Varg Vikernes

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Varg Vikernes : biography

11 February 1973 –

From an early age, Vikernes was fascinated with the fictional realm of Middle-earth created by J. R. R. Tolkien. His stage name Grishnackh is taken from that of an orc in The Two Towers. The name Burzum, meaning darkness, was taken from the Black Speech inscribed on the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings. The inscription read "Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul" or in English "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." Additionally, before joining Old Funeral, he was in a band called Uruk-Hai, also derived from The Lord of the Rings text.

Vikernes interpreted The Lord of the Rings on his website, pointing out the connections to paganism in the books, but also recognizing the Judeo-Christian context of Tolkien’s Catholic beliefs.

Notes

Biography

Background, childhood and adolescence

Vikernes does not have a published biography (authorized or unauthorized), but some information can be gathered from interviews he has given and from articles on the web page . Michael Moynihan, one of the authors of Lords of Chaos, has been described as "quite active in the propaganda support network for Vikernes".Coogan 1999

In the interviews printed in Lords of Chaos, Vikernes discusses his background and childhood. Lords of Chaos also includes an interview with his mother, Helene Bore (the book and a newspaper depicted there refer to her with the given name ‘Lene’,Michael Moynihan, Didrik Søderlind: Lords of Chaos, First Edition, Feral House 1998, p. 142.Michael Moynihan, Didrik Søderlind: Lords of Chaos, First Edition, Feral House 1998, p. 316. whereas Vikernes’ own website uses the name ‘Helene’, accessed on 28 March 2013.). In the 2004 interview, Vikernes mentions that "she is working in a large oil company".www.burzum.org: He also claims his father is an "electronics engineer", whereas his brother, who (according to the Lords of Chaos interview) is "one and a half years older", is a "graduate civil engineer".

In the Lords of Chaos interview, Vikernes recalls an incident from his childhood: When he was about 6 years old, the family moved for about a year to Baghdad, Iraq, because Vikernes’ "father was working for Saddam Hussein",LoC 1998: 147 developing a computer program. Since there were no places available in the English school in Baghdad, the young Vikernes went to an Iraqi elementary school during this time. According to his interview, Vikernes here became "aware of racial matters".LoC 1998: 148 Corporal punishment was not uncommon in the school, and on one occasion Vikernes had a "quarrel" with a teacher and called him "a monkey". But as Vikernes perceived it the teachers "didn’t dare to hit me because I was white". Vikernes’ mother also recalls how they "spent a year in Iraq", and that "the other children in his class would get slapped by their teachers; he would not".LoC 1998: 142 She mentions that this created problems, but generally she "has no good explanation" of how Varg developed his views.LoC 1998: 144 Vikernes reveals slightly more in his interview. When asked about his father, he says that he "had a swastika flag at home" and that his father was hysterical about it. However, Vikernes feels that his father was a hypocrite, because he was worried about Vikernes "being a Nazi", whereas he too was "pissed about all the colored people he saw in town". About his mother, Vikernes says that she was "very race conscious", in the sense that she was afraid that Vikernes "was going to come home with a black girl!"LoC 1998: 146 At the time of the interview (1995), Vikernes still had a positive relationship with his mother, but "very little contact" with his father. His parents are divorced. Vikernes’ father is said to have "left about 10 years ago", which would have been 1985, when Vikernes was 12.