From Troy to Indo-Europe: Long-Term Continuities in Icelandic 'National' Mythography

In this paper, pre-modern and modern uses of mythology will be discussed in relation to their role in the creation of ethnic identities. Around 1800, the historical genre of mythology acquired new layers of academic value as support for the theory of the Indo-European language family grew. The influential Icelandic runologist Finnur Magnússon (1781-1847) argued in favor of a new appraisal for the Old Norse myths (the Eddas) and debunked rationalist critiques portraying them as childish distortions of initially historical events (euhemerism). Instead, they were the Old Norse equivalent of ancient Greek and Indian mythologies, and a unique branch which had sprouted organically from the great ‘Eurasian myth-tree’. As such, the myths did not only deserve full rehabilitation; they were to become a focal point for all artists and writers in Scandinavia wishing to create ‘national art’, and to contribute to a cultural rejuvenation of the North. This new paradigm may be considered a break with the past, paving the way for the ‘ethnic cultivation’ of mythology by Romantic nationalists. However, from the meta-perspective, Finnur Magnússon’s emancipatory programme had more in common with that of his famous medieval predecessor Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241) than he himself would have been willing to admit. Like Magnússon, Sturluson sought to salvage and emancipate his island’s cultural heritage by embedding the Eddas in a universal discourse – in his case: the story of Troy – with the argument that the ancient gods had in fact been Trojans who travelled to Scandinavia; the very theory of euhemerism Magnússon would later attack. How do the rhetorical devices applied in Magnússon’s and Sturluson’s programmes of ‘national’ emancipation through mythology overlap? And how ‘new’ was the ‘modern’ approach to mythology? As a contribution to the wider debate, this paper will consider how cultural heritage forges links between the – politically defined – pre-modern and the modern periods, and how artificial chronological divides can be overwritten.