Finns on the Arctic Ocean Coast: Travel Reminiscences

Ervasti, A. V. (August Vilhelm), 1845-1900Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.5
Word count
777K words
Chapters
78

Tags

Foreign Language Books Travel Human GeographyArctic TravelTravelogueNature ObservationAdventure JourneyNordic SettingExotic Culture

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Suomalaiset Jäämeren rannalla: Matkamuistelmia by A. V. ErvastiAuthor: Ervasti, A. V. (August Vilhelm), 1845-1900,Language: Finnish, Class: DK: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Russia, Former Soviet Republics, Poland, Release Date: Sep 2, 2016

Editor's review

This is a travel memoir written in Finnish by A. V. Ervasti (1845–1900), a nineteenth-century Finnish cultural figure. The book records what Finns saw on their journeys to the coast of the Arctic Ocean and is a primary text at the intersection of Nordic regional history and travel literature. Its value lies not in systematic historical argument but in the observational perspective of a firsthand witness of the era: the natural environment of the northern coast, the living conditions of the people along the way, and specific encounters during the journey are all presented in the tone of reminiscence. For readers studying the rise of Finnish national consciousness, Nordic geographical writing, or the nineteenth-century travel genre, this kind of primary material has irreplaceable reference value. The book was first released in electronic form by Project Gutenberg in 2016 and reissued in 2019; it is a public-domain free e-book with a low barrier to access. It should be read as both historical source and literary text: one may extract geographical and social details, while also remaining alert to the subjectivity and period limitations inherent in memoir. Suitable for slow reading with a map at hand.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Prepare a map of northern Europe and mark the coasts and places the author mentions as you read
  2. Read in segments by stage of the journey, noting geographical and everyday-life details after each for later reference
  3. Compare the book's observations with later histories of Finland, noting the memoir's period biases
  4. The Finnish original can be read slowly with a dictionary, prioritizing the main narrative over word-by-word parsing

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

What language is this book written in, and is it difficult to read? The original is in Finnish, in a nineteenth-century written form that differs from modern Finnish; non-native readers will need a dictionary. If using it only as a historical source, translation tools can help extract information on places, people, and events; for close reading of the text, intermediate or higher Finnish proficiency is recommended.
Is it suitable as an introductory book on Finnish history? Not really. It is a personal travel memoir, not a systematic general history, and lacks a chronological framework and causal analysis. Beginners should first read a general history to establish the outline, then use this book as supplementary material to sense the concrete experience of nineteenth-century Finns traveling north.
How can the e-edition be obtained, and what is the version situation? The book was released by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain free e-book, first posted in September 2016 and reissued in 2019. Readers can download it free from the website, but should note that the e-edition's layout and annotations are fairly plain.

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About the author

Ervasti, A. V. (August Vilhelm), 1845-1900 Author · Finnish · 1845–1900

A. V. Ervasti (August Vilhelm Ervasti, 1845–1900) was a Finnish writer known for travel accounts and ethnographic description. Two of his works survive, both centred on journeys through the northern borderlands of Scandinavia and Russia. Muistelmia matkalta Venäjän Karjalassa kesällä 1879 records what he observed while travelling through Russian Karelia in the summer of 1879, while Suomalaiset Jäämeren rannalla: Matkamuistelmia turns to Lapland and the coast of the Arctic Ocean, touching on the life and customs of the local inhabitants. His writing rests on first-hand observation and combines the immediacy of travel narrative with an interest in ethnographic record, offering late nineteenth-century Finnish readers concrete material on the northern borderlands. Public information on the rest of his life is limited, and the principal basis for this note is the subject matter of the works themselves.