Uno Harva

{{Infobox person

| name = Uno Harva

| image = Uno Harva.jpg

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1882|08|30|df=y}}

| birth_place = Ypäjä

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1949|8|13|1882|8|30|df=y}}

| death_place = Turku

| nationality = Finnish

| other_names = Uno Holmberg

| occupation = Theology, Sociology

| alma_mater = University of Helsinki

| years_active =

| known_for =

| notable_works =

}}

Uno Nils Oskar Harva (known as Uno Holmberg until 1927; 30 August 1882, Ypäjä – 13 August 1949, Turku) was a Finnish religious scholar, who founded the discipline in Finland together with Rafael Karsten. A major figure in North Eurasian ethnology and study of religion, Harva is best known for his body of work on Finno-Ugric and Altaic religions.{{cite book|title=Shamanism and Northern Ecology|date=1996|page=32|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kT_eNhHCzxUC|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=9783110811674|editor=Juha Pentikäinen}} He is considered to be one of the foremost 20th-century European interpreters of shamanism.{{cite book|title=Genealogies of Shamanism: Struggles for Power, Charisma and Authority|date=2011|page=112|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r_f-01YO4s0C|publisher=Barkhuis|author=Jeroen W Boekhoven|isbn=9789077922927}}

Career

Harva conducted fieldwork among the Siberian Ket and Evenk peoples in the 1910s, researching their mythology and religion. He also spent the summers of 1911–1913 with the Finno-Ugric Votyaks (Udmurts) in the Urals and the Cheremis (the Mari people) on the Volga. He is considered to be an important anthropologist of Siberia.{{cite book|title=Shamanism: Critical Concepts in Sociology|date=2004|page=263|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HpbY-CgxWe4C|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=9780415332491|editor=Andrei A. Znamenski}}{{cite book|title=Arctic: Environment, People, Policy|date=2000|page=418|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y_zE45Jht_8C|publisher=CRC Press|isbn=9789058230874|editor1=Mark Nuttall|editor2=Terry Callaghan}}

His study Der Baum des Lebens (The Tree of Life; 1922–23) was the first to show that the world tree from Norse mythology had many parallels in Europe and Asia.{{cite book|title=Tracing Old Norse Cosmology|date=2014|page=34|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=grqMAgAAQBAJ|publisher=Nordic Academic Press|author=Anders Andrén|isbn=9789185509386}}

Harva wrote the fourth volume of the book series The Mythology of All Races in 1927. It contains a classic general description of Subarctic shamanism.

Principal works

  • Die Wassergottheiten der Finno-Ugrischen Völker (German: The Water Divinities of the Finno-Ugric Peoples; 1913)
  • Permalaisten uskonto (1914)
  • Tsheremissien uskonto (Finnish: The Cheremi Religion; 1914)
  • Lappalaisten uskonto (Finnish: The Lapp Religion; 1915)
  • Elämänpuu (Finnish: The Tree of Life; 1920); reprinted in German as Der Baum des Lebens (1922)
  • Jumalauskon alkuperä (1916)
  • Pohjoisen Euroopan ja Aasian pyyntiriiteistä (1922)
  • Finno-Ugric, Siberian Mythology (1927)
  • Altain suvun uskonto (1933)
  • Die religiösen Vorstellungen der altaischen Völker (German: Religious Concepts of the Altaic Peoples; 1938)
  • Mordvalaisten muinaisusko (1942)
  • Sammon ryöstö (1943)
  • Suomalaisten muinaisusko (1948)

References