Projects

The Role of the Icelandic Language and Literature in the Development of Danish National Identity

Auður Hauksdóttir
This subproject will examine the part played by the Icelandic language and literature in the shaping of Danish nationality and what effect Danish interest in Old Icelandic literature and language had on the Icelanders’ attitudes towards their own language and culture. An examination will also be made of the effect that efforts to rejuvenate and purify the Danish language had on Danish and Icelandic attitudes towards the national languages in the two countries and the status of Danish and Icelandic in them both. Historical linguistic studies of this type are often bedevilled by a lack of source material, but this is not the case here. There are immense amounts of written sources in both countries that will doubtless further illuminate the connections between Danish and Icelandic during the period in question. Thus, examples of the ‘meta-discussion’ of the languages can be found in periodicals, newspapers and private letters, illustrating attitudes towards them, and loan-words used in these same sources give an indication of the patterns of influence between them. An event that makes it particularly appropriate to undertake linguistic research of this type now is the publication of the papers of the first ‘National Committee’ of 1770-71. The National Archives of Iceland have kindly given permission for the use of this material in the study. Among other material examined, the writings of P. E. Müller, Rasmus Rask, N. F. S. Grundtvig and C. F. Allen may be mentioned.

Publishing the Past
Scholarly Editions and Their Audience in Iceland 1850-90

Bragi Þorgrímur Ólafsson
The history of Iceland’s campaign for autonomy from Denmark in the 19th century has often focussed on the achievements of political figures among the Icelandic intelligentsia in Copenhagen. It was there that they evolved their political and cultural agenda, drawing arguments from historical evidence, documents and literature. This activity fed into cultural nationalism in Iceland. However, this elite was criticised to some extent for placing too much emphasis on scholarly editions of that material, which were aimed at foreign scholars rather than the general public in Iceland. This criticism indicates a rift between Iceland’s political and cultural leadership in Copenhagen and the general public in Iceland which has not been studied before. This will be explored in some detail by looking at the publication of historical material in Copenhagen in the period 1850-90 with a focus on the Icelandic Literary Society and its president, Jón Sigurðsson, and the debates and criticism found in its members’ correspondence, the society’s minutues, newspapers and other material relating to those publications.

Old Norse Studies and Cultural Mobilization in the Danish Kingdom from the Napoleonic Wars to the Second Schleswig War

Clarence E. Glad
This subproject aims at investigating the impact of the dissemination of Old Norse-Icelandic texts in the fields of pedagogy and politics. The focus will be on the cultivation of culture through research activities of the philologists who made these texts available and the way academics then used them to build their vision of a nation and promulgate it to their students, largely through historical surveys and textbooks. The philological activities led to educational reforms and the institutionalization of Old Norse language and literature. They also brought culture into the political arena, as the philologists became a conduit between an educational elite and political activists. As a prelude to the main period under investigation (1814-64), this project will first survey educational reforms at the end of the 18th century which led in early 19th century to new laws and regulations for both the Latin schools and the University of Copenhagen and also to the publication of new textbooks on the ‘history of the fatherland.’ The project will then document pedagogical debates during the period 1825-49 which led to the introduction of new laws and regulations for Latin schools and the university and to the publication of new textbooks in both history and literature. Finally, historical surveys and school textbooks influenced by the investigation of the Old Norse heritage will be scrutinized and their impact on later political leaders of the nation will be evaluated.

Varieties of National Identity

Gylfi Gunnlaugsson
This module will fall into three parts as follows: 1) An examination of the influence of a group of German-speaking literati which formed in Copenhagen in 1750-70 around the poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. This was instrumental in having German poets draw on Norse, rather than Greco-Roman, mythology in their work, in the belief that it represented a common Northern European heritage. Among those who developed the group’s ideas further were Michael Denis and Johann Gottfried Herder. 2) The term ‘Scandinavianism’ first appeared in print in 1843, and the next five years or so were a formative period for the movement. It was primarily a movement of students and university teachers who had clear ideas on the cultivation of the Nordic peoples’ shared cultural basis but unclear political aims. A key idea of theirs was that Old Norse-Icelandic literature would provide the best way of identifying the common national features. This part will consist of an examination of this discourse in articles and books by Scandinavianists from 1843-48. 3) Surveys of Old Norse literature and culture from the late 19th century by writers of different nationalities (e.g. N. M. Petersen, R. Keyser, G. Storm, C. Rosenberg, E. Mogk, Guðbrandur Vigfússon and Finnur Jónsson) will be compared and situated both in an academic and a general historical perspective, in addition to which these writers’ attitudes to nationality and national culture will be examined.

