In the northern periphery of Russia abroad. The Norwegian destiny of Anatol Ye. Heintz (1898–1975), palaeontologist and native of St Petersburg

ABSTRACT

This article provides an exposé of the life and work of Anatoliy Yevgenyevich Geynts, in Norway known as Anatol Heintz. Heintz was born and raised in St Petersburg, became a Russian refugee after the revolutionary events in Russia in 1917–1918, and ended up in Norway with his family. Later Heintz became renowned in the world of science as a Professor, Academician, and one of the founding fathers of Norwegian palaeontology, as well as a well-known promoter of scientific knowledge among the common people in Norway. At the same time, he was an active participant in and organizer of scientific expeditions to Spitsbergen (Svalbard) in search of fish fossils, but he also became one of the pioneers in the protection of wild animals and establishment of natural parks on this Arctic archipelago. Heintz’s life is examined against the background of social and cultural processes that Russian emigrants faced in this so-called “first wave” of emigration in the twentieth century, processes of socio-cultural adaptation and integration into their new country of residence. The conditions for finding oneself and ways of preserving one’s Russianness in the large colonies of the Russian diaspora, which appeared in Berlin, Prague, and Paris, are compared with the conditions in the northern periphery of Europe and a small country like Norway. The paper focuses on what Anatol Heintz did to preserve his Russian identity, and how he simultaneously struggled to become fully recognized as a Norwegian citizen.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia abroad
• Norway
• palaeontology
• Spitsbergen
• Valery Carrick
• social-cultural adaptation

The seismic upheaval that occurred during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War that followed (1918–1922) caused a great wave of emigration to emanate from Russia. This first wave of exodus spread into many countries and formed an entire distinct world beyond the borders of Russia, known as Russia Abroad (Russkoye Zarubezhye). The resulting diaspora has been the subject of keen interest for many years among contemporary Russian and foreign researchers (Goldin 2019), which peaked in 2022, when we saw the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of the Civil War in Russia, the point at which the Bolsheviks eventually succeeded in consolidating power in the country.

We don’t know exactly how many Russian citizens left their homeland during the Revolution and Civil War. Various totals are given in the historical literature: from one-and-a-half to two, or even three million. However, Katrin Guseff, publishing a monograph in 2014 about the first wave of Russian emigration to France, has made multiple thorough calculations, and presents more realistic overall figures of how many citizens left the country. She reaches the conclusion that no more than around 700,000 Russians left their native land as a result of the revolutionary turmoil between 1917 and 1922 (Guseff 2014, 62–63).

When studying the first wave of emigration it is important to examine, in addition to statistical data, the strategies of émigrés for socio-cultural adaptation and inclusion in their new countries of residence. There is considerable interest in how émigrés searched for a firm identity in the new country. A. Barkan’s (2012) analysis of the socio-psychological state of Russian individuals who left Russia for European countries in the post-Soviet wave can help cast light on what took place with émigrés already in the first Revolutionary wave. Barkan focuses on the downsides of life in their new countries experienced by Russians who left; the so-called culture shock. She discusses the process by which a person joins a new culture, including a range of negative aspects: from losing friends who shared the previous culture to the sense of discomfort in re-evaluating one’s world view, difficulties in adapting to the mentality of the host country, as well as the search for a new personal and social identity. Barkan takes a look at the desirability and methods of maintaining one’s Russianness, i.e. Russian culture and language among adults, as well as among children who have become émigrés (Barkan 2012, 176–183).

In other words, crossing state borders forces a person to cross internal borders, to act in a way that involuntarily activates processes of self-definition and a search for a new sense of belonging. At the same time, these processes motivate the protection and defence of a person’s cultural and ethical roots. Perhaps, these tendencies were most clearly on display at the start of the twentieth century in the large Russian émigré communities that appeared after 1917–1920 in Berlin, Prague and Paris, the capitals of Russian emigration that were the desired destinations for the majority of intelligentsia leaving revolutionary Russia. Tatyana Teterevleva notes that in these cities it was possible to maintain a “separation from the external environment and a truly fulfilling Russian life” (Teterevleva 2006, 44; 2005).

Meanwhile, in the “remote provinces of emigration,” i.e. in the small states on the periphery of Europe, the situation with Russian émigrés was different. This was particularly true in Scandinavia, which received relatively few immigrants. Fewest of all made their homes in Norway, where it was much harder to remain separate from the local community than in Germany, Czechoslovakia or France. In fact, it was near to impossible. All the same, it is conceivable that in Norway the majority of Russian émigrés did not feel any deep alienation from the country that took them in, as most of them seemingly both wanted and endeavoured to become integrated in Norwegian society as quickly as possible.

