Johannes Sjøfarer

Johannes Sjøfarer
Born	March, 1766 Breheim
Died	14th of June, 1834
Occupation	Soldier Politician
Office	President of the Republic of Breheim
Term	22 June 1797 - 15 June 1813
Predecessor	Position established
Successor	Magnus Gustavsen
Spouse(s)	Vigdis Andersdotter Trude Haraldsdotter
Children	Kari Johannesdotter Torvald Johannesen Sjøfarer Trude Johannesdotter Geir Johannesen Sjøfarer Hansine Johannesdotter Frida Johannesdotter Johannes Johannesen Sjøfarer Ingvild Johanessdotter Ragnar Johannesen Sjøfarer Amadeus Johannesen Sjøfarer Lotte Johannesdotter Bergljot Johannesdotter Hans Johannesen Sjøfarer Valdemar Johannesen Sjøfarer Vigdis Johannesdotter

Johannes Sjøfarer was a Breheimian Officer, revolutionary statesman and founding father of the Republic of Breheim. Johannes Sjøfarer served as Breheim's first president from 1797, to 1813 when he formally stepped down from the Presidency. He undertook sweeping secular, centralizing and progressive reforms and established the modern Republic of Breheim through secular, progressive and unitary measures. His ideology has been described as republican, liberal and centralist, his policies and political views shaped the political course of Breheim through the 19th and early 20th century.

Johannes Sjøfarer came to prominence during the Breheimian Revolution of 1792 as a young officer who sided with the anti-monarchist revolutionaries early, rapidly climbing the ranks of the Republican Army in tune with military successes against royalist forces in Svartskog, Odinberg and Fjordland. Within the Free Democracy established in the wake of the revolution, Johannes Sjøfarer was granted command of the Revolutionary Militia of Storvik in 1793, a position he would use to oust the Forum of Storvik and its Headman, Arne Torsteinsøn, in 1797, an event which has been dubbed the Second Revolution.

His government carried out a policy of centralization, nationalism, bureaucratization and liberalization, tempering the revolutionary excesses of 1791-1797 with rule of law, professional courts and state institutions, and establishing a centralized nation-state.

Early Life

Little is known of Johannes Sjøfarer's early life. He was likely born in spring of 1766 to free-holding farmers in Taranger, although some historians have also traced his birth to Vestøy or Alfheim. His father's identity is unknown, but his mother Kari Alfredsdotter, moved to the capital of Storvik in 1769 with three children, Matthias, Lise and Johannes as the youngest, publicly registered with the surname Sjøfarer, taking up work as a clerk for the Royal Chancellery in 1770. In 1772, Kari became a free concubine of Jarl Ragnar of Odinberg, Royal Chancellor of the Kingdom of Breheim. While never adopted into nobility, the concubinage gave Kari's children the opportunity to gain a formal education.

Johannes and his brother received tutelage by Jarl Ragnar's family tutor, the liberal-minded Torkild Andersen of Dramre, who introduced Johannes to philosophy, mathematics, theology, the natural sciences and history. While records from this period are scant, Johannes did performed adequately in his studies, sufficiently for Torkild Andersen to officially recommend Johannes to the Royal Academy of Military Science in 1780, funded by Jarl Ragnar.

Johannes faced significant challenges in the Royal Academy, being one of only a handful of lowborn cadets. Discipline was harsh on lowborn cadets, with corporeal punishment being frequently carried out. Still, Johannes excelled in the Academy and upon graduation in 1784, was granted a command in the Second Just Regiment of Horse by royal decree.

Royal Military Career

Johannes served as a Lieutenant in the Second Just Regiment of Horse, a royal regiment, from 1784. On virtue of his lowborn status, this was the highest military rank he could typically receive, but following Colonel Ferdinand of Vele's death at the hands of Runmi raiders in 1786, and Johannes Sjøfarer being the only sober officer of sound mind, he led the assault to repel the raid on northern Taranger, showcasing brazen and lethal proficiency in carrying out the tasks. While formally recommended for command of the Second Just Regiment of Horse by his fellow officers, including high-born officers, by Royal Decree the position was granted to Danmar, second son of Duke Fabian of Just.

