HP Abridged Interlude: Durmstrang

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

So, as I've been doing my Goblet of Fire parodies, I've lately been wondering about the school that Krum attends, Durmstrang. Since Rowling has not been forthcoming regarding information about Durmstrang (that I am aware of), I thought I'd write this little article to try and make sense of it.

What we know:

-Durmstrang is one of the three biggest wizarding schools in Europe

-A Bulgarian Quidditch player named Viktor Krum is a student there

-Its headmaster is of Slavic background, and at least some portion of its student body is as well

-Its uniforms require furs. Hermione makes the conjecture that Durmstrang is far north

Poking around a bit on the Harry Potter wiki (yes, there's a wiki), I discovered a bit more info: apparently, Durmstrang is located in Norway or Sweden and its name is German. And this is where Rowling begins to lose me.

See, Bulgaria is actually pretty damn far from anyplace in Scandinavia. It's in the southeastern corner of Europe, bordered by Greece, Romania, and Turkey. Actually, if I consult my child's globe it seems as though the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, is almost directly south of the convergence point between Norway, Sweden, and Finland; but it's still a pretty far journey. So, in a way it seems as though someone like Krum would be the equivalent of a Chinese student studying at Harvard, or something: maybe he's going there for the prestige of the place, which makes the long distance he'd need to travel worth it. And since he's probably got portkeys and things, it wouldn't actually be much of a hassle to get there.

Except that from what Rowling shows us, all the named Durmstrang associates (including the headmaster!) are from Bulgaria, or at least another Slavic country. So what about Karkaroff? You would think that the headmaster of a school set in Scandinavia would actually be from Scandinavia (granted, I suppose you could make the case that Karkaroff might have simply been of Russian/Bulgarian heritage but born and bred in Scandinavia. That may be a stretch, however). I had originally posited that Durmstrang would be in Siberia, which would explain Karkaroff, if nothing else.

And as for the students, well, to be fair, we only get the names of two students, and so it's probably safe to assume that there are others that are more local to the school. And it's also fairly safe to assume that Durmstrang attracts a wide international crowd, since Draco had considered the possibility of going there (why Hogwarts doesn't attract more people from the continent, since it's treated as being so much larger and more glorious than Durmstrang, is not explained).

And what about the name Durmstrang? Why does a school in the north of Scandinavia have a German name? The odds that a Swedish or Norwegian name could just happen to sound like a German name are slim to none considering that although Swedish and Norwegian are Germanic languages, they're actually not all that closely related to German. German is a West Germanic language (much like English) while Swedish and Norwegian are North Germanic languages and thus more closely related to Icelandic than a language like German.

Again, there may be a logical explanation. Maybe German wizards have an empire over the continent that makes the German language a standard thing, in the same way the English language is dominant over most of the nonmagical world. For one thing, it'd go a long way toward explaining how Durmstrang could host an international crowd: it seems unlikely that a language like Swedish or Norwegian could be the standard language spoken, but German might be more widespread. Maybe Durmstrang has a whole set of classes designed to start the kids learning German young, so they can blend in with the German-centric international wizarding business world.

Well, it makes more sense than the picture Rowling gave us, anyway....

Comments

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

It has also been theorized that Durmstrang is somewhere along the border of Finland and Russia in the very far north. If it was located in Russia (rather than Finland) then the more slavic names would not be so surprising. Yes, it IS a long way from Bulgaria - but consider that Lucius considered sending Draco there instead of Hogwarts. I think JKR was more intending Durmstrang to be historically part of the eastern bloc (during VW1).

I think she was playing partly on the idea of a powerhouse contender (think of the Olympics competition - note the similarity between the olympic flame and the fire in the goblet) and the idea that many might think someone from that area 'evil'. True, in 1994-95 that the book was set in, the Berlin wall has come down and there is a thaw in relations - but it is not that long since the USSR was thought the enemy and watched with suspicion. Bulgaria was set free in only 1991. Would we have considered it at all unusual for Krum to attend a school in a country with which Bulgary was allied if the book was set in the '80s?

Now there MIGHT be a closer school, but the three competing schools are supposed to be the cream of the crop. I find it more likely to ask if it was only a choice of proximity, then why wouldn't Krum have gone to Beauxbatons? The south of France is certainly closer to Bulgaria than somewhere north of St. Petersburg. But, I think JKR was intending a feeling of cultural distance. That Krum would be more 'at home' in Durmstrang.

[sionna-raven.livejournal.com]

... then why wouldn't Krum have gone to Beauxbatons?

This would be weird for cultural reasons. Bulgaria has close ties to Russia historically. It uses the same letters and is part of the Russian orthodox church.
Additionally Bulgaria was occupied the Osman empire until the beginning of the 20th century. The Christian European wizards of Bulgaria would more likely have sent their children north to their brothers in Russia than to south-east to Turkey.