Among the small number of creative and scientific intelligentsia who arrived in Norway was a 20-year-old man from St Petersburg, Anatoliy Yevgenyevich Geynts (outside Russia he is known as Anatol Heintz), who subsequently became an eminent academic and professor, and one of the founding fathers of Norwegian palaeontology. In this article we present the life and works of Anatol Heintz (1898–1975). The sources and materials that we have gathered about him from different countries and collections enable a closer examination of how a Russian émigré in Norway managed to deal with the duality outlined above. With all his achievements, Heintz strove to maintain his Russian characteristics while at the same time he was driven by an understandable and strong desire to become part of Norwegian society. We shall illustrate what Anatol Heintz did to retain his Russian identity, and how he at the same time worked hard to become an acclaimed Norwegian citizen, primarily through his scientific career.

Despite the fact that Norway and Russia share a border in the north, only a very small number of Russian people made their homes in this neighbouring country during the first wave of emigration. Only a few of the Russians who arrived in Norway after 1917 actually remained there. If one starts with the figure mentioned above by Katrin Guseff (700,000 émigrés in the first wave), then only one thousandth – approximately 700 people – chose Norway as their final destination (Morken 1984, 60–63; Tevlina 2019). Among this total were remnants of General Yevgeniy Miller’s White Army and government in northern Russia during the Russian Civil War. In late February 1920, when the Bolsheviks returned to Archangelsk, Miller and many of his people escaped on the icebreaker Kozma Minin – eventually to seek refuge in Norway (Barr 1980; Novikova 2004, 65–67). A few Pomors from the White Sea area also became immigrants to Norway. They had previously engaged in coastal trade with the Norwegians in the northernmost part of Norway (the so-called Pomor trade). In addition, there were small groups of emigrants from other parts of Russia, as well as Russian individuals who spent some time in third countries, such as Turkey and the Balkans, before the Norwegian authorities resolved to take them in (Holtsmark 2015, 198–203).

As mentioned above, very few members of the Russian intelligentsia selected Norway as they left, so it was a matter of tens rather than hundreds of people in this category. Most of them took up residence in the Norwegian capital, Kristiania (renamed Oslo in 1925), and the immediate vicinity. The most famous émigré from Russia was unquestionably Valery Carrick, who already at the turn of the century was a renowned caricaturist and writer in Russia. He worked in the large Russian socialist publishing house «Zadruga»¹ as well as in a series of periodicals as illustrator and publisher of Russian folk tales.²

Having emigrated to Norway from Petrograd at the end of December 1917,³ Carrick tried to continue his professional work in completely new circumstances. He identified an optimum method of working in Norwegian society: he began caring for Russian refugees in Oslo and the surrounding area by looking after their wellbeing in their new location. He was also enthusiastic about helping to organize Russians in other countries as well as Norway. He corresponded widely with émigrés around the world, most of all with the diaspora communities in Europe, South America and Manchuria. He was particularly concerned with the education of young émigrés, making sure that they didn’t forget the Russian language, that they read Russian literature and took interest in the historical destiny of Russia (Teterevleva 2004). Valery Carrick visited the Russian communities across Europe with speeches and presentations of his children’s books, lectures on Russian art and traditions. He evidently shared the view, widespread among the diaspora at the time, that it was the sacred duty of the émigrés to preserve Russian culture, language and identity, i.e. preserve their “Russianness,” especially when there was no certainty that the Bolsheviks were capable of doing it. Only then they would be able some time in the future “to return to their homeland as Russians, with knowledge and remembrance of their home, its history, culture, making use of our advantages and being of benefit to our own people” (National Library of Norway, Spesiallesesalen. The Carrick collection. F. 4199. Box 66 (Part 1)).⁴

Of course, the multi-faceted Carrick was a unique phenomenon, with his particular philosophy of life and the variety of his contacts with the Russian communities in other countries. He was a conscious citizen of Russia Abroad, a country without borders. This provided him with the distance he needed from the society that surrounded him in Norway; but this was something that arguably was not available to other members of the small Russian community that had established itself in Norway (Tevlina 2020). In fact, Carrick made no effort to embed himself deeply in Norwegian society. As a man who was reasonably independent financially, he earned his living in part by publishing books and articles on Russian folk tales translated into various languages, including Norwegian (National Library of Norway. Spesiallesesalen. Carrick collection. F. 4199. Box 16). Valery Carrick also received some financial support from relatives in Britain (Kjetsaa 1981, 10).

