Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The world’s leading historians are flocking to Oslo in a year filled by history also in our country.

This year is marking a change of millenium.

But we are also celebrating a thousand years of urban settlement right here in Oslo.

We are rediscovering vital parts of our past. We are learning important lessons for the future. We are enjoying much of the essence of your arts and science – the thrill and fascination of history.

It gives me an extra pleasure to welcome the 19 ^th> International Congress of Historical Sciences to Oslo for what has been called the congress of the millennium.

You are the interpreters of the past. By consequence you are important guides to the future.

Yesterday I received the Prime Minister of Iceland right here at Akershus.

I recalled how much we still can learn from a distant shared history. The Norwegians who arrived at the Icelandic coast some 1200 years ago adopted the principle of "one man one vote" centuries before any other nation.

They were democratic pioneers who founded a democratic assembly - Alltinget - more than a thousand years ago.

They developed the Norse written language which replaced Latin. They developed a unique combination of literature and historical sciences through the sagas.

From all this we can learn a lot today.

A thousand years ago, very few people took note of the change of millennium. According to historians, other matters were more pressing.

This time around, there has been a lot of global noice about the new millennium.

Many of you question the tabloid way of cutting history into pieces such as decades, centuries and millennia. You are searching for the deeper historical trends rather than a fixed counting of years. This is indeed demonstrated by the comprehensive and interesting agenda of this Congress.

Eric Hobswam calls the 20 ^th> century "a short century" – fenced in by the assassination of the Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in July 1914 – and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989.

And yet there can be numerous other alternatives for organizing time, experiences and the memory of peoples and civilizations. The key is that we constantly work to make sense of the past. This goes for the science of history – as well as for all other sciences.

Our Nobel prize winner in literature, Sigrid Undset, sought her inspiration in history , She stressed that it is not true that "the past is something that only has been".

We read her novels from the late middle ages and we learn about the complexities of life, love and labour – as relevant today as then. Indirectly we learn more about Norway – an old nation and a young nation state at the same time.

It is sometime said that "Blessed be the nation with no history" – or as Montesquieu said it; "Happy the people whose annals are boring to read".

We have seen it again and again – how history has been abused and manipulated for political purposes. We saw it in the 1990’ies as well as in the attempts to justify the totalitarian ideologies of the 1930’ies and 1940’ies.

Here lies a warning sign to historians – but also to politicians, the media and to the entire civil society.

After a decade of difficult transition to democracy in Russia and Eastern Europe – genocide in Rwanda and Burundi, civil war in former Yugoslavia and deep social changes in Asia; we are again talking about how to cope with the burden of history.

How are we to handle the legacies of the past which shape our current beliefs and our interpretation of our options? How can we avoid that leaders and political forces be allowed to rewrite history for their own purposes?

We need a strong public conscience to cope with these pressures.

Historians must take the lead. In the age of globalization – of politics, culture, economic and social life – the need for historical grounding of national and personal identities will increase in importance.

We will need wise and honest guidance from historians.

Not working in isolation – but in close collaboration with other sciences. Actively engaging with society in a debate about past, present and future.

I appreciate the way in which you have opened the doors to the public at large this week. Many will pick you up on that invitation.

It is a privilege for my country to host this Congress. It is – as you may know – not the first time. The first Congress to be held under the auspices of the International Committee of Historical Sciences was organised right here in Oslo in 1928.

The prominent French historian, Marc Bloch – who participated in the Oslo congress in 1928 – defined history as a "science of change".

As a Prime Minister it is my task to manage change and to make changes.

Our task is to safeguard and further develop an advanced welfare state. It is to secure that the key notions of equity and fairness remain guiding values in our society. It is to give all of our children the best of opportunities in the knowledge society. It is to make a dedicated contribution to the fight against poverty. And it is to contribute to the building of democracy among nations – as well as within nations.

To me, history as a science is a common fund of collected memory. History is a source book for guidance and warning. It is a science which can help us manage change in a world where all our knowledge is about the past, and all our challenges are about the future.

I invite the Oslo Congress of the year 2000 to make its vibrant contribution to the common fund of collected memory.

May you enjoy Oslo.

May you enrich us all with debates and deliberations which will help build new bridges from the past to the future.