Summary:

Timo Sironen, “The peaceable and valiant Finn, the wild Lapp and Bjarmian in the NE, the Carelian to be kept under control, the envious and mean Cimber in the SW and the always treacherous Sarmatian in the East.” On the Borders of the Strangers in the Urban Elegies Hecatompolis Suionum of Olof Hermelin.

Olof Hermelin (1658–1709), one of the most talented Latin poets of Sweden in her time of grandeur in the late 17th century, composed in 1684-85 his collection Hecatompolis Suionum (‘The Hundred Towns of the Swedes’). Hermelin’s collection is a description in poetical form of 102 towns in the Kingdom of Sweden, with 91 of the elegies preserved, they make up altogether 1082 verses. Hecatompolis Suionum was never printed before the 20th century. We now finally have an edition in Swedish metrical translation and a commentary upon it.

The principal aim of this article is to contribute to research into Neo-Latin literature by trying to define it more closely and with more details regarding some characteristic features of some nations.

The literary genre of urban elegies in Latin already begins in the 4th century with Ausonius’ Ordo nobilium urbium, and it was resuscitated by Renaissance humanists, among others Julius Caesar Scaliger, in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Scaliger, with his Urbes, served as the most direct model for Hermelin’s Hecatompolis, even though Hermelin made use of urban elegies by Dutch, Scottish, German, Danish and Swedish poets (and prosaists) writing in Latin.

Many of Hermelin’s town elegies praise the physical and metaphysical environs of the town and also of the surrounding region, and they share the common feature of a rather pessimistic tone in the first verses, but towards the end they rise like a crescendo, into a victory of optimism, with a strong trust in economic contribution even in the northernmost rural areas of the Swedish Empire. There are, though, some particularly negative tones, mostly concerning the past, namely the remote invasions by neighbouring nations, and later, more or less recent battles and/or threats regarding several other towns. Eleven of the described towns are situated within the borders of modern Finland, not less than 77 in modern Sweden and three in Russia (Vyborg, Käkisalmi/Kexholm/ and Nyen/Nevanlinna Castle by the Neva in later St. Petersburg.).

27 elegies are relevant for this article. In them the Finns are described as valiant, peaceable and fully loyal partners of the Swedes; the more exotic Sámi people and the Bjarmians are depicted as more wild, but nevertheless not disloyal. The Carelians, on the other hand, are described as being less fully loyal to the Swedes, perhaps even sympathizing every now and then with the Russians. The Danes are often branded as envious rascals, raging and burning down wooden towns in Southern Sweden during frequent wars ever since the 14th century – Hermelin seems to have a selective memory by passively forgetting identical devastations by the Swedish army in numerous towns of the S and SW Sweden. The worst enemies are, though, without doubt, the Russians in the East, depicted as both physically and mentally unpleasant, as cowards, expansionists and pathological violators of treaties, who deserve to be punished by the Swedes, even with the help of God.

The most relevant town elegies for my thematic analysis are those about the NE, the towns of Oulu and Kajaani(nlinna), the elegies about the SW towns of Kungälv and Kristianopel, about the southern town of Visby in the island of Gotland and the elegies about Vyborg/Viipuri, Käkisalmi/Kexholm and Nyen/Nevanlinna in the East. Further relevant town elegies concerning Hermelin, are worthy of analysis, and among others are Gothenburg, Helsingborg, Västerås, Kalmar, Halmstad, Bogesund, Vänersborg, Västervik, Åmål and Varberg in Sweden, plus Turku/Åbo, Helsinki/Helsingfors, Tammisaari/Ekenäs and Tornio/Torneå in Finland. The titles of each section of the analytical part in English, consisting mainly of relevant passages of the Latin original text cited and its translation into Finnish, with the most striking words of the citations in bold:

I Finland & the Finns: valiant, warlike and in good shape for war

II The original wildness/paganism of the Finns ennobled & the excessive warlikeness tamed by introduction of Christianity, civilization and agriculture

III The Finns and the Swedes, identically unanimous, sympathetic and loyal, living together in towns/castles. The respective peculiar languages partly in reciprocal interaction. On identities

IV The exotic Lapps, the Bjarmians and the “Cimmerians” of Tornio on the extreme arctic borders of the Kingdom – from the Swedish point of view

V The Danes: envious rascals, raging arsonists and taxmen of the already, in theory, freed shipping trade

VI The nasty barbarian traitor of the East, the scum of Russia with its dukes – the justice from God prevails for the Bad Guys  

