Georg Sverdrup

Who was Georg Sverdrup?

Georg Sverdrup, born Jørgen Sverdrup, was a Norwegian philologist, who is well known for being a member of Norwegian Constituent Assembly in Eidsvoll in 1814 and later the parliament. He was also responsible for building the first Norwegian university library. He was the uncle of the well known prime minister Johan Sverdrup.

He represented Christiania at the Constitutional Assembly. He was the last president of the Assembly, chosen the second last day, May 16. He led the election of the king and gave the closing speech May 17. He was later elected to the Norwegian Parliament in 1818 and 1824.

The University of Oslo was established in 1811 under the name Royal Frederick University, but due to the Napoleonic War it was not until 1815 that Sverdrup could receive the 50,000 volumes, then in Copenhagen, intended for the new university library. It took another year for the government to provide adequate localities for the collection, and not until 1828 was the library finally completed, with a total of 90,000 volumes.

Apart from this, Sverdrup was also a popular lecturer of Greek.

Georg Sverdrup is buried at Vår Frelsers gravlund.

The new university library at Blindern, finished in 1999, is named after Georg Sverdrup. It today houses more than 2,000,000 books.