The Nordic Past in Context
Transnational Aspects of the Journal Iduna

Paula Henrikson
This subproject will take as its departure the journal Iduna (1811–1824, 1845), published in Stockholm by Götiska förbundet. While Iduna, subtitled ‘A Journal for Admirers of the Nordic Past’, is often considered fundamental for romantic nationalism in Sweden, this investigation will direct its focus towards the journal’s transnational dimensions. To what extent did the journal benefit from scholarly and literary cooperation across national borders, and what did it mean for the journal’s focus that it reproduced, and produced, comparative romantic speculation of a mythological, literary and linguistic type? The study will draw on works on cultural transfer, translation and networks. Topics to be analysed include the comparisons in the journal between Nordic and Greek, Roman, and Indian issues, for example the popular ideas of a connection between Odin and Buddha, and the role played by Graeco-Roman models in the understanding of Nordic mythology. In all, the idea behind this subproject is to put romantic ideas of recovering the Nordic past in context. How did these ideas, as expressed in Iduna, negotiate Scandinavia’s position in a transnational and global context? How did transnational travel and correspondence contribute to the Iduna project?

Daughters of the North – Swedish Writers

Gunilla Hermansson
Professor Hermansson will investigate the role of Old Norse texts and traditions for the careers and identity formations of successful 19th-century Swedish female authors before the Modern Breakthrough. While romantic nationalism opened new possibilities for women to rationalize their writing, access to sources, networks and the public space remained unequal. Engaging with the Nordic past was conditioned by expressed expectations as to how women writers should and could engage with different parts of history – as true daughters of the North – and fierce criticism if they appeared to be working contrary to an idealized image of the past, or overstepping the bounds of their gender, education and imagined capabilities. As a case study, the less known, yet highly prolific market writer Wilhelmina Stålberg’s (1803–72) projects to further knowledge of Norse mythology in different genres targeting both young people and – not least – women will be investigated and compared to the strategies and choices made by other Swedish women writers such as the poet Julia Nyberg (1784–1854) and the novelist Fredrika Bremer (1801–65). The main focus of the study will be to examine what kind of identities, tactics and affects they promoted to their readers through their uses of the Nordic past, how they responded to or challenged their constraints, and, finally, to what extent this affected their self-understanding and self-fashioning as national or Nordic writers.

Jacob Aall and His Heimskringla Translation

Jon Gunnar Jørgensen
This subproject will consist of a discussion of the Norwegian historian and politician Jacob Aall (1773-1844). Aall is a good example of a Norwegian intellectual who lived between two national identities – Norwegian and Danish – before 1814. After the separation of the two countries, Aall was actively engaged in the search for a new Norwegian identity. One part of his effort toward nation-building was his translation and edition of Heimskringla (1838-39), the first “Norwegian” edition of the work. In his contribution, Professor Jørgensen will examine the textual basis of the translation and, what is no less important, Aall’s ideological grounds and the reasons why he chose to spend time and money on his edition of Heimskringla.

