Uno Nils Oskar Harva (known as Uno Holmberg until 1927; 30 August 1882,

Ypäjä Ypäjä is a municipalities of Finland, municipality located in the countryside of South-Western Finland. It belongs to the provinces of Finland, province of Southern Finland and the regions of Finland, region of Tavastia Proper. The municipalit ...

– 13 August 1949,

Turku Turku ( ; ; , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Aura River (Finland), River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately , while t ...

) was a Finnish

religious scholar Religious studies, also known as religiology or the study of religion, is the study of religion from a historical or scientific perspective. There is no consensus on what qualifies as ''religion'' and its definition is highly contested. It des ...

, who founded the discipline in

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

together with

Rafael Karsten Sigfrid Rafael Karsten (16 August 1879 — 21 February 1956) was a Finnish social anthropology, social anthropologist and philosophy of religion, philosopher of religion, known especially for his work among the indigenous people of Southern Amer ...

. A major figure in North

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

ethnology Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Sci ...

and study of religion, Harva is best known for his body of work on

Finno-Ugric Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic languages, Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in ...

and

Altaic The Altaic () languages are a group of languages comprising the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families, with some linguists including the Koreanic and Japonic families. These languages share agglutinative morphology, head-final ...

religions. He is considered to be one of the foremost 20th-century European interpreters of

shamanism Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...

Career

Harva conducted fieldwork among the Siberian Ket and Evenk peoples in the 1910s, researching their mythology and religion. He also spent the summers of 1911–1913 with the Finno-Ugric Votyaks (

Udmurts The Udmurts (, ) are a Permian (Finno-Ugric) ethnic group in Eastern Europe, who speak the Udmurt language. They mainly live in the republic of Udmurtia in Russia. Etymology The name ''Udmurt'' comes from * 'meadow people,' where the first part ...

) in the Urals and the Cheremis (the

Mari people The Mari ( ), also formerly known as the Cheremis or Cheremisses, are a Finno-Ugric peoples, Finno-Ugric people in Eastern Europe, who have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama River, Kama rivers in Russia. They live mostly in the Mari E ...

) on the Volga. He is considered to be an important

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

. His study ''Der Baum des Lebens'' (The Tree of Life; 1922–23) was the first to show that the world tree from

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

had many parallels in Europe and Asia. Harva wrote the fourth volume of the book series ''

The Mythology of All Races ''The Mythology of All Races'' is a 13-volume book series edited by Louis Herbert Gray between 1916 and 1932 with George Foot Moore George Foot Moore (October 15, 1851 – May 16, 1931) was an American historian of religion, author, professor, ...

'' in 1927. It contains a classic general description of

Subarctic The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of hemiboreal regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Fennoscandia, Northwestern Russia, Siberia, and the Cair ...

Principal works

* ''Die Wassergottheiten der Finno-Ugrischen Völker'' (German: The Water Divinities of the Finno-Ugric Peoples; 1913) * ''Permalaisten uskonto'' (1914) * ''Tsheremissien uskonto'' (Finnish: The Cheremi Religion; 1914) * ''Lappalaisten uskonto'' (Finnish: The Lapp Religion; 1915) * ''Elämänpuu'' (Finnish: The Tree of Life; 1920); reprinted in German as ''Der Baum des Lebens'' (1922) * ''Jumalauskon alkuperä'' (1916) * ''Pohjoisen Euroopan ja Aasian pyyntiriiteistä'' (1922) * ''Finno-Ugric, Siberian Mythology'' (1927) * ''Altain suvun uskonto'' (1933) * ''Die religiösen Vorstellungen der altaischen Völker'' (German: Religious Concepts of the Altaic Peoples; 1938) * ''Mordvalaisten muinaisusko'' (1942) * ''Sammon ryöstö'' (1943) * ''Suomalaisten muinaisusko'' (1948)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harva, Uno 1882 births 1949 deaths People from Ypäjä People from Häme Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Finnish ethnologists Finnish Finno-Ugrists