Citadel, old town and fortifications of Derbent. Who discovered Greenland? Greenland name history

Strange name. This land is not at all green, as it is called. It is white, or rather, icy. The name Iceland would be quite suitable for it. But it was assigned to the incomparably greener island. This is a geographic paradox. But, like any true paradox, it has a logical explanation.

At the beginning of the new era, Northwestern Europe was increasingly populated by enterprising, strong and courageous people. They herded livestock, farmed, hunted, and fished. However, despite the relatively mild climate of Scandinavia, there was not very much land suitable for agriculture. And the soils were quickly depleted.

The increase in population density, coupled with the impossibility of more intensive farming and cattle breeding, caused internal conflicts. More and more young, strong people began to go to sea robbery - to Viking, as they called it.

At first, perhaps, they simply tried to find and populate new territories. But the path to the west and southwest across the sea led to the well-inhabited lands of Britain and Ireland. The same thing happened on the western edge of Europe. In these parts the Vikings carried out predatory raids and conquests.

The largest geographical discoveries fell to the lot of those Scandinavians (Normans, Norwegians) who were looking not for wealth, but for a decent, peaceful life.

Residents British Isles suffered from Viking raids. For this reason, or simply from a desire to escape the bustle of the world, groups of Irish monks began to go to sea, settling on deserted islands.

According to the medieval Irish chronicler Dicuil, at the end of the 8th century one such group spent the spring and summer on a large desert island northwest of Ireland. This was Iceland. Some people returned to their homeland, but some remained.

In 867, one of the Viking leaders, Naddod, and his retinue were returning from Norway to their possessions in the Faroe Islands. The storm threw his draka far to the northwest. He saw a mountainous land with snow-capped mountains and named it Iceland. Perhaps he didn't want her to attract people to her.

Soon another group of Vikings, led by Gardar, discovered this land, walked around it and became convinced that it was an island, and quite an attractive one at that. The Norwegian chronicler Ari Thorgilsson Frode left the following description: “In those days, Iceland from the mountains to the coast was covered with forests, and Christians lived there, whom the Norwegians called papars. But later these people, not wanting to communicate with the pagans, left there, leaving behind Irish books, bells and staves; from this it is clear that they were Irish.”

The name Greenland would be quite suitable for such an island. But for some reason the Norwegians preferred to call it “ice land.” According to one version, the choice of name was influenced by the wintering experience that one of the princes, the Viking Floki, who sailed from Norway, spent on the island. These settlers did not stock up on enough food for their livestock. The winter turned out to be long and snowy, and the livestock died. People could not leave the land because the sea was covered with ice. With considerable hardships, they survived until the summer and returned to their homeland.

Over time, not only economic life, but also government life improved on the island. In 930, residents at a general meeting decided to establish a supreme council - the Althing. This was the first parliament in the world. However, the Novgorod Republic arose about a century earlier with its government elected by citizens. But it did not last long due to internal strife and was replaced by a monarchy.

The Althing allowed the inhabitants of the island to restore order and coordinate their actions, and fight crime. This circumstance played a role in the discovery of a new land.

The owner of one of the estates, Eirik, nicknamed Red, killed two people in a quarrel that turned into a fight. He was sentenced to three years of exile. The circumstances of this case are unclear. Apparently there were some disputes over land ownership or long-standing feuds; and there was not just a fight, but a whole massacre, in which representatives of two clans took part. It is unlikely that the murder was vile and groundless, otherwise the punishment would not have been relatively mild: three years of exile. By the way, Eirik’s father and his family were expelled from Norway to Iceland, also for murder. Apparently, the men in this family were generally distinguished by their tough dispositions.

So, Eirik and his people in 981 or 982 embarked on drakars - long, sharp-nosed boats - and left Iceland. They knew that there was no room in the east, in Norway, and in the south, in Ireland and Britain. Extended to the north to unknown limits cold ocean. In the west, as some sailors said, there is some unknown land. Perhaps Eirik himself had previously approached her during voyages.

This time they had to get used to the inhospitable deserted shores, behind which glaciers were piled up. The sailors moved south along the coast, choosing a suitable harbor with green meadows suitable for cattle breeding. They walked more than 600 km to the southern edge of the island and established a settlement. This is how Ari Thorgilsson Frode described the event:

“The country called Greenland was discovered and settled from Iceland. From there, Eirik the Red from Beidi Fjord headed to Greenland. He gave the country a name, calling it Greenland; he said people would want to go there if the country had a good name. They found traces of housing in the east and west of the country, as well as the remains of boats and stone tools. This is what was told to Thorkel, son of Gellir, in Greenland by a man who himself was on this journey with Eirik the Red.”

After the first winter, the settlers explored the western shores of the island, also about 600 km. In some places there were areas where it was possible to organize settlements. Eirik turned from an unfortunate outcast into the master of a vast country. One problem - nature was harsh. And another thing - there was no population. How to attract people here?

By that time, apparently, there were no territories left in Iceland that were more or less suitable for habitation. When, after serving his sentence, Eirik returned to his native island, he managed to persuade many people to go to Greenland, a green country. Moreover, it was located (in its part examined by Eirik) at the same latitudes as Iceland, even further south.

Eirik was not exaggerating too much when he called the land he discovered “green.” He could not know either the true size of the island - the largest in the world, or the fact that it was almost entirely under ice. The explorers did not go deep into the island, and its coast almost everywhere, especially in the southwest, was indeed green. Perhaps there were even small groves here and there in the valleys. Tree trunks washed ashore served as building and heating material.