In 1790, the Second Just Regiment of Horse were tasked with quelling the Taranger Bread Riots which emerged during the famine of 1789-1791, Colonel Fabian ordering a brutal suppression of the riots by 'sword, fire and powder'. The Taranger Massacre, as it would be called, was marked by deaths in the hundreds. Johannes Sjøfarer publicly opposing the order along with two other officers, being stripped of his rank as a result and transferred to the Fifth Royal Regiment of Foot, serving as a Sergeant. While initially charged with mutiny, facing death, Jarl Ragnar of Odinberg publicly defended Johannes, commuting the sentence to demotion.

It was likely as a segeant in the Fifth Royal Regiment of Foot, stationed in Storvik, that Johannes became involved in revolutionary activity, although the extent of this was likely limited to private sympathies and confidential discussions with fellow like-minded officers.

Johannes Sjøfarer married Vigdis Anderdotter in summer of 1790, shortly after being transferred to the Fifth Royal Regiment of Foot, and their first-born daughter, Kari Johannesen, was born in winter of that year.

Revolution

Johannes Sjøfarer had little direct involvement in early stages of the Revolution of 1792, apart from joining other soldiers and officers in deserting their post as a mob stormed the Royal Palace of Storvik in the 5th of April. By the convening of the Great Thing of Storvik on the 8th of April by Arne Torsteinsøn, Johannes Sjøfarer reported for the recently established Revolutionary Militia of Storvik, being granted the rank of Captain on virtue of having military experience as an officer while not being high-born. As the revolution grew increasingly radical with the imprisonment of the Royal Family, Royalist forces solidified under the command of Count Waldemar Ghren in Vestøy, and Jarl Ragnar of Odinberg in Storøy. Pro-Royalist uprisings sprang up in Bjørnsborg, Kirkby, Taranger, Just and Alfby, and the Royal Army solidified their resistance despite the vast majority of the military high command being arrested by the Great Thing of Storvik.

The initial clashes between revolutionary and royal forces went poorly for the revolutionaries, with revolutionary forces defeated and retreating from Royalists in the Battle of Just, the Battle of Rittsfar and the Battle of Fredsholt over the course of the summer of 1792. Johannes Sjøfarer participated in the Battle of Just, and was able to organize the retreat after the capture of Revolutionary General William Braute, being promoted by the soldiers to the rank of Colonel. The Twelve-Day Retreat of Johannes Sjøfarer has been immortalized in paintings and songs.

The retreat ended in Borfoss, a town in the outskirts of Storvik proper where Johannes Sjøfarer conscripted the local population to repair the ruined fort, and a call for volunteers. With a force of only 3,000 men, Johannes Sjøfarer and his command was all that stood between Jarl Ragnar's Royalist Forces, and the centre of the Revolution in Storvik. The Battle of Borfoss was long and bloody, and a surprising counter-attack by Johannes saw the numerically superior Royalist forces routed, the first significant revolutionary military victory. The Great Thing of Storvik granted Johannes Sjøfarer overall command of the Revolutionary Militias in Storvik and Taranger as Citizen-Commander of Storvik in October, and through a daring lightning-offensive through the winter and spring, saw Royalist forces expelled from Taranger in December, and from the entirety of Alfheim and Svartskog by March 1793, only the city of Odinberg remaining under Royalist control in the North, Fjordland in the east, and parts of eastern Vestøy.

Johannes Sjøfarer led the Taranger contingent in the Siege of Odinberg until the city's surrender in 1795, accepting the surrender of Jarl Ragnar of Odinberg. Jarl Ragnar was transferred to the city of Storvik in March 1795, and publicly executed by guillotine along with his family and concubines, including Johannes Sjøfarer's mother, in June, despite Johannes' attempt to commute the sentence to imprisonment.

