The Crown Princess Märtha statue outside Asker Church, Norway

The statue of Crown Princess Märtha with her son Prince Harald, now King Harald V, on her arm was made by sculptor Dyre Vaa (1903-1980).

Princess Märtha of Sweden (and of Norway until 1905) (1901-1954) married the then Crown Prince Olav of Norway (1903-1991) at Our Saviour's Church in Oslo in 1929. The couple lived at the Skaugum estate in Asker not far from Asker Church.

The bronze statue was cast in 1959, but first unveiled by King Olav V on 29 August 1969. The original plan was to place the statue in a park planned to be constructed west of Asker, but the statue was finally placed outside Asker Church. The statue is 2,80 m high (including the base the monument is around 5 m high) and the base of the statue is made of syenite.

Present at the unveiling ceremony were besides King Olav and the sculptor also Crown Princess Märtha's siblings Princess Margaretha of Denmark and Prince Carl Bernadotte as well as Crown Prince Harald, Crown Princess Sonja, Princess Astrid Mrs. Ferner, Johan Martin Ferner, Cathrine, Benedikte and Alexander Ferner, Prince Georg and Princess Anne of Denmark, Count Flemming and Countess Ruth of Rosenborg and Asker's mayor Jon Fossum.

(To the right when you pass the Southern gate of the cemetery behind the statue one can find the grave of Crown Princess Märtha's eldest daughter Princess Ragnhild, Mrs. Lorentzen (1930-2012).

Sources: Aftenposten 3 March 1959 No. 104, p. 4; Aftenposten 12 June 1969 No. 261, p. 1; Aftenposten 30 August 1969 No. 397, pp. 1 and 18.

Postscript 7 July 2013 at 23:40:  It should be added that Asker og Bærum Leksikon (Encyclopaedia), 2006, p. 355, claims that the statue was unveiled on 28 September 1969 (after being stored since 1958). This is definately wrong, cf. the newspaper references above. However, the entry about the Crown Princess Märtha monument also claim that it is 4 m high (statue + base), while Aftenposten 12 June 1969 No. 261, says it is about 5 m high. I really have no idea. The monument is named "A happy mother to a little boy" and after all the disagremeents over where to place the statue it was King Olav himself who ended the discussion by expressing his wish that the statue should be outside the church.

Updated on 8 JUly 2013 at 13:15 (corrected "main gate" to "Southern gate").

The King Olav V statue, Asker, Norway

The statue of King Olav V in an admiral's uniform at Asker Torg was unveiled in 1998. The sculptor was Joseph Grimeland (1916-2002).

National Journal: D.C. Landmarks Under Construction

The second item on my recommended reading list today (the first was Scouting NY: King Zog of the Albanians Long Island estate) is National Journal's article D.C: Landmarks Under Construction, which was published earlier today (19 March 2013). It tells among others how long it took to finish some of the most popular sights in Washington D.C., and it certainly brings many happy memories from my visitis to the D.C. area in 1999, 2009 and 2012.

It also reminds me that I soon have to start writing about my visit to the USA last year. On 9 September 2012 I published Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, USA (2012), Part I, but I haven't got to the second part yet. After my summer vacation I have been to Norwich, UK twice as well as Lithuania, so I have to decide on what to write about first...

Poznan Cathedral, Ostrów Tumski, Poznan, Poland

Statue of Pope John Paul at Ostrów Tumski, Poznan.

Grave of Mieszko I of Poland (ca. 930-992).

The crypt is also the burying place for several Archbishops of Poznan. The room where their sarcophagi were placed was too dark to get a decent shot. If you click on the picture you will be able to read the names.

I visited the Polish city of Poznan during the last weekend of November 2010, and among the sights worth seeing was the Archcathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul (Poznan Cathedral for short) at Ostrów Tumski just outside the centre of Poznan. The Cathedral Island, as Ostrów Tumski means, is where the city of Poznan originated and "where Poland began" according to Pope John Paul II.

The cathedral was originally built in the second half of 10th century, but has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The crypt has survived and contains among others the bodies of Poland's first rulers, Mieszko I and Boleslaw the Great.

Source: Poznań in your pocket November 2010-February 2011.

The Queen Victoria statue, Place d'Armes, Port Louis, Mauritius

The photos of the Queen Victoria statue, situated at Place d'Armes in front of the old Government House in Port Louis, Mauritius, were taken in October 2007. The inscription says: "To the memory of beloved and much regretted Queen Victoria Empress of India The Inhabitants of Mauritius".

If you should ever wonder about the statue behind the one of Queen Victoria, it represents William Stevenson, who was once a Governor of Mauritius.

