[Gandur] Andlátsfregn

[Rósa Þorsteinsdóttir]

Reimund Kvideland in memoriam

 

 

A sad message has reached us.  Professor Reimund Kvideland, former President
of SIEF, suddenly and unexpectedly died on June 6, 2006, at  an age of 71.
He had retired from his official positions, but remained active in research,
kept contacts with his former institute in Bergen and with international
scholars.

 

Reimund Kvideland (b. in 1935) started his career in 1966 as a lecturer in
folklore at the University of Bergen, where he contributed to the
establishment of a discipline with focus on contemporary processes and
traditions. From 1991 to 1997 he was director of the Nordic Institute  of
Folklore in Turku, Finland,, a position where he displayed both his
administrative and scientific competences. Many of us also remember  with
gratitude the hospitality of Reimund and his wife Karin during  these years
in Finland.

 

His scholarly publications cover several fields: narrative and singing
tradition with a focus on the transmission of folk stories and songs; fairy
tales, legends and songs, with a focus on text analysis; children’s lore in
contexts of practice, and religious memorates within  a context of popular
religion.

 

Reimund Kvideland was also a research administrator, He was the first
chairman of NEFA – the Nordic ethnological and folkloristic working group,
an important forum for those who wanted to rejuvenate ethnology and folklore
since the late 1960s.  In 1971 he started Tradisjon, a scientific journal of
modern Norwegian folklore, where he remained the editor for 25 years. He was
elected president (1989-95) of the International Society for Folk Narrative
Research, and he was president of SIEF from 1987 to 1990. During many years
he was a contributor to Internationale volkskundliche Bibliographie.

 

His profile was that of an international researcher and administrator, his
contacts all over the world were numerous, and his generosity  towards other
scholars was well known among his colleagues. I still  remember with
gratitude the enthusiasm with which he received my first  and very, very
modest text – a book review – for his journal Tradisjon,  a prime example of
how to encourage younger colleagues. This memory  blends with later debates
and pleasant talks, as well as with hospitality and merry evenings. Reimund
was not only a respected scholar, but also a colleague in the best sense of
the word.

 

Bjarne Rogan, Oslo

 

 

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