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Norway shares lots of its traditions with other Western and Christian cultures. But still, some things are special and different. Let's take a look at the Easter celebration...
- Introduction
- The name
- The holiday
- Påskekrim - Easter thriller
Easter is one of the big holidays in Norway, especially among young people still in school, since Easter is synonymous with vacation. Also for adults it is a long and welcome break. Easter break is longer in Norway than in many other European countries. From Wednesday afternoon before Maundy Thursday to Tuesday morning after Easter Monday is how long the Norwegian Easter is. In most other European countries, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are not public holidays, only Easter Monday is.
For students of all ages, Easter break lasts from the weekend of Palm Sunday to the Wednesday after "Easter Tuesday".
How do most people relate to Easter today? It seams like the religious aspect is the least important. It is mainly the vacation that matters.
The Norwegian name påske is closely related to the French pâques and Greek and Latin pascha, and hebrew pesach (pesah). The English word Easter comes from the heathen springtime celebration that the Christian feast replaced.
Palmesøndag - Palm Sunday
Skjærtorsdag - Maundy Thursday
Langfredag - Good Friday
(Why this nice name in English? In Norwegian, it means the long, or endless day.)
Påskeaften - Easter Eve
1. påskedag - Easter Sunday
2. påskedag - Easter Monday
There are certain myths about how Norwegians spend their Easter vacation. Some Norwegians even believe in them! It goes like this:
"All Norwegians go on vacation, and they travel to the mountains where they live in small cottages without any modern commodities and go on cross country ski trips every day."
But it's not true, according to the statistics (1994), this is not the case. Only 13 % (540 000 people) of the Norwegians actually go on vacation, but not all go skiing. 273 000 people go to the coast (remember Norway's extremely long coastline: 21,925 km/13,623 miles in all). Some also leave the country (about 92 000 people) for warmer climate in the south of Europe - and return as tanned as the skiers (about 175 000 people) at the end of the holiday. Or as tanned as those who have stayed behind in the cities and in the tanning booths. (Norwegians love to look tanned - they think they look "healthy" showing that they have spent lots of time in the outdoors).
Tourism in the mountains has actually declined from 31 % of the population in 1974 to 13 % in 1994. There we are, 13 % on holiday, that leaves 87 % of the Norwegians back at home! That is 3,7 million of the inhabitants. What do all these people do? Well, perhaps they go to the bookstore and stock up on a few thrillers before all shops close on Wednesday afternoon...
Why do Norwegians read all these thrillers during Easter break?
This is a special national trait -
which other country has a tradition in literary "crime", series in television, radio and
newspapers by Agatha Christie, P.D. James, Simenon, Ruth Rendell, etc, etc.?
How can this phenomenon be explained? Answer: It cannot, scientifically, although every year there are many who try to. At the University of Oslo, professors in Folklore at the Institute for Cultural Studies say that there is no explanation as to why Norwegians love thrillers and the excitement of mysteries at Easter time. We can nevertheless try and explain it, but it is going to be pure guess and not necessarily correct...
The reason for the great interest in thrillers might be Easter itself and the religious background: Violent and mysterious things happened to Jesus. Could today's thrillers be a secular continuation of the biblical storytellers? Would this be the reason behind the Norwegians' love of mysteries? Well, not necessarily, at least not conscious, since most Norwegians, though members of the State Church, are not practicing Christians.
Or, more down-to earth, Norwegians have a lot of leisure time in Easter. The long holiday itself calls for entertainment, which could partially explain the love of reading. Unlike many other countries, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday are public holidays when nobody works, all shops and offices are closed. And what do people do with these days of freedom? Not many go to church nowadays. Norway is not a country of faithful church goers. But this alone does not explain why the thrillers are particularly popular!
My personal guess is that the publishers have "institutionalized" the påskekrim a long time ago; they make an extra effort of having new thrillers out for Easter and make lots of publicity for them. As in late fall, when there is an abundance of new books out in good time for Christmas... It's good for business.
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