Christian Leden
Encyclopedia
Christian Leden was a Norwegian ethno-musicologist and composer. He was the first person to record film in the northern Arctic
.
, Nord-Trøndelag
, Norway. In 1901, he trained in Christiania
to be a musician. He studied musicology
in Berlin
, entering the composer class at Royal Hochschule fur Musik
in 1904. While in Germany, he changed his surname from Refsaas to Leden. From 1904 through 1909, he was a church organist in Tromsø
.
. In the spring of 1909, he received travel funds from the Danish Carlsberg fund
to go to northern Greenland to study Inuit music on a voyage with the Danish polar scientist Knud Rasmussen. In the autumn of that year, he returned to Europe and worked on the music he had collected. He traveled in Northern Canada
in 1911, West Greenland in 1912, and through the Keewatin Region
in 1913. On his travels to Greenland and Canada, he collected large amounts of music, including approximately 1000 wax roll recordings. He collected large quantities of crafts with special emphasis on Inuit art
. He preserved a significant amount of film and photographs from his expeditions, and he learned the Inuit language
. During his fifth Arctic trip, a three-year expedition to the Keewatin Region
on the west coast of Hudson Bay
, he went to several villages collecting everything he could, from art to everyday objects. Leden cataloged his collection with each item's Inuktitut
name and English name, as well as its function.
In 1919, American whaler George Comer
was captain of Leden's chartered voyage to study amongst the Inuit. Their schooner, the Finback, grounded at Cape Fullerton
and was lost. Fortunately, everyone survived. The following year, Leden was on another expedition that wrecked on a reef in Hudson Bay
. He traveled to East Greenland in 1920 and 1926. In 1949 and 1954, he traveled in South America, including Chile, Argentina, and Easter Island
, but the materials he collected during these expeditions were neither edited or published though he recorded thirteen songs on nine wax cylinders. He also worked to preserve Norwegian folk music
, traveling the country in 1937-1938 making recordings.
Leden received support from the Geological Survey of Canada who helped him to continue his ethnographic work over several years. His expeditions were sponsored by the King and Queen of Norway, the University of Christiania
, and the Danish Carlsberger Institute. His work was compiled in the Danish Folklore Archives
, and was later transferred to the Royal Danish Library. Some of his recordings are housed at the Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel.
Leden wrote several articles that were published in journals, including "Christmas Among the Eskimos", "Trapping Salmon in the Far North", "A Chapter from my Eskimo Travels", and "Mobilizing the Arctic". The books he wrote, detailing his research, were published in German:
When he finished his field work, the analysis and book writing, he traveled around the world, giving a series of lectures about his work.
In the 1930s Leden became involved in Nazi German
racial research, meeting with amongst others the leading Nazi racial theorist Hans F. K. Günther in Berlin. Leden joined the racial theorist organization Nordischer Ring c. 1930. He also had contacts with national socialist organizations both in Germany and Norway, including the SS Ahnenerbe
think tank. He also worked for the Völkischer Beobachter
, and in 1940 joined the foreign branch of the Norwegian national socialist party Nasjonal Samling. His Nazi connections is part of the reason his work is relatively unknown in Norway.
, Germany - died 1998, Nesodden
, Norway) in 1934 and they made their home in Berlin and Oslo. They had six children. Leden died in 1957.
Northern Arctic
The Northern Arctic Ecozone is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone which includes most of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the northeast peninsula of Nunavut, and the northwestern tip of Quebec...
.
Early years
Leden was born in InderøyInderøy
Inderøy is a municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Innherad region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Straumen. Other villages include Gangstadhaugen, Hylla, Kjerknesvågen, Røra, Sakshaug, Sandvollan, Småland, Utøy, and Vangshylla.The...
, Nord-Trøndelag
Nord-Trøndelag
is a county constituting the northern part of Trøndelag in Norway. As of 2010, the county had 131,555 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth-least populated county. The largest municipalities are Stjørdal, Steinkjer—the county seat, Levanger, Namsos and Verdal, all with between 21,000 and...
, Norway. In 1901, he trained in Christiania
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
to be a musician. He studied musicology
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, entering the composer class at Royal Hochschule fur Musik
Berlin University of the Arts
The Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK is a public art school in Berlin, Germany, one of the four universities in the city...
in 1904. While in Germany, he changed his surname from Refsaas to Leden. From 1904 through 1909, he was a church organist in Tromsø
Tromsø
Tromsø is a city and municipality in Troms county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø.Tromsø city is the ninth largest urban area in Norway by population, and the seventh largest city in Norway by population...
.
Career
Leden was interested in the early music of Greenland's InuitKalaallit
Kalaallit is the contemporary term in the Kalaallisut language for the indigenous people living in Greenland, also called the Kalaallit Nunaat. The singular term is kalaaleq. The Kalaallit are a part of the Arctic Inuit people. The language spoken by Inuit in Greenland is Kalaallisut.Historically,...