From Hekla to Himalaya.
Mapping and Triangulation in 19th Century Mythological Thought

Thomas Mohnike
Since the dawn of comparative philology, mythological knowledge has often been constructed by comparing different mythological traditions in order to specify family relationships and distinct characteristics of peoples. In the 19th century, Old Norse mythology was most frequently compared to Greco-Roman and Old Indian (Sanskrit) mythology, thereby forming a triangular interpretative structure that was projected on space. However, the borders between the cultural realms established by this method were debated. Were the Old Icelandic Eddas to be seen as an expression of Icelandic, Scandinavian, Celto-Scandinavian, Germanic, Aryan or Gothic people? Which modern nations could claim them as their heritage? Answers varied depending on local political and ideological needs. The subproject will seek to analyse these dynamics on a European level by conducting case studies of professional and amateur uses of mythology at different spatiotemporal nodes such as the Calcutta philologists associated with William Jones, French mythologists inspired by the Société asiatique (Bergmann, Ampère), Copenhagen researchers (Nyerup, Rask) and German-speaking researchers (Schlegel, the Grimms). The main focus will be on the place of the North in these comparative mythological geographies and the influence that the method of comparison had on new national narratives of belonging.

The Role of Old Norse in Norwegian Nation-Building and Language

Klaus Johan Myrvoll
This subproject will focus on the role of the Old Norse language in Norwegian nation-building and language planning, in particular on how the use of the sagas (and charters) as historical sources led to an interest in their language as such, and how this influenced the creation of a new written standard for Norwegian: Ivar Aasen's landsmål. The central hypothesis is that Old Norse played a more vital role for Aasen than has hitherto been recognised. Dialects played a substantial role in this connection too. Juxtaposing them with Old Norse was important when trying to demonstrate that the dialects formed a national Norwegian language, different from Danish and Swedish. This process of basing a new standard language on the model of an old, usually medieval, ancestor language will be compared to similar processes in the same period in other Nordic countries (Faroese and to some extent also Icelandic) and throughout Europe.

Imagining Women, Imagining Communities

Katja Schulz
This subproject focuses on the interrelation between the reception of Old Norse myths, gender and (national) identity. The leading research questions are: 1) To what extent is there a difference between male and female authors’ use of Old Norse mythology to construct collective identities? 2) What kind of (changing) socio-cultural gender concepts do 18th- and 19th-century adaptions of Old Norse myths reveal? 3) How do the disparate discourses on Old Norse mythology – aesthetical, gender-related and nationalistic – intermingle? These questions will be approached from three angles: 1) The reception history of the mythical figure of the valkyrie 1750-1900 will be sketched in the first year. 2) In the second year attention will be turned to how women authors, in Germany and elsewhere, used Old Norse myths to forge a model for their position in a male-dominated society and nation. Which mythemes do they choose and which ones do they deliberately avoid? What strategies do female authors adopt when treating myth? 3) The third part of the subproject will attempt to answer the overarching questions, drawing on the results of the two previous studies. Here the differences in the imagined (social, national, gender) identities manifested in the works of female, as distinct from male, authors will be pinpointed. Is it possible to speak of specific feminine aesthetics in this context, and if so, how do they relate to the prevalent discourses on nationality in the 19th century?

Romantic Nationalism in Europe and Editions of Old Texts in the Faroe Islands

Kim Simonsen
Romantic Nationalism in Europe and Editions of Old Texts in the Faroe Islands Cultural nationalism emerged and developed in Europe during the long 19th century (c. 1770-1914), influencing both larger nations and smaller regions, including the Faroe Islands. The emphasis in this study is on important editions like Færeyinga saga, which gained new importance. Culture and language were instrumentalized to foster political awareness and, for some regions in Europe, independence. A significant part of this process involved defining, standardizing, or modifying languages and differentiating them from others, both externally and internally, and one of the keys to all this in Northern Europe was editions of Old Norse literature.

The Geography of Knowledge and the Ripple Effect of Antiquitates Americanae

Kim Simonsen

This subproject focuses on Antiquitates Americanae (1837), published by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, Denmark, and the role of Danish philologist Carl Christian Rafn (1795-1864) in compiling that work. Attention is given to how the edition was influential in the cultivation of national thinking in various nations, particularly the United States of America, not only through the circulation of texts but also through a network of scholars and writers who were engaged in the recuperation of texts across borders, imagined geographies, pseudo-archaeological studies and runology. The aim is to shed light on how cultural nationalists and writers created a past which justified national claims to a territory, from Iceland via Denmark to America.