Unlike Carrick, the position of most Russian immigrants in Norway was somewhat more challenging. To start with, the forces on the political left in Norwegian society showed little sympathy to refugees arriving from Russia, as they saw them as counter-revolutionaries. The émigrés faced blatant resentment from the left-wing press, which wrote that the Russian émigrés were work-shy and accustomed to living in luxury at the expense of other people’s labour. It was even claimed that they were taking the jobs of Norwegian workers.⁵ The main newspaper of the Norwegian workers’ party, Social-Demokraten, published in Oslo, on 8 March 1920 complained that the refugees from Russia were being welcomed “by the authorities in the country and its ruling class as honoured guests, when more likely than not, they were criminals who had been recruited in a war against the Russian workers’ republic.” The truth is, however, that the Norwegian bourgeois government also displayed a certain resentment towards their guests from the east, primarily because the arrival of the Russian refugees in Norway in the early twentieth century formed the first modern wave of immigration to this country and was therefore perceived as a real challenge. All this aroused confusion and incomprehension as to how to address the settlement needs of the incomers (see the newspaper Aftenposten, 9 August 1919, the editorial article “Russians (Russere)”). There was a fear that the Russian immigrants would never leave the country. However, as time passed, the Norwegian government developed a more humane and considerate attitude to the Russian immigrants. The various political groups changed to a similar approach, including those on the political left, in the capital as well as in other parts of the country.

A small step in the direction of a more positive attitude towards the Russian émigrés was a concert in Kristiania in April 1920, given by Russian refugee musicians. After the concert enthusiastic reviews appeared in the Norwegian press: “It is impressive how many Russians have fine voices and are artistically so educated” (State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). F. 5867. Оp. 1, D. 105, L.1 ob, 13–14). A little later, in August 1920, one bourgeois newspaper wrote:

If we behave in a manner to spurn when they [the Russian refugees] need help, then we make an unwelcoming and egotistical impression. When people experience life-changing events, they lay down strong memories of the negative as well as the positive. (Tidens Tegn (Oslo), 20 September, 1918)

In reality, people who arrived from Russia settled in Norway to varying degrees of success. Among the people who arrived on the Kozma Minin at the northern port of Tromsø on 27 February 1920, 30 officers and about 10 former government officials from Arkhangelsk Province settled permanently in various parts of Norway. Of these individuals, two people (one was a former member of the Russian State Duma) found jobs as night watchmen, four became cobblers, three were house-painters and two worked as drivers. Other immigrants worked in factories, as tram conductors, sales agents and concierges. The former head of the city of Arkhangelsk, Ivan Bagrinovskiy, who had led the city council in 1919, found work at a sawmill enterprise. Some of the immigrants organized their own small enterprises: hair salons, cobbler’s shops, and photographic studios such as the one belonging to D.D. Kolobov (see Mørck 2010). Kristofor Kristy, who had been the Russian consul in Kristiania and remained in the city, opened a guesthouse in the former imperial consulate (Morken 1984, 236–237; see also GARF, F. 5867, Op. 1, D. 109, L.1-2).

It is obvious that such a noticeable drop in social standing was tangible for people arriving in a new country. However, as early as 16 February 1922, Valery Carrick wrote in the émigré newspaper Posledniye Novosti (Paris) that Russian émigrés who had settled in Norway found it relatively easy to adapt to their new fate because of the country’s lack of aristocratic arrogance or contempt towards any form of work. It is true that many people who had previously benefitted from their rank in Russia were unable to hope that their noble status might be maintained, as the aristocracy had been abolished in Norway as early as in 1821.

A few Russian immigrants were noted for their achievements in other spheres. For example, Isai Dobroven (Issay Dobrowen) was an internationally recognized musician and composer, Aleksei Zaitsov (Alexey Zaitzow) was a famous artist, Nikolay Tsvetnov (Nicolaus Zwetnow) was a neurologist and professor of medicine, and Boris Borisov was the well-known leader of the Norwegian balalaika orchestra.

