Culture

Duodji, the Sami word for handicrafts/applied art, has a long and illustrious history. Handicraft has been influenced by the need to survive in a harsh arctic environment (production of clothes to keep warm and weapons to hunt with) and the nomadic nature of the Sami (leading to rounded shapes so as not to hurt reindeer), but have also been influenced latterly by the tourist market and materials from further afield. All members of the family could produce handicrafts and regional variation in handicrafts reflect ethnic identity.

Finland has two official languages, Finnish and Swedish, as a result of its more than 600-years as part of the Kingdom of Sweden (until 1809). While the Swedish-speaking minority has remained relatively small, the Finnish Constitution and other relevant legislation guarantee them the same language rights as Finnish speakers. This has resulted in bilingual public and private services and organisations, and the relationship between the two language groups has led to both friction and been a source of artistic inspiration.

The idea and funds for the Nobel prizes originated in the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel who died in 1901. Recipients can be both individuals and organisation. Categories are Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace and recipients are selected by various committees based at institutions in Sweden and, in the case of the peace prize, a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament. Selection has at times come under intense debate and criticism.

This presentation is from a transdisciplinary research workshop entitled Nordic Noir, Geopolitics and the North held at Aarhus University in October 2018.

From a global point of view, few people speak the Nordic languages. Translation is therefore an everyday necessity for many Nordic people who do business and exchange ideas with those outside (and to some extent inside) the region. This has led to a healthy translation industry. Often up to 60% of books published by Nordic publishers are translated texts. Membership associations and certification bodies have grown up to support translators and verify their work, and further education institutions provide relevant theoretical and practical courses. Outside the region, Nordic literature in translation remains limited, often to the genre of crime fiction.

There has been much more official involvement with the Nordic languages than with English. That is true even of the well-established Danish, Icelandic and Swedish standards. Each language exists under the watchful eye of a language ‘committee’, ‘board’ or ‘council’, for the most part state-sponsored, semi-autonomous bodies. A wide spectrum of interested parties participates, including academics, schoolteachers, writers, journalists and terminological experts.

Quick overview:

• In Denmark the principal language is Danish, with about 5,750,000 speakers (in 2018), but varieties of German are spoken in…

The Nordic experience is characterised by an upward spiral of development resulting from a close interconnection between a strong civil society and a strong state. The term ‘civil society’ was initially used in the Nordic countries as an alien concept to denote antagonism to the dominance of the welfare state. From the late 1990s, civil society came to be understood along more positive lines as a sphere of human engagement and self-empowerment. It has a strong association with the notion of democracy and refers to various social phenomena that have been prevalent in the Nordic countries since the nineteenth century, including popular movements and voluntary organisations.

Playwrights Kent Andersson and Bengt Bratt were instrumental in developing group theatre, an anti-establishment genre promoting radical social criticism.