Representations of the Chudes in Norwegian and Russian Folklore

Abstract

The objectives of this article are (1) to reveal the meaning (semantics) of the word “Chude” in Norwegian and Russian cultures; (2) to analyze Russian and Norwegian legends about the Chudes in order to define the main plot-constructing elements. When writing this article the authors used a synchronous and diachronous methods of analysis of material that was written down in a period that exceeds one and a half centuries. In etymological sense the word “Chude” (tsjude or Cud) can be derivative form from old Slavic form *tjudjo (strange, foreign) that can in its turn be borrowing from a Gothic or a German word that got the meaning “a nation” (folk). With the Sami the word “tshudde”/ “shutte” means an enemy, an adversary. The image of the Chudes has been preserved in Russian and Norwegian narrative traditions. Oral stories in Norway are called sagn. In Russian folkoristic narratives about the Chudes are traditionally called “predanie”.

The ethnonym “Chude” has a collective meaning in Russian and Norwegian folklore. In Norwegian culture it means plunderers of different ethnical belonging who came from the East to plunder the local population in the Northern Norway. As the undertaken research has shown, this name could have been applicable to Russian, Finns, Karelians, Kvens and peoples speaking Nordic languages (Swedes). In the Russian cultural tradition the name “Chude” was used to name different Finno-Ugric peoples living in the North-West Russia before the Russians came there and who later assimilated with the Russians. The Kola Sami called Swedes and Norwegians who came to them from the west to plunder the Chudes. The existence of a people in the same name in the old times is not excluded. The research carried out by place name scientists reveals that this people could be related to the Baltic-Finnish group of peoples.

The word Chude has historical and mythological aspects. Folk legends about the Chudes have “preserved” memories about the historical past of the northern region. Additionally this ethnonym contains conceptions of the world's binary character that are typical for archaic consciousness. Folk legends about the Chudes are widespread in the European North of Russia while plots about militant and plundering Chudes are localized in traditional Sami regions of Russia and Norway. In folk legends and sagn, the Russians and the Sami belong to one's “own” world, while the Chudes are associated with the concepts of the “strangers”. This nomination acquired the meaning “a stranger”, “a robber”.

Keywords:

• Chude
• “Sagn”
• “Predanie”
• Norway
• Russia

Notes

1. See also Melnikova & Petrukhin, 1997: 203–233.

2. Before the 1970s the name was used in relation to the Sami who moved to Nord-Salten in the eighteenth century after Lule-Sami pastures in Sweden became impoverished. In Norway they started to farm, fish and hunt. In Norway the Lule-Sami live between Salfjellet in the South to Ofoten in the North, but most of the Lule-Sami live on the Swedish territory

3. The Old Norse word kven is connected with the word hvein which meant “a marshy low place” and partially “thin grass” / “place with thin grass”, i.e. it went down to the name of coastal landscape. Russian and Finnish researches characterize Kvens in the Gulf of Bothnia. See Gallén, J. and Lind, J. (1991).

4. The facts of plundering attacks on the White Sea coast are incompletely represented in Norwegian history although these voyages had taken place long before 1326, as well as during the period from 1419 to 1445. Such an attack is mentioned in the Novgorod Chronicle in 1419. See Lars Ivar, 2001: 25 − 26

5. Already by 1326 Russian taxation of the Sami who lived in Troms county was made routine and was accepted by the Norwegian authorities. It continued until 1600. Only in 1826 were the last areas of common Russian– Norwegian territory in Northern Varanger divided. See Havard Dahl Bratrein, 2004: 373 − 383.

6. In Qvigstad's books (Pollan & Qvigstad, 1997: 242–267) there are published folk legends “Tsjudene i Notozero” (Nr. 94 ) and “Veiviseren over Einavidda” (Nr. 95), that tell us about the Chudes’ attempt to invade Kola fortress in a battle with Russian Orthodox Skolt-Sami.

7. Strømsted, 1970, referring to A. Helland who writes that in 1884 (in Jukkasjarvi county) two Kven- speaking travellers who lost their way were shot in a Sami village having being taken for Chude plunderers.

8. Information is given by candidate of philological science Y. I. Smirnov (Moscow).

9. Most often the guide is a Sami man, more seldom a Sami woman, as, for example in the folk legend that has lived to present time – “Russerne som kjørte utfor stupet” (Larsen & Larsen, 2002: 31).

10. According to Sami beliefs noaids could heal diseases. One thought that the strongest of them could kill with the power of their thought, therefore they could be engaged as murderers.

11. Povest vremennyh let. ?., 1962. Vol. 1, Col. 4.

12. Information acquired in 2003 at Pochezerye village in Pinezhsky municipality, from N. S. Mitkina, born 1947.

13. FA PSU: Folder. 324. Written down in 2001 from M. G. Poroshina, born 1927, in the village of Bestuzhevo, Ustyansky municipality.

14. FA PSU: Folder 501. Written down in 2005 from A. N. Gubina, born 1926; ?. ?. Potapova, born 1950 in the village Vershinino, Plesetsky municipality.

15. Matveev A. K. (nd). Substratnaya toponimia Russkogo Severa.