The Heintz family was among the closest acquaintances of Valery Carrick in Norway, coming from Petrograd, as did he.⁶ The family consisted of Olga Fedorovna Geynts (née Goffmann), her daughter Nina Yevgenyevna and son Anatoliy Yevgenyevich, who is the main subject of this current paper. Olga’s husband, Yevgeniy Alfredovich Geynts, died at the end of 1918, literally from hunger (see interview with Nina Heintz in Gula Tidend, August 8, 1922). He was a prominent geophysicist, working also for many years at the Library of the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg (Bogdanov and Malova 2012, 152–167). After his death Olga and their children decided to flee the revolutionary changes and exceptionally difficult life in Petrograd. They made their way on foot, in dramatic conditions in the winter of 1919, through snow-covered woodland to Finland, and thence through Sweden to Norway (Büchten, Dzhakson, and Nielsen 2004, 310–312). They chose Norway because Olga’s brother, Yevgeniy Fedorovich Goffmann (Hoffmann), already lived there with his family. They had no other connection with the country. Nevertheless, the Heintz family stayed in Norway, which became a new and second homeland to them (from an interview with Natascha Anatolyevna Heintz, the daughter of Anatol Heintz. The interview was conducted by the authors of the present article on 10 December 2018).

Before the Revolution, Anatol Heintz had studied at the St Petersburg Forestry Academy and was intending to become a forestry officer. However, once in Norway he chose another path, despite the abundance of forests in the country, which could have helped him find employment in line with his professional training. At first, Anatol and his cousin, Boris Yevgenyevich Hoffmann (Boris Borisov),⁷ took a year-long course at the Norwegian School of Art and Craft in Kristiania, after which Heintz entered the Royal Frederick University (from 1939 – the University of Oslo) to study biology and palaeontology. It was difficult to fund his studies, so at times Anatol had to work as a decorator, using the skills he developed at the school of art and craft, in order to earn a living and help his mother and sister. He successfully dealt with all of these difficulties, and after graduating from university he was accepted to postgraduate study at the Palaeontological Museum. His scientific supervisor, professor Johan A. Kiær, involved him in the study of fossilized fishes from the Devonian period of the Palaeozoic era, i.e. fishes living approximately 416–360 million years ago (Størmer 1975). Thus, from the outset, Anatol Heintz’s principal interest in scientific research was fossilized fishes, and many fossils are named after him.⁸

The new graduate came to work at the Palaeontological Museum at just the right time. It was at this point, in the early 1920s, that a grand Scandinavian plan was under way to study the most ancient of fossilized fishes, particularly in Spitsbergen (Svalbard) and around Ringerike on the Norwegian mainland, not far from Oslo. Ten years earlier, Professor Johan A. Kiær had made some sensational discoveries in these areas of jawless fish and sea scorpions from the Silurian period, which had existed more than 400 million years ago. Anatol Heintz was to become an essential participant in this new scientific programme, headed by Professor Kiær (Palaeontological Museum, Oslo) and Professor Erik Stensiö (Natural History Museum, Stockholm). Initially, Heintz started to study Arthrodires from Spitsbergen; these are fossils from shark-like predatory armoured fish. Early in his research, Anatol Heintz became a doctoral student specializing in ichthyology, and almost immediately was appointed curator in the Palaeontological Museum (Størmer 1975).

In his scientific career, which lasted for more than 50 years, Anatol Heintz took part in seven expeditions to Spitsbergen, during which more valuable materials were found, including some that belonged to the Arandaspida group, or fish-like creatures with one fin. These materials formed the basis for a significant portion of Heintz’s research and publications, where he further developed the work of professor Kiær on the extinct fishes of Spitsbergen. Heintz was able to study further collections of these fishes when on research trips in the US and Estonia. His subsequent research interests included descriptions of other types of fossils, particularly the jawless armoured fishes, or Ostracoderms. Incidentally, it was Heintz who gave them their Norwegian name of urfisk, or “primitive fish” (Kiær and Heintz 1943). This generic name is still in active scientific use in Norway to this day. In 1932 Anatol Heintz defended his doctoral thesis on the materials he had gathered during his research and was then invited to teach palaeontology and historical geology at the University of Oslo, and to supervize postgraduate students.

