Georg Sibbern

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Georg Sibbern

Georg Christian Sibbern (born March 29, 1816 in Rygge ; † October 4, 1901 ibid) was a Norwegian diplomat and politician.

Life

His parents were the bailiff and later State Councilor Valentin Sibbern (1779-1853) and his wife Anne Cathrine Stockfleth (1785-1865). He married Maria Soane (September 18, 1815-27 February 1885), daughter of the architect John Soane Jr., on November 20, 1852. (1786–1823) and his wife Maria Preston. Maria Soane was the widow of the diplomat Johan Gotthard Freiherr von Rehausen (1802-1854).

Sibbern came from a family of officers and landowners. He grew up on the family estate Værne kloster. In 1822 the family moved to Christiania . There he attended the cathedral school. In 1831 he passed the examen artium and began studying law. In 1837 he passed the exam in this subject. As early as 1833 he had a job as a copyist in the revision department. In 1838 he was "Fullmektig" in the State Council Department in Stockholm. In 1840 he became "Annensekretær" in the Foreign Ministry on the recommendation of his brother-in-law, State Secretary Frederik Due . In 1842 he was legation secretary in St. Petersburg, Copenhagen, The Hague and London. In 1850 he was transferred to Washington because he had a relationship with the wife of his superior, the envoy from Rehausen. He later married her. In Washington he was "Chargé d'affaires", then Consul General and in 1854 Minister Resident. In 1856 he returned to Scandinavia and became cabinet secretary to Viceroy Crown Prince Karl Johann.

In 1857 he was a member of the Norwegian interim government, but turned back to the diplomatic service in 1858 and became envoy to Constantinople. During this time he was in lively correspondence with his childhood friend Christian Birch-Reichenwald . It emerges from it that Sibbern advocated the replacement of bureaucrats by politicians in the government. He was also critical of the lack of cooperation between the government and Storting and the Norwegian distrust of Sweden. He preferred a constitutional form of government based on the English model.

Sibbern and Birch-Reichenwald wanted to blow up the government to introduce this form of government. After the government reshuffle in 1857, Sibbern left the diplomatic service and became Norwegian Minister of State in Stockholm on December 16, 1858. Due to the dispute over the revision of the Union Treaty, he left the government on November 30, 1861. On December 17, he returned to office when there was a prospect that the protest of the Norwegian government against a joint union committee in the governor's dispute in the statement to the King would be deleted.

Sibbern initially worked well with the strong man in the government, Frederik Stang . But they developed in different political directions. Stang became more conservative, but Sibbern wanted the Storting meetings to be convened annually instead of every three years and leaned towards parliamentarianism. He tried to improve the relationship between the government and Storting. After the government's defeat on the revision of the Union Treaty, he resigned on October 9, 1871 and lived on his Værne kloster estate, which he had bought in 1861 from his brother's widow.

King Oskar I later often wanted to replace Frederik Stang with Sibbern, but he preferred to return to the diplomatic service and became ambassador to the rank of minister in Paris. In 1880 the king wanted to replace Stang with Sibbern again. Sibbern initially set the condition that Ole Jacob Broch be brought into the government. The king refused and Christian August Selmer became Minister of State. Sibbern returned to Paris and from that point on was a sharp critic of the government and the king. Norwegian politics struck him as "bleak". Nevertheless, in 1884 he was again under discussion of becoming a minister in a government led by Ole Jacob Broch. But this never came true. Sibbern said goodbye and moved to Stockholm. After his wife's death in 1885 he returned to Værne kloster, which he had given to his brother's sons in 1879. He died there in 1901.

Honors

In 1840 Sibbern was appointed chamberlain, and in 1840 he was present at the coronation of Charles IV in Trondheim. On this occasion he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Olav . In 1853 he was a knight and from 1859 to 1871 he was chancellor of this order. He also had the Grand Cross of the Swedish North Star Order and a number of foreign orders. In 1864 he received the Serafine Order . He was also Commander of the First Class of the Dannebrog Order and the Grand Cross of the Belgian Order of Leopold and the Grand Cross of the French Legion of Honor , the Grand Cross of the Italian Order of Knights of St. Mauritius and Lazarus , the Dutch Order of Lions , the Romanian Star of Romania , the Grand Cross of the Tunisian Order of Honor and holder of the First Class of the Ottoman Mecidiye Order .

Remarks

The article is based on the Norsk biografisk leksikon . Other information is shown separately.

  1. The "examen artium" was the entrance examination to the university. So it corresponded to the Abitur, but was accepted by the university.
  2. ^ "Copyists" were people who performed subordinate activities in the ministries. The office was abolished in the ministries in 1899, but remained in the Revisjonsdepartement until 1910.
  3. The "Revisjonsdepartement" was a ministry that dealt with the audit of the remaining ministries.
  4. The “full-fledged” was the lowest level of employees in an authority.
  5. "Anne secretary" (Second Secretary) had a lower rank in a public agency.
  6. ^ "Chargé d'affaires" was a lower rank in a consulate.
  7. ↑ The Minister- Resident is the envoy in rank below the Ambassador and is accredited to the government.
  8. a b c Hammer, column 324.
  9. A second union commission formed by Norway and Sweden had worked out a draft for a new union treaty from 1865 to 1867, which was brought into the Storting by the government. There the draft suffered a crushing defeat.
  10. Taken from the Norwegian Wikipedia.

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