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Biography
Arne Bergsgård (18 April 1886 – 18 June 1954) was a Norwegian historian and educator.
Arne Bergsgård was born in Vestre Slidre in Oppland and grew up in Vang, Norway. He attended high school in Fredrikstad, where he graduated in 1904. In 1910, he took his philological degree. He served as a teacher from 1911-1914 in Volda and 1914-22 at Stord. In 1922, he was appointed senior lecturer in history at the Norwegian College of General Sciences in Trondheim. He earned his dr.philos. degree in 1933, with a thesis on Ole Gabriel Ueland and in 1935, he became a professor. He was rector of the College from 1937 to 1953. He was a board member of Noregs Mållag from 1929 to 1936.
During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany he joined the resistance movement, editing the underground publication I krigstid. He was a member of the post-war investigation committee, Undersøkelseskommisjonen av 1945, where he wrote the appendix on the Norwegian Government's Foreign Policy up to April 1940.
As a historian, he concentrated largely on the 19th Century, primarily the emergence of the Norwegian national identity. He was a member of Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters from 1926 and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1938. He was decorated Knight, First Class of the Order of St. Olav in 1950.
