A Burzum Story: Part IV - Burzum In Norway

Quite often I have met Black Metal fans in prison, or I have received letters from Black Metal fans in Norway, who complained to me about the fact they cannot find any Burzum albums in any record shops anywhere in Norway. The explanation to this is that Burzum is not distributed in Norway, and has not been since 1993, because nobody in the Norwegian music business will distribute or sell Burzum albums, often out of fear they too will be persecuted by left-wing extremists if they do, but more often because they are left-wing extremists themselves (or they are Judeo-Christians). So in order to buy Burzum albums Norwegians have to order them from abroad, or they must go to another country and buy the albums in record shops there. Oddly enough, the albums of the Norwegian Burzum is not easily available to Black Metal fans in Norway.

About a year ago they started up a weekly metal music SMS-TV in Norway, where people could call in to vote for different music videos to be played and where they could chat, using SMS. At the time I was locked up 24 hours in the cell, but every day I had to leave my cell for a minute or two to get dinner and bread for the rest of the day, and doing so I walked past other prisoners in the corridor. Every day I walked past a guy, René from Bergen, who used to watch this metal show, and in one of our daily 10 second conversations he told me that there was always an argument regarding Burzum on the chat board, so I decided to watch some of the shows myself. It turned out many metal fans wanted them to play Burzum, but the chat host claimed that "Burzum has no video", and when the metal fans told her about the "Burzum" video (German title: "Dunkelheit". English title: "Darkness". Original title: "Burzum") she told them that "We pretend that it doesn't exist" or "We have intentionally forgotten about that one". So even a TV program dedicated to playing metal music boycotted Burzum, just like the radio shows in Norway have been doing the last twelve years. The reason they boycott me on TV and radio is apparently that I have "the wrong" political ideas.

Recently there was a series on Norwegian TV about the history of rock music in Norway, and one program was dedicated to the special genres of rock, including Black Metal. They interviewed Sigurd Wongraven of Satyricon, Jørn Stubberud of Mayhem and very briefly Fenris of Darkthrone. Apart from these bands they briefly mentioned Dimmu Borgir too, but for some odd reason mentioned neither Immortal nor Burzum with a single word. Apparently Burzum (and Immortal) played no part in the Black Metal scene, not even in the early years. Yet again Burzum had ceased to exist, this time in a documentary about the "first" Black Metal bands in Norway.

This is Burzum in Norway: officially it doesn't exist and has never existed either, and if it once did exist it surely played no important part in any context. Burzum has been erased from the history of metal music in Norway, by the left-wing extremists who control the Norwegian media. On one side this is fascinating, as we are actually witnessing a falsification of history as it happens.

I certainly know that I have been a persona non grata for a long time, but I don't know it was this band. I didn't imagine that I would have to spend time convincing people that I am still alive, or that I have to witness that the media in Norway pretends Burzum doesn't exist and has never existed, or that Burzum fans would have to face obstacles like the ones described above.

They are obviously trying to remove the memory of Burzum and me, and only time will tell if they succeed or not. My advice to them would be to wait with trying to do this at least until I am gone, and no longer can defend myself... I am still here, You know! You shouldn't try to remove the scar until after the wound has healed, and Your wound is still bleeding!

Varg "Fenrir" Vikernes
(December 2004)

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