Death shall not prevail
Robert Powell reveals the background to a song close to the hearts of the Norwegian people
On 22 July, exactly three months ago, Anders Behring Breivik, a thirty-two year old Norwegian, set off a car bomb outside government buildings in Oslo. It killed eight of his fellow countrymen. An hour and a half later, dressed as a policeman, he landed on the small island of Utøya where the Norwegian Workers’ Youth League was holding a summer camp. There he shot and killed sixty-nine more people. His victims included fifty-five teenagers.
A few days later, one of the journalists outside the courthouse in Oslo is reported to have told Breivik’s lawyer to ‘tell (his) client to burn in hell.’ However, the reaction of thousands of other Norwegians, especially young ones, was altogether more interesting and typically Scandinavian. They came out onto the streets and sang.
In the days that followed the mass killings, the world’s press descended on Oslo. The backdrop to their reports almost always seemed the same: streets filled with crowds of people, sometimes carrying candles, sometimes holding red roses in the air, sometimes holding each other closely in their grief, but almost always singing, and singing one song in particular. There was, in all the sorrow, through all the tears, a thread of defiance. You could see it in their faces and you could hear it in the way they sang: ‘Døden skal tape!’ – ‘Death shall not prevail!’
Til Ungdommen (To Youth) was written in 1936 by the poet Nordahl Grieg (a distant relative of Edvard Grieg). It was then set to music in 1952. It has become a modern classic throughout Scandinavia. For me, it was part of the soundtrack behind a wonderful, happy and creative part of my life. When I heard it being sung after July’s tragedy I felt compelled to learn more about it and translate it.
Grieg was a controversial figure who lived in troubled times. Born in 1902, he was brought up in Bergen. He studied at the University of Oslo and, for a short time, at Oxford. He interrupted his studies to work as a seaman on a cargo boat that took him first to Australia and then home via the Suez Canal. This experience, and the conditions in which his shipmates were obliged to serve, left a lasting impression on him. Further adventures followed. He travelled in Europe, to China during the civil war, to Moscow for two years, and then to Spain during the civil war there – all the time working as a war correspondent or gathering material for novels and plays. For a time he was Chairman of the Norwegian Friends of the Soviet Union.
When the Germans invaded Norway in 1940, Grieg volunteered for service in the army. But it wasn’t long before he made his way to England. He became a war correspondent again, but this time as part of the military and with the rank of captain. In 1943, while reporting on a raid on Berlin, his Lancaster bomber was shot down. He and all his crewmates were killed.
Til Ungdommen has become an anthem for social and popular democracy in Scandinavia, and for pacifism. Yet its author was, amongst other things, an apologist for Stalin’s show trials in the 1930s. How do you explain the contradictions in the life and work of such a talented and complex man? The best I can come up with is that poetry, like ministry, can be very surprising.
Til Ungdommen (To Youth)
Surrounded by enemies,
your time has come.
Now, in this deadly storm,
take up the fight!
Perhaps you are fearful,
out in the open and with no cover.
What will you fight with;
where are your weapons?
This is your sword,
and this is your shield:
a belief in life
and in humankind’s worth.
For the sake of our future,
seek it and nurture it.
Die if you must, but
make it grow and make it strong.
Steadily down the line
the cannon shells surge on.
Stop their deadly drive.
Stand up to them!
War is contempt for life.
Peace is creative:
throw yourself into it.
Death shall not prevail!
With your dreams, love and enrich
everything that was great.
Embrace the unknown future
and wrest from it the answer.
With spared lives and daring minds,
go out and build
the unbuilt power stations
and the unknown stars.
The human race is noble,
and the Earth is rich!
If want and hunger are to be found,
then it’s down to fraud.
Stamp it out! For life’s sake,
injustice shall fall.
Sunshine and bread and spirit
belong to all of us.
The weapons of war will lose their power
and be brought down.
We shall build respect for humanity
and we shall build peace.
If in your right hand
you hold something precious,
you cannot raise your arm
to kill.
This is our shared promise,
each to each:
we will bring blessings
to the people’s land.
We will take care of beauty
and we will take care of warmth,
as when we gently carry
a child in our arms.
A poem by Nordahl Grieg, translated from the original Norwegian by Robert Powell
© Robert Powell 2011 & Gyldendahl Norsk Forlag AS 1947
Comments
Beautiful - a very civilised country that is not very religious, Interesting!
By Rycro1 on 21st October 2011 - 12:49
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