“We do not particularly care about freedom, only about liberties”
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March 20, 1828 Henrik Ibsen was born – a Norwegian writer, the creator of the European “new drama”, which sought to make the problems of our time the main theme of the theater. One of his most famous plays – “A Doll’s House” – became the most important statement about the freedom of man from social conventions, this topic occupied Ibsen throughout his life. We re-read his letters, which still sound relevant in their resistance to various forms of unfreedom.
1
I still often see convention where others see the law, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
from a letter to Bjornstjerne Bjornson
2
The state may perish, but not the people. That which is best in us, in my opinion, will live – since only our national spirit has that ability of uplift, which allows us to live and develop in adversity; but does it have? Here is the great and all-deciding question!
from a letter to Bjornstjerne Bjornson
3
For me the most important thing was to find myself at a sufficient distance from our native reality in order to see the emptiness behind the self-made lies of our so-called social life and all the squalor of this subjective phrase-mongering, always so verbose when one has to talk about a great deed, but which never lacks determination, ability, or sense of duty when it comes down to it.
from a letter to Magdalena Turesen
4
Our time often seems so bleak to me that I don’t even want to work. If the spiritual life of a people does not have an infinite future ahead of it, then, in fact, it does not matter how much it has left to exist – a year or a hundred years.
from a letter to Magdalena Turesen
5
It’s amazing how history repeats itself, only changing forms – just variations on a musical theme.
from a letter to Jun Grieg
6
There are no once and for all established concepts in the world.
from a letter to Bjornstjerne Bjornson
7
The only thing I value in freedom is the struggle for it; owning it does not interest me.
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
8
Freedom, equality and fraternity are no longer the same as they were in the days of blessed memory of the guillotine. But that’s what politicians don’t want to understand, and that’s why I hate them. These people want only special revolutions – external, political, etc. And these are all trifles. We need a revolution of the human spirit.
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
9
What I call the struggle for freedom is nothing but a constant living assimilation of the idea of freedom.
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
10
If someone, during the struggle for freedom, stops and says: behold, I have found it, he will thereby prove precisely that he has lost it. But such and such a dead stagnation, such a stay at one well-known achieved point of freedom, constitutes a characteristic feature of our society, formalized in states, and I do not consider this a blessing.
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
eleven
And for the individual there is no reasonable need to be a citizen. Against. The state is a curse for the individual.
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
12
The state had its beginning and, therefore, will have its end in time. In the future, more important things are to disappear; all religion is doomed to disappear. Neither moral concepts nor art forms have elements of eternity in them. To what extent are we obliged, in essence, to adhere to them? Who can guarantee me that on Jupiter twice two is not five? ..
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
13
I do not know what will come out of this struggle for annihilation between the two epochs; but it doesn’t matter what happens, as long as it doesn’t stay the same; here is my rule.
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
14
The old men scream about blasphemy; but it would not hurt them to guess that they themselves are blaspheming.
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
15
Why are you and all of us, with our European views, alone in your homeland? Because our homeland is not yet an integral, cohesive state organism; because in our homeland they think, feel and look at everything from a communal point of view.
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
16
Without solid historical knowledge, the writer in our time is in a very bad place – without possessing them, he is only able to judge very imperfectly and superficially about the present and about people, about the motives for their mode of action and about their actions.
from a letter to Jun Paulsen
17
First of all, we need to cut back and thoroughly eradicate all this gloomy medieval monastic worldview, which binds souls and dulls minds. My opinion: there is little point in fighting for art; it is more useful to fight against the enemies of art.
from a letter to Lorenz Ditrikson
18
I am becoming more and more convinced that there is something demoralizing about going into politics and belonging to a party. Under no circumstances would I ever join a party that has a majority behind it.
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
19
I have no capacity to be either a citizen of the state or an orthodox Christian, and what I lack the capacity for, I abstain from. For me, the highest and foremost condition of life is freedom. In our country, however, they do not particularly care about freedom, but only about liberties – in greater or lesser quantities, according to the party point of view.
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
20
I remain of my opinion that the foremost fighter for ideas can never gather a majority around him. I, at least personally, experience a continuous movement forward. Where I stood when I wrote my various books, there is now a fairly close-knit crowd, but I myself have gone further, gone – I hope – far ahead …
from a letter to Georg Brandeis
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