Varg Vikernes

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Varg Vikernes bigraphy, stories - Norwegian musciian

Varg Vikernes : biography

11 February 1973 –

Varg Vikernes ( born 11 February 1973) is a Norwegian musician and writer. In Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, director Sam Dunn described Vikernes as "the most notorious metal musician of all time".

In 1991, he founded the one-man music project Burzum and became part of the early Norwegian black metal scene. In 1992, he took part in the arson of at least three Christian churches in Norway, along with other members of the scene. By early 1993, Vikernes had recorded four albums as Burzum and another with fellow black metal band Mayhem. When Mayhem guitarist Øystein ‘Euronymous’ Aarseth was stabbed to death in August that year, Vikernes was arrested and charged with the murder.

In May 1994, Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the murder of Euronymous and the arson of churches. During his time in prison he became affiliated with the Heathen Front and had several writings on Germanic paganism published.Goodrick-Clarke 2003: 204 He also recorded and released two dark ambient albums as Burzum. Having served almost 15 years of his sentence, Vikernes was released on parole in early 2009. Since then, he has continued releasing music and writing. Through his writings he promotes what he calls Odalism (or Ôðalism). This is a neo-völkisch ideology based on the idea that White Europeans should re-adopt (what he deems to be) native European values. It includes racism, antisemitism and elements of ethnic European paganism.

Documentation

  • Kevin Coogan. 1999. Hit List 1:1 (February/March), 33–59. Retrieved 23 July 2009.
  • Mattias Gardell. 2003. Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-3071-4
  • Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. 2003. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-3155-4
  • Jeffrey Kaplan (Ed.). 2000. Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right. AltaMira Press. ISBN 978-0-7425-0340-3
  • Michael Moynihan & Didrik Søderlind. 1998. Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground. Feral House. ISBN 0-922915-48-2
  • Torstein Grude. 1998. Satan rir media (Satan Rides the Media). (film)

Publicity

Lords of Chaos

American journalist Michael Moynihan wrote a book entitled Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground with co-author Didrik Søderlind that is concerned with the events of the early black metal scene in Norway, a book many of the participants of the Norwegian black metal scene have accused of misquotation and distortion of facts. One extensive review has been written by Kevin Coogan, author of a biography of the neo-fascist writer and activist Francis Parker Yockey. In Lords of Chaos, as Coogan writes, "Moynihan suggests that Vikernes is an avatar of a long-repressed Odinist archetype analogous to what Jung claimed for Nazi Germany in his famous 1936 essay on Wotan." The book’s thesis about black metal as a "rise" of this Odinist archetype is factually problematic: "LOC’s musings about fascism and black metal largely hang on a thin evidential thread, Varg Vikernes."

There is also a review of this book available on Burzum’s official website, www.burzum.org, that is written by Varg Vikernes: I dare say the vast majority of all the statements made in this book are either misinterpretations; taken out of context; misunderstandings; malicious lies made by enemies; a result of ignorance; extreme exaggerations; and/or third-hand information at best. This includes the statements attributed to me!… [The authors] have no insight into or even good knowledge about the subjects discussed and … don’t understand one bit what black metal was about in 1991 and 1992… [They] have managed to fill the heads of a generation of metal fans with lies.

Satan rir media

Torstein Grude created a Norwegian documentary entitled Satan rir media (Satan Rides the Media), to which Vikernes has given a more positive review. As its title implies, the movie focuses on the often hysterical media coverage of the church-burning cases and the black metal scene in general. In the film, Vikernes accuses a journalist who writes for Bergens Tidende of deliberately informing the police about his identity after he had completed an anonymous interview. Vikernes was arrested only hours after the interview, one day before it was published, and was released after a week in prison due to lack of proof. In the film, the head of criminal investigations, Bergen Police District evades the question whether the journalist preserved Vikernes’ anonymity by stating "It was all OK and legal".