Scandinavian Traveling Trunks

 By Amanda Munro 

When you visit the Nordic Heritage museum there is a lot to take in, but one thing that always intrigued me was the trunks on display that were once used to immigrate to America. These old trunks interest me simply for the fact of how they traveled with something so big and bulky unlike our more manageable suitcases, but also for the fact of bringing all of your belongs into a limited amount of space to a unknown land that claimed to have its streets paved with gold. What on earth would you bring? Nordic immigrants filled these beautifully decorated trunks with clothes, linens, shoes, bibles, pots and pans, and whatever else they needed for the long trek to a new land.

These trunks were always decorated ethnically to where that individual was from. Most commonly rosemaled, these trunks also had the name of the trunks owner, along with the year, stylistically written. After being used these trunks were kept in the home as a piece of furniture and a reminder of their native land. These trunks are admired and passed down through generations. I admire these trunks whenever I see them because they are a big piece of our heritage to see what our family members did and how even through traveling they preserved their culture.

Finland: Is it really Nordic?

By Eli Mrozek

Today we think of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Finland as Nordic Europe, the northernmost regions of Europe. Out of these nations one stands apart as a completely unique and separate culture with a completely different heritage, being influenced by their own unique folk culture and their Russian neighbors who have ruled Finland in the past and wield considerable influence over the Finnish people and state. These differences lead us to the questions, is Finland a Nordic nation, and what does it mean to be a Nordic nation?

To the first question I would say the answer lies in Finnish culture and history. In its earliest days, Finland has been constantly fought over by Sweden and Russia, both greatly influencing the native Finnish culture. At first it was conquered by the Swedes, who brought Catholicism to the country, with Russian cultures also spreading orthodoxy farther West towards Finland, which eventually clashed. As Sweden incorporated Finland into its empire, Swedes began to move to Finland, who is now Finland’s largest minority. The Finnish people resented them as they saw the Swedes as aristocratic oppressors. This Swedish rule however brought Lutheranism to Finland and brought about the translation of the bible in Finnish, spreading literacy. This rule also made Finland a very poor country. Later in after the Great Northern War, Russia conquered Finland and made it an autonomous duchy, this being the first form of an independent Finland. This rule brought Russification, in other words the spread of Russian culture, ordered by the Grand Duke, Tsar Alexander I of Russia. This brought the Russian language to Finland, becoming the official language of the country. The orthodoxy grew and became official, and continues to receive special treatment and preference from the Finnish government along with Lutheranism. This Russian dominance further solidified Finnish identity and helped define what the Finnish nation was, gaining independence in 1917 as a result.

Flashing forward to today, we still see this Finnish separation from the rest of Nordic Europe in politics and in the populous culture. Finland is separated from the rest of Nordic Europe largely by language, whereas all other Nordic languages are Germanic and closely related. The Finnish language is part of the Finno-Ugric language family, originating in the Ural Mountains of Russia. To further show its distance linguistically from Nordic Europe, I’d like to note that the closest related languages to Finnish are Estonian and Hungarian. They all share similar sentence structure and all lack gender in speech. For example:

Finnish:            Elävä kala ui veden alla.

Estonian:         Elav kala ujub vee all.

Hungarian:      Eleven hal úszkál a víz alatt.

All of these sentences mean “the living fish swims underwater”

We can also see the separation of Finland in politics and society. Finland tends to be more socially conservative than the rest of Nordic Europe, with baby boxes (an alternative option to abortion in which a baby is left anonymously in a safe place to be cared for, with the mother being able to take it back in an 8 week period before adoption) being the norm instead of abortion, which is difficult to receive, and much more conservative in terms of sexuality as well. Finland has also recently become very Eurosceptic (distrust in the Eurozone and the European Union), with the True Finns party, a socially conservative party, making huge gains in recent months. Finland’s prime minister has also stated that Finland is prepared to leave the Eurozone due to damage upon the Finnish economy. Finland now mainly trades with Russia and in recent years has built stronger economic ties in business with Russians, this larger exchange being successful due also to the large number of Finns who speak Russian, on par with Eastern bloc countries.

Finland overall looks ready to take its own path, sharing links with both Nordic Europe and Russia, while being completely its own in culture and language. With many influences creating the modern Finnish state, I would not call Finland a Nordic nation, rather one in close association, like Estonia or Northern Germany. I find that Finland is impossible to group, like Romania of Hungary, because of its distance from its lingual relatives and its isolated culture that is highly individual. Due to these discrepancies between Finland and the rest of Nordic Europe, I see Nordic Europe as a natural region with cultures that affected each other greatly, not being a cultural link between all these nations, and following this rule, the region of Karelia in Russia is also Nordic, and many others for that matter. Due to this I would say a true definition of Nordic Europe is a loose one and I would generally say it always involves Scandinavia and occasionally the nations it has influenced greatly. So to all who read this, I want you to decide for yourselves, what does it mean to be Nordic?

