Search

In the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century, the Kingdom of Sweden was almost constantly engaged in armed conflicts with neighbouring kingdoms. Both offensive and defensive wars were characteristic of the Swedish foreign policy from 1550s to 1650s. The same period witnessed the emergence of the Swedish Empire because, due to these conflicts, Sweden was able to acquire new domains in the Baltic region and to expand its territories in both east and south. These geopolitical realities pushed all Vasa kings into multiple projects aiming to rationalise Sweden’s army and its military strategy as well as to develop the acquired areas in various ways. Our article presents two development project examples of this emerging empire (1) Scottish officers (the Swedish Crown acknowledged the military expertise of Scottish troops as well as their officers and tried to harness this experience for Sweden), and (2) the planned modernisation of Ingria through German and Dutch colonisation and agricultural development. The article examines the needs and expertise expectations that the Swedish Crown directed towards these foreign groups. The emergence of Sweden as a European empire did not occur in a geopolitical vacuum. International contacts and the influx of European expertise into Sweden were important factors in the building of the Swedish dominion in the Baltic region. By focusing on these foreign expert groups, one operating in the military world and the other in the agricultural sphere, this article illustrates the functions and roles that the Swedish Crown expected foreign experts to have on the eastern frontier of early modern Sweden.

This article examines the early publications and correspondence of Karl Nickul, a Finnish geodesist and amateur ethnographer/anthropologist. In his publications and correspondence, Nickul studied and discussed the Skolt Sámi of the village of Suenjel in the Finnish province of Petsamo. Nickul was a polyglot and an internationally-minded pacifist who framed the Suenjel Sámi among other “primitive” peoples worldwide, instead of among the neighbouring Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples in Soviet Karelia just across the Finnish-Soviet border. In the Suenjel Sámi, Nickul saw a chance to preserve an instance of the “original” Sámi way of life, which he viewed as being closely conditioned by nature. Nickul wanted to carry out this preservation for the sake of the Sámi themselves as well as for scholarly purposes. As he sought international recognition for the Suenjel Sámi and parallel cases of cultural preservation, Nickul simultaneously developed a scholarly persona as the foremost expert on this population without following the conventional academic route.

Many Sámi have been reindeer herders for centuries and their livelihood has usually been understood (solely) in terms of reindeer herding, yet agriculture has also been a typical Sámi livelihood. This chapter investigates trade, another forgotten Sámi livelihood, as portrayed in the journals of two nineteenth-century Nordic clergymen, Jacob Fellman (Finland) and Petrus Læstadius (Sweden). The chapter explores what status Sámi trade had among other livelihoods described in the two journals as well as the practices and functions that Sámi traders carried out in nineteenth-century Arctic and subarctic Europe.

Tämä katsausartikkeli luotaa saamelaisten 1900-luvun koulutusta käsittelevää tutkimuskirjallisuutta Suomessa, Norjassa ja Ruotsissa, sekä lyhyesti myös Venäjällä ja Neuvostoliitossa. Artikkelin painopisteet ovat yhtäältä itse koulutuksen historiassa ja toisaalta tutkimuskirjallisuuden tulkinnoissa eri maissa. Mitä eroavaisuuksia ja yhtäläisyyksiä maiden välillä on, ja miten saamelaisten koulutushistorian tutkimus on kehittynyt viime vuosina? Tutkimuksen luoma kuva on monipuolistunut viime vuosina, samalla kun saamelaisten oma ääni on pääsemässä vahvemmin esiin tutkimuksessa. Samalla metodologisen nationalismin ongelma on edelleen voimakkaasti läsnä rajaamassa tutkimuskehystä kunkin maan sisäisiin asioihin., This review article examines the research literature on 20th century Sámi education in Finland, Norway and Sweden, and in short also in the USSR/Russia. The foci of the article lie on the history of education on the one hand, and on the interpretations of the research literature on the other. What similarities and differences are there between the countries and how has the research on Sámi educational history evolved over time? The research field has diversified recently and Sámi voices are gaining a stronger position. At the same time, the problem of methodological nationalism persists and impedes transnational perspectives on Sámi educational history.

This article analyzes the published journals of two Lutheran clergymen active in the Sámi areas of the early nineteenth century Nordic countries, Petrus Læstadius (Sweden) and Jacob Fellman (Finland). The article focuses on the ways Læstadius and Fellman described the transition from nomadism to agriculture that many Sámi individuals undertook in the nineteenth century, following a couple of centuries of agricultural colonization of the Sámi areas of Sweden and Finland. The aim of this article is to illuminate and examine the various degrees between the categories ‘sedentary settler’ and the ‘nomadic Sámi’. What kind of in-between positions did this seemingly binary pair of concepts conceal? The article contributes to our understanding of the ways indigenous peoples were perceived in the early nineteenth century and how their livelihoods were coded in relation to dominant ideals of national economy and civilization. The focus on the in-between positions between ‘settlers’ and ‘nomads’ reveals important complexities in the views of the clergymen. It uncovers various, at times contradictory definitions of culture and civilization. The article also concludes that while the priority of agriculture as the main livelihood of both Sweden and Finland was clear, this view was challenged by the notion of the sustainable Sámi livelihood of large-scale reindeer herding. QC 20201026

This article investigates Sami elementary education in early twentieth-century Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The main focus lies on cultural contexts that frame and limit language use. The key analytical concepts are useful citizen and useful citizenship. Through these concepts the article probes the ways in which governmental educational authorities and Sami teachers talked about education and citizenship. Studying these concepts and the cultural contexts behind them sheds light on the formation phase of Nordic citizenship. Full-scale citizenship was not offered to all individuals inside the nation state. Where it was, it had certain conditions that excluded cultural elements of minority populations. Sami teachers defined citizenship mainly within the Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish nation states. However, some tendencies towards a more cross-national notion of Sami identity can be discerned.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of Sami education in a historical and internationally comparative perspective. Despite the cross-national character of the Sami population, academic lite ...

This concluding chapter summarises the articles of the book in a comparative perspective. In so doing, it highlights the most important themes of the book. The conclusion also suggests new directions for Sami educational history.