89 Facts About Halvdan Koht

Halvdan Koht was a Norwegian historian and politician representing the Labour Party.

Halvdan Koht was never elected a member of Parliament, but served nonetheless as Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1935 to 1940, as part of the government-in-exile following Germany's invasion of Norway.

Halvdan Koht was a prolific writer, and touched on numerous subjects during his long academic career.

Halvdan Koht wrote several biographies; his works on Johan Sverdrup and Henrik Ibsen spanned several volumes each.

Halvdan Koht became known for syntheses on Norwegian history, and emphasised the roles of peasants and wage labourers as historical agents who found their place in an expanding notion of the Norwegian nation.

Halvdan Koht was interested in the United States and its history, and was a pioneer in Norway in this respect.

Halvdan Koht championed the Samnorsk language reform, the declared aim of which was to consolidate the two standards of written Norwegian.

In Paul Halvdan Koht's lineage, Kjeld Stub was a distant ancestor.

Halvdan Koht was then christened Halfdan, changed to Halvdan some years later.

Halvdan Koht finished school here, taking his examen artium in 1890.

Halvdan Koht's father was among his teachers for a while in Norwegian and Greek.

Halvdan Koht studied at the Royal Frederick University.

In September 1898 in Kristiania, Halvdan Koht married Karen Elisabeth Grude, an essay writer and women's rights activist one and a half years his senior; they had three children.

Halvdan Koht studied history with geography as a minor subject until 1895; his main history teacher was Gustav Storm.

Halvdan Koht had the choice between Ancient Greek and Classical Latin or Norwegian and German ; he chose the Norwegian and German.

In December 1896, Halvdan Koht was finally examined by Sophus Bugge and earned his degree.

Halvdan Koht was one of just three students to be examined in Norwegian and German in late 1896, and had been the only candidate in history the previous year.

Halvdan Koht worked briefly as a private tutor in the Skien district, and was paid to write in the newspaper Varden.

For some months after graduating Halvdan Koht worked as an unpaid volunteer at the University Library of Oslo, while continuing to attend university lectures.

Halvdan Koht studied at the University of Copenhagen, the University of Leipzig and in Paris.

Halvdan Koht was especially influenced by Karl Lamprecht in Leipzig.

From 1899 to 1901, Halvdan Koht worked as a substitute at the University Library of Oslo, and part-time as a school teacher.

Halvdan Koht was engaged by Gustav Storm to help him with publishing the source text Regesta Norvegica.

In 1908, after eight years of work, Halvdan Koht completed the two last volumes of Norsk Forfatter-lexikon, a biographical dictionary of Norwegian writers.

Halvdan Koht rarely had responsibility for any teaching of the students, and since he was often busy with Norsk Forfatter-lexikon he remained a research fellow until 1907.

Halvdan Koht was then hired as a docent at the university in 1908.

From 1908 to 1909 Halvdan Koht travelled around in the United States, England and Sweden, visiting the peace conferences in London, Chicago and Stockholm.

Halvdan Koht then returned to Norway and the university, and remained docent until being promoted to professor in 1910.

Halvdan Koht remained professor until 1935, and served as the dean of his Faculty from 1912 to 1917.

Halvdan Koht faced considerable skepticism among academics when announcing his intentions to study social history from the farmers' perspective.

In 1910, Halvdan Koht completed the dissertation Bonde mot borgar i nynorsk historie, in which he further developed his theories on the role of the farmers in history.

Halvdan Koht wrote about this in the 1910 article Norsk folkesamling as well.

The book Norsk bondereisning, published in 1926 as a compilation of Halvdan Koht's presented material in his university lectures, represented the culmination of Halvdan Koht's work on the topic of class conflict between the agrarian and the urban population.

Halvdan Koht argued that the peasant movement had abandoned the cause of class interest in favour of universal rights and social reforms.

Halvdan Koht's stay in the United States affected his historical views and adaptation of historical materialism, and he tried to encourage the study of American history in Norway.

Halvdan Koht's first writing on the subject came in 1910 with the lecture Genesis of American Independence.

Halvdan Koht followed with Pengemakt og arbeid i Amerika, which was based on "People's Academy" lectures, then Amerikansk kultur and Den amerikanske nasjonen.

Halvdan Koht wrote about 400 pieces in the first edition of Norsk biografisk leksikon, a biographical dictionary which would become a preeminent source on important figures in Norwegian history.

Halvdan Koht chaired Kjeldeskriftfondet from 1918 to 1927 and Norsk historisk kjeldeskriftrad from 1923 to 1928, two institutions that dealt with publishing of source texts.

Halvdan Koht chaired the Norwegian Historical Association from 1912 to 1927 and 1932 to 1936, the Norwegian Genealogical Society from 1928 to 1940 and the Comite International des Sciences Historiques from 1926 to 1933.

Halvdan Koht became a fellow of the learned society Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 1908.

Halvdan Koht held honorary degrees from the University of Oxford, the University of Chicago and the University of Warsaw.

Halvdan Koht was decorated by France as a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and in 1952 he received the Gunnerus Medal from the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters.

Halvdan Koht was a member of the International Society for the History of Medicine.

Halvdan Koht's father introduced his son to politics, taking him to the Liberal Party national convention in 1891, where he was allowed to enter since he studied at the university.

Halvdan Koht continued his fight against the union badge, and the union as a whole.

Halvdan Koht viewed the Liberal Party as an important agent in Norwegian history, since it pronounced the rights of the farmers, but he now viewed the working class as the next class to be included in the political life, and specifically through the Labor Party.

Halvdan Koht lived with his family in Stabekk, but commissioned a house in Lysaker in 1910.

Internationally, Halvdan Koht tried to prop up the institutions that maintained public international law.

Halvdan Koht positioned himself in the Labour Party as the prospective Minister of Foreign Affairs should the party form a government.

Halvdan Koht did so because fellow historian and Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1928, Edvard Bull Sr.

Halvdan Koht became Minister of Foreign Affairs in Johan Nygaardsvold's Cabinet.

Halvdan Koht did not vehemently and principally oppose such an expansion, and had been quite friendly to the principle of a national defense in the past.

In 1936 Halvdan Koht expressed great concern for the consequences of the arms race taking place in Europe, which he felt could easily lead to war.

Halvdan Koht himself promoted a ban on the use of Norwegian ships to transport arms, ammunition and aircraft to foreign countries in general, to ensure that there could be no Norwegian connection to any such items that were delivered to Spain.

Halvdan Koht went to great lengths to avoid any direct Norwegian involvement in the conflict, especially trying to block Norwegians from travelling to Spain to join the International Brigades.

On 19 September 1936, Halvdan Koht attempted to have the League of Nations impose a ceasefire in Spain, to be followed by a popular referendum on the country's constitution.

On 9 April 1937, following a series of incidents where Francoist warships intercepted Norwegian vessels sailing on Spanish ports and confiscated both cargoes and ships, and Norwegian protests failing to gain results, Halvdan Koht made a formal proposal to dispatch the Norwegian minelayer Olav Tryggvason to Spain to protect Norwegian shipping.

Prime Minister Nygaardsvold refused to accept Halvdan Koht's resignation, stating that he "would rather be shot than lose Halvdan Koht".

Again requesting to be allowed to resign, Halvdan Koht stayed after months of debating ended with the party giving the cabinet free rein to do what it saw as best with regards to trade with Franco.

Halvdan Koht was clear from early on that Norway should remain neutral, but that in the event of her being forced to enter the war it was critical that it was on the side of the British.

Shortly before the mining was carried out, Halvdan Koht warned the British that no further neutrality violations would be tolerated, and that in the future the Norwegians would respond with force.

Halvdan Koht told the Norwegian parliament that he believed that the Allies were trying to bring Norway into the war.

Halvdan Koht personally met with Brauer, and rejected his demands and threats of war, stating that "war had already started".

Halvdan Koht was willing to take up the fight against the invaders.

Halvdan Koht wrote several key speeches, some of which were delivered by King Haakon VII, to convey staunch resistance to the German demands.

Halvdan Koht made a radio speech from London on the BBC, broadcasting to Norway, and a speech on American radio.

Halvdan Koht landed in London on 19 June 1940, now heading the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in exile.

Norway was now a close ally of the United Kingdom, but Halvdan Koht was seen as clinging somewhat to his neutrality policy, and not embracing the alliance with the United Kingdom enough.

Halvdan Koht was granted leave of absence on 19 November 1940, and ultimately left the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs on 20 February 1941, being succeeded by Trygve Lie.

Halvdan Koht decided to travel to Canada and then the United States.

Halvdan Koht lived with his daughter Asa and her family in Washington, DC, returning to Norway after the end of the Second World War.

Halvdan Koht had relatively little contact with other politicians, kept to himself to study in peace, and spent much time on his extensive writing.

Halvdan Koht reportedly preferred to solve a problem by himself instead of involving co-workers and employees, even the experts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Halvdan Koht had few or no alternatives to his neutrality policy, and in many ways he based his entire career in foreign affairs on that policy.

Halvdan Koht became a board member of the Landsmal-based publishing house Det Norske Samlaget, and edited the Landsmal periodical Syn og Segn from 1901 to 1908, until 1905 together with Rasmus Flo.

Halvdan Koht chaired Noregs Mallag, an association the propagation of Landsmal, from 1921 to 1925.

Halvdan Koht spoke of language in a social context in general and of the class struggle in particular.

Halvdan Koht became a member of Rettskrivingsnemnda in 1934, and in 1936 the Labour Party agreed that a language reform should be carried out, moving the two language forms Bokmal and Nynorsk closer to one another.

Halvdan Koht followed his own goals during his first period as chairman.

Halvdan Koht wanted to tie the "apolitical" peace movement closer to the labour movement, to create "economic justice" and to employ the use of arbitration in labour conflicts.

Halvdan Koht demanded that the Peace Association did not resist to an armed defense of the "fatherland".

The national convention in 1902 refused to acknowledge this principle, and Halvdan Koht therefore resigned his membership.

Halvdan Koht was followed by others, as a result of a schism in the Peace Association between the pacifists and the more pragmatic peace activists.

Halvdan Koht later returned to the Peace Association to serve as a board member from 1910 to 1912.

Halvdan Koht became a member of Institut International de la Paix in 1913.

Halvdan Koht was a consultant for the Norwegian Nobel Institute from 1904 to 1913, with the task of examining proposed candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Halvdan Koht was absent while serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs, not wishing to combine the two roles.

Halvdan Koht returned briefly afterwards, before leaving again in 1942.