Jun.-Prof. Joanna Kodzik has published a paper on Moravian knowledge about humans and nature in Greenland, Lapland, and Iceland and its reception among German, French and Polish scholars.
In the early 18th century, the Arctic came to the attention of European scholars notably thanks to whaling accounts and voyages of discovery. The Moravian Brethren, who sent missionaries and envoys to different Arctic destinations, participated in the dissemination of information about people and nature in the Far North. This article demonstrates how the reception of knowledge – conveyed by a strongly hostile religious community – crossed spatial and denominational boundaries.
The article has been published in German in the collective volume “Die Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Theologie – Geschichte – Wirkung” (The Moravian Church in the 18th and 19th centuries. Theology – History - Impact) celebrating the 300 Years of creation of the Moravian settlement in Herrnhut in Germany in 1721. The volume is available online in open access.
See:
Kodzik, Joanna: „Das herrnhutische Wissen über die europäische Arktis (Grönland, Island, Lappland) und die deutschsprachige Gelehrtenwelt im 18. Jahrhundert“, in: Wolfgang Breul (eds.): Die Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Theologie – Geschichte - Wirkung, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 589-607.
Image: Terra Arctica, C. P. v. Holstein, 1753, Moravian Archives in Herrnhut, copyright by J. Kodzik.
