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Traces of History
Norway
Sofie Sisselsdatter Hamre
Born 1994 in Bergen, Norway
Undergraduate preparatory Music Studies in Bergen
“Butterfly in winterland” (2010)
In her work, Sofie Hamre tells the story of her friend and colleague, Irene, a young refugee from Congo. As a young girl Irene lost most of her family during an uproar against the totalitarian regime. Her father, who was a respectable doctor, was taken by a guerrilla squad while he was trying to hide his family in a nearby wood. Irene has never seen him again ever since. Later she gets taken under the care of her uncle and moves to Malawi, where, because he helpes some refugees from Burundi and hides himself afterwards, she gets imprisoned in his place and must survive in very poor conditions. After she is released from prison Irene manages to escape together with her uncle to Norway under a refugees’ program, where she must learn how to start a new life and leave the past behind.
For her project Sofie Sisselsdatter Hamre was awarded the fourth prize in the Norwegian history competition from 2010.
Helge Neeral
Born 1986 in Oslo, Norway
Student (Law; University of Oslo)
"Departure for the land of unlimited possibilities and return to the land of solidarity" (2005)
"Departure for the land of unlimited possibilities and return to the land of solidarity" is how the 21-year-old Norwegian Helge Neeral describes his study. It is based on an in-depth interview with one of his grandfathers, who immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s and returned to Norway with his family almost 30 years later. In his work, the author contrasts the experiences of a young married couple who left a Norway still scarred by war, with their return three decades later to a homeland that they scarcely recognise. While the grandfather became acquainted in the USA with a strongly individualistic and multicultural society, in Norway of the 1970s he discovered a controlled welfare state led by social democrats. At the same time, Helge Neeral illustrates through the example of his grandfather how emigrants are cut off from developments in their home country. He concludes that national identity is not an abstract value but evolves from special conditions and circumstances of an individual's life.
Helge Neeral's contribution:"Departure for the land of unlimited possibilities and return to the land of solidarity" earned him second place in the Norwegian History Competition of 2005.
Mari Kristin Berg
Born 1987 in Norway
Student (Language and Literature in Tromsö, Norway)
"My family and the Russian Revolution" (2003)
Mari Kristin Berg, former participant in EUSTORY´s Summer Academy: "Foreign ? Familiar - Dealing with the Known and Unknown" in Berlin 2003, researched about two of her own ancestors. In recapitulating the life story of Peter and Kristian Skovsgaard, born 1873 and 1875 in Arhus, Denmark, and their struggle for success and better living conditions, the author followed not only the winding traces of her family, but also discovered an exiting story about personal accomplishments and failures in the course of history.
In the beginning of the 20th century the two brothers decided to leave their parent's farm to start a new and better life in the eastern Eurasian continent. Both arrived in Siberia and managed to amass a small fortune, both started their own families. But the success story of the Skovsgaard brothers changed with the October Revolution in 1917: Peter recognized the sign of the time and returned with his Danish wife and his four children back to Denmark before the outbreak of the uprising, while his brother Kristian, who married a Russian woman, decided to stay. But already one year later his acquired property was completely confiscated - he had to escape from the revolutionary guards with his wife and returned to Denmark as well. While both brothers started their adventures journey similarly, they ended their lives quite differently: Peter could rescue his fortune and started a new life on his own farm in Denmark after his return, but Kristian in contrast had lost all of his possessions - his lifelong dream is destroyed while his Russian wife Ksenia never learned to speak Danish and yearned all her life for a return to Siberia.
For her research the author conducted interviews with contemporary witnesses, mainly her grandmother and the cousin of her grandmother from Denmark. Mari Kristin Berg won the first prize of the national history competition „My family in the whirlwind of history" organized by the Norwegian Fritt Ord Foundation in 2002/ 03.
