism.

He was born in Stavanger; his father was a military engineer. He graduated from secondary school in 1887 and proceeded to travel and study history, English, and French at the University of Oslo, from which he received the cand. philol. degree in 1893. He taught at secondary schools for many years and eventually returned to the University of Oslo to receive a doctorate.

In 1899, he had his first official role in the internationalist movement when he was appointed secretary of the committee organizing an Oslo conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an organization dedicated to fostering discussion between parliamentarians of different countries. The next year, he was made secretary of the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament and, although he gave up the position in 1909, he would play a key role in the early days of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. During this time he was the Norwegian technical delegate to the Second Hague Peace Conference.

Lange rejoined the Inter-Parliamentary Union in 1909 when he was appointed secretary general of the organization, a position he would retain until 1933. As secretary general he oversaw the Union's move to Brussels, sustained it in Oslo through the challenging times of World War I, then moved it again to Geneva after the war. He remained active in numerous other organizations as well, acting as Norway's delegate or alternate delegate to the League of Nations from its founding until 1938, writing reports and acting as a correspondent for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and participating in the Dutch sponsored Central Organisation for Durable Peace, amongst other activities. He was often called upon for his expertise in arbitration and arms control, in particular.

His intellectual support of internationalism was demonstrated by the first of a three volume historical treatise (Histoire de l'internationalisme). The work, published in 1919, was said to contribute to the ideological preparation for the League of Nations.^[1] For this and all his other activities, Lange shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Hjalmar Branting in 1921.

Lange died at the age of 69, one day after the 17th anniversary of his receipt of the Nobel Prize. He was the father of Carl Viggo Manthey Lange, Halvard Lange and Christian August Manthey Lange.

His daughter Thora was a history and language teacher, from 1938 at Oslo Cathedral School. During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany she joined the resistance movement while her husband went in exile. She was imprisoned at Grini concentration camp in September 1943, but fell ill and died at Ullevål Hospital in December.^[2][3]

References

v t e Laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize 1901–1925 1901 Henry Dunant / Frédéric Passy 1902 Élie Ducommun / Charles Gobat 1903 Randal Cremer 1904 Institut de Droit International 1905 Bertha von Suttner 1906 Theodore Roosevelt 1907 Ernesto Moneta / Louis Renault 1908 Klas Arnoldson / Fredrik Bajer 1909 A. M. F. Beernaert / Paul Estournelles de Constant 1910 International Peace Bureau 1911 Tobias Asser / Alfred Fried 1912 Elihu Root 1913 Henri La Fontaine 1914 1915 1916 1917 International Committee of the Red Cross 1918 1919 Woodrow Wilson 1920 Léon Bourgeois 1921 Hjalmar Branting / Christian Lange 1922 Fridtjof Nansen 1923 1924 1925 Austen Chamberlain / Charles Dawes 1926–1950 1926 Aristide Briand / Gustav Stresemann 1927 Ferdinand Buisson / Ludwig Quidde 1928 1929 Frank B. Kellogg 1930 Nathan Söderblom 1931 Jane Addams / Nicholas Butler 1932 1933 Norman Angell 1934 Arthur Henderson 1935 Carl von Ossietzky 1936 Carlos Saavedra Lamas 1937 Robert Cecil 1938 Nansen International Office for Refugees 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 International Committee of the Red Cross 1945 Cordell Hull 1946 Emily Balch / John Mott 1947 Friends Service Council / American Friends Service Committee 1948 1949 John Boyd Orr 1950 Ralph Bunche 1951–1975 1951 Léon Jouhaux 1952 Albert Schweitzer 1953 George Marshall 1954 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 1955 1956 1957 Lester B. Pearson 1958 Georges Pire 1959 Philip Noel-Baker 1960 Albert Lutuli 1961 Dag Hammarskjöld 1962 Linus Pauling 1963 International Committee of the Red Cross / League of Red Cross Societies 1964 Martin Luther King, Jr. 1965 UNICEF 1966 1967 1968 René Cassin 1969 International Labour Organization 1970 Norman Borlaug 1971 Willy Brandt 1972 1973 Le Duc Tho (declined award) / Henry Kissinger 1974 Seán MacBride / Eisaku Satō 1975 Andrei Sakharov 1976–2000 1976 Betty Williams / Mairead Corrigan 1977 Amnesty International 1978 Anwar Sadat / Menachem Begin 1979 Mother Teresa 1980 Adolfo Pérez Esquivel 1981 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 1982 Alva Myrdal / Alfonso García Robles 1983 Lech Wałęsa 1984 Desmond Tutu 1985 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War 1986 Elie Wiesel 1987 Óscar Arias 1988 UN Peacekeeping Forces 1989 Tenzin Gyatso (14th Dalai Lama) 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev 1991 Aung San Suu Kyi 1992 Rigoberta Menchú 1993 Nelson Mandela / F. W. de Klerk 1994 Shimon Peres / Yitzhak Rabin / Yasser Arafat 1995 Pugwash Conferences / Joseph Rotblat 1996 Carlos Belo / José Ramos-Horta 1997 International Campaign to Ban Landmines / Jody Williams 1998 John Hume / David Trimble 1999 Médecins Sans Frontières 2000 Kim Dae-jung 2001–present 2001 Kofi Annan / United Nations 2002 Jimmy Carter 2003 Shirin Ebadi 2004 Wangari Maathai 2005 International Atomic Energy Agency / Mohamed ElBaradei 2006 Grameen Bank / Muhammad Yunus 2007 Al Gore / Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2008 Martti Ahtisaari 2009 Barack Obama 2010 Liu Xiaobo 2011 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf / Leymah Gbowee / Tawakkol Karman 2012 European Union 2013 Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons