Migration and loss of identity in Linnea Axelsson's Ædnan : Epos (2018)
“I really understand why people abandoned the Sámi language.”1 This claim, made by Linnea Axelsson (b. 1980) in an interview, reflects one of the responses to forced migration and colonization of the protagonists in her epic poem Ædnan: Epos (2018). One of the recurring themes in the poem is forced...
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| Other Authors: | , |
| Format: | Book Part |
| Language: | English |
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Karolinum Press
2022
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| Online Access: | https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8767287 http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-8767287 https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8767287/file/8767288 |
| Summary: | “I really understand why people abandoned the Sámi language.”1 This claim, made by Linnea Axelsson (b. 1980) in an interview, reflects one of the responses to forced migration and colonization of the protagonists in her epic poem Ædnan: Epos (2018). One of the recurring themes in the poem is forced migration of the reindeer-herding communities in northern Scandinavia, who were made to leave their territories at the beginning of the twentieth century. When Norway became an independent state in 1905, after the Union with Sweden was dissolved, the two states subsequently reached agreements about the reindeer-herding families who moved between the summer pastures in Norway and the winter pastures in Sweden. It was decided that the rights of these Sámi to utilize the land in Norway had to be regulated, and when a new agreement came into force in 1919, access to many areas was denied, meaning that many Sámi could no longer reach their summer pastures. As a result, Sweden selected a large number of families in the Karesuando area to be moved into more southern regions within the reindeer husbandry area in Sweden. Axelsson’s family were among these forced migrants (Nord). In this contribution, I will investigate how this forced migration, taking place within the twentieth century, is reflected in Axelsson’s epic poem Ædnan: Epos. I will discuss the responses of the protagonists, who act as narrators and represent various generations within the poem. |
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