The Political Reception of the Classical Past in Norway and Beyond

Abstract

Antiquity, or the notions of the ancient Greco-Roman world, has played an important role in the history of Europe and Scandinavia, from the Middle Ages to the present day. The project “Use and reception of Classical history” investigates political, social, and religious aspects of the ancient heritage in Norway, Europe, and North America. The purpose is to understand better the many ways in which antiquity has been used throughout history. In this way, we may also better understand how the term antiquity is used today.
We find references to the period in constitutional debates, public discourse, and political experiments with "direct democracy". Antiquity has also become part of the legitimization base for far-right extremists and misogyny, both on social media and on the dark web. This has clear precursors in the position of antiquities myth in Nazi Germany. The idea of antiquity has thus been used for both constructive and destructive purposes, quite independently of what scholars have thought of ancient real history.
In this talk we address the field of reception studies and present selected work in progress from the project, including on the links and lack thereof of ties between ancient and modern democracies, as well as the use of classical antiquity in political discourse in early 20th century Norway.

Biographical Note

Ingvar Brandvik Mæhle is Associate Professor in Ancient History at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural and Religious Studies, University of Bergen. His research focuses on social and political history in the ancient Greco-Roman World.

Eivind Heldaas Seland is professor of ancient and premodern global history at the Department of archaeology, history, cultural studies and religion, University of Bergen.