**6. Conclusions**

*Vår ære og vår makt* is both a product of revolutionary enthusiasm in a politically turbulent decade and an instance of energetic, tendentious theatrical experimentation. Although *Vår ære og vår makt* has long been recognized for its use of a montage technique, Grieg has rarely been understood as an avant-garde or modernist writer. For example, he is not mentioned in John Brumo and Sissel Furuseth's 2005 overview *Norsk litterær modernism* (Brumo and Furuseth 2005). This absence is understandable, given that there is little that would count as modernist in Grieg's interwar poetry, which tends to be quite traditional in form, or in his novels. In addition, as a critical and historical term, "modernism" in both English and the Scandinavian languages has focused on poetry and prose, having a limited and imperfect application to theater and drama. It bears remembering, however, that the term "modernism" first entered the Norwegian language, in Grieg's own time, with a comparatively broad aesthetic and geographical scope. Introducing the concept in his 1931 *Modernisme*, Haakon Bugge Mahrt cast a wide net across the arts and across national boundaries: architecture, theater, film, design, and literature are all discussed, including Le Corbusier, Matisse, and Chaplin, as well as post-revolutionary Russian theater. Common to the disparate figures and trends Bugge Mahrt includes is an attempt to create new symbols and forms for the emerging modern civilization: all are signs an "en epoke som søker sig selv" (Bugge Mahrt 1931, p. 16).

In addition to its montage rhetoric, *Vår ære og vår makt* engages with interwar avant-garde and modernist culture in its anti-naturalist theatricality, its predilection for grotesque and dark satire, and its incorporation of jazz, dissonance, explosions, and music hall songs. Much of this was the result of Grieg's exposure to Soviet theater, although some of it belonged to developments in interwar theater and film more generally. Though not always a radical experimentalist or innovator, we might conclude that Grieg, with *Vår ære og vår makt*, became an important agen<sup>t</sup> of appropriation and transfer, bringing aspects of international modernist theater and culture to the Norwegian stage in the service of a revolutionary political agenda.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
