Page - 230 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 5230 other, we find him assuming the role of interpreter of the Far North, syn- thesizing geophysical processes of global or at least circumpolar dimensions. Third, there is his application of knowledge to the benefit of sailors and decision-makers. 3 On Hungarians and Laplanders65 Having considered Hell’s and Sajnovics’s engagement with “nature in the north,” the first volume of the Expeditio litteraria envisioned in the call for sub- scriptions needs attention. Apart from an introductory chapter by Hell, ex- plaining how the expedition came about and the international context in which it was inscribed, this volume would certainly have relied heavily on con- tributions from Hell’s assistant, Sajnovics. Its contents may be summarized thus: “Part 1: The history of the expedition, including a diary of the entire jour- ney; Part 2: An ethnographic description of the ‘Lapps’; Part 3: On the ‘Lappish Language,’ on its unity with the Hungarian language, and on the ‘Asian Lan- guage’ in general.” Unlike Sajnovics’s work on the Sámi language, epitomized in the Demonstratio and amounting to the third part of the first volume of the Expeditio litteraria as outlined in the call for subscriptions, the second part (which was to contain ethnographical descriptions of the Sámi) was never published. The preserved manuscripts are few, fragmentary, and insignificant compared with Hell’s texts on Hungarian history and language. However, there is reason to suspect that this part would have consisted mainly in a summary of an original work by the Norwegian priest and Lappish-language professor, the author of the vocabulary used by Sajnovics and Hell during the expedition, Knud Leem (1697–1774): the chapter headings in Leem’s bilingual, richly illus- trated Beskrivelse over Finmarkens Lapper/De Lapponibus Finnmarchiae […] commentatio (Description of the Lapps of Finnmark [1767]) match the chap- ters planned by Hell quite well.66 A few comments would probably have been 65 We have addressed aspects of the topic of this section in Per Pippin Aspaas and László Kontler, “Before and After 1773: Central European Jesuits, the Politics of Language, and Discourses of Identity in the Late Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Monarchy,” in Latin at the Crossroads of Identity: The Evolution of Linguistic Nationalism in the Kingdom of Hun­ gary, ed. Gábor Almási and Lav Subarić (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 95–118. 66 Available in a facsimile edition, Knud (Canutus) Leem, Beskrivelse over Finmarkens Lap­ per 1767, Efterord af Asbjørn Nesheim (Knud Leems, Professor i det Lappiske Sprog, Beskriv­ else over Finmarkens Lapper, deres Tungemaal, Levemaade og forrige Afgudsdyrkelse, oplyst ved mange Kaaberstykker: Med J.E. Gunneri […] Anmærkninger; Og E.J. Jessen­ S. […] Afhan­ dling om de Norske Finners og Lappers Hedenske Religion/Canuti Leemii, professoris lingvæ