In 985, Eirik led a whole flotilla to the new land - 25 ships with families, belongings, and livestock. On the way they were caught in a storm. Several Drakars sank, a few turned back, but most reached Greenland. In total, it is estimated that 400-500 people arrived. They settled on the southern edge of the great island in places chosen in advance by Eirik.

Soon life in the new place improved. The population of Greenland was growing. In the 13th century there were already about a hundred small villages and up to five thousand inhabitants. There was an established regular connection with the continent: from there, bread, iron products, and construction timber were delivered to the colonists. And to the mainland the Greenlanders sent products from hunting birds and sea animals: eider down, whalebone, walrus tusks, skins of sea animals.

However, in the 14th century, the situation on the island began to deteriorate more and more, settlements fell into disrepair, people were increasingly getting sick and dying. Two hundred years later, the Norman population of Greenland almost completely died out.

Many geographers believe that this is due to a period of cold weather, the so-called “Little Ice Age”. However, there is no reason for such global climate change. Was it there? In any case, the most significant thing is that the political situation in Northwestern Europe has changed.

Iceland lost its independence in 1281 and was annexed by Norway. Now the trade relations between the Greenlanders and Iceland were disrupted and ceased to be regular.

About another century later, Denmark established its power over Norway. Ships almost completely stopped sailing to Greenland. The settlers increasingly had to engage in armed clashes with the Eskimos, who were pressing them from the north, where they had previously been forced to retreat. Now all that was left was to dream about a calm and satisfying life. After all Agriculture, which already required a lot of work, fell into decay: in the north, the soils quickly lose fertility, and the vegetation cover is poorly renewed.

The Danes sent only one ship a year to Greenland (all others were prohibited from having trade relations with northern islands). Deprived of adequate food, good wood and metal tools, and hunting tools, the Normans found themselves in a critical situation. Those of them who did not die and did not move to the mainland destroyed churches and mixed with the Eskimos.

It turns out that both the prosperity and death of Europeans in Greenland were determined not by geographical reasons, more or less stable, but by environmental and socio-political ones. Living in isolation on an island, where nature is harsh and scarce, is possible only by joining the primitive economic system, which is fully consistent with the local nature.

Mainly for the same reason, the first attempt by Europeans to establish colonies in the New World - in North America - failed. But this is another story and another great geographical discovery.

The Arctic is harsh and inhospitable. It lasts for many months polar night, the polar sea is covered with ice, and a thick ice sheet stretches over the huge island of Greenland. After many centuries of struggle, only about 110 years ago man reached the North Pole, and there he found only an icy, boundless sea. Airplanes and airships flew over the North Pole, and for the first time in history in 1937, four brave Soviet explorers began their wonderful journey on an ice floe, not to the Pole, but from the Pole.

The struggle for the Arctic has been going on for more than 2000 years. Back in 325 BC, the enterprising Greek Pytheas from Marsilia (Marseille) tried to push the narrow limits of the world known to the ancients. Having passed pillars of Hercules(Strait of Gibraltar), he passed the shores of Brittany and past Vergion or Hibernia (Ireland) and Albion (Britain) he sailed to the highest latitudes where a Hellenic or Roman had ever appeared - to the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland Islands. Even further to the north lay the mysterious Thule, but Pytheas did not reach it. The islanders told him that in a one-day passage beyond Thule there lay a “dead” or frozen sea, that further there was no land, no water, no air, but an impassable and cold mixture of all these “elements” was widespread.

For more than a thousand years after Pytheas, no one except the unknown Breton, Irish and Norwegian fishermen ventured so far north. Only in the 8th century. The brave Normans rushed to conquer the Arctic. They took possession of the Faroe Islands (725), one of their Vikings, Naddod, discovered Iceland in 861. There, to the new blessed country, supposedly “flowing with milk and honey,” in 871–874. masses of immigrants from Norway moved. Pioneers who visited Iceland praised its lush pastures, rich fisheries, seal fisheries, bird mountains, and abundant driftwood.

And then it was the turn of the island of Greenland. One of the indomitable furrowers of the sea, Gunbjorn, carried away from Iceland by a storm in 876, was the first to see the skerries and distant shores of some new country west of Iceland, but the real pioneer of Greenland was Erik the Red. Discord and blood feud drove him out of Norway, and he and his retinue sailed to Iceland. But here Eric was sentenced to three years of exile from the country for murder. Having left Iceland with his warriors, he circled the southern tip of the island of Greenland (City Farwell), climbed along the western coast and founded his camp in Juliansgab, where he spent three years. Having then returned to Iceland, Eric did not want to stay there, he praised the “Green Land” - Greenland and, with his stories about the riches and freedom of the country, attracted crowds of people there with him.

Neither earlier nor later in history has there been such a massive movement to this polar country. More than 700 people on 25 ships rushed to Greenland. Some of the ships were driven back by storms, some sank, but still 14 of them reached their goal and landed hundreds of colonists ashore.

Greenland: Norman colony

New settlers occupied the green shores of the sea coast and fjords and built farms or hamlets in their depths. The ruins of these farms are now often found on the very edge of glaciers among rocky fields overgrown with scanty reindeer moss. The settlements quickly multiplied, and soon the number of farms reached 280. They were concentrated near two centers - the Western Settlement in the north and the Eastern Settlement in the south.

The eastern coast of the country remained uninhabited even then.