Anatol Heintz led a major international expedition in the second half of 1939 to examine fossilized fishes on Spitsbergen, with participation for the first time by Swedish and English colleagues. Unfortunately, after just one month the Second World War started and the British headed home. Nevertheless, during this expedition Anatol Heintz prepared and subsequently published a major scientific work on jawless marine fishes – Cephalaspida from the Silurian period – that Kiær had found in Ringerike back in 1910. In this work Heintz demonstrated his exceptional abilities as an analyst and commentator on the fossil structures of ancient fishes (Heintz 1939). As time went by, he became interested in other types of extinct vertebrates. He catalogued the majority of finds of mammoth teeth and bones from the last interglacial age (40,000 years ago or more) in Norway. A few of these samples were dated using the radiocarbon dating method, brand-new at the time, that made it possible to establish a more accurate date for the distribution of mammoths in Norway. Using his extensive knowledge, Anatol Heintz and his colleague Leif Størmer were able to draw up a large-scale dynamic timeline of the development of animal life, which proved popular in museum displays in different countries around the world in the following decades.

During his many expeditions to Spitsbergen, Anatol Heintz focused on fossilized fishes, but not to the exclusion of a genuine interest in the contemporary fauna of the archipelago, as he published a number of articles and books on the subject (Heintz 1926–1927; 1950; 1961; 1964a). He supported the struggle for initiating environmental protection on the archipelago, which became part of the Norwegian state in 1925. In particular, he was concerned about the fate of the polar bears, see for instance his article in the newspaper Aftenposten “On reindeer and polar bears on Svalbard (Om rein og isbjørn på Svalbard)” on August 19, 1963. The scientist took an active role in establishing their permanent protection, until the law prohibiting hunting polar bears was passed by the Norwegian Storting in 1973 (Heintz 1964a).⁹ Anatol Heintz proposed on many occasions that the Norwegian authorities should create nature reserves on Spitsbergen, claiming “a total preservation of animal and plant life on Svalbard as a Norwegian obligation” (Heintz 1964b; see Aftenposten (Oslo), October 30, 1964). And several decades later, 1973–2005, large nature reserves of this type did appear, although sadly Heintz was unable to see most of them, as he died on 24 February 1975 (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Anatol Heintz in the early 1970s (from the private family archive of N.A. Heintz).

Working for many years on Spitsbergen, Anatol Heintz became very well acquainted with significant sites of the Pomor sea-hunting industry which were preserved on the archipelago from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, and possibly even earlier. In 1964 he wrote a special article about them, where he reviewed the question of when and how Russian Pomors started to travel to Spitsbergen, basing his work on the Russian historical and archaeological literature available, as well as on his own analysis. He was critical of the unrealistic early dating by Soviet historians of the first Russian discovery of the Svalbard archipelago as before Willem Barents’ well-documented discovery in 1596. Heintz doubted that historians would be able to solve this question, however, instead he pinned his faith on the archaeologists of the future (Heintz 1966, 93–118).

Heintz’ interest in the history, archaeology and ethnography of the archipelago that historically links Norway and Russia thus made him a conduit between Norwegian and Russian researchers in different areas of knowledge, not only in his own discipline of palaeontology, although this naturally remained the main area of his activities (Heintz 1966; 1963–1964). Among the international colleagues with whom he collaborated was Yuriy Alexandrovich Orlov (1893–1966), a prominent Soviet palaeontologist and Academician, director of the Palaeontological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Heintz met Orlov for the first time at an international conference in the mid-1950s, in the so-called thaw period between East and West, which gave rise to a correspondence between the two men that covered questions of science and lasted many years.¹⁰

Palaeontology remained Anatol Heintz’s main field of study. His scientific work was published in Norwegian, German, English and Russian (Schjoldager 1975). His reputation as a scientist and a leading expert in fish fossils thus spread far beyond the borders of Norway (Henningsmoen 1976; Størmer 1975). Moreover, Heintz was a great popularizer of science, helped in this by his creative talents as an artist and decorator. In 1938, while working on organizational issues, he initiated and created the National Union of Norwegian Natural History Museums and became its first president. As director of the Palaeontological Museum in Norway for 26 years (1940–1966), he took immense care over exhibitions, and visited many museums in Europe and the US to find fresh momentum to renew his exhibitions in Norway.

