Kven: Encyclopedia II - Kven - Kvens today - the Finns of Northern Norway

Kven - Kvens today - the Finns of Northern Norway

In today's Norway the term Kven (sometimes written also: Cween, Kven, Kveen, Quen, Queen) refers to the Finnish minority people in Northern Norway, who have settled there before the 20th century.

After the Middle Ages and the migration of the so called Tornedalians the next larger migration wave up north - this time again reaching the coastal areas of today's Norway - happened in the early 18th century. The following Kven migration to Northern Norway - and to the areas that were a part of the Republic of Finland up till 1944 - took place in the beginning of the 19th century, reaching a peak during the famine in Finland in the 1860s.

The immigrants now were - for the most part - poor farmers looking for land in areas that today form the Norwegian provinces of Troms and Finnmark. The first immigrants arrived to parishes such as Alta, Balsfjord, Børselv, Lyngen, Nordreisa, Skibotn and Tana. The later arrivers settled in the eastern parts of Finnmark, along the Varanger Fjord. They integrated quickly into the Norwegian society to live along with the Norwegians and Sami people. For instance, in places like Vadsø - where they were the majority of the population - they soon considered the Norwegian cultural identity as a standard.

At first, the authorities welcomed the Finnish immigrants, because their arrival stimulated the local economy, bringing new and more efficient methods for the arctic agriculture. From around 1880 on the Kvens were treated as a minority and they were forced to use the Norwegian instead of the language of their own. This was a common type of policy in the whole of Europe at the time.

Besides, Norway had its own so called Norwegization policy in the late 1800s. It effected hardest the Sami population. The Kvens, on the other hand, had quite a similar cultural identity with the Norwegians, and they usually also spoke Norwegian. The policy nevertheless effected the Kven culture, traditions and language as well.

From 1970s on the Kvens and the Samis in Norway have openly been allowed to use the original mother tongue of the Kvens, i.e. an old Kven dialect of Finnish language and to teach it to their children at schools. This new policy was enforced via special language laws for minorities.

Today, most speakers of the so called Kven Finnish are found mostly in the extreme north-eastern parts of Norway, in such communities as Bugoynes and Neiden (Municipality of Sør-Varanger), Vestre Jakobselv and Vadso (Vadsø Municipality) and Børselv (Municipality of Porsanger). A few older speakers may still be found also in the municipalities of Nordreisa and Storfjord. Bugøynes - by Varanger Fjord - perhaps remains the most vital of all the remaining Kven communities in Norway.

Besides Norway, in the historical and traditional Kvenland territories of Northern Scandinavia and areas that today are part of Northwestern Russia, the descendants of the Kvens are no longer referred to as Kvens.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Kvens today - the Finns of Northern Norway", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki