Kristofer Janson's Lecture Tour, 1879-80

Abstract

by NINA DRAXTEN 2 Kristofer Janson's Lecture Tour, 1879-80 Few Janson visitors when are he so reached warmly welcomed the United as States was Kristofer in SepJanson when he reached the United States in September , 1879. The first announcement of his coming had been made by Professor Rasmus B. Anderson, five months in advance , in Skandinaven (Chicago); and this notice was followed by a second that listed thirty-eight lectures Janson was prepared to deliver.1 As the news was channeled through the Middle West by such papers as Fsedrelandet og Emigranten in La Crosse, Budstikken in Minneapolis, Red River Posten in Fargo, and Decorah-P osten in Iowa, immigrant settlers felt drawn to Janson by the accounts they read of his long career as den djserve maalstrsever (the staunch champion of the peasant vernacular). The epithet indicated more than an interest in linguistics. In Norway, as in other countries that have known foreign rule, there were two languages: the official Dano-Norwegian, used by church and state and mastered by all educated people , and the spoken dialects used in the country at large. Dano-Norwegian, or riksmaal, was the accepted literary medium . Ivar Aasen had developed, from the spoken dialects, a language called landsmaal (New Norse), linking it with Old Norse. That landsmaal had a valid claim as a bona fide 1 Skandinaven, May 13, July 5, 1879. 18 KRISTOFER JANSON'S LECTURE TOUR language was a central issue in Norway's nationalist movement ; but, up to the advent of Janson, the cause had been espoused largely by peasants - among them, besides Aasen, the newspaper editor, A. O. Vinje. In the mid-1860's, young Kristofer Janson, himself a member of a distinguished Bergen family, deliberately chose to write his stories of peasant life in New Norse. By doing this he demonstrated that landsmaal, generally despised by the cultivated classes as a crude patois, had a beauty and eloquence peculiarly its own and was suited to the production of a literature. For years Janson met with ridicule and abuse; yet, though his stories received surly and caustic treatment at the hands of many critics, they became popular all over Scandinavia. In Janson's efforts to popularize New Norse, he used it on the lecture platform, frequently telling Bj0rnson's peasant stories in landsmaal and achieving such effects that even die-hards were forced to acknowledge that his versions gave the tales an added poignancy.2 Thus Janson was described as a man who had fought for his ideals and had, through dogged persistence and high courage , forced all Norway to recognize his talent. In 1876, when the Storting (parliament) inaugurated the digtegage (a pension for poets) Janson was among the first four to be honored , the others being Ibsen, Bj0rnson, and Lie. Janson knew the bonde or small farmer at first hand: For nine years he had been a teacher in Christopher Bruun's folk high school in Gausdal.3 When Janson arrived in the United States, people realized that just as he had fought for the common folk in Norway, 2 Egil Elda, "Kristofer Janson og den nationale bevaegelse i Norge," in Budsttkken (Minneapolis), November 5, 11, 1879; Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, "Kristofer Janson and the Reform of the Norwegian Language," in North American Review , 115:379-401 (October, 1872); Decorah-P osten, October 15, 1879. 8 The Norwegian folk schools, modeled after those established in Denmark by Bishop N. F. S. Grundtvig, were set up in rural communities to educate young adults. Students were taught the history, literature, folklore, and music of their native land. Instruction was given primarily by means of the spoken word rather than through books. For a comment, see Janson, H vad jeg har oplevet , 177 (Christiania, 1913). 19 Nina Draxten so he was now their spokesman in America. Audiences found themselves fighting back tears as Janson pictured the privations and injustices the humble people of Norway had endured in the past; and then his listeners would feel a surge of pride as he told them that the bonde, in spite of his lack of privilege, had been the guardian of Norway's native culture , its legends and fairy tales - which Janson...