The Sami flag will fly in Uppsala

The Sami National Day is celebrated all across Sameland on February 6 

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  The Sami flag will be flying at Uppsala University on February 6, National Sami Day, thanks to religious historian Åsa Virdi Kroik.

• On the 2014 National Day of the Sami people, the Sami flag was raised for the first time at Uppsala University. This was a result of the fight of doctoral candidate Åsa Virdi Kroik. More info on the Sami National Day: Viidát - The Sami national day

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  The first, unofficial Sámi flag was designed by Coast Sámi artist Synnøve Persen from Porsá in 1977. It was used as a national symbol in the demonstrations against the planned Alta Dam in Norway. The first official flag was recognized and inaugurated on August 15, 1986 by the 13th Nordic Sami Conference in Åre, Sweden.

• ”I was so happy I cried. I put a lot of myself into this, and to know that people listened and so soon is very unusual and fantastic,” she says to Upsala Nya Tidning. Virdi Kroik is a religious historian and points out that Uppsala University has a problematic history when it comes to its relations to minorities. All Swedish national minorities were deeply vulnerable to the racial biological studies that were conducted at the university, especially the Roma. The Sami National Day is celebrated all across Sameland on February 6, when the memory of the first Sami meeting is being honored. It took place on February 6, 1917 in Trondheim, according to samer.se.

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