Poul Poulsen Nolsøe
Poul Poulsen Nolsøe , called Nólsoyar Páll (born October 11, 1766 on Nólsoy ; † 1809 before Sumba (Faroe Islands) ) is a national hero of the Faroe Islands .
Nólsoyar Páll was a Faroese seaman , trader and poet . He built in 1804 in Vágur with the saver Royndin Frida (literally, nice try ) the first suitable for Atlantic voyages, own Faroese ship since the Middle Ages. According to tradition, it was with this ship that he went down in 1809 while trying to save his countrymen from famine with British grain.
His ballad of birds, Fuglakvæði, from 1805 is an integral part of the Faroese national understanding. It encodes his relentless resistance to the Royal Danish monopoly trade in the form of metaphors .
Life
Poul Poulsen was born in October 1766 as the fourth child of the family of his father Poul Joensen (1724–1786; hence Poulsen = Poul's son ) and Susanne Djonedatter on Nólsoy . October 11th is assumed to be the exact date. His family came from the northern island of Eysturoy . He had six siblings, five of whom were brothers.
According to their place of birth, they were given the nickname Nolsøe , which was the Danish spelling for Nólsoy at the time (hence Nólsoyar Páll = Paul von Nólsoy or Nólsoy-Paul ). Three of the brothers - Poul, Johannes and Jacob (1775–1869) learned to read quickly and were personally encouraged by the young bailiff Wenzel Hammershaimb (1755–1822), who lent them books. Wenzel Hammershaimb's grandson VU Hammershaimb later (1846) founded the Faroese written language .
The Nolsøe brothers grew up in the heyday of the Rybergs Handel company , which held the Royal Danish monopoly of trade. The Faroese capital Tórshavn , a nautical mile from Nólsoy, was already populated by craftsmen and seafarers, many of them foreigners.
Johannes studied medicine by himself. It is said that he had an old book available for this and was able to interview a senior employee at Rybergs Handel named Rosenmeyer. Jacob did a commercial apprenticeship and was described as the most educated of the three. He is said to have been an excellent navigator. He became a clerk at Rybergs Handel and quickly rose to become its managing director.
Poul Poulsen's wish was to become a seaman. He also learned navigation and became a businessman at Rybergs Handel. After the death of his father (who resisted his son wanting to go to sea), he drove across the seas for Ryberg's trade . In 1793 he is said to have been in Paris and Marseille . Orally it is also reported that he sailed under the French and English flags until he became captain for a US trading company. It is certain that he headed for the USA , West Indies , England , France , Portugal , Norway , Denmark and other countries and came into contact with the poetry of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–1796).
In 1798 he found his trace in Copenhagen , where he married a woman from his home island of Nólsoy that same year. After a time in Copenhagen, he returned to the Faroe Islands in 1800. A little later his wife died; In 1801 he married again, this time the daughter of a wealthy large farmer from Borðoy near Klaksvíks . His father-in-law gave him land with a Markatal of 7, and it is said that Nólsoyar Páll was quickly recognized as the most capable farmer in the Faroe Islands. He was awarded a silver medal by the Royal Agricultural Society for his achievements in agriculture.
His focus was also on shipbuilding . As an experienced seaman, he recognized the disadvantages of the typical Faroese boat designs. He benefited from the fact that his home island of Nólsoy had an old boat building tradition and that he had mastered the craft. It lengthened the keel and made the stern steeper. This enabled the boat to maintain its course better in the strong currents of the Faroese fairways. He replaced the square square sail with a latin sail . This allowed the boat to go higher upwind. The crossing has been simplified. A short time later, all boats in the Faroe Islands were built in this way. His decisive improvement of the spinning wheel , however, could not prevail.
In the back of his mind, however, Nólsoyar Páll had something much more extensive: nothing less than the struggle for free trade and the abolition of the Kgl. Danish trade monopoly. His boat constructions were not only intended to improve the local traffic routes, but also aimed at the independence of his homeland. But this striving seemed abstract to many of his compatriots , especially since it played in the area of tax law .
The ballad of the birds
In the song Fuglakvæði , Nólsoyar Páll sang the oystercatcher ( Tjaldur ['tschaldur]), who has been the symbol of Faroese independence since then.
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Fuglurin í fjøruni German translation:
The bird on the coast |
In reality, this was a song of resistance against the Royal Danish Monopoly Trade (from around 1620 to January 1, 1856) and Danish colonialism . In the allegorical language of the ballad, the oystercatcher is Nólsoyar Páll himself.
Nolsoy-Paul's drive home
The Faroese poet JHO Djurhuus wrote in his national-romantic phase a poem about Nólsoyar Páll with the title Heimferð Nólsoyar Páls and the circumstances of his death, which among his many Faroese admirers are still regarded as part of a conspiracy today. Nólsoyar Páll used various symbols in his Ballad of Birds . The oystercatcher is the hero and the ravens are the Danish masters. Djurhuus takes up this language and, together with the Nordic goddess Rán, represents a symbol of chaotic forces in this battle.
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Heimferð Nólsoyar Páls
Ravnagorr yvir Beinisvørð , German translation:
Nólsoy-Paul's drive home Ravens croak over the Beinis cliff, |
See also
- Faroese bird life
- Faroese language
- Postverk Føroya (a commemorative stamp for the ballad of birds will be issued in 2005 )
literature
- Jakob Jakobsen: Poul Nolsøe , 2nd edition, Denmark 1966 (first Danish around 1892, Faroese 1912)
- John F. West: Faroe. The Emergence of a Nation. London 1972, ISBN 0-8397-2063-7
- John F. West: Færøerne. A nation and history. Gyldendalske boghandel. Nordisk Forlag A / S, Copenhagen 1974 (translation from English: Palle Koch)
- JF West: Nolsöe, Poul Poulsen. In: Byron J. Nordstrom (Ed.): Dictionary of Scandinavian History. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut (et al.) 1986, pp. 413-415
Web links
- faroeartstamps.fo - on the Djurhuus stamp issue 2004 (German, English, Faroese)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nolsøe, Poul Poulsen |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Nólsoyar Páll |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | National hero of the Faroe Islands |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 11, 1766 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nólsoy |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1809 |
| Place of death | off Sumba (Faroe Islands) |