Christian Matras (poet)

Christian Matras
Born	December 7, 1900 Viðareiði
Died	October 16, 1988 (aged 87) Tórshavn

Christian Matras (1900 - 1988) was a Faroese poet and academic.

He was born at Viðareiði in the Faroe Islands. He took a doctor’s degree in Old Norse in 1933 from the University of Copenhagen, and in 1952 he became a professor at the same university. In 1965 he returned to the Faroe Islands to become head of the department of Faroese language at the University of the Faroe Islands in Tórshavn, where he produced an extensive body of work analysing Faroese language, literature, and culture.

As a poet he is one of the most important in Faroese literature.^[1]

Life

The surname Matras goes back to an immigrant from France.

Christian Matras in 1900 in the village Viðareiði on Borðoy born in the far north of the Faroe Islands. He attended primary school until he in 1912 Tórshavn came to secondary school. He was in a class with Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen and William Heinesen. In 1917 he made his high-school diploma. In the same year he moved to Sorø in Denmark, where 1920 he completed his schooling.

After graduation Matras studied Scandinavian Studies at the University of Copenhagen. He also spent a semester in Norway, where he worked with Norwegian seal which should characterize him very. In 1928 he obtained his MA in Linguistics, and in 1933 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the place name in the Faroe Islands. From 1936 Christian Matras worked at the University of Copenhagen, and became in 1952 a professor of linguistics. He was the first Faroese who ever became a professor, and until 2009 the only in Copenhagen. - Faroese, the professor in Copenhagen was. In 1965 Matras returned to the Faroe Islands, where he from the beginning head of the Faroese Faculty of University of the Faroe Islands was. He was the only professor in the Faroe Islands. In 1971 he retired for reasons of age. Christian Matras died on 16 October 1988. A few months earlier he was a stamp of Postverk Føroya honored. In October 2006, his birthplace Viðareiði got first street name. A bear of the twelve roads and paths the name Kristjansgøta ( "Christian Street") - by Christian Matras.

Works

• 1926 Gratt, Katt og hat: yrkingar (drawings by William Heinesen ) - 48 p (collection of poems)
• 1927-1928: Føroysk-donsk BETA = Færøsk-Français (Färöisch- Danish dictionary , along with Mads Andreas Jacobsen , S. 469, further expenditure: *1961, Supplement 1974, 1977, 1995)
• 1933 - HEIMUR og heima: yrkingar - 59 p (collection of poems)
• 1935 - Føroysk bókmentasøga - 104 S. (Faroese literary history)
• 1939 - Indledning til Svabo færøske visehaandskrifter - lxxxv S. (Introduction to Jens Christian Svabo folksongs manuscripts)
• 1941 - Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen . Gyldendals julebog - 45 p (in Danish with texts by Jacobsen)
• 1957 - Drunnur - 33 P.
• 1970 - Bygd og hav: Myndir úr seglskipatíð (images from Ingálvur av Reyni ) - 16 P.
• 1972 - Á hellu eg Stod: gamalt og nýyrkt - 103 S.
• 1975 - Av Viðareiði: folk í huganum (pictures of Fridtjof Joensen ) - 14 P.
• 1978 - Úr Sjón og úr minni (yrkingar) - ( "From my own observation and memory" - poems)
• 1986 - Úr Sjón og úr minni - ørindi = Seeing and remembering - Shipping - 47 p (poetry, Faroese-English)
• 1980 - Ulf Zachariasen (ed.): Christian Matras: ritskrá í úrvali - 32 P.
• 1993 - Anne-Kari Skarðhamar (trans.): DICT fra Færøyene: et Utvalg dikt - 120 p (in Norwegian)
• 2000 - Martin Næs and Jóhan Hendrik W. Poulsen (ed.): Greinaval - málfrøðigreinir - 353 S. - ISBN 99918-41-81-4 (linguistic essays)
• 2002 - Turið Sigurðardóttir (ed.): Chr. Matras - aldarminning - 118 S.
• 2004 - Anne-Kari Skarðhamar (ed.): Chr.Matras - Yrkingar: heildarsavn við og yrkingum týðingum - 397 S. - ISBN 99918-1-418-3 (poetry collection)

References

1. Sven Hakon Rossel (1992), A History of Danish Literature, University of Nebraska Press, ISBN 978-0-8032-3886-2, ISBN 080323886X