In the description of this trip, as well as earlier or subsequent ones, there is no hint of drifting or stationary ice, the kind of ice that powerful icebreakers now have difficulty handling.

The kings of Norway vigilantly monitored the successes of the colonists and in 1261 managed to impose their power on them. Greenland, after more than 300 years of independent existence, agreed to pay taxes and vira to the Norwegian kings.

The early years of Greenland's colonization were years of prosperity. The country's population reached 3 thousand people, and for its existence it used mainly local resources. The number of the indicated 3 thousand did not include the more ancient inhabitants of the island of Greenland - the Skrelings (Eskimos). At that time they lived somewhere far in the north, hunting for seals, which always huddle close to the edge of the ice. However, the remains of their dwellings and leather boats were found in southern Greenland by Eric the Red. In the 13th century The Normans penetrated far into the north of Greenland without meeting the Skraelings anywhere.

A thousand years separate us from the colonization of Greenland by the Normans. Nothing but ruins and graves remained of the ancient inhabitants of Greenland, and the very memory of the first brave conquerors of the Arctic almost disappeared among the peoples of Europe. Only the ancient northern sagas preserved the names of these pioneers.

About 100 years ago, sensational reports appeared in newspapers in America and Europe that allegedly eternal ice In Greenland, graves have been discovered in which, untouched by decay, in full armor, with long gray beards, ancient northern heroes sleep soundly. In fact, modest graves were excavated in rocky and peaty soil, where only half-decayed skeletons, sometimes shrouded in shrouds, and poor utensils were found. According to some data, it was established that some of the remains date back to the 11th–13th centuries.

Denmark, which now owns Greenland, carried out a thorough study of the finds both on site and in laboratories in Copenhagen. The legendary “warriors” who rested in the graves of the Gerjelfsness colony turned out to be humble cattle breeders and shepherds. The research results provided information about the life of ordinary villagers of hoary antiquity on the outskirts cultural world and a most valuable collection of medieval clothing, which has no equal in the world.

Of course, Eric the Red probably greatly exaggerated when he painted the milk rivers and jelly banks of the island of Greenland and invited colonists to his new possessions. However, there is no doubt that this country a thousand years ago was warmer, its nature was richer and more favorable for the life of a person of European culture. True, although modest attempts were made in Greenland to cultivate vegetables and grains, such as barley, from the very beginning of colonization, or at least from the 13th century. bread was rare, and many of the colonists did not even know what it looked like, while others ate it only on major holidays. The basis of nutrition was dairy products, some of which (cheese, butter) were exported even to Europe. Cattle breeding (cows, sheep, goats) was highly developed; From the surviving ruins of corrals and barns, it is now still possible to calculate how much livestock Greenland had in its red days, sometimes in places where it is now impossible to feed even a one-year-old calf.

In addition to dairy products, Greenland exported walrus skins and ivory. But soon the sale of skins became worse: for Western Europe a closer and more profitable fur market in Muscovy opened.

One of the reasons for the death of the Greenlandic Normans was the monopoly of the Norwegian kings in trade with this northern colony. Private ships did not dare to trade with Greenland, and royal ships often did not visit the declining colony for years, left to the mercy of fate in the fight against harsh nature. The last reliable message about the return of a ship from Greenland came to us from 1410, then the thread connecting this country with Europe was finally broken.

The ice pressed on more and more insistently, the climate became more severe; Skraelings appeared from the north. Disputes began between the old and new owners, and wars arose. In 1379, the Eskimos attacked the Eastern village. The Eskimos still have memories of battles with European settlers. As soon as the balance was disrupted, the colony died.

Although the culture of the settlers with their cattle breeding was much higher than that of the Eskimos, it did not at all correspond to the changing conditions of the country, and the settlers did not abandon the European way of life. Deprived of an influx of fresh blood, left without any support during the years of severe disasters, perhaps during the lambing crisis, and ceased to be of interest to the Norwegian kings, who did not have any special profits from Greenland, the colony disappeared almost without a trace.

Climate of Greenland in Norman times

Studying the condition of the graves and the bodies buried in them reveals much about the climate history of Greenland since the Middle Ages.

The oldest graves are the deepest. More ancient coffins are made from good, large imported timber. As the temperature grew colder and the colony became impoverished, increasingly finer material from driftwood was used to make coffins, and finally, the dead began to be buried in shallow holes, simply wrapping the body in a shroud. Even wooden crosses placed in the hands of the deceased, often with inscriptions, show sharp degradation over the centuries. Now the coffins, which often contain almost no traces of bodies, lie in permafrost, and if the dead were directly placed in it, then, of course, they would not be subject to decomposition to the extent that is observed now. It is clear that the coffins were buried in thawed soil. This is also confirmed by the fact that in some places the coffins and remains of corpses were sprouted by small roots of plants that now also no longer live in this soil.

A study of the skeletons showed that by the end of the colony's existence, the settlers were greatly reduced; Among them, infant mortality and mortality at a young age, up to 30 years old, were very high; traces of rickets, tuberculosis, and scoliosis were found on the bones.

The ruins of farms are in some places located on the very edge of the ice, where nothing would attract a person who came from the mild climate of Europe to settle. What was the condition of the ice at this time around Greenland, in the Greenland Sea and Baffin Bay?

