The Viking Age in Åland presents a mystery. Some disciplines see a (near-) complete discontinuity of language and culture from the Viking Age to the Middle Ages, which produces challenging riddles concerning the people who lived there, the societies that they created, and indeed why there would be such discontinuity at all. An equally puzzling question concerns who those people were. The Aland Islands were positioned on the frontier between Scandinavian and Finnic cultural areas, in a key location along the so-called Eastern Route that connected them. Even though Åland was not a significant political or economic center during the Viking Age, its cultural and geopolitical situation makes it extremely significant to understanding the networks spanning the Baltic Sea and how these networks related to the identities of cultures, polities and individuals. At the same time, the position between Sweden and Finland has politicized the reconstruction of history as heritage, which is inevitably bound up with current identities and conflicts. The present volume introduces the topic of Aland in the Viking Age and discusses it from the perspectives of a number of different disciplines with emphasis on questions of identities. The chapters review earlier interpretations, present current views, and also offer exploratory investigations that will stimulate future discussion and will certainly be of interest to specialist and non-specialist alike.
Author(s): Joonas Ahola, Frog, Jenni Lucenius (eds.)
Series: Annales Academiæ Scientiarum Fennicæ. Humaniora, 372
Publisher: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters
Year: 2014
Language: English
Pages: 432
City: Helsinki
Preface: Identity, Identification and Remnants of Culture 7
Map of Åland with Major Locations Mentioned in This Book 16
Acknowledgements 17
Introduction 19
Jan-Erik Tomtlund / The Viking Age in Åland: An Introduction 21
Part I: Interpreting Evidence of the Past 37
Interpreting Evidence of the Past: An Introduction 39
Jenni Lucenius / In Search of Identities: A Look at Interpretations of the Viking Age on the Åland Islands 41
Joonas Ahola / The Other Island: Kalevalaic Epic and History 55
Per Olof Sjöstrand / History Gone Wrong: Interpretations of the Transition from the Viking Age to the Medieval Period in Åland 83
Part II: Between Sources and Their Lack 153
Between Sources and Their Lack: An Introduction 155
Rudolf Gustavsson, Jan-Erik Tomtlund, Josefina Kennebjörk & Jan Storå / Identities in Transition in Viking Age Åland? 159
Teija Alenius / Viking Age Landscapes and Livelihoods in the Åland Islands: A Review of the Pollen Evidence 187
Sirpa Aalto / The "Finnar" in Old Norse Sources 199
Joonas Ahola, Frog & Johan Schalin / Language(s) of Viking Age Åland: An Irresolvable Riddle? 227
Part III: Contexts, Contacts and Perceptions 267
Contexts, Contacts and Perceptions: An Introduction 269
Johan Schalin with Frog / Toponymy and Seafaring: Indications and Implications of Navigation along the Åland Islands 273
Mikko Heikkilä / The Changing Language Situation in the Åland Islands and Southwest Finland during the Late Iron Age 303
Lassi Heininen, Jan Storå, Frog & Joonas Ahola / Geopolitical Perspectives on Åland in the Viking Age 323
Frog / From Mythology to Identity and Imaginal Experience: An Exploratory Approach to the Symbolic Matrix in Viking Age Åland 349
Indices 415
