The Faroe Islands: Interpretations of HistoryUniversity Press of Kentucky, 2014. júl. 15. - 280 oldal Stranded in a stormy corner of the North Atlantic midway between Norway and Iceland, the Faroe Islands are part of "the unknown Western Europe"—a region of recent economic development and subnational peoples facing uncertain futures. This book tells the remarkable story of the Faroes' cultural survival since their Viking settlement in the early ninth century. At first an unruly little republic, the islands soon became tributary to Norway, dwindled into a Danish-Norwegian mercantilist fiefdom, and in 1816 were made a Danish province. Today, however, they are an internally self-governing Danish dependency, with a prosperous export fishery and a rich intellectual life carried out in the local language, Faroese. Jonathan Wylie, an anthropologist who has done extensive field work in the Faroes, creates here a vivid picture of everyday life and affairs of state over the centuries, using sources ranging from folkloric texts to parliamentary minutes and from census data to travelers' tales. He argues that the Faroes' long economic stagnation preserved an archaic way of life that was seriously threatened by their economic renaissance in the nineteenth century, especially as this was accompanied by a closer political incorporation into Denmark. The Faroese accommodated increasingly profound social change by selectively restating their literary and historical heritage. Their success depended on domesticating a Danish ideology glorifying "folkish" ways and so claiming a nationality separate from Denmark's. The book concludes by comparing the Faroes' nationality-without-nationhood to the contrasting situations of their closest neighbors, Iceland and Shetland. The Faroe Islands is an important contribution to Scandinavian as well as regional and ethnic studies and to the growing literature combining the insights and techniques of anthropology and history. Engagingly written and richly illustrated, it will also appeal to scholars in other fields and to anyone intrigued by the lands and peoples of the North. |
Részletek a könyvből
1 - 5 találat összesen 20 találatból.
... merkur).” There are about 2400 merkur of land in the Faroes by the traditional reckoning. Land may be either infield (bour) or outfield (hagi). The village is clustered in the infield, which is divided into plots and used for crops, hay ...
... merkur, which gave them average livings of about 22 merkur. Priests were very rich men by local standards. Like other prosperous farmers, they kept large establishments with many hired hands. At the Reformation, perhaps a third of the ...
... merkur in freehold." Assured of substantial livings and marrying into “the most prosperous Faroese lineages” (L. Zachariasen 1961:313), the Danish priests who entered Faroese society after the Reformation were quickly ensnarled in the ...
... merkur).” epitomizes the legendary stock figure of the indispensable hired hand. But figures like him must also have been common in fact, as they saw to it that even a Danish priest's estate was run by tried and true methods. On this ...
... merkur, or pretty close to it, anyway: it actually had comprised 29 merkur until 1764, when it was divided in half; these halves were themselves halved in 1820-21 (Degn 1945:175). And yes, the winters were often long and harsh in ...
Tartalomjegyzék
1 | |
7 | |
Toward a National Culture in an Odd Danish Province | 65 |
Specters and Illusions | 173 |
Governance and Governors | 199 |
Notes | 205 |
References | 231 |
Index | 249 |