In addition to his role as museum director, Anatol Heintz was appointed a professor at the University of Oslo on 9 April 1940, the exact day that Nazi Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. The Norwegian government and King Haakon VII fled the capital and headed north, and a few weeks later found asylum in London, from where they continued the fight against the occupying forces. Because of the war, Heintz had to wait for five years before the king confirmed his appointment as professor. But the war had consequences for Anatol Heintz that were much more serious than a missing document. He was arrested by the German authorities in October 1943 in connection with the Nazi onslaught on the University of Oslo, found himself in prison and ended up at the largest camp for opponents of the German occupation in Norway – Grini, to the west of Oslo (Giertsen 1946, 368). The camp held many leading Norwegian politicians, famous cultural figures, and professors from the University of Oslo, who had refused to succumb to the occupying regime. The connections made at Grini between individuals who before the war had held different political views or belonged to different social classes became significant in the political development of Norway after the war. The unity and solidarity that arose among the prisoners of war under pressure from the enemy, along with the common battle by the Norwegian public against the occupiers, led to stronger national integration in Norwegian society than there had been in the interwar period (Nansen 2016, 59–119; Vollestad 2022).¹¹

For Heintz his arrival at Grini was of great significance for him on a personal level. In captivity, he felt that his fellow prisoners and fighters against fascism saw him for the first time as a Norwegian, in the fullest sense of the word. This was immensely important for him. Norwegians are not famed for their openness towards foreigners, and strange as it may seem, it was only in the so-called professors’ barracks at Grini camp that Anatol felt people were treating him as an equal. He was included in the professorial team, whose members gave unofficial lectures to other prisoners. Heintz was in Grini for over a year (late 1943–1944), and during this time he gave more than 200 popular science lectures, mostly about the evolution of life on earth and early man. He received many accolades, and this perhaps, for the first time since emigrating to Norway, made him aware of his firm position as a member of Norwegian society (interview with Natascha Heintz conducted by the authors of this article on 9 December 2019).

Anatol Heintz successfully combined the social status he had achieved with his domestic family situation. He considered himself and remained a Russian, even if he was of Baltic German descent¹² on the side of both his father (Heintz) and his mother (Hoffmann) (see interview with Nina Heintz: Gula Tidend, August 2, 1922). At the same time, his wife, Mary Solnørdal, whom he married in 1928, was Norwegian, and he spoke only Norwegian with her. However, Anatol started to speak Russian to his daughter Natascha, who first learned the language with her Auntie Nina and Grandma Olga.¹³ Of course, he also spoke Russian with his mother and sister Nina, who both assisted him in his publishing work. Anatol Heintz also used Russian with his cousin and his cousin’s family, and of course with Valery Carrick, who habitually was constant in his care to preserve the Russian language. Anatol Heintz was also frequently used as a translator by Norwegian authorities in dealings with Soviet representatives on Svalbard (Spitsbergen) and elsewhere.

Natascha Heintz herself, however, recounts that her father rarely spent time with other Russian émigrés who lived in the Norwegian capital, primarily because he was so busy, but also because of a certain distance that developed between them with the passage of time. This distance was also determined by the fact that Anatol Heintz was not a religious man, while it may be that the majority of the Russian emigrants in Oslo were Russian Orthodox believers. They started to meet for religious service in different premises in the 1920s, then on a regular basis in the Russian Orthodox church of Saint Nicholas, which opened at Majorstua in the centre of the Norwegian capital in April 1931 (interview with Natascha Heintz, the daughter of Anatol Heintz. The interview was conducted by the authors of this article on 9 December 2019).

Interestingly this lack of religious faith also applied to his sister and mother. In contrast to him, however, they believed that there was a way back to Russia for them and they waited for the day, “kogda my poyedem domoy” (when we will go back home). Igor Dyakonov, the son of a Soviet diplomat, residing in Oslo in the 1920s, knew Anatol Heintz as well as his mother and sister.¹⁴ He wrote about them towards the end of his life in his memories:

All three of them were different, but still of the same kind; they were Russians, even if little was said about Russia – more about everyday things. What I remembered were things that they would have liked [to hear], especially Nina Yevgenyevna. As an old maid and without having got a lot out of life, she devoted herself to preserving the Russian language and the Russian sentiment abroad. (Dyakonov 1995, 62–67)

Nina Heintz never applied for Norwegian citizenship, while her brother became a Norwegian citizen in the beginning of the 1930s. He early understood that there could be no life for him in the Soviet Union, even if he on several occasions visited Leningrad, in the thaw period after I. V. Stalin’s death.