In the descriptions of the most ancient voyages of the Normans, there is no mention of ice that prevented the navigation of ships: the only fears were storms, which were difficult for the small Norman boats, which carried 15–20 people, to cope with. The description of the routes by which the Normans sailed from Iceland to Greenland shows that their path first went to the eastern coast of Greenland, along which the Papanin ice floe had floated so recently; then, rounding Cape Farwell, they rose north along west coast. The first mention of ice is found only in 1130, and even later, in the 13th century, the route of the ships had to be changed, keeping the route south of the previous line. Thus, already 200–250 years after the country was settled, its climate became much colder and living conditions more difficult.

What does Greenland represent today?

The huge island is covered almost over its entire area with a thick ice sheet, which occupies 1.7 million square meters. km. Only along the western outskirts there remains an unice-covered strip from 50 to 200 km wide, which, probably, in part was not covered by ice at all: and where the vegetation survived the harshest times of the Ice Age. There is now no real forest in Greenland, although its southern end lies at the latitude of St. Petersburg, and at 63° N. w. In Norway, walnuts are still ripening (in cultivation, of course). Such is the sharp difference in climate created by the ice cover, although between Greenland and Norway there is a Gulf Stream, to which north-western Europe owes its much milder climate than that observed at the same latitudes in eastern Asia and in America. In Greenland now only small willows and stunted, crooked birch trees grow, which in some places form pitiful spikes. In summer, warm weather sets in for a short time, even with hot days, lush grass grows, and the slopes are covered with bright flowers. But a cold wind blew, snow began to fall, and the country again plunged into a long winter hibernation.

The history of the Norman colonies in Greenland has shown that over the past 1000 years the climate of the country has experienced some fluctuations in one direction or another (the Normans found natives' homes and boats in the south of Greenland, therefore, before the arrival of the colonists, the climate there was harsher). Still, even during the Normans, Greenland was not warm country, and then its interior was covered with ice, a legacy of the Ice Age.

Arctic climate in the Tertiary period

But there was also a time when it was probably warmer in Greenland and throughout the Arctic than here in Crimea. Near o. Disko and Eskimo villages Atanekerdluk is the famous fossil forest of Greenland at an altitude of 600 meters above sea level. Researchers who examined this forest were amazed to see trunks more than the girth of a person! On about. Disko and on the shores of Greenland there are also numerous imprints of leaves of various plants. But how far away is the time when the Greenland forest lost its green cover, which was later covered with sand and silt! This was the beginning of the Tertiary period, the Eocene and Oligocene epochs, separated from us by at least 40 or 50 million years.

A well-known researcher of the fossil flora of Greenland and the entire Arctic, Swiss prof. Ostwald Geer found that some of the Greenlandic plants are still much older; there are imprints of leaves from both the Cretaceous and Triassic periods, and even from the Carboniferous period, from which we are separated by hundreds of millions of years. Among the tertiary trees of Greenland were true chestnut, oaks, walnuts, elms or elms, plane trees, maples, ash, dogwoods, grapes, liquidambar (now growing only in North America and warm parts of Asia), sassafras from the laurel family, tulip tree and many different conifers, mainly those that now live in warmer climates. The Tertiary fossil flora of Greenland includes 200 species. If this number is halved, it will still be amazing, since modern tree and shrub vegetation of the vast territory of the Caucasus, Crimea and the entire European part of Russia has up to 150 species. True, there were no palm trees in Greenland at that time, but its climate, judging by the nature of the plants, was warmer than the climate of central Europe and was closer to the climate of southwestern China and the southeastern states of America with their humid summers and mild winters.

Among the Arctic countries, Greenland was an exception. The same remains of flora from the Tertiary period were found in Iceland and Spitsbergen at 78° N. sh., and even on Grinnell Land under the 82nd parallel. There are many such remains within our Arctic; and circumpolar countries: the New Siberian Islands, northern Yakutia, the Chukotka Peninsula and the Anadyr Territory abound in the remains of the richest tertiary flora. Cold Alaska also enjoyed the benefits of a warm climate; even palm trees, which did not exist in Greenland, used to grow there.

If in the Middle Ages Greenland was a “Green Land”, then this warming was short-term, relative - periods of warming and cooling alternated after several hundred years. Another thing is the warm climate of the Arctic in the Tertiary and Cretaceous periods. To explain this fact, some scientists admit the possibility of independent movement of continents and the movement of pole points, which is why the same parts of the globe in different periods fell under different geographical latitudes. This was the opinion, for example, of the talented explorer of Greenland A. Wegener, who found premature death in the ice of this huge island. According to Wegener, in the Tertiary period, at least at its beginning, to which the strong warming of the Arctic belongs, the North Pole region lay in Pacific Ocean, between Asia and North. America, where one can actually discern for this period some signs of cooling compared to the present time. The polar basin with Greenland, Spitsbergen and Franz Josef Land then lay in the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere, and Ukraine, Crimea and Southern Urals– in the subtropical or even tropic regions. The richest accumulations of remains of evergreen plants and palm trees indicate that Volyn, Kyiv and the Southern Urals were located in the hot zone. The assumption that there has ever been a warm, uniform climate throughout the entire Earth is considered unfounded.

There is another explanation for the reasons for the warm climate of the Arctic in the Tertiary period and in the Middle Ages, which does not resort to bold hypotheses about the movement of continents and poles. These views belong to the English scientist S. Brooks. He proves that climate fluctuations are more or less reflected throughout earth's surface and are associated with an increase in solar heat gain. The distribution of climates on the globe depends mainly on the configuration of land and sea, straits and currents. Indeed, similar parts of the earth in the northern and southern hemispheres are often completely different in climate. Even in the same hemisphere at the same latitudes, different climatic conditions. For example, in the southern hemisphere lies the huge polar continent of Antarctica, bound by glaciers whose area exceeds 12 million square meters. km. If this ice sheet were in the northern hemisphere, it would reach not only Murmansk, but also Torneo, northern Sweden and Norway.

In some places in the northern hemisphere, no less contrasts are observed: the ice cover of Greenland reaches 60° N. sh., i.e. it descends almost to the latitude of St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm and Oslo. Other places on the globe have extremely warm climates compared to those located at the same latitudes: warm South coast England, where outdoors laurels and myrtle trees grow, Paris and Northern Italy lie at the same latitudes as Sakhalin and harsh Newfoundland and Labrador. The southern hemisphere would be much warmer if, instead of a huge continent, there was a continuous sea around the pole, directly communicating with the seas of the temperate and warm zones.

In the northern hemisphere, a factor that increases the severity of the climate is the isolation of the polar basin, which creates conditions for the formation and accumulation of ice. Brooks believed that during the Norman era the polar sea did not freeze at all, or only a limited ice field appeared in winter, which melted in summer.

From what has been said, it is clear what diverse climatic conditions are created at the same latitudes, where the influx of solar heat is exactly the same. Even greater climate fluctuations can be imagined if we assume secular increases and decreases in the influx of solar energy. Brooks explains the warm Norman age of Greenland with such an outbreak. By the end of the Middle Ages, in his opinion, conditions had arisen under which the Arctic Ocean froze and has never thawed since then, although there are indications (for example, the voyage of Sorrow) that at times vast expanses of ice-free sea were created there too.

But probably no changes in the contours of land and sea could have made the polar region, Greenland, and especially the Land of Ellesmere and Grinnell, the blooming garden that they were in the Tertiary period. An obstacle to this is the long night that covers the polar region for many months every year. In other geological epochs polar ice may not have existed, the ice fields of the pack in the ocean could appear and disappear - perhaps, as in the time of Eric, the open ocean could extend to the very pole, but the polar night from year to year inevitably covered these Hyperborean borders, which were written about with shudder ancient geographers. Forests of chestnuts, beeches and plane trees would hardly have ever been conceivable under the latitudes of Spitsbergen and northern Greenland. Only by relying on the ideas of A. Wegener can the past be satisfactorily explained.

Who first discovered Greenland??? and got the best answer

Reply from Ђ@nyushka[guru]
The island was first discovered by the Icelandic sailor Gunbjorn around 875 (he did not go ashore).
In 982, an Icelander of Norwegian origin, Eirik Rauda (Red), made the first survey of the island and named it Greenland.
In 983, Norman (Icelandic) colonies were founded in southern Greenland and lasted until the 15th century. In the 11th century, the population of Greenland, including the indigenous Eskimos, adopted Christianity (in 1126 the first bishopric was founded in Greenland). From 1262 until the beginning of the 18th century, Greenland actually belonged to Norway. In 1721, the colonization of the island by Denmark began. In 1744, Denmark established a state monopoly (existed until 1950) on trade with Greenland. In 1814, with the dissolution of the Danish-Norwegian Union of 1380, Greenland remained with Denmark and until 1953 was its colony. In 1953, Greenland was declared part of the territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. In April 1940, after the occupation of Denmark by Nazi Germany, the US government announced the extension of the Monroe Doctrine to Greenland. On April 9, 1941, the Danish envoy in Washington signed the so-called so-called agreement with the American government. agreement for the defense of Greenland (ratified by the Danish Rigsdag on May 16, 1945). The United States has begun creating military bases on Greenland. After Denmark joined NATO (April 4, 1949), a new agreement was signed between the Danish and American governments on April 27, 1951, under which Denmark and the United States jointly defend the island. In 1971, the United States had 2 military bases and other military facilities in Greenland.

Greenland (Grønland, literally - “green country”) is an island in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, northeast of North America.
State of the Inuit people, autonomous territory of Denmark.
Greenland is the largest island in the world. Area - 2,166,086 km². Population (2005, estimated) - 56,375 people.


Around 980, the Viking Erik Rauda (Red) was sentenced to three years of exile from Iceland for the murder of his neighbor [. He decided to sail west and reach a land that, in clear weather, can be seen from the mountaintops of western Iceland. It lay 280 km from the Icelandic coast; According to the sagas, the Norwegian Gunbjorn sailed there earlier in the 900s. Eric sailed west in 982 with his family, servants and livestock, but floating ice prevented him from landing; he was forced to go around the southern tip of the island and landed at a place near Julianshob (Qaqortoq). During his three years of exile, Eric did not meet a single person on the island, although during his travels along the coast he reached Disko Island, far northwest of the southern tip of Greenland.
At the end of his exile, Erik the Red returned to Iceland in 986 and began encouraging local Vikings to move to new lands. He named the island Greenland (Norwegian Grønland), which literally means “Green Land”. There is still ongoing debate about the appropriateness of this name; some believe that in those days the climate in these places, thanks to the medieval climatic optimum, was mild, and the coastal areas of the southwest of the island were indeed covered with dense grassy vegetation; others believe that the name was chosen for the sole purpose of attracting more settlers to the island.
Karl Lehmann
Connoisseur
(269)
Fascism was in Italy, Spain...

Answer from Elena Osinskaya (Pestova)[guru]
Vikings

Answer from User deleted[guru]
trust a professional!!

