DONNER, KAI

DONNER, KAI . Finnish scholar Karl Reinhold (Kai) Donner (1888–1935) united British anthropology and Northern ethnography. Born into a Swedish-speaking family, Donner was educated in the religious liberalism and bilingualism that prevailed in Finnish universities at the beginning of the twentieth century. His father, Otto Donner, was a professor of Sanskrit and comparative linguistics at the University of Helsinki; in 1883 he founded the Finno-Ugric Society, a nationalistic organization that studied the languages, ethnology, and history of Finno-Ugric peoples.

In 1908 Donner's studies in Budapest introduced him to Hungarian research in Finno-Ugristics (Hungarian is an Ugric language). Three years later he went to Cambridge University, where he became familiar with British anthropological models. This is significant because until the turn of the twentieth century Finnish scholars wrote mainly in German and rarely ventured outside the spheres of German and Russian science.

The ranking scholars of British anthropology at that time were A. C. Haddon and W. H. R. Rivers in Cambridge, who established the first British anthropological field laboratory on the western Pacific islands of the Torres Strait. Other leading lights were Charles G. Seligman, Edward Westermarck, and Bronislaw Malinowski in London, as well as Robert R. Marrett and Alfred R. Radcliffe-Brown at Oxford. The Torres Strait study launched functionalism (a theory that emphasized the interdependence and importance of institutions and behavioral patterns—particularly cultural practices—for a society's survival) as a method for conducting field work; this became Donner's model for his studies in Siberia.

Donner's association with these British anthropologists was formative and through them he learned the basics of ethnological field work. Haddon introduced him to Malinowski; Sir James Frazer, another Cambridge fellow and author of the seminal Golden Bough, donated his portable grammophone for Donner's linguistic studies. Donner was also deeply influenced by Rivers's article "The Genealogical Method as Anthropological Inquiry," published in a 1910 issue of Sociological Review : "I have had only positive results from its use among the Samoyeds and later on in Finland," he remarked. "It will be the key to the gate to the world already gone. It makes [it] possible to remember in a touchable manner the old beliefs and customs, ancestral worship."

Donner made two expeditions to Siberia, the first a two-year venture, begun in August of 1911, in which he travelled from Tomsk to Narym, Tymskoye and in the settlements by Ob and Tym rivers—the main areas of the Samoyedic peoples, who numbered about 18,000 at that time. Donner's second tour took place in 1914, during World War I and the Russification of the Samoyeds he had met during his first tour.

Donner categorized his Siberian field data according to the typological and genealogical models he learned in Britain. He was particularly influenced by Haddon's 1908 publication The Study of Man, which defines ethnology as "description of a man, a tribe, people in a smaller or larger area" demanding special characteristics from the scholar. Donner used these methods in Siberia even though he believed that the Samoyeds had little collective knowledge about their ancestors. Haddon's genealogical methods, for example, helped explain the inheritance of shamanic prestige symbols in a Ket River clan that Donner described in 1915. He also used anthropometry (the collection, correlation, and comparison of human body measurements) as a research tool.

Between his two Siberian treks he took part in a research seminar led by Westermarck at the University of Helsinki, where he was encouraged to write his doctoral thesis on the Samoyed. Although there was no department of religious history at the university, Heikki Paasonen (1865–1919), a Finno-Ugrist, suggested that Donner write his dissertation on comparative religion instead of philology (the study of languages and literature) as he had intended.

Donner's fieldwork followed Castrén's footsteps as faithfully as possible, although he sought to disprove some of the less-likely hypotheses proposed by Castrén—whose nationalistic fervor had sought too many relatives on the Finnish family tree. Donner believed, for example, that Castrén's inclusion of Uralic and Mongolian-Turkic peoples in the Finno-Ugric family was wrong. While they shared some common vocabulary, this was due to their long-lasting contacts in Siberia.

Donner's field notes are also interesting from a historical perspecitve. On his journeys he met Russian officials, Orthodox missionaries, European emigrants, as well as other Finns who were merchants, ministers, and even prisoners in Siberia. His memoir Siperian samojedien keskuudessa vuosina 1911–1913 ja 1914 (Among the Siberian Samoyed), first published in 1915, was republished in 1979 with a preface written by his son Jörn Donner (b. 1932), a filmmaker and author.

See Also

Finno-Ugric Religions.

Bibliography

Donner, Kai. A Samoyede Epic. Helsingfors, 1913.

Donner, Kai. Bei den Samojeden in Sibirien. Stuttgart, 1926.

Donner, Kai. Ethnological Notes about the Yenisey-Ostyak (in the Turukhansk Region). Suomalais-ugrilaisen seuran toimituksia, vol. 66. Helsinki, 1933.

Donner, Kai. La Sibérie: La vie en Sibérie—Les temps anciens. L'espèce humaine, vol. 6. Paris, 1946.

Donner, Kai. Among the Samoyed in Siberia. Translated by Rinehart Kyler and edited by Genevieve A. Highland. New Haven, 1954.

Donner, Kai. Ketica: Materialen aus dem Ketischen oder Jenisseiostjakischen. Suomalais-ugrilaisen seuran toimituksia, vol. 108. Helsinki, 1955.

Pentikäinen, Juha. "Northern Ethnography: On the Foundations of a New Paradigm."Styles and Positions: Ethnographical Perspectives in Comparative Religion. Comparative Religion 8. Helsinki, 2002.

Juha PentikÄinen (2005)