Kaunokirjallisuus kansallisuuspolitiikan palveluksessa

Etnisyyden representaatiot J.A. Friisin tuotannossa

• Anitta Viinikka-Kallinen UiT Norges arktiske universitet

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74993

Abstract

Literature in the Service of a Nation’s Policies. Representations of Ethnicity in the Works of J. A. Friis

The novel Fra Finmarken. Skildringer by Jens Andreas Friis (1821–1896), published in Norwegian in 1881 and generally known by the name Lajla, is a hugely popular description of the Sámi. As many as 15 editions of the book have been published in Norway, and there are three movies and even an opera based on it. Lajla has been translated into Finnish, Swedish, Dutch, German, English, Russian and French, to name a few. The book was included in Norwegian schools’ reading materials until the 1980s.

J. A. Friis was a professor of Sámi and Kven languages who actively engaged in societal activities, focusing on the ethnic issues in Northern Norway. He made public many problems of the Sámi people and stood against the drastic, assimilating language policy. However, Friis’s actions and writings reflect the idea, typical to that time and based on the concept of cultural hegemony and racial hierarchy, that in terms of race and culture, the Sámi people are at a lower level than Norwegians. The Sámi -representations in his literary works are idealising and romanticising but also discriminatory and belittling. He refers to the Kven people as the agents of almost metaphysical evil.

We are used to thinking of Lajla as a positive representation of the Sámi. In my article, I study the representations of racial hierarchy in Lajla as well as the discrepancy between the ethnicising descriptions and the reputation of the work. The reputation of the book as a positive representation can be explained through three points: first, Friis’s public activities to defend the Sámi; second, the fact that Lajla’s presentation of the Sámi matched the expectations of the audience; and third, that the book is a romantic, exciting and naïve adventure story and has as such been excluded from the canon of national literature.