Answer from Albert[guru]
Actually I opened
But out of modesty I gave up the laurels... I don’t remember to whom! :))

Answer from Ўras Dorofeev[guru]
The island was first discovered by the Icelandic sailor Gunbjorn around 875 (did not go ashore)
In 982 AD, Icelander Erik Thorvaldson reached the southwestern coast of Greenland. This stern and tough man, better known as Eric the Red, was sentenced to three years of exile in his homeland for murder. He decided to spend these three years exploring the western lands that Icelandic sailors had talked so much about.
Three years later he returned home and told his fellow tribesmen about his discovery. He wanted to arouse in his listeners the desire to go to this new land and therefore gave it an attractive name. Thorvaldson nicknamed the region he discovered “green” - Greenland!
The island belonged to Norway since 1386, after which it passed to Denmark. In 1979, the Danish parliament granted Greenland broad autonomy.
Also:
Archaeologists identify four Paleo-Eskimo cultures in Greenland that existed before the discovery of the island by the Vikings, but the dates of their existence are determined very roughly:
Saqqaq culture: 2500 BC e. - 800 BC e. in southern Greenland;
Independence I culture: 2400 BC e. - 1300 BC e. in northern Greenland;
Independence II culture: 800 BC e. - 1 BC e. mainly in northern Greenland;
Early Dorset culture, Dorset I: 700 BC e. - 200 N. e. in southern Greenland.
These crops were not unique to Greenland. As a rule, they arose and developed in the territories of Arctic Canada and Alaska long before their penetration into Greenland, and could persist in other places in the Arctic after their disappearance from the island.
After the decline of Dorset culture, the island remained uninhabited for centuries. The carriers of the Inuit Thule culture, the ancestors of the modern indigenous inhabitants of Greenland, began to penetrate the north of the island at the beginning of the 13th century.
The capital is Nuk (the old name is Gothob).
Most of The territory of Greenland is hidden under ice cover, the thickness of which in some places reaches three kilometers. Only the most unpretentious plants and the strongest animals can survive on the border between land and ice. Winters in this region are harsh and last a very long time, and in summer the temperature rises very slightly, and the summer itself ends as soon as it begins.
Here and there, on small patches of land free of ice, you can find grass and some other low-growing plants, but for the most part, only stones covered with moss and lichens can be seen from under the ice.
Today, only about thirty-five thousand people live in Greenland, which is extremely small for such a vast territory. Most settled on the ice-free southwestern coast of the island. Only two and a half thousand people live in the eastern part and a little more than six hundred people in the northern part.

Greenland is the largest island in the world by area, located northeast of North America and washed by the waters of the Atlantic and Arctic Ocean. Translated, “Greenland” means “Green Island”. There are two versions of the origin of the name of the island. According to one version, the island was named by the Viking discoverers because of the large amount of green grass that previously grew on the ice-free land; according to another, this name was given to the island deliberately in order to attract a large number of people who wanted to move to new lands.

There are a large number of smaller islands and rocks located near Greenland. The largest island is Disko Island ( geographical coordinates: 69°47′46″ n. w. 53°05′54″ W. d.), located in the Baffin Sea off the west coast of Greenland. There are a number of smaller islands off the east coast, these are, first of all, the islands of Shannon, Clavering, Jens Munch, Traill, Store Colleway, Hovgor and others.

Greenland and the surrounding islands and rocks are part of the Kingdom of Denmark and are its autonomous unit.

As a result archaeological excavations It was possible to establish that before the discovery of Greenland by the Vikings, starting around 2400 BC, peoples belonging to Paleo-Eskimo cultures lived on its territory. Gradually, these cultures fell into decline, and people left the island, which is explained by a sharp deterioration in the climate in the populated areas.

In 982, Erik Rowdy (Red), the leader of one of the Viking tribes that had previously settled the island of Iceland, was punished with a three-year exile for the murder of a neighbor and, together with his family, servants and cattle, sailed westward in search of an unknown land that was mentioned in sagas The unknown land was discovered quite quickly, but floating ice prevented them from going ashore, which forced the Vikings to go around the southern tip of the island and land in Julianehob (Qaqortoq). Further Viking exploration of the island revealed that it was uninhabited.

In 986, Raudi returned from exile to Iceland and gathered quite a lot of people who wanted to move to the newly discovered lands; according to the sagas, their number exceeded 350 people. Upon arrival on the island, two large colonies, Western and Eastern, were founded, in which the number of inhabitants at their peak reached five thousand people.

Around the year 1000, Leif Erikson from Greenland, with 35 men under his command, reached the coast of the Lablador Peninsula and the island of Newfoundland, thereby discovering America long before Columbus.

In 1261, Greenland, which had previously been virtually independent, accepted the authority of the Norwegian crown. And after the union of Norway and Denmark, the island actually became part of the Danish Kingdom.

The worsening climate and the plague epidemic significantly devastated Greenland, which, after all the troubles and cataclysms, again found itself almost deserted and began to be populated by Inuit (Eskimos) who came from the north of Canada.

In 1500, Greenland was rediscovered by the Portuguese expedition of the Cortirial brothers.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Greenland was constantly the subject of territorial disputes between Norway and Denmark.

In 1940, after the occupation of Denmark by Germany, Greenland refused to recognize the Danish puppet government and began to move closer to the United States and Great Britain, giving them the opportunity to build military bases and airfields on its territory. During the Second World War, 4 German and 1 British submarines crashed or were sunk at Cape Farwell.

In 1968, a strategic bomber with a hydrogen bomb on board crashed near one of the American Air Force bases; the accident almost caused ecological disaster in the region.

