Editing Vidkun Quisling (section)

===Paris, Eastern Europe, and Norway===
In September 1919, Quisling departed Norway to become an intelligence officer with the Norwegian delegation in [[Helsinki]], a post that combined diplomacy and politics.<ref>{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=38–39}}.</ref> In the autumn of 1921, Quisling left Norway once again, this time at the request of explorer and humanitarian [[Fridtjof Nansen]], and in January 1922 arrived in the [[Ukrainian SSR|Ukrainian]] capital [[Kharkiv]] to help with the [[League of Nations]] humanitarian relief effort there.<ref name="Cohen2000">{{cite book|author=Maynard M. Cohen|title=A Stand Against Tyranny: Norway's Physicians and the Nazis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7cmx6u2GF80C&pg=PA49|year=2000|publisher=Wayne State University Press|isbn=0-8143-2934-9|pages=49–}}</ref><ref name="dahl40">{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=40–42}}.</ref> Highlighting the massive mismanagement of the area and the death toll of approximately ten thousand a day, Quisling produced a report that attracted aid and demonstrated his administrative skills, as well as his dogged determination to get what he wanted.<ref>{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=43–44}}.</ref>

{{rquote|right|Quisling replied [that] the Russian people needed wise leadership and proper training [that they suffered from] indifference, a lack of clearly defined goals with conviction and a happy-go-lucky attitude [and that] it is impossible to accomplish anything without willpower, determination and concentration.|Alexandra recounts a conversation with her soon-to-be husband|{{harvnb|Yourieff|2007|p=93}}}}

On 21 August 1922, he married the Russian [[Alexandra Voronin|Alexandra Andreevna Voronina]].<ref>{{harvnb|Yourieff|2007|p=172}}.</ref> Alexandra wrote in her memoirs that Quisling declared his love for her,<ref>{{harvnb|Yourieff|2007|p=100}}.</ref> but from his letters home and investigations undertaken by his cousins, Quisling merely seemed to have wanted to lift the girl out of poverty by providing her with a Norwegian passport and financial security.<ref name="dahl45"/>

Having left Ukraine in September 1922, Quisling and Alexandra returned to Kharkiv in February 1923 to prolong aid efforts, with Nansen describing Quisling's work as "absolutely indispensable."<ref name="dahl45">{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=45–47}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Hartmann|1970|p=33}}.</ref> In March 1923, Alexandra was pregnant, and Quisling insisted on her having an abortion, which greatly distressed her.<ref>Alexandra Voronin Yourieff, ''In Quisling's Shadow'' (1999), Chapter 14, "The Child"</ref> Quisling found the situation much improved and, with no fresh challenges, found it a more boring trip than his last. He did however meet [[Maria Quisling|Maria Vasiljevna Pasetchnikova]] ({{langx|ru|Мари́я Васи́льевна Па́сечникова}}), a Ukrainian more than ten years his junior. Her diaries from the time "indicate a blossoming love affair" during the summer of 1923, despite Quisling's marriage to Alexandra the year before.<ref name="dahl45"/> She recalled that she was impressed by his fluent command of the Russian language, his [[Aryan race|Aryan]] appearance, and his gracious demeanour.<ref>{{harvnb|Quisling|1980|pp=30–31}}</ref> Quisling later claimed to have married Pasetchnikova in Kharkiv on 10 September 1923, although no legal documentation has been discovered. Quisling's biographer, [[Hans Fredrik Dahl]], believes that in all likelihood the second marriage was never official.<ref name="dahl48">{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=48–49}}.</ref> Regardless, the couple behaved as though they were married, claimed Alexandra was their daughter, and celebrated their wedding anniversary. Soon after September 1923, the aid mission came to an end and the trio left Ukraine, planning to spend a year in Paris. Maria wanted to see Western Europe; Quisling wanted to get some rest following bouts of stomach pain that had lasted all winter.<ref name="dahl48"/>
[[File:Vidkun Quisling og hans kone Maria..jpg|thumb|Quisling and his second wife, [[Maria Quisling|Maria]]]] 
The stay in Paris required a temporary discharge from the army, which Quisling slowly grew to understand was permanent: army cutbacks meant that there would be no position available for him when he returned.<ref name="dahl50"/>{{refn|Increasingly bitter over the treatment he had received from the military, he eventually took up a post in the reserves on the reduced salary of a captain, and received a promotion to major in 1930.<ref name="dahl50">{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|p=50}}.</ref>|group="nb"}} Quisling devoted much of his time in the French capital to study, reading works of political theory and working on his philosophical project, which he called ''Universism''. On 2 October 1923, he persuaded the Oslo daily newspaper ''[[Tidens Tegn]]'' to publish an article he had written calling for [[diplomatic recognition]] of the [[Soviet government]].<ref>{{harvnb|Hartmann|1970|p=30}}.</ref> Quisling's stay in Paris did not last as long as planned, and in late 1923 he started work on Nansen's new [[repatriation]] project in the Balkans, arriving in [[Sofia]] in November.

The next two months he spent traveling constantly with his wife Maria. In January, Maria returned to Paris to look after Alexandra, who took on the role of the couple's foster-daughter; Quisling joined them in February.<ref>{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=53–54}}.</ref> In the summer of 1924, the trio returned to Norway where Alexandra subsequently left to live with an aunt in [[Nice, France|Nice]] and never returned.<ref name="dahl54"/> Although Quisling promised to provide for her well-being, his payments were irregular, and over the coming years he would miss a number of opportunities to visit.<ref>{{harvnb|Yourieff|2007|pp=450–452}}.</ref>

Back in Norway, and to his later embarrassment, Quisling found himself drawn into the communist Norwegian labour movement. Among other policies, he fruitlessly advocated a people's [[militia]] to protect the country against [[reactionary]] attacks,<ref name="dahl54">{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=54–56}}.</ref> and asked members of the movement whether they would like to know what information the General Staff had on them, but he got no response. Although this brief attachment to the far-left seems unlikely given Quisling's later political direction, Dahl suggests that, following a conservative childhood, he was by this time "unemployed and dispirited ... deeply resentful of the General Staff ... [and] in the process of becoming politically more radical."<ref>{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|p=57}}.</ref> Dahl adds that Quisling's political views at this time could be summarised as "a fusion of socialism and nationalism," with definite sympathies for the Soviets in Russia.<ref>{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|p=58}}.</ref>