Second Revolution

As Citizen-Commander of Storvik, Johannes Sjøfarer never publicly opposed Arne Torsteinsøn, Headman of the Revolution until the military coup of 1797. The Conspiracy of the Officers began with a meeting between Johannes Sjøfarer, the Citizen-Commander of Bjørnborg Anders Lie, the Citizen-Commander of Just Andreas Flervold and the Citizen-Commander of Alfby Torstein Larsen in autumn of 1795. The four men worked to rally support among other Revolutionary Officers through the year 1796, and established ties with moderate political wings in the most prominent Urban Forums, particularly in Storvik. In November 1796 the conspiracy was almost uncovered with the arrest and torture of Andreas Flervold, who admitted to counterrevolutionary activity and monarchist sentiments, but never named his co-conspirators. His execution in January 1797 accelerated the conspiracy.

On the 8th of March, the Militias of most major Breheimian citizens sprung into action, with the exception of the Militias of Just and Rosta. Johannes Sjøfarer led the coup in Storvik, the largest and most influential city within the Free Democracy. The Militias physically barred access to the meeting-places of the Forum of Storvik, arresting Arne Torsteinsøn and leading figures within the most radical groupings, the Revolutionary Society for Justice, the League of the Dispossessed and the Society of the Compatriots of Rights and Liberties. Skirmishes emerged between radicals and the militia in Storvik and some other cities, primarily Bjørnborg, Alfby, Odinberg and Taranger, but only in Taranger were the radicals able to overpower the militia. By the 11th of March, Johannes Sjøfarer had full control of the city of Storvik, and allowed moderate leaders into the Forum of Storvik to formally declare Storvik's support for the establishment of an elected National Assembly. By the 2nd of April, all other Breheimian cities had made similar calls, the last being Just after the invasion of Sjøfarer-aligned forces on the 29th of March.

The first National Assembly, consisting of elected representatives from the Militias, the Urban Forums and the Rural Things, convened in Borfoss between the 19th of May and the 3rd of June, with Johannes Sjøfarer participating as an elected representive from the Militia of Storvik. Johannes Sjøfarer quickly became one of the leading figures within the National Assembly, as it drafted the first Breheimian Constitution. While there were no written records of the proceedings themselves, it was widely stated after the fact that Johannes Sjøfarer had sweeping influence over the Militias and moderates.

It was during the National Assembly that a proposal to declare a new Kingdom of Breheim, with Johannes Sjøfarer as its first King, was made by Arnberg Lien, a representative from the Rural Things of Fjordland. Per diaries of those present, Johannes Sjøfarer reacted to the proposal with laughter, shutting down the proposal as quickly as it had been made. The new constitution established the Republican Army and the Republican Navy, established a central government with an elected president and legislature, an independent and professional judiciary, and limited suffrage to soldiers, land-owners and on the payment of a poll-tax. Johannes Sjøfarer was declared the first President of the Republic of Breheim by the National Assembly on the 2nd of June, alongside the ratification of the Constitution.

Presidency

As President of Breheim, Johannes Sjøfarer implemented sweeping reforms and measures to centralize the government, enshrine civic rights and duties into the law, and established numerous professional bureaus and agencies under the government's jurisdiction. Johannes Sjøfarer remains Breheim's longest serving Head of State, serving until 1813.

Among the many prominent reforms of the Sjøfarer Presidency, were the amendments to the Constitution in the 1800-1805 period which altogether enshrined civic rights, among them the right to a fair trial, the right to bodily integrity, the right to property, the right of speech, the rights of the press, the right of religion and irreligion, the right of association and the right of forage. Sjøfarer established the first professional police forces in the cities of Breheim and semi-professional rural sheriffs, the first Universities and the first state-run schools for the poor. The first nascent signs of a Breheimian Welfare State were established through the creation of the Republican Fund for Widows and Cripples in 1798, and the first comprehensive tax code in 1799.

The Runmi Wars were an important event in Sjøfarer's presidency, waged between 1801-1808 and would see the Republic of Breheim fully control the Breheimian archipelago with the conquest of the remaining Runmi tribes in the north.

The first Presidential Election of Breheim in 1801 saw Johannes Sjøfarer run unopposed into his second term. The election of 1805 saw Johannes Sjøfarer win the presidency with 91.2% of the vote, with his most significant competitor, Anders Galsund, winning 5.8%. The election of 1809 saw Johannes Sjøfarer win 85.1% of the vote, with his most significant competitor Ragnar Bergsmann winning 12.1%.

