The End of Drum-Time (2024)
A Novel
Hanna Pylväinen
rating fantastic
type fiction audiobook
concepts history
2024/06/01 What I’m learning: basically anything about 19th century Scandinavia! We’re following the love story of a Sámi reindeer herders and the daughter of a Lutheran minister (a “settler,” I believe?). The Sámi are a group of people who inhabit the northern reaches of modern-day Sweden, Finland, Norway, and parts of Russia, with a culture of reindeer herding to provide meat, fur, and transportation. Reindeer in this society are the key resource— asking someone how large their herd is compared to asking them how much money they have. We learn that ~20 reindeer is the minimal number to sustain a livelihood.
- Of the more Southern parts of Nordic country (home of the “Scandinavians”), we learn about the strong intertwining of church and state, which is complicated as the governing body for a region (usually a monarch or representative of another ruling power) can change across borders while the church remains constant. I remember learning about the development of modern “nation-states” in Western Europe, in Russia, in Africa and North and South America through colonialism, but never had thought about the process in Scandinavia before. Interesting but perhaps not surprising that similar themes of sorta arbitrary borders and power dynamics occurred here as well.
- (Okay, more from Wikipedia than the book itself, but it counts!). So I guess the Sámi people and the Germanic-speaking Scandinavians (medieval Norse) settled the current Norway/Sweden/Finland area around the same time (~3500 years ago!), they had little contact until the 18th century (the Sámi generally lived in the north, Scandinavians in the south which eventually became the kingdoms of Sweden and Norway). At that point, though, a familiar story played out as the Swedish and Norwegian governments began pushing further north, asserting control, viewing the Sámi as “uncivilized” and “primitive,” forcing assimilation with Scandinavization (what a word!) policies, and banning Sámi languages and culture in many contexts. Policies encouraging settlement of Sámi land caused forced displacement and fragmentation of local groups; and scorched earth policies of the German army during WWII destroyed basically all traces of Sámi culture.
- Then, of course, there’s climate change— the Arctic regions where the Sámi live are highly sensitive to warming temperatures, while also being rich in natural resources— both metals/oils/natural gas and wind/water— leading to conflict over how to manage and utilize the economically & culturally valuable land.
- Loved this characterization of “all good Sámi stories” as having “the element of a sudden misbehavior in nature, something inexplicable, something the world knew that humans did not.”
- “… you have to hate yourself to be loved…”
- So tragic.