Lars Levi Laestadius (; 10 January 1800 – 21 February 1861) was a Swedish Sami writer, ecologist, mythologist, and ethnographer as well as a pastor and administrator of the Swedish state Lutheran church in Lapland who founded the Laestadian pietist revival movement to help his largely Sami congregations, who were being ravaged by alcoholism. Laestadius himself became a teetotaller (except for his ongoing use of wine in holy Communion) in the 1840s, when he began successfully talking his Sami parishioners out of alcoholism. Laestadius was also a noted botanist and an author.

Early life

Birth and education

Laestadius was born in Swedish Lapland at Jäckvik near Arjeplog in a western mountainous part of Norrbotten County, the northernmost county in Sweden, to Carl Laestadius (1746-1832) - a Swedish hunter, fisherman, tar-maker, and one-time silver mine bailiff, who lost his job due to alcoholism - and Anna Magdalena (née Johansdotter) (1759-1824), who was the elder Laestadius's second wife. Both were of distant Sami descent. The family lived in poverty due to Carl Laestadius's alcoholism and extended absences. However, with help from Lars Levi's older half-brother Carl Erik Laestadius (1775-1817), a pastor at Kvikkjokk, with whom Lars Levi and his younger brother Petrus (1802-1841) lived part of their childhood, the boys were able to pursue educations, first at Härnösand and starting in 1820, at Uppsala University. Due to their benefactor half-brother's death in 1817, the boys were constantly short of funds from the outset of their university studies.

Initial effect on parishioners

According to an account from the Sami cultural perspective,

:"[T]he Sami began to notice that...Laestadius had changed. His sermons were filled with vivid metaphors from the lives of the Sami that they could understand. He preached about a God who cared about the lives of the people. He attacked priests and traders who lined their pockets at the expense of others... After twenty years, something new had begun to happen between the pastor and his parishioners. Young and old alike wanted to learn to read. There was also a bustle and energy in the church, with people confessing their sins, crying and praying for forgiveness (within [Finnish] Laestadianism this was known as liikutuksia, a kind of ecstasy). Not everybody liked it, of course... Those who had previously earned a lot of money through the sale of liquor saw their incomes disappear and derided the new morals... Drunkenness and the theft of reindeer diminished, which had a positive influence on the Sami's relationships, finances and family life."

Successor

When Laestadius died in 1861, he was succeeded by Johan Raattamaa as the leader of the Laestadian movement.

Botanist

Laestadius undertook his first botanic trip as a student. Later the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences paid him to travel to Skåne in southern Sweden and to Lapland, to study and make drawings of plants, to be used in Swedish botany scientific work. He was as an internationally recognized botanist and a member of the Edinburgh Botanical Society as well as the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala.

A number of plant species have been named for Laestadius, e.g.:

  • Salix laestadiana Hartm.
  • Carex laestadii Holmb.
  • Papaver laestadianum Nordh. However, Laestadius did not finish the manuscript until long afterward, and the completed work was lost for many years. Due to these and other reasons, the manuscript was not published until 1997, over 150 years after the expedition.

For his participation in the La Recherche Expedition, Laestadius was awarded the Medal of Honor of the Legion of Honor of France after 1841. He was the first Scandinavian to receive this honor.

Languages spoken

Laestadius's mother tongues were Southern Sami from his mother and Swedish, the language of his childhood home, from his father.

Books authored

  • Fragments of Lappish Mythology (1997);
  • The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness (A Periodical Published in the Years 1852-1854) (in original Swedish, Ens ropandes röst i öknen 1852-1854)

Literature

  • Gustaf Dahlbäck, Den gamla och nya människan i Lars Levi Læstadius teologi, 1949
  • Lilly Anne Østtveit Elgvin, Lars Levi Læstadius' spiritualitet (Summary: The spirituality of L L Læstadius), 2010.
  • Olle Franzén, Naturalhistorikern Lars Levi Læstadius, 1973
  • Seppo Lohi, Sydämen kristillisyys Lars Levi Læstadius ja læstadiolainen herätyksen alkuvaiheet, 2000.
  • Hannu Juntunen, Lars Levi Læstadiuksen käsitys kirkosta, 1982
  • Kristina Nilsson, Den himmelske föräldern. En studie av kvinnans betydelse för Lars Levi Læstadius teologi och förkunnelse, 1988.
  • Henning Thulin, Lars Levi Læstadius och hans förkunnelse, 1949
  • Gunnar Wikmark, Lars Levi Læstadius’ väg till den nya födelsen, 1980

See also

  • La Recherche Expedition (1838–1840)
  • Læstadiuspörtet
  • Native American temperance activists

References

  • Laestadius sermons in English, Swedish and Finnish in text and audio files
  • Pajala Library Special website containing Laestadius' original manuscripts and works