Greenland's status as a colony of Denmark was abolished in 1953, at which time Greenland was recognized as an integral part of the Danish Kingdom. And in 2009, after a referendum held on the island, the Danish parliament expanded the autonomous powers of Greenland, which, according to many, was the first step towards the independence of the island.

The island of Greenland is quite large in area, so its geographical coordinates are usually shown in general, namely: 72°00´N, 40°00´W.

Cape Maurice Jesup is the northernmost point of Greenland (83°37′39″ N 32°39′52″ W), which was considered the northernmost landmass until 1921, when it was discovered alternately the islands of Kaffeklubben and ATOW1996, which took the palm. Cape Farwell (59°46′23″ N 43°55′21″ W), which is an above-water rock, is considered to be the southernmost point of Greenland, even despite the fact that it is located on Eggers Island. The westernmost point of the island is Cape Norostrunningen, and the easternmost point is Cape Alexandra (78°11′N 73°03′W), located in the west of the Hayes Peninsula.

The island's total land area is more than 2.1 million square kilometers. Coast along the entire length coastline very much indented by fjords, all kinds of bays and bays. In the southwest the island is washed by the waters of the Labrador Sea, in the west by the Davis Strait and the Baffin Sea (in the area of ​​Baffin Island), Disco Bay (in the area of ​​Disco Island), as well as Melville Bay, in the northwest (in the area of ​​Ellesmere Island ) - a series of Smith, Cane Basin, Robson straits, in the north - the Lincoln Sea and the Gulf of Vendel, in the northeast - the Greenland Sea, in the east - the Denmark Strait (separates Greenland and Iceland). The coast of the island is usually divided into sections, similar to Antarctica, which are called “lands”. Yes, on east coast The islands cover the lands of King Frederick VI, King Christian IX, King Christian X and King Frederick VIII, on the north - Peary Land and Knud Rasmussen Land, on the west - the Shore of Lauge Koch and the Shore of the Western Settlement.

The relief of the island of Greenland, if you exclude the ice sheet, is mostly flat, and closer to the center - even low-lying. In the east and south of the island there is the Watkins Ridge, in the east of which there is located almost on the shore of the Denmark Strait highest point Greenland - Mount Gunbjorn, reaching a height of about 3,700 meters above sea level.

The island of Greenland and a number of small adjacent islands lie entirely in the northern part of the Canadian Shield on a geological platform, which indicates the continental origin of the island, which was formed by separation from the continent of North America.

The geological structure of the island is mainly represented by gneisses, basalts, quartzites, marble and granites. Mineral resources on the island include deposits of cryolite, marble, graphite, brown coal, and some gas and oil.

Most of the island's surface is covered by an ice sheet that covers an area of ​​more than 1,800 square kilometers. The thickness of the ice sheet in some low-lying areas of the island is about 2300 meters. In the depressions in the center of the island, under a layer of ice, there are frozen lakes. It is estimated that the melting glaciers of Greenland would raise the level of the world's seas by about 7 meters.

Early Paleo-Eskimo cultures

History of ancient Greenland - history of repeated migrations of Paleo-Eskimos from the Arctic islands of North America. A common feature of all these cultures was the need to survive in the extremely unfavorable conditions of the most remote region of the Arctic, on the very border of the habitat suitable for human existence. Even small fluctuations in climate turned barely favorable conditions into incompatible conditions for human life and led to the disappearance of ill-adapted crops and the devastation of entire regions through migration and extinction.

Archaeologists identify four Paleo-Eskimo cultures in Greenland that existed before the discovery of the island by the Vikings, but the dates of their existence are determined very roughly:

• Saqqaq culture: 2500 BC e. - 800 BC e. in southern Greenland;
• Independence I culture: 2400 BC e. - 1300 BC e. in northern Greenland;
• Independence II culture: 800 BC e. - 1 BC e. mainly in northern Greenland;
• Early Dorset culture, Dorset I: 700 BC e. - 200 N. e. in southern Greenland.

These crops were not unique to Greenland. As a rule, they arose and developed in the territories of Arctic Canada and Alaska long before their penetration into Greenland, and could persist in other places in the Arctic after their disappearance from the island.

After the decline of culture, the island remained uninhabited for centuries. The carriers of the Inuit Thule culture, the ancestors of the modern indigenous inhabitants of Greenland, began to penetrate the north of the island at the beginning of the 13th century.

Viking settlements

The last written evidence of Greenlandic Vikings is a record of a wedding in the Hvalsi Church dating back to 1408. The ruins of this church are one of the best preserved monuments of Viking culture.

There are many theories regarding the reasons for the disappearance of Norse settlements in Greenland. Jared Diamond, author of Collapse: Why Some Societies Survive While Others Die, lists five factors that may have contributed to the disappearance of the Greenland colony: environmental degradation, climate change, enmity with neighboring peoples, isolation from Europe, failure to adapt. A large number of scientific studies and publications are devoted to the study of these factors.

Environmental degradation

The vegetation of Greenland belongs to the tundra type and consists mainly of sedge, cotton grass and lichens; trees are almost completely absent, with the exception of dwarf birch, willow and alder, which grow in some places. There is very little fertile land here, which, as a result of the lack of forests, suffers from erosion; In addition, the short and cold summer makes farming almost impossible, so the Norwegian settlers were forced to mainly engage in cattle breeding. Overexploitation of pastures in the extremely sensitive tundra environment with unstable soils could increase erosion, lead to deterioration of pastures and a drop in their productivity.

