Exotifierande skildringar av laestadianismen kontra personliga minnen och antikolonial kritik : Höijer, Ranta-Rönnlund och Den tornedalsfinska litteraturen om Isak Juntti

• Main Author: Heith, Anne
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Umeå universitet, Institutionen för kultur- och medievetenskaper 2016
• Subjects: laestadianism; lekmannapredikanter; Isak Juntti hade många söner; exotifiering; Sara Ranta-Rönnlund; avkolonisering; Bengt Pohjanen; alternativ historieskrivning; General Literature Studies; Litteraturvetenskap; Juntti; Northern Sweden; tornedalsfinsk*
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-127313

This article proposes that the Swedish writer Björn-Erik Höijer presents an exotified image of Laestadianism in his 1954 play Isak Juntti hade många söner (Isak Juntti had many sons). In her first book Nådevalpar: Berättelser om nomader och nybyggare i norr (1971) the Sámi writer Sara Ranta-Rönnlund challenges Höijer’s depiction which she claims is based on gossip and rumours, rather than a realistic representation of the preacher Victor Apelqvist, whom Isak Juntti is modelled after. The criticism of Höijer’s play is taken to a new level in a Tornedalian Finnish literary history from 2007. In this alternative, anticolonial literary history Bengt Pohjanen and Kirsti Johansson use Höijer’s play as an example of domestic colonialism which has Othered the Tornedalian minority in northern Sweden. Avkolonisering och väckelse. Laestadianismens roll i nutida samiska och tornedalska texter.