In my historical-literary and theoretical argument, I spell Greenlandic toponyms following modern Greenlandic spelling rules. In analytical passages, I rely on the ←42 | 43→spelling that Knud Rasmussen used in the first editions of the writings I address. For example, when referring to a North-Greenland island where the participants of the Literary Expedition camped, I write “Agpat,” which is consistent with the spelling of the name in the first edition of Nye Mennesker of 1905. In quotations from the English editions of reports by polar explorers from Scandinavia, I retain the Greenlandic spelling employed in the original editions, and when providing bracketed Danish and Norwegian vocabulary and expressions, I use their original spelling.
My Polish book entitled W sercu Ultima Thule. Reprezentacje Grenlandii Północnej w relacjach z ekspedycji Knuda Rasmussena, which grew out of the PhD project I completed in 2014 and was published in 2017, was based on my study of Knud Rasmussen’s books which appeared in Danish. In this version, I use quotations from English editions of texts by Rasmussen and also by Fridtjof Nansen and Eivind Astrup. Since Rasmussen’s Min Rejsedagbog (My Travel Diary) has not been translated into English yet, quotations from this book and from the chapter “Efter Vildren” in Nye Mennesker were translated from Danish by Professor Jørgen Veisland, based on the first editions of the two works.
←43 | 44→←44 | 45→
2 The passage was translated from Danish by Jørgen Veisland. See http://naalakkersuisut.gl/~/media/Nanoq/Files/Attached%20Files/Naalakkersuisut/DK/Taler/Nytårstale%202016%20DK_endelig.pdf (Accessed 7 Feb. 2016).
3 See Sylwia Izabela Schab, “Zmowa (prze)milczenia,” Czas Kultury, Vol. 169, No 4 (2012), pp. 46–51.
4 This found what was probably its most vivid expression in a satirical cartoon which appeared in The Guardian on 26th January 2016. The cartoon showed Denmark’s PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen wearing a Nazi uniform, with a caption that parodied the slogan of an internationally known commercial for Carlsberg, a Danish beer brand: “Probably the stupidest political party in the world.” See http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2016/jan/26/steve-bell-on-denmark-seizing-refugees-assets-cartoon (Accessed 7 Feb. 2016).
5 Søren Flott and Thomas Laursen, Danske tropekolonier: I kølvandet på Galathea (København: Jylland-Postens Forlag, 2007), p. 71.
6 Henning Bro, Kilder til en dansk kolonihistorie (København: Det Grønlandske Selskab, 1993), p. 99.
7 Bro, Kilder til en dansk kolonihistorie, p. 60.
8 Bro, Kilder til en dansk kolonihistorie, pp. 94–95.
9 This can be blamed on Danish historians, who since the 1970s have almost exclusively described the past of Denmark as a state confined within its current borders and have only rarely addressed its former territories. Consequently, studies of Danish history have not covered the numerous, vast areas that had formed part of the Empire over centuries. The past has been comprehended as leading directly to the modern Danish nation-state with the frontiers as known today. Michael Bregnsbo and Kurt Villads Jensen, Det danske imperium – storhed og fald (København: Aschehoug, 2004), p. 8.
10 The entire sentence, reading “For hvert et Tab igjen Erstatning findes, hvad udad tabes, det maa indad vindes,” was coined by author Hans Peter Holst (1811–1893). Whenever there are no official English translations of the Nordic-language terminology I use, I add the original word in brackets the way it was spelled when a given text was published. For example, nouns were as a rule capitalised in Danish when Knud Rasmussen’s texts on which I focus in this book appeared. All quotations from Danish and Norwegian literary texts as yet unpublished in English were translated by Jørgen Veisland.
11 Klaus Petersen, “Handselsstationen i Thule,” Tidsskriftet Grønland, Vol. 44, No 6 (1996), p. 224.
12 Petersen, “Handselsstationen i Thule,” p. 228; Gert Müntzberg and Peter Simonsen, “Knud Rasmussen og handelsstationen Thule 1910–37,” Historie/Jyske Samlinger, No. 2 (1996), pp. 220–221. Knud Michelesen presents a different viewpoint, claiming that Denmark’s lack of interest in expanding its sovereignty over North Greenland was due solely to the fact that the government regarded such an expansion as financially unviable. Knud Michelsen, Vejen til Thule: Knud Rasmussen belyst gennem breve og andre kilder 1902–1910 (København: Forlaget Falcon, 2014), pp. 60–61.
13 Such attempts included, for example, Poul Brink’s (1953–2002) journalistic investigation into the crash of a US B-52 bomber in the vicinity of the US Thule air-base. Brink’s findings were published in Thule-sagen – løgnens univers (1997, The Thule Affair: A Universe of Lies), a book adapted to the screen by Christina Rosendahl as The Idealist (Idealisten, 2015). Another notable effort was a book-length reportage entitled I den bedste mening (1998, With the Best Intentions) by Danish journalist Tine Bryld (1939–2011), who revealed the experiences of the twenty-two Greenlandic children that were first sent to Denmark and then consigned to an orphanage in Nuuk. The book was used by Louise Friedberg for her film The Experiment (Eksperimentet, 2010).
14 Tomasz Brańka, “Geopolityczny status Królestwa Danii – mit państwa unitarnego,” Przegląd Politologiczny No. 4 (2012), p. 22.
15 Moss, Enduring Dreams, p. 28.
16 This is consistent with Hanna-Mari Ikonen and Samu Pehkonen’s position that humans tend to perceive the world in a dualistic manner. Hanna-Mari Ikonen, Samu Pehkonen, “Explorers in the Arctic: Doing Feminine Nature in a Masculine Way,” in: Encountering the North: Cultural Geography, International Relations and Northern Landscape, eds. Frank Möller and Samu Pehkonen (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), p. 129. On the construction of the North in the discourse of the South, see James S. Romm, The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 157–158; Hieronim Chojnacki, Polska “poezja Północy”: Maria, Irydion, Lilla Weneda (Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 1998), pp. 9–30; Peter Stadius, “The Gothic Tradition and the North: The Image of Gustavus Adolphus and His Men in 17th-Century Spain,” in: Northbound: Travels, Images, Encounters 1700–1830, ed. Karen Klitgaard Povlsen (Århus: Århus University Press, 2007), p. 64; Jesper Hede, “Northern Time Travel in the Eighteenth Century: European Invention of Nordic Literature,” in: Northbound: Travels, Images, Encounters 1700–1830, ed. Karen Klitgaard Povlsen (Århus: Århus University Press, 2007), p. 29; Hendriette Kliemann-Geisinger, “Mapping the North – Spatial Dimensions and Geographical Concepts in Northern Europe,” in: Northbound: Travels, Images, Encounters 1700–1830, ed. Karen Klitgaard Povlsen (Århus: Århus University Press, 2007), p. 83.