Climate change

Drilling results glacial ice allow you to learn about the climate situation in Greenland over the centuries. They show that during the medieval climatic optimum there was indeed some softening of the local climate from 800 to 1200, but cooling began at the beginning of the 14th century; The "Little Ice Age" reached its peak in Greenland around the 1420s. The lower layers of the scavengers near the oldest Norse settlements contain significantly more bones from sheep and goats than from pigs and cattle; however, in deposits from the middle of the 14th century. near rich dwellings there are only bones of cattle and deer, and near poor ones there are almost solid seal bones. The version about the decline of cattle breeding as a result of cooling and changes in the feeding habits of the Greenlandic Vikings is also confirmed by studies of skeletons from cemeteries near Norwegian settlements. Most of these skeletons bear traces of pronounced rachitic changes, characterized by deformation of the spine and chest, and in women, the pelvic bones.

Feud with neighbors

At the time of the establishment of Norse settlements, Greenland was completely devoid of native people, but the Vikings were subsequently forced into contact with the Inuit. The Inuit of the Thule culture began arriving in Greenland from Ellesmere Island at the end of the 12th - beginning of the 13th century. Researchers know that the Vikings called the Inuit, like the aborigines of Vinland, skræling (Norwegian skræling). The Icelandic Annals is one of the few sources that indicate the existence of contacts between the Norwegians and the Inuit. They tell of an Inuit attack on the Norwegians, during which eighteen Norwegians were killed and two children were captured. There is archaeological evidence that the Inuit traded with the Norwegians, as many items of Norwegian work have been found during excavations at Inuit sites; however, the Norwegians apparently were not very interested in the Inuit, or at least there are no known finds of Inuit artifacts in Viking settlements. The Norwegians also did not adopt kayak construction technology or ringed seal hunting techniques from the Inuit. In general, it is believed that the relationship between the Norwegians and the Inuit was quite hostile. It is known from archaeological evidence that by 1300, Inuit winter camps already existed along the banks of the fjords near the Western Settlement. Somewhere between 1325 and 1350. The Norwegians completely abandoned the Western Settlement and its surrounding area, possibly due to their failure to resist Inuit attacks.

Kirsten Seaver in her book “Frozen Echoes” tries to prove that the Greenlanders had much better health and ate better than was believed, and therefore denies the version of the extinction of the Greenland colony from starvation. It is more likely, she argues, that the colony perished as a result of an attack by Indians, pirates, or a European military expedition, about which history has not preserved information; it is also likely that the Greenlanders would migrate back to Iceland or to Vinland in search of a more favorable home.

Contacts with Europe

In calm winter weather, the ship made the 1,400-kilometer journey from Iceland to southern Greenland in two weeks. The Greenlanders had to maintain relations with Iceland and Norway in order to trade with them. The Greenlanders could not build ships themselves because they did not have timber, and depended on supplies from Icelandic merchants and on expeditions for timber to Vinland. The sagas tell of Icelandic traders who sailed to trade in Greenland, but trade was in the hands of the owners of large estates. It was they who traded with the arriving merchants and then resold the goods to small landowners. The main Greenlandic export was walrus tusks. In Europe they were used in decorative arts as a substitute for ivory, the trade of which had declined during the hostility with the Islamic world during the era of the Crusades. It is considered likely that as a result of Europe's improving relations with the Islamic world and the advent of the trans-Saharan caravan trade in ivory, the demand for walrus tusks fell significantly, and this may have contributed to the loss of merchant interest in Greenland, the reduction in contacts and the eventual demise of the Norwegian colony on the island.

However, the cultural influence of Christian Europe was felt quite well in Greenland. In 1921, Danish historian Paul Norland dug up a Viking burial in a church cemetery near the Eastern Settlement. The bodies were dressed in European medieval clothing of the 15th century and showed no signs of rachitic changes or genetic degeneration. Most had a crucifix on their necks and their hands in a prayer gesture.

From the records of the papal archives it is known that in 1345 the Greenlanders were exempted from paying church tithes due to the fact that the colony was seriously suffering from poverty.

The last ship to visit Greenland, sometime in the 1510s, was an Icelandic ship that was blown west by a storm. His team did not come into contact with any residents of the island.

Around the same time, around 1501, a Portuguese expedition visited the Greenland area. The European rediscovery of Greenland is believed to have occurred around 1500 by the Portuguese expedition of the Cortirial brothers. They are usually credited with the rediscovery of Greenland by Europeans.

Danish expeditions to Greenland in the 15th century

Since that time, Greenland has become a territory quite well known throughout the world. Various English expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage explored its shores to at least 75° north latitude.

Strategic importance

Autonomous Greenland declared itself a state of the Inuit people. Danish geographical names were changed to local ones. The country began to be called Kalaallit Nunaat. The island's administrative center, Gothob, became Nuuk, the capital of a nearly sovereign country, and the Greenlandic flag was adopted in 1985. However, the movement for the independence of the island still remains weak.

Thanks to the progress of new technologies, especially the development of aviation, Greenland has now become much more accessible to the outside world. Local television broadcasts began in 1982.

In 2008, a referendum on self-government was held in Greenland, following which on May 20, 2009, the Danish Parliament adopted a law on expanded autonomy for Greenland. Expanded autonomy for Greenland was proclaimed on June 21 of the same year. There are people both inside and outside Greenland who see increased autonomy as a step towards Greenland's independence from Denmark