The beginnings of political organization among the Swedish Lapps (Sami)

Abstract

It is now 60 years since the Swedish Lapps held their first national assembly (landsmöte) in Östersund in 1918. One year later the first issue appeared of Samefolkets Egen Tidning [The Lappish People's Own Newspaper], which, under the title Samefolket [The Lappish People], is still published, and thus provides a continuous record of organizational developments among the Swedish Lapps. In this article I shall survey political organization among this particular ethnic group during the period 1918 to 1937. Although Lappish debates now transcend the national frontiers of Fennoscandia, in the early years of ethnic politics there were separate developments in Norway, Sweden and Finland, with rather rare organizational contacts between the Lapps of the different countries. It is to be hoped that the record will later be completed by discussions of events in Norway and Finland; Sweden, however, provides a useful starting point, both because of the continuous publication of an ethnic newspaper, and the sustained interest of the Swedish state authorities, which permitted the publication of the proceedings of national meetings at a time when the other two countries were tardy in encouraging such ethnic awareness.