Rudolf Nilsen

Rudolf Nilsen ( born February 28, 1901 in Kristiania, now Oslo, † April 23, 1929 in Paris) was a Norwegian poet of the labor movement. His poems are often marked by class struggle, but he also wrote romantic and apolitical poems about Oslo and its inhabitants. Mostly he published under the pseudonym Rulle.

Life

Nilsen was the son of a metal worker and grew up in a working class neighborhood in eastern Oslo. At times, he lived with his grandfather, who came from the country, and influenced him greatly. To Nilsens literary models were Nils Collett Vogt, Arnulf Øverland, Hans Hartvig Seedorff Pedersen and Henry Lawson.

Even in his school days Nilsen published poems in which he stood on the side of the Russian Revolution. In 1920 he completed his schooling from the High School. Then he lectured and worked as a journalist for magazines left. He also took part in illegal aid campaigns for the Soviet Union and was therefore arrested in 1921.

In 1923 he was among the founders of the Communist Party of Norway. Many of his poems have been published since then in the party newspaper Norges Komunistblad, for which he also worked as a journalist until 1926. Nilsen's first book publication was På Stenngrunn, a collection of 23 poems, which appeared in 1925 and had to be co-financed by advertising. As in his later publications addressed Nilsen in the lives of ordinary people, especially in the slums of Oslo, and the class struggle. Other poetry collections published after his death in 1926 and 1929. As two of Norway's best poems are the poems published in På gjensyn 1926 No. 13 and Revolutionens Røst.

Nilsen (later Ella Hval ) married from 1924 until his death with the actress Ella Signe Quist Kristoffersen. He died when returning from a trip to Spain from tuberculosis.

1974 and 2001 appeared selection volumes of prose articles and poems that had been previously published only in magazines.

Works

• På stengrunn (1925, Ny Tid )
• På gjensyn (1926, Ny Tid )
• Hverdagen (1929, posthumously, Sansoni )
• Samlede dikt (1935, 2nd edition in 1946 with foreword by Arnulf Øverland )
• Hilsen above håndslag (1974, posthumously, Sansoni )
• Rulle forte ller: Rudolf Nilsen's prose i utvalg (1974 )
• Hundreårsutgaven - Samlede above upubliserte dikt (2001)