Durmstrang's location

[pengolodh_sc]

No: HPFGUIDX 31983

--- In HPforGrownups, Catherine Keegan wrote:
> At 03:53 PM 12/19/01 -0600, Katze wrote:
> > Catherine Keegan wrote:
> > > we still don't know where Durmstrang is located.  Krum
> > > plays for Bulgaria but, of course, that doesn't mean that
> > > the school has to be there.  I just have images of snow. 
> > > Lots of snow.
> >
> > My impression is that Durmstrang is in Norway towards the
> > arctic circle.  Norway is *known* for their ship building,
> > the vikings, and it's frigid there (so I've heard). I
> > definitely think it's somewhere in Scandinavia, though.
> 
> My own view was that it was located in one of the areas that
> had been the USSR.  Dunno why.  

The issue of the location of Durmstrang has been discussed often here 
at HPFGU - myself I posted my first significant post on the subject 
on November 22nd 2000 (under a different screenname).  I do not have 
time for a lengthy essay on the issue now, but will give the short 
version and some links.  The short version is that all the evidence 
goven in GoF points towards Durmstrang being located in Northern 
continental Europe, with locations most likely either in Norway, 
Sweden or on the Kola peninsula in Russia.  

Also JKR herself, at a bookreading in Glasgow (December 2000 - see 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/6494), stated 
that she thought Durmstrang was in the very North of Scandinavia, in 
Sweden or Norway, but she couldn't be certain - after all, JKR said, 
the exact whereabouts of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are closely 
guarded secrets to which she is not privy.  This is all the better 
for me, as I personally favour a location at the Kola peninsula (I 
come from Northern Norway myself, and I do not fancy the thought of 
having Durmstrang in my back-yard).

For more information on my views on the locations of Durmstrang, see 
my previous posts:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/28822
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/24956
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/20286

Using the search-feature at Yahoo!Groups and for instance searching 
for "Russia" and "Durmstrang" in the same query will also yield 
interesting results

> I always felt the ship was just for a spectacular entrance
> like the Beauxbaton's carriage.  Makes me wonder how Hogwarts
> would have entered another school's grounds.  

A suggestion was made in a previous discussion that Hogwarts probably 
would use the Hogwarts Express for a similar purpose, and that the 
carriage and the ship served the same purpose for Beauxbatons and 
Durmstrang respectively at the start and end of each school-year, as 
the Hogwarts Express does for Hogwarts.

> (My mother would argue with you that it must be Sweden, not
> Norway; but then she's Swedish and everything Viking must come
> from there.  sigh)

I also think your mother would be on to something there, but for a 
different reason - historically Norway's economic and cultural ties 
have always been mainly South-West across the North Sea, and further 
South into Europe, while it is Sweden that historically had the 
strongest cultural and economical ties with Germany, Russia, and the 
Slavic regions - the very regions that seem to make up the cultural 
and linguistic setting of Durmstrang.

Best regards
Christian Stubø