Imaging Norway by using the past

Abstract

The article analyses how history was used in efforts to portray Norway in the postwar period. The main narratives of Norwegian history played a dominating role in the construction of national images during this period. These narratives had been constructed as part of the nation-building processes of the 19th century. In several aspects, the historical narratives used in portrayals of Norway mirrored developments in Norwegian historiography in the period. In the 1960s, however, the use of these narratives to portray Norway became problematic, owing to the priority given to a new rationale of information and demands that Norway should be portrayed as a modern society. The article takes a use-of-history approach as a point of departure and argues that such an approach is fruitful in studies of how national images are constructed.