LONG: School-locations, mostly Durmstrang

[milz]

No: HPFGUIDX 5966

Interestingly enough, I happened to read the latest issue of "The 
REaders Digest" with Rowling on the cover. In the article it 
identified Hogwarts location as Scotland. I don't know how accurate 
this is, but....

:-) Milz
--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Christian Stubø <rhodhry at y...> 
wrote:
> I spotted a comment some time ago, where somebody
> (Rita Winston) mentioned Latvia as a likely location
> for Durmstrang., and, as the location of the two known
> schools of magic besides Hogwarts has intrigued me for
> some time, I decided to break out my encyclopedia and
> atlas, and I have some random thoughts.  I am no
> expert on the things in question here, but it is a
> start, and this can be improved upon by others more
> knowledgeable in these fields.  I hope I am not too
> unstructured and difficult to follow (it is midnight
> here), as I am reopening a discussion at least 5000
> messages old.
> 
> Unfortunately, we are not told too much about the
> location of Beauxbatons, though the impression seems
> to be given of a palace like to the royal palaces in
> the Loire-valley (decorated tastefully, without
> stuffed k-niggets and poltergeists).  I will assume it
> to be in a relatively mild area, in a chateau akin to
> Chambord or Azay le Rideau (the ultimate Romantic
> Fairytale palaces).
> 
> Of Durmstrang we know as much that it must be quite a
> distance to the North, in a region with lakes (I am
> presuming Viktor Krum knows the difference between
> lakes and fjords) AND mountains, and also with access
> to the sea (I am presuming the ship is an oceangoing
> ship).  This rules out all of Lithuania, Latvia and
> Estonia, as these, between them, do not contain a
> single peak higher than 318 metres (1043ft) - sorry,
> Rita.  In fact, Latvia is no further North than
> Scotland – it edges just North of the 58th Parallel,
> and it is South of all of Norway (save Queen Maud Land
> and the Bouvet Island in Antarctica, and the halfway
> mythical Sjettnan's Isle in the South Pacific). 
> Formally speaking, it was also outside the Holy Roman
> Empire of the German Nation, which stretched no
> further North than the borders of Denmark (at least
> according to my Atlas of History from school, but then
> it labelled Yugoslavia as a NATO-member too...).
> Denmark proper, being even flatter than the Baltic
> states, is all out, the Faeroe Islands are to small,
> and Greenland is too far out of the way for anyone to
> bother going there.  
> 
> Finland has plenty with lakes, but no mountains except
> in the extreme West and North, where there are few
> lakes.  Norway all the way up to the Polar Circle has
> plenty of both, and is plenty dark in the Winter. 
> Sweden likewise has plenty of both along the 62nd
> latitude all the way to the joint between Finland,
> Norway and Sweden.  Unfortunately, the combination of
> lakes and mountains is mostly found inland, a distance
> away from the sea – only in Norway can it be found
> near the sea, mainly on the Western coast between 62°N
> and 64°N, and between 65°N and 66°N.  There is also a
> location near Narvik, at ca. 68°N.
> 
> Besides these, there is a further opportunity, even
> further to the North:  Murmansk Oblatsk (I am not
> certain if `Oblatsk' means county, shire, state or
> something else), on the Kola Peninsula.  It is an
> appropriately barren area, with a number of lakes, and
> a number of proper mountains.  The need to be close to
> the sea, seems to favour a location at the inner end
> of the bay called Kandalakšskaja Guba, in the White
> Sea.
> 
> One could also look at this linguistically.  While
> Durmstrang is a name derived from German (from Sturm
> und Drang, a literary movement advocating the
> abandonment of sense), and seems to indicate a German
> relation, both Karkaroff and Viktor Krum are Slavic. 
> This suggests a closer connection to Russia and
> Eastern Europe than Germany, though that may be a
> later development.  To me, it doesn't not seem
> immediately logical that Slavic students would accept
> learning in German, rather than Russian, for instance,
> when Slavic-speakers certainly are numerous enough to
> justify one or more schools on their own –
> particularly as see have the impression of a historic
> form of antipathy between Slavic and German nations in
> Europe (the Teutonic Order wasn't always nice guys,
> even if Eisenstein overdid things a bit).  Both the
> connection to Germany and the connection to the East,
> reduce the probability of Norway being the location of
> Durmstrang, as Norway at the time Hogwarts was founded
> was primarily oriented towards England, Scotland and
> the West, while Sweden was oriented towards the East
> (essentially Russia was founded by Swedish Vikings)
> and the South (Sweden had an extensive trade with the
> Hansa-Bund).  If Scandinavian students are split
> between the large academies, then it is more plausible
> to me that the Norwegians end up at Hogwarts, with the
> Swedes at Durmstrang, than all of Scandinavia being
> under Durmstrang.  This is also because of the very
> strong influence from Danes and Norwegians in the time
> before William the Conqueror (just look at the
> linguistic parallels – York-Jorvik, church/kirk-kirke,
> husband-husbond, (hus-)wife-(hus-)viv, etc.)
> 
> In the region in question here (Northern Germany,
> Scandinavia, Northern Russia West of the Ural
> Mountains) there are four Language-groups: the
> Finnish-Ugrian (sp?) group (Finnish, Estonian, Sami,
> Hungarian), the Baltic-Slavic group (Lithuanian,
> Russian, most East-European languages), the
> North-Germanic languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish,
> Icelandic) and West-Germanic (primarily German in this
> context (but English belongs in this group too,
> according to my source)).  I rather suspect that these
> language-groups, rather than mixing and matching,
> would each tend to itself, education-wise.
> 
> I would rather not see Durmstrang end up in
> Scandinavia, due to a fanfic-project I have, which may
> (or may not) lift off sometime before book V.  I have
> presumed that Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland have
> a joint school somewhere (In Norway, in my case, as I
> am Norwegian, and Norwegian folklore is the only one I
> know much), as the Scandinavian languages are (and
> have always been), very close.  This leaves for me
> only the option of putting Durmstrang in Murmansk
> Oblatsk, probably somewhere near the city of
> Kandalakša, at the White Sea.  I am wondering whether
> to include Finns and Estonians in this, only
> Swedish-speaking Finns or no Finns or Estonians at all
> (with, perhaps, a joint Finnish-Estonian-Hungarian
> Institute (due to the languages being related), of
> course founded by Ilmarinen and Vainamöinen.) , as
> Finland was very strongly tied to Sweden for
> centuries.
> 
> I hope I did not get too boring (again, it is late,
> with the attendant bad effects on my ability to
> structure.  I have to do it at home, however, as that
> is where I have all my books).
> 
> Regards
> 
> =====
> "There are two trillion six-houndred and sixtyfive billion  
eight-houndred and sixtysix million, seven-houndred and fortysix 
thousand, six-houndred and sixtyfour litte devils in the world"
> ---------------------------------------------
> Christian Stubø
> Student of Technology, architectura navalis
> 
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