Simonsen Faroese Literature

© SPIN and the author www.spinnet.eu Do not quote without Networks in the Making of Faroese Literature -Hammersheimb, Schrøter and Lyngbye - mapping the dynamics of social ambience, institutional infrastructure and cultural practice around the publication of “Færøiske Qvæder om Sigurd Fafnersbane” in 1822. Kim Simonsen, University of Roskilde (The figures attached to this paper can be found in an additional Pdf file) This paper deals with three clerics of the early 19th Century, and their roles in regards to, the creation of Faroese language and literature. The main argument - and theoretical outline of this paper - is on the construction of a 19th Century cultural saint in the Faroese priest Hammersheimb, that large networks of early philologists and clergymen are overlooked by Faroese memory politics – following the master narrative of the Faroese nationbuilding, starting with 1846, when Hammersheimb ‘created’ 2 the Faroese written language. But we need to put on another frame of perspectives to explain and map the dynamics of the rediscovery of Faroese letters and language brought about by early networks of cultural nationalists, most of them clerics. Here I will go back to the case of the 1822 publication of the “The Sigurd Ballads”, because as we know with the Kalevala epic from Finland and the Icelandic sagas, that these became a political force in this time. The creation of Finishness was also connected to the publication of oral epic by first Swedish scholars – later the Swedish-speaking romantics were sidelined in Finnish memory. My argument is that this is also the case of the early networks of cultural nationalists, many of these Danish clerics created the institutional infrastructure and social ambience that gave birth to Faroese letters in Copenhagen. But Hammersheimb is still the one commemorated on banknotes, monuments, stamps and in official commemorative events as a true cultural saint, by leading poets like J.H.O. Djurhuus while still alive. But he had help from prior network of mainly clerics that paved the way. (Figure 1) When looking at the time around the 1820's, the Danish student of theology, Hans Christian Lyngbye (1782-1837) came to the Faroe Islands to investigate seaweeds in 1817 i. He met the Faroe scholar J.C. Svabo (1746-1824) ii who taught him some Faroese. This helped Lyngbye to write down folk ballads. He showed this material to Peter Erasmus Müller (1776-1834) bishop and professor of theology at Copenhagen University where they were a great sensation. As many a clergyman of his time, Müller was 1 © SPIN and the author www.spinnet.eu Do not quote without interested in the study of ancient Scandinavian literature, and he was able to see, that they contained The Völsungasaga iii in a hitherto unknown sung form iv . Müller was as a leading clergyman in Denmark, a remarkable great scholar of ancient Scandinavian literature. Between 1817-20 he published the Saga Library: “ Sagabibliothek med Anmærkninger og indledende Afhandlinger” 1-3.vol. He made Lyngbye publish these, with the help from the publisher, activist, cultural nationalist and professor Carl Christian Rafn (1795-1864). The clergyman Amtsprovst Peter Hentze in the Faroes was also involved after Müller contacted him. Later we can read in a letter written by the priest H.R.L. Jensen of Sandoy on Hentze: ”When he undertok the job to collect folksongs, this man did it, because he had such a respect for the ”republic of letters”. (From: Dansk Folkemindesamling (1871- 76)). The ballad collector, priest and translator Johan Henrik Schrøter from Suðuroy was also involved. (Figure 2) Prof. Müller in Copenhagen made the way for this book by gettig 500 rigsbanksdaler from a Royal Grant (Grundtvig, 1882, p. 362). It was printed by Rafn. The Deep Freezer of Literature (Figure 3) In 1822, the world saw the publication of ” Færøiske Qvæder om Sigurd Fafnersbane og hans Æt”. (Faroese Folk Ballads about Sigurd, Bane of Fafner, and his Family).This book was the first book printed in Faroese. It is also the most important book and it has had the most influence on establishing Faroese letters in the first place. Here the Faroe Islands get a part of the same status as Iceland, as being a deep freezer of language and older oral literature. What happened here, can not be explained, as we see Faroese historians and Literary scholars and other scholars do v as just an early account and interest in Faroese antiquarianism and language as a by-product of a Danish national romantic awareness not leading to the later emergence of Faroese literature later in 1888. Because Faroese Nationalism is often dated to the 25th of December 1888 where a meeting took place in the courthouse of Torshavn, that later was termed The Christmas Meeting. This meeting has