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Knut Stjerna

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Knut Stjerna
Black and white photograph of Knut Stjerna
Knut Stjerna
Born
Knut Martin Stjerna

(1874-03-14)14 March 1874
Malmö, Sweden
Died15 November 1909(1909-11-15) (aged 35)
Uppsala, Sweden
OccupationLecturer at Uppsala University
Known forArchaeology
Academic background
Alma materLund University
ThesisBidrag till Bornholms befolkningshistoria under järnåldern (1905)
Academic work
DisciplineArchaeology
Sub-discipline
Scandinavian archaeology
InstitutionsUppsala University
Notable students
Sune Lindqvist, Birger Nerman
Notable works
Analyzing Beowulf

Knut Martin Stjerna (14 March 1874 – 15 November 1909) was a Swedish archaeologist and scholar. He is notable for a number of papers analyzing Beowulf from an archaeological perspective. He was a lecturer at Uppsala University, where he taught, among others, Birger Nerman and Sune Lindqvist.

Early life and education

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Knut Stjerna was born on 14 March 1874 in Malmö, Sweden.[1] His parents were Johan Stjerna, the traffic director of the Swedish State Railways, and Matilda Johanna Grönlund.[1] Stjerna completed his secondary-school matriculation examination at the Higher General Secondary School in Malmö on 21 May 1892.[1]

Lund University

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On 6 September 1892, Stjerna enrolled at Lund University.[1] He received his bachelors degree there two years later, on 30 May 1894.[1] He then began work on his licentiate degree, also at Lund University, initially focusing on art history and literary history.[1] The teacher most influential for Stjerna was Henrik Schück; in his seminar on literary history, Stjerna presented his first major independent work, Erik den helige: en sagohistorisk studie ("Erik the Holy: a saga-historical study").[1][2]

Stjerna's paper on Saint Erik combined a comparative-literary methodology that was groundbreaking for its time along with uncompromising source criticism, and quickly attracted attention.[1] It was not necessarily popular, however.[1] Some historians called the approach hypercritical; reading the annual report for 1898, the secretary of the Swedish Historical Society said that Stjera's paper had "caused a stir" (gjort uppseende), and threatened "to dissolve many of our historical personalities into myths" (få många af våra historiska personligheter upplösta i myter).[3][1] Stjerna refused to back down in the debate that ensued, a stubbornness that would soon become characteristic of his scholarly career.[1]

The death of his father forced Stjerna to find work to support his family while he continued with his studies.[1] He found employment at the newspaper Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällposten, where he was personally recruited by its editor Carl Herslow, and worked from 15 December 1900 to 31 December 1905.[1] Sterja was tasked with oversight over the newspaper's new Sunday supplement, and with maintaining contacts with representatives of science, art, and literature.[1] Approaching the work enthusiastically, Stjerna helped produce broad, culturally oriented supplements which were considerably modern in style for the period.[1]

Turn towards archaeology

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In his studies, meanwhile, Stjerna increasingly turned to archaeology.[1] Part of this was due to the intense opposition he had faced with his paper on Saint Erik; this caused him to question whether an academic career was realistically open to him.[1] He may also not have received the support he hoped for from Schück, who left for Uppsala University in the fall of 1898.[1]

In the autumn of 1901, Stjerna published his first independent contributions in Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällposten, reporting on a visit to prehistoric rock carvings at Simrishamn.[1] Before publication, Stjerna sent these to the well-known archaeologist Oscar Montelius for comment.[1] Montelius appreciated the articles, marking the onset of a student–mentor relationship that soon shifted Stjerna's primary scholarly interests entirely towards archaeology.[1]

Stjerna, who was in intense competition with a student and rival, Otto Rydbeck, quickly completed the requirements for a licentiate degree in comparative archaeology.[1] He then worked feverishly to finish his doctoral dissertation.[1] Simultaneously, he began writing a series of articles on the Old English epic poem Beowulf, combining literary history and archaeology.[1]

In March 1903, Stjerna took a second job; in addition to his academic duties and his work at the newspaper, he now worked as an assistant at the Historical Museum at Lund University.[1] Around this time he also became deeply involved in civic and scholarly associations in southern Sweden, likely to help build connections within the academic world.[1]

From 1903 to November 1904, Stjerna was embroiled in an academic dispute over the appointment of the next director of the Historical Museum.[1] On one side of the dispute stood Rydbeck's school (supported by museum inspector Evert Wrangel and National Antiquarian Hans Hildebrand), which was rooted in art history and focused on medieval archaeology.[1] Stjerna stood on the other side, alongside Montelius and the Uppsala archaeologists Bernhard Salin and Oscar Almgren; they emphasised typological prehistoric archaeology, explaining change through the evolution of artefact types.[1] In November 1904, Rydbeck prevailed, and was appointed director of the museum.[1]

Although disappointed in the outcome at the Historical Museum, Stjerna continued with his dissertation.[1] He defended his dissertation in September 1905.[1] Entitled "A Contribution to the Population History of Bornholm during the Iron Age" (Bidrag till Bornholms befolkningshistoria under järnåldern), it was described by Almgren (Stjerna's opponent at the defense) as at once a solid and a brilliant work" (ett på samma gång solitt och genialt arbete).[1] The work was an early and pioneering contribution to settlement archaeology in Sweden.[1]

Political efforts

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Also in 1905, Stjerna devoted significant energy towards political causes.[1] That year, the union between Norway and Sweden was dissolved.[1] Stjerna (who had already proposed a Swedish national anthem) published a nationalist pamphlet in the conservative newspaper Skånska Aftonbladet [sv], arguing that Sweden should annex Narvik to create one of Western Europe's most important industrial and port cities.[1] He also established close ties with Samuel Clason [sv], who was deeply involved in the political debate over the union.[1]

