Quirrel and Scandinavia?

[Berit Jakobsen]

No: HPFGUIDX 87543

bboy_mn wrote:

> JKR said in an interview that Durmstrang is in Scandinavia. Several 
of
> us have spent many hour gazing at our maps trying to determine the
> most likely location.
> 
> So, get out your European/Scandinavian maps and look for a very 
large
> sparsely inhabited Russian peninsula to the north east of Finland. I
> believe the largest city in that area is something like 'Murmansk'
> (sorry, away from home, don't have my reference books). This is the
> only area that seems to fit all the available information.  All of 
the
> other Eastern European cities are too far south or simply don't fit
> the description. 
> 
> One does wonder though if Scandinavian countries have their own
> schools of magic. Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang are the
> largest and best, but there must be others. There does seem to be a
> significant amount of wizarding activity in Scandinavia. I believe 
the
> most significant cross-country broom race occurs in there (sorry,
> don't have my books available here). 
> 
> I guess my point here is the despite being in such close proximity 
to
> Scandinavia, and generally considered in the Scandinavian region, 
this
> Russian peninsula that I speculate is the location of Durmstrang.

Berit replies:

Actually, I didn't know Rowling said in an interview that Durmstrang 
is located in Scandinavia. Do you have the exact quote? I'm also a 
bit hesitant of including the Russian peninsula and Murmansk among 
the Scandinavian countries. According to my knowledge no part of 
Russia has ever been considered Scandinavian. Scandinavia consists of 
three countries only: Norway, Sweden and Denmark. These are the 
world's only Scandianavian-speaking countries. If you're talking 
about the so-called Nordic countries, it also includes Finland and 
Iceland. But no Russia. So, what I'm saying is that the Russian 
peninsula is not generally considered in the Scandinavian region :-) 
Just like Germany is not considered Scandinavian just because it 
share its border with Denmark... If Rowling wanted to say it was 
located in Russia, she would not have said "Scandinavia". If she 
knows her geography :-)

So if Rowling has said Durmstrang is located in Scandinavia it'll 
have to be either Norway, Sweden or Denmark. Period. Denmark is out 
of the question for its lack of mountains, so that leaves Sweden or 
Norway... If you travel north in Sweden, they also have their 
mountains and harsh climate.

I still find it very odd that Durmstrang's in Norway or Sweden. Both 
the name of the school (German-sounding) and the name of its students 
(Slavic-sounding) are very foreign to the Scandinavian language. Well 
well...

Berit