also been made synonymous with the beginning of Faroese Literature (Debes, 1983). (Figure 4) 2 © SPIN and the author www.spinnet.eu Do not quote without It is a complex notion involving many actors (as we already have seen, with different agencies and agendas that lies behind the social importance of the invention of the ballads of Sigurd as a later Faroese national treasure and the (full) notion of these ballads as the flagship of the Faroese literature. Therefore we first must look into some definitions of cultural nationalism. Following Hroch and more so, Leerssen and his methodological unique use of comparative literary studies to be able to make very general models of dynamics, transfer and exchange in order to explain the range of for example the publication of the vernacular literatures in Europe and see these as a part of the nation-building process. In many cases these nation-building processes, in a time when Europe was witnessing the break up of the ancient regime and its reconstruction into a system of nations, lead to new nationalist or autonomist separatist movements (Leerseen, p. 22, 2008). And new power elites – sometimes fighting over the right to define the culture, language and the new more national version of the republic of letters – as we see in the Faroese case. (Figure 5) Leerssen has proposed a matrix – which details I can not go into: (Figure 6) This matrix is useful in order to differentiate and situate our ideas concerning cultural nationalism in Europe vi . The dynamics of the model can be understood as in for example folksong or saga collecting in one country like Iceland or in Scotland (Ossian) can be positioned against language revivalism or Faroese publications of ballads. It is useful to rescue the topic of cultural nationalism from a vague “all that sort of background stuff” status. We can actually trace developments, influences and networks across cultural fields and across the European map. Social Ambience and Institutional Infrastructure If we go back to the institutional infrastructure of the Sigurd ballads (I). Müller himself led the work and found the money for the edition of the Sigurd ballads. Lyngbye somehow got to much credit for it – his greatest work was in his Famous book on Faroese Seaweeds. An according to many scholars, his manuscript to the Sigurd Ballads collection are written and collected by the priest Schrøter (Matras, 1935). 3 © SPIN and the author www.spinnet.eu Do not quote without (Figure 7) The priest Schrøter is worth a couple of notes. He was of German and Faroese decent. In his childhood in Torshavn, he spoke German, English, Faroese and Dano-faroese. He was the priest of Suðuroy, but was soon to be relieved from duty as a younger man with a full pension – probably because of his conduct as a servant of the state was not always in the realms of what was accepted. He had a child out of wedlock, and he used more time as a trader on the black marked, than as a priest. He was educated in Copenhagen and throughout his life; he maintained a network of scholars in many countries. The latter part of his life he was an eager farmer experimenting with new forms of vegetables and cultivating great parts of the lands around the Capital. He is most famous for his translation of the Gospel of St. Matthew published in 1823 (but on its way from 1815) – that was rejected by the linguistic elites of the latter so powerful historical etymological school of language in Scandinavia – people as P.A. Munch, Ivar Aasen, Svend Grundtvig and V.U. Hammersheimb). The book was printed in 1500 copies and the 1300 of them were distributed to Faroese households, but the common man felt uneasy with the everyday language and the use of known idioms. Some talked about sacrilege of the holy word. People were only used to getting the Bible in Danish. Schrøter was inspired by a sense of practicality that belonged to the prior enlightenment era. He read Rasks book on Icelandic and Faroese, but did not agree with Rask, that Faroese was an Icelandic dialect – and here Schrøter was right. People like Hammersheimb reacted strongly against a Danish politician calling the Faroese language a Danish Dialect, while he had no problem with Rask calling it an Icelandic dialect, because Iceland – in the eyes of a national romantic – was a nation of noble Vikings with an authentic language as pure and old as the latin of the North. Schrøters predecessor was the great Faroese enlightment era scholar J.C. Svabo, that made a orthography, that was straight forward and more phonetically founded, that the one Hammersheimb has been credited for making later in 1846. (Figure 8) Schrøter was criticised for the Bible translation, but he was a strong spirit of a pioneer and an impulsive man.

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