Cursive Handwriting

The Nordic Heritage Teen Council has been discussing heritage through the lens of arts and crafts.  We have also talked about what makes up our own personal heritage, so I decided to write about cursive handwriting because it is a part of how I identify my own heritage.  

Cursive handwriting has been prevalent ever since there was written language.  From Ancient Egyptian to Roman, from Arabic to Chinese, these languages all developed a type of connected or continuous style for their handwriting.  Cursive means “running” and comes from Italian cursivo and Medieval Latin cursivus.  Fine handwriting was considered a professional skill in 18th and 19th century America because all professional correspondence was done in cursive.  There were even entire schools dedicated to handwriting. Since the 18th century to the present, there have been many different styles of cursive.  Here is a famous example of handwriting; the Declaration of Independence.

Today, there is a debate on the legitimacy of continuing to teach cursive handwriting in schools.  Keyboarding is now being taught so students become proficient using electronic communication. A lot of school curriculum is no longer requiring cursive because it is no longer used in society.  Many argue that if teaching cursive becomes a thing of the past we will lose the ability to read important documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  I will finish this blog post in my own handwriting because why type about the importance of handwriting?

Winter 2014 Highlights

It's hard to believe it's almost mid-winter break already, but we've had a stimulating and productive Winter session so far. Check out a few of the highlights and stay tuned for blog posts from the NHTC members soon!

LEGOS!
After some exploration, and an in-depth discussion of the ideas of craft and heritage, we kicked back for a little thematically appropriate Lego-time (Legos are a Danish product-- didn't you know?)  Everyone was happy to spend some time building Legos at the end of the session!

ROSEMÅLING!
We were very lucky that Museum volunteer Barb Johnson was able to join us as a guest presenter a few weeks ago.  She shared her knowledge and skills about the art and craft of traditional Norwegian rosemåling.  In addition to bringing her work, and some painting supplies, she also brought her famous almond cake! Another thing we learned about Barb-- she's not even Norwegian!  A good example of personal heritage.  Thanks for a great experience, Barb!

Barb starts off with some information about the origins of rosemåling.

Here Barb explains that the Rogaland style of rosemåling 
is characterized by a symmetrical design. 
(On the back table is a small sample of Barb's own work). 

How do you even read this pattern? Where do you begin? 
Barb had some good tips.

After Barb's presentation, the NHTC members got to try their hand  at rosemåling. 
Here are Amanda, Sophia and Eli.

And here Nigel and Evan are working away.

What is Heritage?

What is heritage? It is a word that does not fit a specific set of rules, because it is something that each one of us defines in a different way. To be technical the actual definition is: “something that has been passed down from one generation to the next.” This seems like a very broad and unhelpful definition, so I’ll tell you what I think heritage is, because maybe what I believe is heritage, you might as well. Growing up with a family that still clings onto our Swedish past, I have experienced an Americanized version of what someone would deem as cultural heritage. I had always seen the Scandinavian objects that still adorn my walls, tasted the traditional food, and experienced holiday traditions that seemed alien to my friends, but never truly understood what they stood for. Then when I was tasked with writing about my ancestry I dove into the family records that yellowed in my grandmother’s house. That was when faces and stories started to appear behind all of the odd traditions that my family held dear. Through these records, I found out that my family had lived for generations near the city of Lund, Sweden in the county of Skåne. I took much pride in the fact that my family was the descendants of the Viking people known as the Geats. It was then that I understood what heritage meant. To me it meant having an identity in the land of one’s ancestors, having a link to your families’ past, and to have that culture envelop you as well as to take on new forms of it. So to answer the question concerning heritage; I say that what it is, is a molding of one’s cultural past into what works today, and to take pride in your ancestral identity.

-Karl

My Heritage, Our Heritage

This spring, the Teen Council is working on a project comparing different perspectives on heritage. We will be interviewing members of the community, asking them about their own heritage to find out what heritage means to each individual. In turn, we will be comparing what we find to see if we can get a better idea of what heritage means to the community as a whole.

To give us a broader range of perspectives to talk about and to make our project more interesting, we would like your help! Feel free to comment and tell us what heritage means to you. How would you define heritage? What do you think are the most important aspects of your own individual heritage? What do you think are the most important aspects of your community's heritage? You can answer any or all of these, or just write about what comes to mind when you think of the word "heritage."

Thanks for your input!
-Dylan