Anatol Heintz’ imprisonment at the Grini camp during the Second World War had taught him one important lesson – sometimes scientists must come down from their ivory towers and share their knowledge with the public. It may be that during the war he fully understood that the popularization of research findings is one of the key responsibilities of a scientist. One outcome of these ponderings was the continuation of his exhibition work with the Palaeontological Museum in the post-war period, as well as participation in a whole range of discussions in the newspapers, such as a debate on the relationship between Christianity and Darwin’s theory of evolution, i.e. between belief and knowledge, in Norwegian school textbooks (this discussion was particularly active across the country in 1947 and again in 1955) (see in particular Morgenbladet, October 18, 1955). In addition to this, Heintz and a Norwegian school teacher named H. Aasekjær produced a biology textbook for high-school students. The book went through several editions between 1940 and the 1960s (Aasekjær and Heintz 1940–1962). Every year, Heintz wrote dozens of articles in newspapers and popular magazines, travelled around the country and gave lectures, often appearing on the radio. Consequently, his name became well-known throughout Norway, which is relatively uncommon among university professors.¹⁵

Conclusion

We can note in conclusion, that despite its modest scale, the first wave of Russian emigration to Norway undoubtedly forms an interesting chapter in the history of Russia Abroad. Of course, a substantial proportion of the Russians who arrived in the country used Norway as a temporary sanctuary on their way to the capital cities of Russia Abroad in more southerly parts of Europe (Goldin, Teterevleva, and Tsvetnov 1997, 116–117; Morken 1984). Meanwhile, the people who remained in Norway, despite encountering socio-economic challenges, proved able to integrate relatively quickly into Norwegian society in the interwar period. They found employment, received somewhere to live and those living in Oslo or in its vicinity even had opportunities of engaging actively in cultural life in the spirit of preserving Russian traditions (thanks to the efforts of Valery Carrick and others). As Tatiana Teterevleva demonstrates, the small community of Russian émigrés in this northern periphery of the Russian diaspora proved more open to the surrounding community than the larger diaspora groups in other countries and were able therefore more easily to integrate economically and socially (Teterevleva 2005). As time passed, it became harder for immigrants to maintain their “Russianness” in the living conditions that they had to adapt to in the new country.

In this context, the story of Anatol Heintz’s life and achievements appears a particularly intriguing model. A native of St Petersburg, Heintz managed to retain his “Russianness” while most successfully integrating into Norwegian society. It seems to us that there might be several factors that can explain this. First, Anatol Heintz arrived in Norway as a young man and gained his university education there. It could be that he therefore avoided the abrupt and lengthy social degradation experienced by many other émigrés. Second, once he entered the School of Art and Craft, and then the University of Oslo, he was immediately surrounded by Norwegian students, and could socialize in their circles. Even if Heintz’ subjective feeling was that he had to wait a long time for society to treat him as a Norwegian, his rapid and successful career progression proved that Norwegian society opened its doors to him, demonstrating that he was in demand. However, Heintz himself stated many times that he became fully Norwegian only in his mid forties, when he found himself among the Norwegian prisoners in the German camp near Oslo, established during the Second World War in a Norway occupied by Hitler’s Germany.

Acknowledgment

This article is a revised and supplemented version of: Nielsen, J. P. and V. V. Tevlina, 2020. “Norvezhskaya sudba paleontologa i peterburzhtsa A.E. Geyntsa (1898–1975).” Noveyshaya istoriya Rossii (St. Petersburg) 10 (4): 933–947. The authors hereby extend their gratitude to two anonymous reviewers, who have suggested valuable changes in the English version of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 «Zadruga» was the first cooperative publishing house in Russia (1911 – early 1923). The founder and director was the historian S. P. Melgunov. «Zadruga» specialized in publishing inexpensive books in the spirit of “popular socialism” (narodnyy sotsialism), the ideas of which were popular among certain parts of the Russian intelligentsia in the beginning of the twentieth century. In the course of its existence «Zadruga» published more than 500 books of high quality and a very broad range of topics, from social sciences, history and political literature – to music and childrens’ literature.

2 On his father’s side, Valery Carrick was descended from a family of British citizens who had lived in Russia since the 1820s but had never lost their roots or citizenship. In the 1850s, his father, William Carrick, permanently settled in St Petersburg and became a well-known portrait photographer, artist and pioneer in Russian genre and landscape photography. For more about William Carrick, see Kjetsaa (1981, 3–4).

3 St. Petersburg was called Petrograd from August 1914 until January 1924, when after V.I. Lenin’s death it was renamed Leningrad. In September 1991 the city got back its old name, St. Petersburg.

4 Most of Valery Carrick’s posthumous papers are in the National Library of Norway, Spesiallesesalen. Carrick collection, F.4199.

