Jakob Johan Sigfrid Friis (27 April 1883 – 12 December 1956) was a Norwegian journalist, publicist, historian and archivist. He was a newspaper editor and member of the

Norwegian Parliament The Storting ( no, Stortinget ) (lit. the Great Thing) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years base ...

Biography

Jakob Friis was born in

Røros Røros ( sma, Plaassja, ) is a municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Røros. Some of the villages in Røros include Brekken, Glåmos, Feragen, Galåa, and Hitterdalen. The minin ...

in Sør-Trøndelag as the son of Jakob Pavels Friis (1827–1912) and Johanne Berg (1850–1924). He graduated cand.philol. degree in history from the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

in 1909. He spoke English, French, German and Russian fluently and spent his professional career as a journalist and a state

archivist An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to Document, records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist c ...

. He was a journalist in '' Socialdemokraten'' from 1909 to 1912, ''

Ny Tid ''Ny Tid'' (English: ''Modern Times Review'') is Norway's largest international quarterly review of non-fiction books – up to 50 in each issue. It is currently owned by Ny Tid & Orientering AS. ''Ny Tid'' is headed by the newspaper founder Tr ...

'' from 1915 to 1917, ''

Arbeiderbladet ''Dagsavisen'' is a daily newspaper published in Oslo, Norway. The former party organ of the Norwegian Labour Party, the ties loosened over time from 1975 to 1999. It has borne several names, and was called ''Arbeiderbladet'' from 1923 to 1997. ...

'' from 1917 to 1924 and ''

Norges Kommunistblad was a daily newspaper published in Oslo, Norway. History was started on 5 November 1923 as the official party newspaper from the Communist Party, which was established that year after a split from the Labour Party. The first editor was Olav ...

'' from 1928 to 1929. Upon the suggestion from Martin Tranmæl, he became editor-in-chief of ''

Rjukan Arbeiderblad ''Rjukan Arbeiderblad'', commonly known as RA, is a Norwegian newspaper, based in Rjukan and owned by Amedia. It was established in 1923 by the local Labour movement. First editor was Axel Sømme, who edited the newspaper from 1923 to 1924. Trond H ...

'' from 1925 to 1928 and the working class encyclopedia ''

Arbeidernes Leksikon (''The Laborers' Encyclopedia'') is a Norwegian encyclopedia published in six volumes in the 1930s. It was the first reference book in Norwegian to have a pronounced class bias, and the first encyclopedia outside of the Soviet Union to be direc ...

'' from 1930 to 1936. He worked in the National Archives (Riksarkivet) from 1912 to 1915, followed by the regional state archives: in

Trondhjem Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

1915-1917,

Kristiania 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 of ...

1917-1922 and

Kristiansand Kristiansand is a seaside resort city and municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 112,000 as of January 2020, following the incorporation ...

1934-1953. Friis was a member of

Aker Aker may refer to: Places * Aker, Norway, a geographic area in Oslo and a former municipality in Norway * Vestre Aker, a district of Oslo within former Aker municipality * Nordre Aker, a district of Oslo within former Aker municipality * Aker Br ...

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counci ...

between 1919 and 1922, and of

city council between 1937 and 1940. He chaired the municipal party chapter from 1936 to 1937. Friis represented the Labour Party at the

Second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...

and Third Comintern World Congresses; he was also a member of the

Executive Committee of the Communist International The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI (Russian acronym ИККИ), was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body. The ECCI was established by the Foundin ...

from 1920 to 1921. Friis became a Communist Party member in 1928. He left the party in 1933, and rejoined the Labour Party in 1936. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Friis was elected to the

Parliament of Norway The Storting ( no, Stortinget ) (lit. the Great Thing) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years bas ...

from the

Market towns of Vest-Agder and Rogaland counties The Market towns of Vest-Agder and Rogaland counties ( no, Kjøpstedene i Vest-Agder og Rogaland fylker) was an electoral district for parliamentary elections in Norway. It comprised the market towns ( no, kjøpsteder) of Flekkefjord, Kristiansand a ...

in 1945, and was re-elected after his first period by an overwhelming majority. He was on the left wing of the Labour Party, and was the original editor of the newspaper ''

Orientering ''Orientering'' was a Norwegian newspaper which was initially published in December 1952 as an alternative voice. It was absorbed into ''Ny Tid'' in 1975. There were many reasons for establishing the newspaper, but the most important was perhaps ...

'' in 1952, having published the book ''Kritikk av norsk utenrikspolitikk etter krigen'' in 1952. He was one of its chief editors until his death in 1956. He died in

and was buried at Vår Frelsers gravlund in Oslo.

Selected works

*''Marcus Thrane'' (1917) * ''Den moderne arbeiderbevegelse i Norge'' (1918) * ''Veien til det sociale demokrati'' (1918) *'' Den internasjonale finanskapitals provinser i Norge'' (1928) *'' Oppgjør med Tyskland og vestmaktene'' (1945)

References

Other sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Friis, Jakob 1883 births 1956 deaths People from Røros University of Oslo alumni Executive Committee of the Communist International Labour Party (Norway) politicians Communist Party of Norway politicians Members of the Storting Politicians from Aker Politicians from Kristiansand Norwegian archivists Norwegian newspaper editors Norwegian encyclopedists 20th-century Norwegian politicians Burials at the Cemetery of Our Saviour