Johan Sverdrup

Johan Sverdrup, photograph by Ludwik Szacinski de Ravics

Johan Sverdrup (born July 30, 1816 in Sem near Tønsberg , † February 17, 1892 in Kristiania ) was a Norwegian lawyer and Venstre politician. He was Prime Minister of Norway from 1884 to 1889. He is often referred to as the father of parliamentarism in Norway.

Life

Sverdrup was a son of the land manager Jacob Liv Borch Sverdrup (1775-1841) and a nephew of the professor and politician Georg Sverdrup . He studied law at the University of Oslo and became a lawyer in Larvik in 1844 . Here he was first involved in local politics and was elected to the Storting in 1850 , to which he belonged until 1885. As early as the 1850s, together with Ole Gabriel Ueland, he was the leader of the opposition, which pushed for parliamentarization. In 1859 they both founded the Reform Forum as an association of reform-oriented MPs in Storting. In the 1860s, the opposition around Sverdrup and the peasant leader Søren Jaabæk won the majority and ensured that the Storting met annually (instead of just every three years).

This strengthening of democracy led to further conflicts with the Swedish king. Sverdrup was now the undisputed leader of the opposition as president of the Odelsting (from 1862 to 1869) and the Storting (from 1871 to 1880) as well as editor-in-chief of the magazine Verdens Gang (from 1876 to 1878). In the Storting election in 1882 his supporters won a convincing victory, and on January 28, 1884, the Venstre was founded as Norway's first political party. After several governments failed because of the majority in Storting, Sverdrup was appointed Prime Minister on June 26, 1884. He refused to accept representatives of the younger radical branch into the government. In the parliamentary elections in Norway in 1885 , the Venstre received 63.4 percent of the votes. The party later split; Sverdrup led the Moderate Venstre and also relied in parliament on the programmatically renewed Høyre , but ruled unsuccessfully and had to declare his departure in July 1889. He was re- elected to the Storting in 1891 , but was already too ill to attend the meetings.

Honors

Sverdrup received the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Olav in 1885 . A new oil field in the Norwegian part of the North Sea is named after him.

Web links

• Per Fuglum: Johan Sverdrup . In: Norsk biografisk leksikon , accessed on September 2, 2013.

predecessor	Office	successor
Christian Homann Schweigaard	Prime Minister of Norway 1884 - 1889	Emil Stang