Jürg Glauser, Zürich | The Jomsvikings on Wolin
Sa 15.09.2018 | 10:00 Uhr | Rathaus Rostock
The Jomsvikings in Wollin
While a substantial part of the literature of the Icelandic Middle Ages has a North-Atlantic setting, a number of narratives deal with the Baltic region and East-Scandinavian topics. The most important of these stories is the so-called 'Saga about the Jomsvikings' (Jómsvíkinga saga), a prose narrative, written in the Old Icelandic language around 1200 and extant in Icelandic manuscripts from later centuries. The saga tells of historical events in Denmark and Norway around the year 1000. Its most fascinating part is however the description of a Viking stronghold at Jómsborg and its inhabitants, the Jomsvikings, a band of heroic champions. The paper presents some of the main features of this rather unusual saga and discusses, how a fictitious place in Wendland, Jómsvík, became an icon of Viking heroism. The question how far the present-day Wollin can be identified with the Jómsvík of the saga will also be discussed, since it raises the general problem of the relation between literature and archaeology.
Jürg Glauser
- Born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1951
- Studied Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in Zurich, Reykjavík, Uppsala, Oslo, and Copenhagen
- Until July 2017 Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Basel and the University of Zurich
- Ed. Skandinavische Literaturgeschichte, 2006/2016; Isländische Literaturgeschichte, 2011; Co-Ed., Handbook of Pre-Modern Nordic Memory Studies. Interdisciplinary approaches, 2018
Contact: jglauser (at) ds.uzh.ch
Web: https://www.ds.uzh.ch/de/ueber_uns/personen?detail=48]
Foto:privat
