About the author:
Victoria V. Peshkova, PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
E-mail:
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4940-110X
Abstract:
The problem of national identity in Norway, whose fate was developing especially dramatically, most vigorously declared itself at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. It was in this historical setting that the Norwegian literary critic Just Johan Bing (1866–1954) was born and raised — a famous Norwegian literary critic and archaeologist, as well as the head of the State Archives in Bergen, which contributed to his narrative manner. The article dwells upon “History of Norwegian Literature” (Norsk Litteraturhistorie, 1904), and the textbook of the same name for schoolchildren (Norsk Litteraturhistorie til skolebruk, 1915). Bing tried not only to present the historical facts, but to open the amazing world of the past for readers, make them rejoice together with historical figures in the successes of their compatriots and the greatness of their country and empathize with its tragic events. He made the history of Norwegian literature both informative and exciting to read, and thus contributed to the popularization of the culture of his country.