The Dissolution of the Swedish-Norwegian Union in 1905 on the Pages of the Norwegian Satirical Magazine Vikingen

On June 7, 1905, the Norwegian authorities decided to terminate the Swedish-Norwegian union, which had existed since 1814. Throughout 1905, before and after June, the Norwegian political and cultural community discussed ways and means of gaining independence, prospects for further cooperation with Sweden, and Norway's status and position in the international arena as an independent state. The year 1905 was filled with so many events that the press did not have time to display them on its pages. At the turn of the 19th — 20th centuries. The periodical press became not just a means of obtaining information, it formed the ideas of the mass reader about current events, and had a certain political connotation. The development and improvement of technical methods of transmitting information, including printing, has led to the more frequent use of illustrative material on newspaper pages, to the appearance of special satirical publications based not on text, but on illustration and caricature. The laughter, irony, and grotesqueness used in the published images, on the one hand, reflected the mood prevailing in society, on the other, made the audience think. The article analyzes the reflection of the political events of 1905 in the cartoons of the Norwegian satirical magazine Vikingen. The author concludes that the cartoons acted as a tool of political propaganda designed to further unite Norwegian society in the struggle for Norway's independence.