The Bohemian Commandments ( no, Bohêmbud) or Nine Bohemian Commandments ( no, Bohêmens ni bud) is a frequently cited text from the
Kristiania Bohemian movement in
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...
:
# Thou shalt write thine own life.
# Thou shalt sever thy family roots.
#''
Man kann seine Eltern nie slecht genug behandeln (''Thou can not treat thy parents badly enough.)
# Thou shalt never smite thy neighbor for less than five
crowns
A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...
.
# Thou shalt hate and despise all farmers, such as
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson ( , ; 8 December 1832 – 26 April 1910) was a Norwegian writer who received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature "as a tribute to his noble, magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always been distinguishe ...
.
# Thou shalt never wear
celluloid
Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporary ...
cuff
A cuff is a layer of fabric at the lower edge of the sleeve of a garment (shirt, coat, jacket, etc.) at the wrist, or at the ankle end of a trouser leg. The function of turned-back cuffs is to protect the cloth of the garment from fraying, an ...
s.
# Neglect not to make a scandal in the
Christiania Theater.
# Thou shalt never repent.
# Thou shalt take thine own life.
The commandments come from an article published in ''Impressionisten'' no. 8 in February 1889, which is often attributed to Hans Jæger. However, in the biographical novel ''Jæger – en rekonstruksjon'' (Jæger: A Reconstruction),
Ketil Bjørnstad
Ketil Bjørnstad (born 25 April 1952) is a pianist, composer and author. Initially trained as a classical pianist, Bjørnstad discovered jazz at an early age and has embraced the emergence of "European jazz". Store Norske Leksikon (in Norwegian) ...
writes that the journal's publisher, Johan Collett Michelsen, wrote the piece together with
Oda and
Christian Krohg as a parody of Jæger, with whom they were in dispute.
Thorvik, Arne. 2013. Du skal ta live a dei. Om Kristiania-Bohêmen og suicid. ''Suicidologi'' 18(3): 30–35.
/ref>
References
{{reflist
Norwegian literature
Works by Christian Krohg