Stiklestad - historisk grunn

Sammendrag

The significance of Stiklestad in Trøndelag for Norwegian national culture stems from the battle in 1030, and the death of Christian king Olav Haraldson who became the nation's patron saint. Stiklestad National Cultural Center, established in 1995 to manage "the Olav Heritage", strongly emphasizes the continuity between these historic events and the present nation state. The article investigates late eighteenth and early nineteenth century texts about the site, as well as the monuments that were erected and demonstrates that values of civic virtue, sensibility and patriotism constituted the dominant "semiotic charging" of the site in this period. On a more general level, the article argues that the message of historic sites - even when they postulate continuity - always will be products of the present, and not result from the past that they refer to.