Starting June 21, Greenland receives expanded self-government
The photos turned out to be... pornographic postcards depicting young naked Greenlandic women photographed against a backdrop of northern nature. The indignation of the Eskimos was boundless.
Typical captions under the "funny pictures" are laconic: "Girl from Cape York, 12 years old", "Woman, 23 years old", etc. "Many polar explorers earned extra money by snapping naked Eskimo women during expeditions and then selling these photographs in Denmark under the guise of ethnographic pictures. Archival footage shows that the scenes were staged in advance. The models pose in positions that they themselves could hardly have thought of," writes Sorin Gale in the Danish newspaper Politiken. Probably, in the basements of the Institute of Arctic Studies, there remained unsold stock that in its time for one reason or another did not end up in the collections of connoisseurs of exotic "erotica".
The news of the Copenhagen find was instantly reprinted by Greenlandic media, giving the residents of the autonomy yet another reason to talk about "Danish imperialism", which brought only woes to the largest island on the planet. The packets of old photographs could not have come at a better time, since the newspapers of the metropolitan country were at the same time actively discussing the social problems of Greenland that the new government would have to tackle. One of them is sexual exploitation of minors. According to the same Politiken, among the 629 convicted residents of the island (with a population of 58,000 people), there is also a criminal who received a sentence for sexual crimes against children. In Denmark itself, one such criminal occurs for every 23,000 residents. Supporters of independence from the left-wing party Inuit Ataqatiqiit were particularly outraged that the Institute's "collection" also included underage models captured by the cameras of respectable polar explorers. Moreover, the northern "porn" could be sold bypassing the strict laws that protected public morality in Denmark in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to opponents of "Danish imperialism", this can be considered yet another piece of evidence that a hundred years ago, Eskimos were not considered human beings in the metropolitan country. Greenlandic "porn stars" were "exotics" along with walruses and polar bears, and therefore easily passed through censorship barriers.
The struggle for parliament on the Green Island unfolded between the Social Democratic party Siumit, which had been in power continuously since 1979, and the left-wing Inuit Ataqatiqiit. Greenlanders had already voted in a referendum for a break with Denmark in the long term, and Copenhagen, not wanting to endlessly subsidize the distant island, met them halfway. On June 21, Greenland receives expanded self-government. In particular, the autonomy government is granted rights to exploit natural resources and manage the police. The independence supporters won the elections, pushing Siumit into opposition. They should thank, among others, the Danish pioneers of Greenland research, who left "compromising material" in the Institute of Arctic Studies that exploded more than a hundred years later.
Related materials:
Eskimos choose autonomy from Denmark
Alexey SMIRNOV.
"Novye Izvestia"