The most significant new data results of the analytical research in details, in Finnish, respectively in the notes 12 and 13 above, here partly deepened and enlarged:

On note 12:

It might be worth noting that Wretö has a major interpretative error in his Swedish (metrical) translation, based on failing metrical analysis and thus perceiving the word form ôris (genitive singular of ôs, ôris) wrongly as ôrîs (ablative plural of ôra, ôrae): thus there is absolutely no reference at all made by Hermelin to goods imported on ships from the coasts of Sweden to Oulu, but instead reference to the primarily Gothic/Swedish element in the population of Oulu, to be discerned in the physical features, linguistic accent and/or boldness, as can be read in my English translation below. The reading of the original manuscript used is by docent Erkki Sironen (in the Carolina Rediviva Library at Uppsala in December 2003) on which I have made a couple of personal choices on the autograph variants and/or additions of Hermelin.  

‘Oulu, the land situated under the constellation of the Bear-keeper, in the old times the topmost boundary line of my Sweden; the North Wind with its gustiness sounds to her name, coming straight from the domestic polar axis and even the winter with its long nights is a burden to her: on her near border she is peering out to a Lapp with his wire-haired fur coat, but yet she has more boldness/accent/features of the Goths. …  

According to Hermelin, long cold winters, the exotic neighbouring Lapps and particularly seal hunting, are characteristic of Oulu and its region, situated in the extreme North-Eastern corner of the Swedish Empire. Our poet probably gathered these features from the works of Olaus Magnus and Anders Bure, mentioned above. Oulu was put clearly into more exotic and wild, not to say even un-Gothic, settings than Luleå some 100 miles West of Oulu. The evidence of several literary reminiscences in Hermelin’s poem about Oulu indicates that Ovid particularly served as one of his models. The parallel context of the north-eastern dimension in Ovid’s books Tristia (‘Sorrows’) and Epistulae ex Ponto, composed in his exile on the Black Sea, suited Hermelin perfectly. Just like Tomis, “a superficially Hellenized town with a wretched climate on the extreme edge of the empire[3]”, Oulu was a superficially Swedish town with identical features, along with the exotic Lapps replacing the barbaric Getae, with Hermelin quoting Ovid almost word for word, slightly adapting: hirsutus Geta > hirsutus Fennus. Ovid’s ex Ponto 1, 5, 73 aspicit + hirsutos + comminus + Ursa + Getas becomes Hermelin’s 69, 5 prospicit/adspicit + hirsutum + propiori limite + (Ula) + Fennum. The fact that both Ovid and Hermelin mention the North wind Boreas, just two verses earlier, speaks in favour of my interpretation of a clear and concrete contextual model for Hermelin. Another interesting reminiscence, again adapted to the description of the Lapps, originates this time from Ovid’s Tristia (Tr. 5, 7, 12): a male pacatis plus trahit ora Getis = Hermelin 69, 6 a vividis Gothis plus tamen oris habet.  

Another, at least similarly rough error, or let’s say rather a strange personal interpretation, in the translation by Wretö, is to understand Fennus as a Finn instead of a Lapp of the Sámi people. Even the context speaks for itself; Professor Jouko Vahtola, an expert on these issues in Northern Finland, agrees on this with me. Furthermore, Tacitus, in his monograph Germania, already at the end of the 1st century CE, meant a Lapp by Fennus. A more exact adjective Lapp(i)onem, used by Hermelin in the elegy on Kajaneborg, would not suit metrically here. In addition, Olaus Magnus has, in his Carta Marina, printed in 1539 in Venice, LAPPIA ORIENTALIS immediately NE of Oulu and Ii (Ighia in Latin).  

On note 13:

According to Helander 2004, 352-353, the Danes were considered (only, or perhaps rather?) artful and deceitful (insidiosi & dolosi ). Thanks to the fresh edition of Hermelin’s Hecatompolis, we have a remarkable new feature of the Danes, or rather of the Danish army, namely the interest of burning down (wooden) towns, mentioned extremely clearly also in the Greek oratio, Magnus Principatus Finlandia, 380 verses in epic dactylic hexameters composed by the Finnish Johan Paulinus (Lillienstedt) and recited by him in March 1678 in Uppsala: I refer to verse 261, with an undeniably military context, referring to wars: ‘and the Cimbrians, burning, due to immoderate envy’. I am convinced enough to suppose that Hermelin, only two years younger than Paulinus, was in persona listening to the recital of the Magnus Principatus Finlandia in March 1678, having freshly enrolled as a student at the University of Uppsala in 1677.