Gamlehaugen, Bergen, Norway

The statue of King Haakon VII of Norway in the park of Gamlehaugen was unveiled on 25 November 1955, 50 years after King Haakon VII's arrival in Kristiania (now Oslo).

All the photos were taken during a visit to Gamlehaugen in September 2005. After Prime Minister Christian Michelsen's death in 1925 the Gamlehaugen estate became the Norwegian king's official residence in Bergen, in September 2005.

See also my previous blog article of 7 November 2010: Christian Michelsen's grave, Gamlehaugen, Bergen, Norway.

Elephant statues donated by King Chulalongkorn of Siam

This bronze elephant statue is placed outside the National Museum in Jakarta, Indonesia, and was a gift from King Chulalongkorn of Siam in 1871. Photo (scanned) taken in 2004.

The bronze elephant statue placed outside the Parliament House was given to the Government of Singapore by King Chulalongkorn soon after his visit to Singapore in 1871. The statue was earlier placed in front of the Victoria Memorial Hall. Photo (scanned) taken in 2004 (by Harald Lislevand). I bought my first (and still present) digital pocket camera in Singapore, but obviously after the photo presented above was taken.

King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) of Siam visited Indonesia and Singapore in 1871 and as a token of his gratitude he gave each country a bronze elephant statue. The king toured Europe in 1897 and again in 1907, and on the last trip he visited among others Denmark and Norway. I don't think that the king left behind an elephant statue in Norway, but did he give similar statues to any other European countries he visited? Please leave behind a comment or send me an e-mail if you have any information on the matter!

References

• The Bronze Elephant Statue (Parliament House) (Streetdirectory.com)
• Visit Jakarta Museums (Travel.blogdig.net 19 June 2009)
  

The King Chulalongkorn of Siam statue, Brevik, Porsgrunn, Norway

In early August 2010 I made a short stop in the locality of Brevik in Porsgrunn municipality (county of Telemark) to see the new King Chulalongkorn of Siam statue, which had been officially unveiled by his great-great grandchild Princess Soamsawali of Thailand on Saturday 31 July 2010.

The statue was initiated by Brevik Historielag (Brevik Historical Society) and The Royal Thai Embassy to Oslo in memory of King Chulalongkorn's visit to Brevik in 1907.

References

• Kong Chulalongkorns norgesreise i 1907 (Travel Mag Thailand)
• Prinsesse Soamsawali besøker Brevik (NRK.no 27 July 2010)
  
• Prinsesse Soamsawali på besøk i Brevik (Joakim S. Enger - blogg 2 August 2010 - lots of photos!)
  
• Princess Soamsawali visits Norway (Website of the Royal Norwegian Embassy to Bangkok 20 August 2010)

The King Olav V bust, Lyngdal, Norway

The bust of King Olav V of Norway (1903-1957-1991) is placed outside Lyngdal Municipality Hall (to call it "City Hall" or even "Town Hall" would not be accurate for this little place!) and was unveiled by Princess Astrid Mrs. Ferner on 10 May 2004. The bust was initiated by the dean of Flekkefjord 1979-1986, Paul Gerhardt Birkeland (1918-2008), an enthusiastic royalist who was quite alone among the Norwegian clergymen to criticize Crown Prince Haakon's relationship and later marriage to Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby. Birkeland was a rather conservative theologian, but was never a central or influential clergyman in the Church of Norway. He was, however, quite popular in his home district, and a street has been named after him in "downtown" Lyngdal (Prost Birkelands gate).

Besides the King Olav V bust, Paul G. Birkeland also initiated a statue of King Olav II Haraldsson (St. Olav) outside Lyngdal church. The statue was unveiled by King Olav V in 1983.

(The photo was taken by my mobile phone camera in August 2010.)

References

• Refset Mette-Marit - fikk munnkurv (VG.no 19 July 2001)
• Paul G. Birkeland er død (FVN.no 21 October 2008)
  

100th Anniversary of the birth of Mother Teresa

Downtown Skopje, Macedonia. Photo taken in June 2009.

Downtown Skopje, Macedonia. Photo taken in June 2009.

Downtown Shkodër, Albania. Photo taken in July 2009.

Tomorrow, 26 August 2010, is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa. She was born in Skopje in Macedonia, which at the time was part of the Ottoman Empire, as the youngest child of Nikollë and Drana Bojaxhiu. Her parents had moved to Skopje from Shkodër (today in Albania) and had ancestry from today's Kosovo.

Ms. Bojaxhiu made her first profession of vows as a Catholic nun in 1931 and founded the order Missionaries of Charity in 1950. In 1979 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace".

Mother Theresa died in Calcutta, India on 5 September 1997.

References

• Vatican.va (2003)
• Wikipedia article