Olav Dalgard

Olav Dalgard ; actually Olaf Hanssen (born June 19, 1898 in Foldal , † December 25, 1980 in Bærum ) was a Norwegian director , literary critic , literary historian and writer .

Life

Dalgard was the son of Ole Hanssen, a teacher, and Mari Dahlen. He grew up in Oppdal and went to Voss in 1916 , where he attended the local high school. His four-year stay there shaped him. The school taught in Nynorsk , a form of language that Dalgard later became an advocate. In Voss he also gained his first theater experience in an amateur theater group.

In 1920 he received his high school diploma and went to Christiania to attend the university there first law to study. However, he soon changed his subject and began studying literature and art history. During his studies he was involved in the socialist student body, was chairman of the Nynorsk-speaking student association Studentmållaget and a member of the Mot Dag group . He also worked as a literary critic for newspapers and edited volumes of poetry. In 1926 he married Anne Marie Sorteberg, with whom he first returned to his hometown Oppdal in 1929 after obtaining the master's degree , until he was employed by the newspaper Den 17de Mai and moved to Bærum.

From 1931 he worked at the Det Norske Teatret theater in Oslo. With a grant from the City of Oslo, he studied film in Moscow for two years . From the mid- 1930s he made films, often with a socialist message. He was also active in the Labor Party, where he was particularly concerned with cultural and educational policy, and unsuccessfully fought for artists to be perceived as belonging to the working class . In 1935 he was one of the founders of the Sosialistisk Kulturfront , a successor organization to Mot Dag.

During the occupation of Norway by the Wehrmacht in World War II , Dalgard was arrested and from 1942 to 1945 was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen , among others . During this time, the volume of poetry Gjennom mørkret was created , which was published after the end of the war. Dalgard returned to his old position at the Oslo Theater after his release. In the following years he wrote several books on the history of theater and film, including Teatret frå Aiskylos til Ibsen and Teatret i det 20. hundreåret , a two-volume work that for the first time comprehensively presents the history of the theater in Norwegian. He also wrote biographies about Lars Tvinde and Inge Krokann in the second half of the 20th century . Posthumously was his drama Spell-Ola published.

In 1953 he became a lecturer at the newly founded State Theater School and in 1959 at the Institute for Theater Studies at the University of Oslo. He was co-founder of the Norsk Filminstitutt , member of Statens Filmråd , from 1953 to 1955 chairman of the literary critic association Norsk kritikerlag and from 1956 to 1977 president of the humanistic association Human-Etisk Forbund . In 1978 he was awarded the Norwegian Culture Council's Honorary Prize for his services .

Works (selection)

Poetry

• Gjennom mørket. Dikt frå fangelægret (1945)
• Sosialt theater. Eit utsyn med ei kort rettleiing for amatørar (1933, as editor)

drama

• Spell-ola. Drama i to akter på Røros-dialekt (1981)

Non-fiction

• Sosialt theater. Eit utsyn med ei kort rettleiing for amatørar (1933)
• Teatret from Aiskylos to Ibsen (1948)
• Filmskuespillet. Historikk, teori, analyzer (1951)
• Det Norske Teatret i 40 år (1953)
• Teatret i det 20th hundreåret (1955)
• Lars Tvinde (1966)
• Inge Krokann. Liv og dicting (1970)
• Europeisk drama frå antikken til realismen (1972)

Autobiography

• Samtid: Politikk, kunstliv og kulturkamp i mellomkrigstida (1973)
• Samtid II: Krig og etterkrigsproblem (1978)

Filmography

Director

• 1935: Samhold må til
• 1936: Vi bygger lands
• 1937: By og land hand i hand
• 1938: Det drønner gjennom dalen
• 1938: Lenkene brytes
• 1939: Gryr i North
• 1946: Om kjærlighet synger de
• 1946: Vi vil leve

Screenwriter

• 1935: Samhold må til
• 1936: Vi bygger lands
• 1937: By og land hand i hand
• 1938: Det drønner gjennom dalen
• 1939: Gryr i North
• 1946: Om kjærlighet synger de
• 1957: Rendezvous with forgotten years (Stevnemøte med glemte år)

actor

• 1939: Gryr i North

literature

• Horst Bien (Ed.): Meyers Taschenlexikon Northern European Literatures , Leipzig 1978

Web links

• Olav Dalgard in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Kari Gaarder Losnedal: Olav Dargard . Biography from the Norsk Biografisk Leksikon
• Olav Dargard . Item in the Norske Leksikon store.