Through Clason, Stjerna became involved in a secret press campaign intended to sway European public opinion in Sweden's favor during the union negotiations.[1] Using his newspaper contacts, he worked relentlessly to place Swedish articles in European newspapers—not an easy task, as sympathy abroad initially lay with Norway.[1]

Even as his dissertation defense approached, Stjerna's attention remained focused on the union negotiations.[1] A week beforehand, he sent repeated telegrams to Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, one of Sweden's four delegates, providing information on public opinion abroad and asking how he should proceed.[1] The agreement dissolving the union was signed on the very day of Stjerna's defense.[1]

The aftermath of Stjerna's efforts, however, was deeply disappointing to him.[1] Honours were bestowed on the foreign journalists in Berlin and Paris that Stjerna had helped cultivate, rewarding their support; Stjerna received nothing.[1] Stjerna was profoundly wounded by the way in which he was overlooked.[1]

Career

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Following his dissertation defense and political activities, Stjerna returned fully to scholarship.[1] Almgren, who in the late 1890s had established Sweden's first archaeology program at Uppsala University, was looking to relinquish responsibility for the subject, and worked to have Stjerna replace him.[1] On December 29, 1905, Stjerna was thus appointed docent in Nordic and Comparative Archaeology at the university, setting him up to replace Almgren.[1]

Two days after his appointment as docent, Stjerna resigned from his newspaper jobs; the same month, he also resigned from the Historical Museum.[1] Supported by a scholarship, he then embarked on an extended study tour of Europe.[1] This included examinations of museum collections in France and Belgium, where he became particularly interested in problems relating to the Western European Stone Age; the interest would later shape his archaeological seminars.[1]

Returning to Uppsala in the autumn of 1906, Stjerna initially shared teaching duties with Almgren for archaeology courses; beginning in the spring semester of 1907, he assumed sole responsibility for such instruction.[1][4] Stjerna also engaged enthusiastically with the academic life of the city, becoming secretary of the Uppland Antiquities Society in May 1907, and of the cultural-historical society Urd (founded by Almgren) around the same time.[1]

Studentholmen excavation

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In 1907, Stjerna undertook a major archaeological excavation in Uppsala with his students.[1] Excavation in preparation to build a new market hall had uncovered the remains of medieval buildings—soon identified as the ruins of the oldest part of the university, known as the Studentholmen ("Students' Islet").[1] Construction was halted, and Sterja brought on to lead the excavation.[1]

The excavation was enormous, and enormously complicated; it involved intricate layers of stone, brick, and timber structures.[1] Stjerna had little practical excavation experience at the time, but approached the task with characteristic energy and ingenuity.[1] He held seminar excavations on the site, turning the excavation into a training ground for his students, and thereby surrounding himself with enthusiastic and capable assistants.[1] He also introduced a reward system for discovering important artifacts and, in an innovative step, hired an artist to construct a scale model of the enigmatic timber structures as they were gradually uncovered.[1]

Stjerna also spent substantial amounts of energy defending the excavation against municipal authorities who, with the strong support of the newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning, were focused on the city's financial interests.[1] Although the conflict grew increasingly bitter, Stjerna, along with the city's academic community, succeeded in raising funds to move the market hall approximately ten meters, thereby preventing the demolition of the newly exposed medieval walls.[1]

Stone Age studies

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Through his archaeological seminar, Stjerna also aimed to provide the first comprehensive study of Sweden's entire Stone Age, continuing the interest he developed during his 1906 tour of Europe.[1] The study was based on settlement archaeology; each student was given responsibility for investigating his home province, and maps were built showing the distribution of archaeological finds.[1] The study was popular, causing more students to enroll in the seminar.[1]

Stjerna aimed to write a comprehensive study of the Nordic Stone Age.[1] As he did so, he began moving away from the strictly typological to archaeology that he had previously employed.[1] He increasingly combined this with a more cultural-historical archaeology, focusing as well on human agency and free choice.[1] This led to an increasing split with Montelius; who criticised Stjerna's methodology and termed it careless.[1]

Stjerna's students at the university included Sune Lindqvist and Birger Nerman.[5][6]

Between 1903 and 1908 Stjerna published a number of articles about the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. In 1912 they were translated into English by John Richard Clark Hall, who was also responsible for several early translations of the poem.[7] Stjerna's articles were credited with "providing a most welcome addition to the critical apparatus of the poem", by supplementing the meagre historical record with observations gleaned from archaeological research.[8]

Personal life

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By 1908 Stjerna's health was deteriorating, and in December he was admitted to the hospital with heart arrhythmia. He was discharged in March and resumed teaching, but died in November at the age of 35.[1]

Publications

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Stjerna published at least 23 works, several posthumous, between 1898 and 1911. They are listed on pages 265–266 of Hall's 1912 translation of Stjerna's works.

  • Stjerna, Knut (1898). "Erik den helige: en sagohistorisk studie" [Erik the holy: a saga-historical study]. Lunds Universitets årsskrift [Lund University yearbook] (in Swedish). 1. Lund: Lunds universitet: 1–34. Open access icon
  • Stjerna, Knut (1899). "Påfvebrefvet om Sankt Eriks korståg" [The papal brief on Saint Eric's crusade]. Historisk Tidskrift [Historical journal] (in Swedish). 19. Stockholm: Svenska Historiska Föreningen: 237–239. Open access icon

References

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Bibliography

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Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Knut_Stjerna&oldid=1366811798"