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ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS Studia Historica Upsaliensia 263 ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS Studia Historica Upsaliensia 263 Utgivna av Historiska institutionen vid Uppsala universitet genom Margaret Hunt och Maria Ågren Omslagsbild: Juletreet/The Christmas Tree, Theodor Kittelsen Foto: Used with permission from Grev Wedels Plass Auksjoner AS Omslagslayout: Camilla Eriksson Christopher Thompson Norges Våpen Cultural Memory and Uses of History in Norwegian Black Metal Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Humanities Theater, Engelska parken, room 22-0008, Uppsala, Friday, 18 January 2019 at 13:15 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Benjamin Martin (Institutionen för idé- och lärdomshistoria). Abstract Thompson, C. 2018. Norges Våpen. Cultural Memory and Uses of History in Norwegian Black Metal. Studia Historica Upsaliensia 263. 221 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0505-9. This dissertation examines uses of history and expressions of cultural memory in Norwegian black metal. Formed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Norwegian black metal seemed at odds with many of the stereotypes of Norway. The genre is an extreme style of heavy metal music that has been associated with burning churches, desecrating graves, and committing murders. Yet, Norway is often perceived as wealthy with sublime natural beauty and high levels of equality. Since the late 1990s, Norwegian black metal has increasingly received positive recognition and support from Norwegian government agencies and cultural institutions who have deemed this style of music a cultural product of Norway. In exploring the relationship between Norwegian black metal and Norway, two primary questions are asked: what makes Norwegian black metal ‘Norwegian’ and what are its influences? To answer these questions, a theoretical approach based on Astrid Erll’s cultural memory complex is used. Included in this cultural memory complex are notions of individual and collective memory, both of which include concepts of nationalism as outlined by Benedict Anderson and Michael Billig. The source base for this dissertation includes the musical releases of over five hundred Norwegian black metal bands which were gathered and analyzed. Three primary categories, with corresponding subcategories, were identified to account for the ways Norwegian black metal bands have used history and expressed cultural memory over a twenty- five-year period from 1988 to 2013. This dissertation shows that Norwegian black metal has made frequent use of history and has actively negotiated parts of the identity-making process from nineteenth-century Norway. In connecting to Norwegian identity in such a way, these bands link to historically construed notions of likhet and egalitarian individualism as identified by the Norwegian anthropologists Marianne Gullestad and Thomas Hylland Eriksen. They actively reproduce many of the same essentialized notions of Norwegian identity that create and maintain ethnic boundaries on Norwegian identity. By using history and expressing cultural memory in the way that they do, Norwegian black metal bands communicate that they are firmly Norwegian while, at the same time, reinforcing ethnocentric notions of Norwegian identity. Keywords: Norwegian black metal, cultural memory, nationalism, national romanticism, uses of history, popular music, egalitarian individualism, likhet, Norway Christopher Thompson, Department of History, Box 628, Uppsala University, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden. © Christopher Thompson 2018 ISSN 0081-6531 ISBN 978-91-513-0505-9 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-366216 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-366216) Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................ 9 Chapter 1 Introduction: Setting the Stage .................................................... 11 1.1 Transformations and Questions ......................................................... 14 1.2 Theoretical Considerations: Norway’s Introspective Anthropologists and Locating Cultural Memory .................................... 16 1.2.1 The Cultural Memory Complex .............................................. 19 1.3 Structure of Dissertation ...................................................................... 25 Chapter 2 Locating Norwegian Black Metal: Previous Research, Definitions, and Methods ................................................................................ 27 2.1 Exploring the Field................................................................................ 27 2.2 Black Metal in Academia ...................................................................... 30 2.2.1 Defining Black Metal: Music vs. Ideology ............................ 33 2.3 Source Selection and Methodology .................................................... 39 2.3.1 Counting Bands ......................................................................... 40 2.3.2 Principle of Selection ................................................................ 41 2.3.3 Method of Analysis – Constructing the Context ................. 42 Chapter 3 Development of Norwegian Black Metal: Roots and Aesthetics to the Present ................................................................................. 47 3.1 Roots and Aesthetics to the Present ................................................... 47 3.1.1 Outlaw Bikers, Black Sabbath, and Satanism ....................... 48 3.1.2 NWOBHM and the Beginnings of Black Metal .................. 50 3.2 The First Black Metal Bands and Norwegian Black Metal ............. 52 3.2.1 Venom ........................................................................................ 52 3.2.2 Mercyful Fate ............................................................................. 54 3.2.3 Hellhammer/Celtic Frost ........................................................ 55 3.2.4 Bathory ........................................................................................ 56 3.2.5 Mayhem and the Rise of Norwegian Black Metal................ 59 3.2.6 Darkthrone ................................................................................. 60 3.2.7 Murders, Trials, and Awards ................................................... 62 3.3 Fantasy, Role Playing Games, and Escapism .................................... 63 3.3.1 The Influence of Tolkien and Middle Earth ......................... 64 3.3.2 Tolkien in Norwegian Black Metal ......................................... 65 3.3.3 Role Playing Games and Escapism ........................................ 67 3.3.4 Emphasizing the Visual ........................................................... 68 3.3.5 Fantasy as a Frame .................................................................... 71 Chapter 4 Folk Narratives ............................................................................... 77 4.1 National Romanticism and the Making of Norwegian Culture ........................................................................................................... 78 4.1.1 Norway’s Political Struggle and Search for a Cultural Identity ................................................................................................. 79 4.1.2 Collecting Folk Narratives ....................................................... 81 4.1.3 Folk Narratives in the Arts ...................................................... 82 4.2 Norwegian Black Metal and Common Folk Narrative Motifs ............................................................................................................. 84 4.2.1 Folk Narratives and Resistance ............................................... 91 4.2.2 The Battle of Kringen and Pillar-Guri ................................... 92 4.2.3 Pillar-Guri, Kittelsen, and Burzum ........................................ 95 4.2.4 Kittelsen, Svartedauen, and the Black Death .......................... 99 4.2.5 The Black Death in Norwegian Black Metal ...................... 102 4.2.6 Reusing and Negotiating Kittelsen ....................................... 104 4.3 Summary ............................................................................................... 108 Chapter 5 Vikings and Norse Mythology ................................................... 111 5.1 The Medieval Kingdom of Norway in National Romanticism ............................................................................................... 112 5.1.1 Reimagining the Sagas in Nineteenth-Century Historiography .................................................................................. 113 5.1.2 Civilized Democratic Christian Kings ................................. 115 5.1.3 Spreading the Gospel of the Sagas ....................................... 118 5.1.4 Reimagining the Viking .......................................................... 120 5.1.5 The Nationalist Music Movement ........................................ 123 5.2 Vikings and Norse Mythology in Norwegian Black Metal ........... 125 5.2.1 Norwegian Exceptionalism and the Medieval Kingdom ............................................................................................ 126 5.2.2 Battles in the North ................................................................ 129 5.2.3 Exploration and Violent Vikings .......................................... 132 5.2.4 Anti-Christianity and Asatrú ................................................. 136 5.2.5 An Authentic Belief ................................................................ 137 5.2.6 Völkisch Preludes
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