Going to Svalbard

Jan-Tore Berghei — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:11:15 +0000

So yeah. There is this conference on Norwegian-Russian relations in the Arctic that is being held on Svalbard next week. When I first heard about it I thought it would be cool to attend, but I forgot to ask my thesis supervisor/professor if there was any opportunity for me to go. (He is the leader of the project that is arranging this conference, and my thesis is also attached to the same research project.) Enter the summer vacation; by the time I came back to the university, I had completely forgot about it.. until I happened to read about it this week. I sent an email to my professor, and he told me that, unfortunately, they couldn’t afford to invite me, but if somebody couldn’t come I might get their ticket. I thought that this was it, and was resigned to reading summaries about the different lectures and discussions when they came back home again.

This Friday I got the good news. I’ve never been to Svalbard before, so it’s certainly going to be an exciting experience. We even get to go to Pyramiden, a Russian ghost town not that far from Longyearbyen, where the conference is being held. That’s going to be an interesting trip, especially since I love urban decay and “contemporary” archeology. It might also provide some inspiration for something I am working on. I might post more about that later.

Session 1: The Arctic Frontier

Adolf Hoel and ”the Norwegian living space”
Einar-Arne Drivenes: (University of Tromsø, Norway)

Arctic hunting expeditions in a comparative Russian-Norwegian perspective
Jens Petter Nielsen: (University of Tromsø, Norway)

The Spitsbergen Case, 1870–1920
Anastasia Kasiyan (Institute of Universal History/Russian Academy of Sciences)

Russian Navy’s attaché in Kristiania Pavel von Veymarn and his “Russian Spitsbergen Company”
Vladimir Karelin (Murmansk State Pedagogical University, Russia)

Session 2: Neighbourliness and Borders in the Arctic

Norwegian presence on Svalbard as a security political measure, 1900–1965
Kristoffer Bjørklund, (Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, Norway)

Russian–Norwegian contacts on Spitsbergen. A Russian Perspective
Alexander Portsel: (Murmansk Technical University, Russia)

The struggle for Natural Resources in the Arctic: The dividing line?
Urban Wråkberg: (Barents Institute, Norway)

Studying northern seas across the boundaries: Russian-Norwegian relations in fishery science and oceonagraphy
Julia Lajus (European University at St. Petersburg)

Arctic in the new Russian literature
Vladislav Goldin (Pomor State University)

Session 3: The Cold Traces

The Arctic in Soviet Foreign Policy during the Cold War
Aleksey Komarov: (Institute of Universal History/Russian Academy of Sciences)

The Svalbard Case, 1944–47
Sven G. Holtsmark (Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, Norway)

The Dispute about the Sector Principle. Norway, the Soviet Union and the Barents Sea 1926-1960
Vidar Bjørnsen: (University of Tromsø, Norway)

Norwegian Polar Research between East and West
Stian Bones: (University of Tromsø, Norway)

Man in the Middle? The Governor of Svalbard and Russian-Norwegian relations in the High North
Thor Bjørn Arlov: (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway)

Norway and the High North: On Political Alarmism Since World War II
Hallvard Tjelmeland: (University of Tromsø, Norway)

Session 4: Emerging from the Frost

Conflict and Order in Svalbard Waters
Torbjørn Pedersen: (University of Tromsø, Norway)

Russia and the International Law Regime of the Arctic
Leonid Tymchenko (National University of the State Tax Service of Ukraine)

International Law and the “Scramble for the Arctic”
Morten Ruud: (The Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police)

Initial thoughts

Jan-Tore Berghei — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:10:02 +0000

So I finally made the effort of setting up a blog again, after years of absence. For those who for some reason don’t know me; I’m a 24 year-old guy that finds himself in the norwegian town of Tromsø. I like long walks on the beach, video games, role-playing games, movies, books, music & general geekery. Since I am nearing the end of my Master’s Degree in History, there is bound to be some history-related stuff that ends up being posted here.

For those who care, the site is built with (mostly) compliant xhtml and css, and was written entirely in notepad. It’s been a while since I did any web development, and I had a lot of fun fiddling with this during the last week or so. This time I have chosen to go with WordPress, and so far I have to say I like it a lot. Template editing was easy enough once I had the css and xhtml in order, and there’s a plethora of plugins that do the things I want; both Twitter and Spotify/Last.fm integration, as you can see from the sidebar. There is bound to be a few things I’ve missed though, but I’ll sort those out as they appear.

A few acknowledgements:

The WordPress blogging software by Matt Mullenweg.
The Last.fm for WordPress plugin by Rick.
The Tweetable plugin by redwall_hp.
The WP-Footnotes plugin by Simon Elvery.
The Urban Scrawl Brushes by InvisibleSnow.
Web Icons by [fresherthan.com].
Vector Pack: Uno by Jonny-Doomsday.
And of course two hundred kudos to the best host ever; Robin de Graaf.