. In the spring of 1909, he received travel funds from the Danish Carlsberg fund
Carlsberg Foundation
Carlsberg Foundation was founded by J. C. Jacobsen in 1876 and owns 30,3% of the shares in Carlsberg Group and has 74,2% of the voting power.The purpose of the foundation is to run and fund Carlsberg Laboratory, the museum at Frederiksborg Palace, to fund scientific research, run the Ny Carlsberg...
to go to northern Greenland to study Inuit music on a voyage with the Danish polar scientist Knud Rasmussen. In the autumn of that year, he returned to Europe and worked on the music he had collected. He traveled in Northern Canada
Northern Canada
Northern Canada, colloquially the North, is the vast northernmost region of Canada variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three territories of Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut...
in 1911, West Greenland in 1912, and through the Keewatin Region
Keewatin Region, Northwest Territories
The Keewatin Region was a region of the Northwest Territories, in use as an administrative and statistical division until the creation of Nunavut in 1999...
in 1913. On his travels to Greenland and Canada, he collected large amounts of music, including approximately 1000 wax roll recordings. He collected large quantities of crafts with special emphasis on Inuit art
Inuit art
Inuit art refers to artwork produced by Inuit people, that is, the people of the Arctic previously known as Eskimos, a term that is now often considered offensive outside Alaska...
. He preserved a significant amount of film and photographs from his expeditions, and he learned the Inuit language
Inuit language
The Inuit language is traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and to some extent in the subarctic in Labrador. The related Yupik languages are spoken in western and southern Alaska and Russian Far East, particularly the Diomede Islands, but is severely endangered in Russia today and...
. During his fifth Arctic trip, a three-year expedition to the Keewatin Region
Keewatin Region, Northwest Territories
The Keewatin Region was a region of the Northwest Territories, in use as an administrative and statistical division until the creation of Nunavut in 1999...
on the west coast of Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay , sometimes called Hudson's Bay, is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada. It drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut, as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota,...
, he went to several villages collecting everything he could, from art to everyday objects. Leden cataloged his collection with each item's Inuktitut
Inuktitut
Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...
name and English name, as well as its function.
In 1919, American whaler George Comer
George Comer
Captain George Comer was considered the most famous American whaling captain of Hudson Bay, and the world's foremost authority on Hudson Bay Inuit in the early 20th century....
was captain of Leden's chartered voyage to study amongst the Inuit. Their schooner, the Finback, grounded at Cape Fullerton
Cape Fullerton
Cape Fullerton is a cape and peninsula in Nunavut, Canada located on the northwest shores of Hudson Bay on Roes Welcome Sound and includes Fullerton Harbour...
and was lost. Fortunately, everyone survived. The following year, Leden was on another expedition that wrecked on a reef in Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay , sometimes called Hudson's Bay, is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada. It drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut, as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota,...
. He traveled to East Greenland in 1920 and 1926. In 1949 and 1954, he traveled in South America, including Chile, Argentina, and Easter Island
Easter Island
Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...
, but the materials he collected during these expeditions were neither edited or published though he recorded thirteen songs on nine wax cylinders. He also worked to preserve Norwegian folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, traveling the country in 1937-1938 making recordings.
Leden received support from the Geological Survey of Canada who helped him to continue his ethnographic work over several years. His expeditions were sponsored by the King and Queen of Norway, the University of Christiania
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...
, and the Danish Carlsberger Institute. His work was compiled in the Danish Folklore Archives
Danish National Archives
Danish National Archives is the National archive of Denmark. The primary purpose is to collect, preserve and archive historically valuable records from central authorities, such as ministries, agencies and national organisations and make them available to the public...
, and was later transferred to the Royal Danish Library. Some of his recordings are housed at the Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel.
Leden wrote several articles that were published in journals, including "Christmas Among the Eskimos", "Trapping Salmon in the Far North", "A Chapter from my Eskimo Travels", and "Mobilizing the Arctic". The books he wrote, detailing his research, were published in German:
- Uber Kiwatins Eisfelder—Drei Jahre Unter Kanadischen Eskimos ("Across the Keewatin Icefields: Three Years Among the Canadian Eskimos, 1913-1916")
- Über die Musik der Smith Sund Eskimos und ihre Verwandtschaft mit der Musik der Amerikanischen Indianer
- Über die Musik der Ostgrönländer
- Bei den Indianern Kanadas
- Nanuk tauscht seine Frau
When he finished his field work, the analysis and book writing, he traveled around the world, giving a series of lectures about his work.
In the 1930s Leden became involved in Nazi German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
racial research, meeting with amongst others the leading Nazi racial theorist Hans F. K. Günther in Berlin. Leden joined the racial theorist organization Nordischer Ring c. 1930. He also had contacts with national socialist organizations both in Germany and Norway, including the SS Ahnenerbe
Ahnenerbe
The Ahnenerbe was a Nazi German think tank that promoted itself as a "study society for Intellectual Ancient History." Founded on July 1, 1935, by Heinrich Himmler, Herman Wirth, and Richard Walther Darré, the Ahnenerbe's goal was to research the anthropological and cultural history of the Aryan...
think tank. He also worked for the Völkischer Beobachter
Völkischer Beobachter
The Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923...
, and in 1940 joined the foreign branch of the Norwegian national socialist party Nasjonal Samling. His Nazi connections is part of the reason his work is relatively unknown in Norway.
Personal life
Leden lost his autobiography twice. The first time, his pre-written manuscript was taken as evidence during the war because he had lived in Germany and had married a German woman. The second time, in the 1950s, his suitcase was stolen. When he sat down to write his autobiography for the third time, he did not complete it. He married Liselotte Steinicke (born 1904, DanzigGdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
, Germany - died 1998, Nesodden
Nesodden
Nesodden is a municipality in Akershus county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Follo. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Nesoddtangen. The parish of Næsodden was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838...
, Norway) in 1934 and they made their home in Berlin and Oslo. They had six children. Leden died in 1957.