Jaabaek, Søren Pedersen

Born Apr. 1, 1814, in Holumsland; died Jan. 1, 1894, in Fuskeland. Norwegian political figure; petit bourgeois democrat.

A school teacher by profession, Jaabaek was a member of the Storting (Parliament) from 1845 to 1891. In 1865 he organized the Society of Friends of the Peasants, an opposition movement of peasants who had their own plots of land. The main demands of the program, which Jaabaek drafted in 1865, were freedom of private (especially peasant) enterprise, the removal of power from the bureaucracy and “moneyed aristocracy,” and an extension of the franchise. In 1869, Jaabaek allied himself with J. Sverdrup’s opposition group in the Storting; the formation of this alliance was an important step in the formation of Venstre (the Party of the Left).