They call themselves saami or saamlja (on the Kola Peninsula), sabme, sabmelas (pl. sabmelaat). Other nations have called them Fenn (Finn) and since the 12th century, Lapp (e.g. the form Lop appears in Old Russian Chronicles at about 1000 AD). The use of the name Saam has been propagated in Russia since the 1920's and in Scandinavia within the last decades. The Saamis themselves consider the name Lapp pejorative. Saamis have six literary languages: Southern Saami (Norway), Lule Saami (Sweden), Northern Saami (Sweden,Finland and Norway), Inari and Skolt Saami (Finland), Kildin Saami (Russia).

Location The native territory of the Saamis is situated in the northern part of Fenno-scandia, stretching in a semicircle from Dalarna, Sweden, along the coast of the Arctic Ocean over Norway and Finland to the central part of the Kola Peninsula in Russia. This tract of land, extending over four countries, is 2000 km long, covering almost 400,000 sq. km. In the past the Saami territory used to reach farther South, but under the pressure of other peoples they have been forced to move northwards. For example, the Saamis of Kola lived all over the Kola Peninsula (approximately 100,000 sq. km.) as late as 1917, but in 1926 they were located mainly in only four municipalities: Kolsko-Loparskaya, Aleksandrovo, Ponoj and Lujavr (Lovozero). By 1989 the majority of the Saamis had been relocated into the Lujavr (Lovozero) area (37% of the Murmansk Province).

Population
There are different data about the Saami population, depending on the criteria of determining one’s ethnicity. For example, ever since 1962, the basic criterion in Finland has been language. There, those are considered Saamis whose grandparent(s) (at leastone of them) acquired Saami as the primary language, or who speak Saami as their primary language. In Norway and Sweden the basic criterion is the relation to reindeer-herding. In these countries citizenship is not separated from nationality, and therefore the number of Saamis cannot be determined unambiguously. According to the Sami Council there are 30,000-70,000 Saamis in Scandinavia.

For the Saamis living in Finland and Russia there are more exact data. In 1984 there were 11,475 inhabitants in the Saami region of Finland (Lapinlääni), 3,892 of them were Saamis, which makes 32.9% of the total population. In the Saami region of Russia (Murmansk Province) there were 1,115,000 inhabitants in 1989, the 1,890 Saamis constituting 0.15% of them. Within 63 years the Kola Saamis' command of their mother tongue has decreased drastically (55.8%).

Turning Points in the History of the Saamis

On the whole, the history of the Saamis is the history of their centuries-long withdrawal from other peoples towards the Arctic Ocean.

9th c. A massive northward migration of the Saamis begins, as the Vikings occupy the area around Lake Ladoga. In Norway and Sweden the taxing and trading rights on the territory of the Saamis are granted to the lords; the inhabitants of Häme and Karelia also practice taxation by robbery;

13th c. The Kola Peninsula comes under Russian influence;

16th c. The Saamis of Kola are converted into Russian Orthodoxy;

17th c. Lutheran missions reache the Western Saamis;

1673 - King Karl XI of Sweden begins to direct Swedish and Finnish colonists to the Saami areas; Saamis become a minority in their native territory;

1868 - Beginning of the Russian colonization of the Kola Peninsula and Russification of the eastern Saamis

1930's - Formation of collective farms, severe measures of conversion of the herding Saamis to resident settlers, expropriation of large tracts of land for industrial and military use, stopping of all educational activities and abolition of the literary language in 1937, destruction of all Saami printed texts;

ca. 1940-60 - the policy of assimilation in boarding schools alienates Saami children from their people and mother tongue.

Danger Signs
The main problem of the Saamis is their dispersion in four different countries, which has been unfavourable for their consolidation and for the formation of a national administrative unit. The vast territory has contributed to the development of dialects into separate languages. Owing to the rapid modernization of their way of life in the 20th century, Saamis have problems of adaptation into their new environment (e.g. national industrialization projects); backed by the high status of the official languages of the respective states, officials have discouraged the use of the Saami languages as languages of school instruction and administration. On the Kola Peninsula the growth of the Saami population is seriously impaired. Between 1979 and 1987 there were 110 mixed marriages for each 16 marriages of the same nationality in the Lujavr (Lovozero) Region. Of 208 Saami men eligible for marriage, 119 or nearly 60% were single.

Signs of Hope
Within the past few decades there has been a notable upsurge of national feelings and self-confidence of the Saamis. Very important is the growing importance of Saami as the language of instruction at schools. For example, after the Finnish Schools Act of 1985, the curriculum provides up to 240 classes of the Saami language per year. The unified system of orthography of Northern Saami (introduced in 1978) enables to link the educational and cultural life of Saamis in Norway, Sweden and Finland. Today, there are laws on the Saami language in Norway, Finland and Sweden, which help regulate the use of Saami as the language of education and administration. The literary Kildin Saami language has been revived on the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet (1982). The Saami language is taught at Lujavr (Lovozero) School on the Kola Peninsula. Linguistic research and regulation of the usage of Saami have intensified; Saami fiction and film have emerged.

The expansion of the rights of Saamis and their language has taken place as a result of their active and organized efforts during the past few decades. Saami Parliaments are convened in Norway, Finland and Sweden as advisory assemblies. The Saami Council, which earlier represented the Saamis of the Nordic countries, and now represents all Saamis, participated in the formation of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples and is still an active member of the Council.

Source: Endangered Uralic Peoples
Photos: Matti Pellinen, Alexander Heikkinen, Igor Georgievsky, Lassi Rautiajnen, M. Kashtanov, Nikoli Korpoussenko, V. Grigoriev, Y. Protasov, A. Krasnikov, Bryan & Cherry Alexander

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