Johannes Sjøfarer stepped down from the presidency after the 1813 election, where his nominated successor Magnus Gustavsen won with 55.8% of the vote. Johannes Sjøfarer had announced he would step down after the 1813 election in summer of 1811, citing that he had achieved all his political ambitions and looked forward to retiring with his wife and children.

Later Life

Johannes Sjøfarer moved with most of his children and his second wife Trude Haraldsdotter to Dyrvold, a village in Taranger, largely isolating himself from the political sphere. He would occasionally write letters to the newspapers on political issues until his death, with the so-called Colonel Opinions almost always being carried out by the government and national assembly. He remained popular in Breheim until his death, and before every Presidential election until his death would receive letters urging him to return fully to politics.

Instead, Johannes dedicated his time to writing his memoirs, never published during his life-time, where he had scathing criticisms of prominent Breheimian individuals, anecdotes from his life and a surprising amount of information on botany. The Sjøfarer memoirs would be published in 1840, six years after his death, by his family. Rumours persist that more elements of his memoirs are still kept by the Sjøfarer estate, with conspiracy theories abundant on their contents.

Johannes Sjøfarer died on the 14th of June 1834, of tubercolosis. Johannes Sjøfarer was buried in Borfoss on the 25th of June, a mausoleum erected on the Soldier's Graveyard erected to inter the Royalist and Militia forces who perished during the Battle of Borfoss in 1792.

Personal Life

Johannes Sjøfarer married twice in his life, first to Vigdis Andersdotter in 1790 who died in childbirth in 1796, and to Trude Haraldsdotter in 1802. Johannes Sjøfarer had fifteen children, five with Vigdis and ten with Trude.

Johannes Sjøfarer retired in 1813 to Dyrvold, a village in Taranger, where he wrote his memoirs which have been an important source of information on his early life, his military career and the conspiracy that led to the Second Revolution.

Johannes Sjøfarer's surname has different proposed origins, some attributing it to the notorious highwayman Trond Sjøfarer who operated in Alfheim in the 1750s and early 1760s. This is considered unlikely by most, who instead attribute the surname to one commonly given to children of sailors who did not recognize the child, Johannes' mother most likely having borne Johannes with a sailor.

Legacy

Breheim

The figure of Johannes Sjøfarer continues to influence the Republic of Breheim. Widely popular at the time of his death, the opinions on his political contributions are more mixed in modern Breheim, albeit still largely positive. Streets, Universities, Schools, Libraries, Parks, Monuments, and one ghost-town (Sjøfarerby, a planned town from the 1930s which by 2020 had a population of 189 in a street-network designed for ten thousand) carries his name. Statues of Johannes Sjøfarer can be found in most larger towns, and even villages in Taranger.

In culture, Sjøfarer has been depicted in books, theatre, radio-plays, television series, movies and cartoons. Some prominent examples include the movie Revolusjon: 1797 the sequel to the drama-documentary Revolusjon: 1792 where an embellished dramatization of Johannes Sjøfarer's relationships with Arne Torsteinsøn and Jarl Ragnar of Odinberg play a prominent role, the television series Death to All Kings from 2014-2020 which follows several historical figures alongside fictional characters in the years leading up to the revolutions of the 1790s, including Johannes Sjøfarer, Arne Torsteinsøn, King Oskar II and more. In particular the episodes Battle of Borfoss I and Battle of Borfoss II received high ratings from watchers and low ratings from historians due to the prominent artillery and explosives used in filming the episodes.

Johannes Sjøfarer has a more negative legacy with the Runmi Minority and Breheimian Ultrarepublicans. To the Runmi, the Runmi Wars carried out by Johannes Sjøfarer is remembered as a tragedy, where Breheim came to dominate the north and implement a policy of Breheimiazation, suppressing Runmi culture for almost two centuries to come. To Ultrarepublicans, Johannes Sjøfarer is remembered as the man who toppled the Free Democracy and implement authoritarian rule.

The Sjøfarer family is a large clan within the Republic of Breheim, still carrying the name. Some Sjøfarers continue to be involved in politics, with eleven descendants of Johannes Sjøfarer currently sitting in the Constitutional Assembly.