Victor Condorcet Vinje

The Versatile Farmers of the North Victor Condorcet Vinje

The Versatile Farmers of the North deals with the topographical and socioeconomic background of the farmers who played their historically unique part in the constitution making process of the spring of 1814. The author makes a comparison of the circumstances of the various Nordic farmers, and comes to the conclusion that it was among the Norwegians that the best possibilities arose for the versatile kind of life which enabled them to play such a prominent role during the Age of the Democratic Revolution. Being craftsmen and traders as well as soil cultivators, these farmers adopted a way of life which singles them out in European history as some of the most progressive ones when it comes to liberal sentiments in the Early Modern Era. As familiar with the writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau and his like in the French Enlightenment movement, the Norwegian yeomen drew on their writings as well as their own age old traditions with off-the-record laissez faire in an age of Burgher privileges which on paper excluded them from artisan work in the cities as well as trade in general. The reader is also briefly introduced to the story of the former French revolutionary soldier and later general under Napoleon Bonaparte, Bernadotte, who was chosen as a state leader in Sweden in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. Bernadotte (king Charles John) accepted the role of Swedish state leader largely because of his faith in the Norwegian farmers' revolutionary potential and, thus, gave the Norwegian the opportunity to frame their own constitution -- in spite of the subordination of Norway to the Swedish state. The fact that the cause of the Norwegian farmers was betrayed at Eidsvoll in May, 1814 subsequently infuriated Bernadotte for the rest of his life. All in all "The Versatile Farmers of the North" comprises an introduction to Norwegian and Scandinavian history in the Early Modern Era -- which may be drawn on in further studies on the topic.