5 Such reactions to the Russian immigration to Norway are to be found on the pages of newspapers like: Gudbrandsdølen (Lillehammer), Gudbrandsdalens Social-Demokrat (Lillehammer), Tidens Krav (Kristiansand); Morken (1984, 187–190).

6 In a letter to Alexander Rubetz (a Russian Orthodox priest residing in Sweden) on 3 September 1938, V. V. Carrick writes: “I highly appreciate the intercourse with the Heintz family, because we belong to the same culture. And there are no other people around, who would understand you from half a word”. National Library of Norway, Spesiallesesalen. The Carrick collection. F.4199. Box 4. Pack 18 (Part 7).

7 Later B. Ye. Goffmann (Hoffmann) became famous throughout Norway as the founder and director of the Norwegian balalaika orchestra (established in the early 1920s), using as his artist name Boris Borisov.

8 Personal communication by Professor Hans Arne Nakrem, Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, 22 April 2023.

9 See also interview with Anatol Heintz in the NRK documentary “Svalbard 1964”: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/svalbard-1964/1964/FOLA64000864/avspiller, repeated in another NRK documentary “Polarlandets planter og dyr” (1969) https://tv.nrk.no/serie/svalbard-1969/1969/FSKO00003869/avspiller.

10 The correspondence between Anatol Heintz and Academician Yuriy Orlov is held in the Natascha Heintz family archive. For more about Orlov and his works see Orlov (1989).

11 For more on the life of prisoners in the Grini camp, see (Nansen 2016). Odd Nansen was the son of the Norwegian polar explorer, diplomat and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen.

12 Baltic Germans were a German-speaking minority in what is now Estonia and Latvia ­ – territory that was part of the Russian Empire from the eighteenth century until the dissolution of the Empire after the 1917 Revolution. During that period, Baltic Germans formed the social elite in this part of the Russian state. In the nineteenth century, one in eight of all Russian civil servants were Baltic Germans, who were renowned for their loyalty towards the Tsar and their long tradition of serving the crown. The Baltic Germans were not only civil servants, but also doctors, foresters, country pastors, naval officers, and burgher manor owners in the Baltic area (see Thaden 1994). Anatol Heintz’s grandfather, Alfred Heintz, was born into a merchant family in 1842 in today’s Ventspils (Latvia). His family moved to St Petersburg, where he later held the post of archivist in the General Evangelical-Lutheran Consistory for more than 30 years. After the turn of the century, he was also director of the city’s telegraph department number 23 (https://spslc.ru/burial-places/gejncz-alfredvasilevich.html?ysclid=lf85ip0gsx784930984). The Hoffmanns were also Baltic Germans, but as far as we know this German family background was not thematized in connection with Anatol Heintz’ adaptation to Norwegian conditions. In Norway he was considered a Russian (russkiy), since he was born in Russia before coming to Norway, and since Russian was his first language. Of course, he might have been just a rossiyanin, which is what Russians call someone with Russian citizenship, who might have a mother tongue other than Russian, such as Tatar, Chechen, Nenets or Georgian, to name a few of the more than 30 languages that are in official use in different parts of Russia today. In the anglophone world, Russian is usually applied to describe both a russkiy and a rossiyanin. A. Ye. Heintz was a rossiyanin but also a russkiy since Russian was his first language.

13 Like her father, Natascha Heintz became a palaeontologist, specializing on early fishes. She has inter alia contributed to the study of mammoths in Norway during the last ice age and taken part in expeditions to Svalbard. In 1960 she organized, together with her father and T. Winsnes, an excursion of geologists to Svalbard, during which the first traces of land-living dinosaurs on the archipelago were found. From 1960–1966 Natascha Heintz was employed by the Norwegian Polar Institute, then from 1967–2000 she worked at the Palaeontological Museum in Oslo, her father’s institution.

14 Igor Mikhailovich Dyakonov (1915–1999) later became a prominent Russian historian, orientalist and linguist. In the 1920s, as the son of M. A. Dyakonov, a member of staff at the Soviet trade delegation in Norway, he lived in Oslo where his family was acquainted with the Heintz family.

15 Anatol Heintz received multiple titles and awards for his scientific work, and we will mention just a few here. In 1939 he received the King Haakon VII medal, and shortly thereafter became a full member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences. In addition to this, he was an honorary member of the Geological Society of London, a Corresponding Fellow of the Academy of Sciences of Uppsala and the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg (Sweden), a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology in the USA.