Severin Løvenskiold

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Severin Løvenskiold, portrait around 1854
Severin Løvenskiold, as a young man.

Severin Løvenskiold (born February 7, 1777 in Porsgrunn , † September 15, 1856 in Fossum in Gjerpen (now part of Skien )) was a Norwegian factory owner and politician. He was one of the central figures in Norwegian politics after 1814.

Life

His parents were the landlord and chamberlain Søfren (Severin) von Løvenskiold (1743-1818) and his wife Benedicte Henrica Aall (1756-1813). On April 9, 1802, in Copenhagen, he married Countess Sophie Hedevig Knuth (October 9, 1784– January 17, 1819), daughter of the Secret Conference Council Count Adam Christopher Knuth-Lilliendal (1755–1844) and his wife Sophie Magdalene Moltke (1765–1829 ).

Løvenskiold went to high school in Eutin . He lived there with the family of Count Schimmelmann and there he got to know Count Friedrich Leopold von Stolberg-Stolberg and the ingenious Eutin Circle . He acquired knowledge of mountain science in Saxony and Silesia from 1793 to 1794 and passed the legal exam in Copenhagen in 1796. He then worked in various authorities in the Danish central administration in Copenhagen. Among other things, he was secretary to Finance Minister Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann . In 1802 he took over the Fossum iron and steel works in Norway from his father. From 1803 to 1813 he was bailiff in Bratsberg (today Lunde ) and from 1805 to 1811 he administered the county of Larvik . In 1804 he received the title of Chamberlain.

During the Danish-English war in 1807 he dealt with the famine in Norway caused by the British blockade and set up a food supply commission, which worked very successfully. He also donated 5,000 Riksdalers for the establishment of a university.

Løvenskiold did not share Prince Christian Frederik's hopes for an independent Norway and therefore did not swear allegiance to him when he was elected king in 1814. In 1814 he was elected as the first delegate for Bratsberg in the imperial assembly of Eidsvoll. As early as 1809 he was inaugurated in Count Wedel's plans to connect Norway with Sweden. In Eidsvoll he belonged to the Union Party with Count Wedel at the head. But contrary to this, he was not in favor of a liberal constitution. He loathed the idea of ​​popular sovereignty. He opposed the full oath guarantee in the economy . He was very conservative and was against peasant suffrage and other liberal plans. He had only a small influence on the formulation of the Basic Law, as it was mostly outvoted.

After the annexation to Sweden had become a fact, Løvenskiold was Norway's negotiator with Denmark in the rank of minister (title "Council of State") for debt settlement from 1814 to 1817. He then ran the Fossum iron and steel works for a few years and did not take part in politics. But his conservative-monarchical view made him fight against the Storting's plan to abolish the nobility in 1821. King Karl Johan appointed him in 1828 because of his union-friendly attitude as Minister of State (Prime Minister) in the Norwegian State Council Department in Stockholm. He held this position until 1841. Cooperation with the head of government in Christiania Jonas Collett was poor. After Count Wedel's death in 1841 he was his successor as governor of Norway. He remained in this position until his death in 1856. After him, the post remained vacant until his removal in 1873.

Both as minister of state and as governor, he took on the peasant opposition in Storting, which was particularly evident in the so-called “peasant storting” in 1833. He turned against the liberal legislative proposal of the government in Christiania on community self-government and developed his own draft. In 1836 the Storting acted in a way that not only disapproved of the king, but also of the diplomats abroad, because they saw the peace in Europe at risk. When King Karl Johann dissolved the Storting in July 1836, the State Councilors Holst and Fasting protested , but not Løvenskiold. The Storting responded with an indictment before the Imperial Court, where he took responsibility for the king's decision. The Imperial Court sentenced him to a fine of 1,000 speciestalers, but the king was determined to keep him.

In 1839 Løvenskiold caused the king to set up a union committee to revise the imperial acts, the constitutional basis of the union, so that the two empires would be merged.

As the king's governor, Løvenskiold came into conflict with State Councilor Frederik Stang in the 1840s , who at that time advocated liberal reforms and better relations between the government and the Storting. Løvenskiold tried to push back the intellectual currents that started out from the February Revolution in Paris in 1848 . He also distanced himself from the uprising in Schleswig-Holstein against the Danish king and from the Frankfurt National Assembly . Rather, his model was the absolutist rule of Nicholas I of Russia. He also rejected the Thranitter movement , which flourished in Norway from 1849 to 1851 and was the beginning of the labor movement, suspecting it of communist activities and a connection to the Sami uprising in Kautokeino and allowing it to be infiltrated by informers. He also had the "Democratic Association" in Christiania monitored. He also came into conflict with Storting of 1851, which was dominated by the left peasant movement. When the Storting decided to lift the prohibition for Jews to enter the country anchored in § 2 of the constitution, he advised the king to give the king the approval required for a constitutional amendment deny. The same applied to the Storting decisions on the railroad and the mortgage bank. The king did not follow him in these matters and gave his consent. In general he opposed all liberal and democratic reforms in Norwegian society. He was against the expansion of the right to vote, against the inheritance law, against the jury law and against the abolition of the governor's post. With regard to changes to the Basic Law, he was of the opinion that the king had an absolute right of veto.

Honors

In the course of his life, Severin Løvenskiold received the highest honors that the Scandinavian countries had to bestow: In 1829 he became a knight of the Swedish Serafin Order , he was one of the first four to receive the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav on the day of its foundation in 1847 . The day after he became a knight of the Danish Elephant Order and in 1853 he received the Borgerdåds Medal in gold. Since 1829 he was a member of " Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab " and honorary member of the "Kungliga Svenska Landtbruks-Akademi".

Remarks

The article essentially follows the Norsk biografisk leksikon. Any other information is shown separately.

  1. a b Nielsen p. 611.
  2. a b Nielsen p. 612.
  3. The Reichsgericht was a special court that was exclusively responsible for the misconduct of government members and members of the Supreme Court.

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