Uno Harva
Born(1882-08-30)30 August 1882
Ypäjä
Died13 August 1949(1949-08-13) (aged 66)
Turku
NationalityFinnish
Other namesUno Holmberg
Alma materUniversity of Helsinki
Occupation(s)Theology, Sociology

Uno Nils Oskar Harva (known as Uno Holmberg until 1927; 30 August 1882, Ypäjä – 13 August 1949, Turku) was a Finnish religious scholar, who founded the discipline in Finland together with Rafael Karsten. A major figure in North Eurasian ethnology and study of religion, Harva is best known for his body of work on Finno-Ugric and Altaic religions.[1] He is considered to be one of the foremost 20th-century European interpreters of shamanism.[2]

Career

Harva conducted fieldwork among the Siberian Ket and Evenk peoples in the 1910s, researching their mythology and religion. He also spent the summers of 1911–1913 with the Finno-Ugric Votyaks (Udmurts) in the Urals and the Cheremis (the Mari people) on the Volga. He is considered to be an important anthropologist of Siberia.[3][4]

His study Der Baum des Lebens (The Tree of Life; 1922–23) was the first to show that the world tree from Norse mythology had many parallels in Europe and Asia.[5]

Harva wrote the fourth volume of the book series The Mythology of All Races in 1927. It contains a classic general description of Subarctic shamanism.[3]

Principal works

  • Die Wassergottheiten der Finno-Ugrischen Völker (German: The Water Divinities of the Finno-Ugric Peoples; 1913)
  • Permalaisten uskonto (1914)
  • Tsheremissien uskonto (Finnish: The Cheremi Religion; 1914)
  • Lappalaisten uskonto (Finnish: The Lapp Religion; 1915)
  • Elämänpuu (Finnish: The Tree of Life; 1920); reprinted in German as Der Baum des Lebens (1922)
  • Jumalauskon alkuperä (1916)
  • Pohjoisen Euroopan ja Aasian pyyntiriiteistä (1922)
  • Finno-Ugric, Siberian Mythology (1927)
  • Altain suvun uskonto (1933)
  • Die religiösen Vorstellungen der altaischen Völker (German: Religious Concepts of the Altaic Peoples; 1938)
  • Mordvalaisten muinaisusko (1942)
  • Sammon ryöstö (1943)
  • Suomalaisten muinaisusko (1948)

References

  1. ↑ Juha Pentikäinen, ed. (1996). Shamanism and Northern Ecology. Walter de Gruyter. p. 32. ISBN 9783110811674.
  2. ↑ Jeroen W Boekhoven (2011). Genealogies of Shamanism: Struggles for Power, Charisma and Authority. Barkhuis. p. 112. ISBN 9789077922927.
  3. 1 2 Andrei A. Znamenski, ed. (2004). Shamanism: Critical Concepts in Sociology. Psychology Press. p. 263. ISBN 9780415332491.
  4. ↑ Mark Nuttall; Terry Callaghan, eds. (2000). Arctic: Environment, People, Policy. CRC Press. p. 418. ISBN 9789058230874.
  5. ↑ Anders Andrén (2014). Tracing Old Norse Cosmology. Nordic Academic Press. p. 34. ISBN 9789185509386.
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