Jóannes Patursson was a Faroese

Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark proper and Greenland...

 nationalist leader and poet.

He was the great-grandson of the Faroese national hero Nólsoyar Páll

Nólsoyar Páll

Nólsoyar Páll is a Faroese national hero. He was a seaman, trader, poet, farmer and boat builder who tried to develop direct trade between the Faroes and the rest of Europe and introduced vaccination to the islands...

. His brother Sverre Patursson was an important writer and his sister Susanna Helena Patursson the first feminist of the Faroe Islands.

Background

Jóannes was born in 1866 as the eldest son of a wealthy farmer in Kirkjubøur

Kirkjubøur

Kirkjubøur is the southernmost village on Streymoy, Faroe Islands and the country's most important historical site.It is located on the west coast and has a view towards the islands Hestur and Koltur.-History:...

. The so-called King's Farm

Kirkjubøargarður

Kirkjubøargarður is one of the oldest still inhabited wooden houses of the world. The farm itself has always been the largest in the Faroe Islands....

 of Kirkjubøur dates back to the 11th century, was the seat of the Faroese bishop until the 1536 Reformation and became — and still remains today — the greatest Royal Danish fief of the Faroese when King Christian III of Denmark

Christian III of Denmark

Christian III reigned as king of Denmark and Norway. He was the eldest son of King Frederick I and Anna of Brandenburg.-Childhood:...

 confiscated the clerical properties. Jóannes Patursson was to become one of the greatest Faroese of his time.

On the traditional farmstead he grew up in an environment where Faroese folklore was especially cultivated. Here people had gathered for centuries for the daily Kvøldseta, the evening get-together, where old tales would be told, Faroese ballads

Kvæði

Kvæði are the old ballads of the Faroe Islands, accompanied by the Faroese dance....

 would be sung and the Faroese dance

Faroese dance

The Faroese dance is the national chain dance of the Faroe Islands, accompanied by kvæði, the Faroese ballads.The dance is a mediaeval ring dance, which only survived in the Faroe Islands, while in other European countries it was banned by the church, due to its pagan origin...

 was popular. All this happened at a time when the Faroese language

Faroese language

Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...

 was only just being committed to writing due to this oral tradition.

National movement

Jóannes was sent to Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 for an apprenticeship in farming. There he came across the Norwegian national movement that was fighting to prevent the Norwegian language

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...

 from being assimilated by Danish

Danish language

Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...

.

At home in Tórshavn

Tórshavn

Tórshavn is the capital and largest town of the Faroe Islands. It is located in the southern part on the east coast of Streymoy. To the north west of the town lies the high mountain Húsareyn, and to the southwest, the high Kirkjubøreyn...

, the Faroese capital near the Patursson farm, Danish was at the time the overwhelmingly dominant language. Still it was a time of national awakening. Already in 1865 the Danish trading monopoly had been lifted from the Faroe Islands and the islanders were experiencing a fast development from a medieval agricultural society to a modern nation of fishermen.

In 1888, the Faroese national movement was "officially" created at the legendary Christmas Meeting, Jóannes Patursson being one of the main actors. Especially for this occasion he wrote a battle hymn, Nú er tann stundin komin til handa (Now is the hour come for acting). Allegedly, the 22-year-old Patursson was too timid to present his hymn at the meeting, so his older compatriot Rasmus Effersøe was selected.

Although Nú er tann stundin komin til handa does not reach the quality of Patursson's later poetry, it became a symbol of the struggle of the Faroese language and culture which, for example, was later to be Janus Djurhuus

Janus Djurhuus

Jens Hendrik Oliver Djurhuus, called Janus Djurhuus, was the first modern Faroese poet...

' "linguistic baptism".

Political career

In 1901, at the age of 35, Patursson was elected to the Parliament of Denmark for the first time. In 1903 he published his book Færøsk politik (Faroese politics) in which he formulates five guidelines:

1. The Løgting
   Løgting
   Løgting is the unicameral parliament of the Faroe Islands, a self-ruling dependency of Denmark.The name literally means "Law Thing" - that is, a law assembly - and derives from Old Norse lǫgþing, which was a name given to ancient assemblies. A ting or Þing has existed on the Faroe Islands for over...
   
    is elected by the entire people and is led by a chairman and his substitute.
2. The Ombudsman
   Ombudsman
   An ombudsman is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing not only but mostly the broad scope of constituent interests...
   
    of the Realm participates in the sessions but he himself has no voting right.
3. No law of the Faroe Islands becomes effective without approval by the Løgting.
4. The Løgting may suggest laws which can be directly approved by the chairman.
5. Under the supervision of the Chairman, the Løgting gains control of Faroese finances.

At the time, such demands were revolutionary, while today they are the basis of Faroese politics.

In 1906, Patursson founded the Independence Party, Sjálvstýrisflokkurin.

In 1939 he was again co-founder of a party, the People's Party, Fólkaflokkurin, becoming their vice-chairman.

External links

• patursson.com - Homepage of the Kirkjubøur Farm (englisch)