Terveisiä Lapista as an Example of Intercultural Dialogism

• Johanna Domokos Karoli Gaspar University of the Reformed Church in Hungary & Universität Bielefeld

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74994

Abstract

Terveisiä Lapista as an Example of Intercultural Dialogism

Terveisiä Lapista (1971, Greetings from Lapland, 1983), the only prose work published by the North Sámi author Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, is an outspoken critique of the cultural interference facing the Sámi people, as well as a genuine reflection on the troubled relationship between the Sámi and their colonizers throughout history. By situating the original text and its subsequent translations in both their local and global socio-political contexts, this study describes the varied manifestations of intercultural dialogism in Valkeapää’s work. Inspired by the works of Mikhail Bakhtin, the article expands the concept of dialogism and takes under its focus the authorial/ narratorial addressing of a wide array of culturally distinct audience, as well as its manifestation in the process of editing of its three complete translations. The study includes two charts comparing data on the structure of the Finnish original, its Norwegian and English edition as well as its German translation.