Isak Mikal Saba (15 November 1875 – 1 June 1921)
was a Norwegian
Sámi
The Sámi ( ; also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, Rus ...
teacher and politician. He was born in 1875 in
Nesseby
or (also unofficially ''Uuniemi'' in Kven) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Varangerbotn. Other villages in Nesseby include Gandvik, Karlebotn, Nesseby, an ...
,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
to Per Sabasen and Bigi Henriksdatter Aikio.
Saba married Marie Gunneva Hansdatter Holm (1876–1961), daughter of Hans Holm Olsen and Marit Gulbrandsdatter. On 11 October 1906 he became the first Sámi to be elected to the ''
Stortinget
The Storting ( no, Stortinget ) (lit. the Great Thing) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years base ...
'' (Norwegian parliament), and he was the representative of
Finnmark
Finnmark (; se, Finnmárku ; fkv, Finmarku; fi, Ruija ; russian: Финнмарк) was a county in the northern part of Norway, and it is scheduled to become a county again in 2024.
On 1 January 2020, Finnmark was merged with the neighbouri ...
for the
Norwegian Labour Party
The Labour Party ( nb, Arbeiderpartiet; nn, Arbeidarpartiet; A/Ap; se, Bargiidbellodat), formerly The Norwegian Labour Party ( no, Det norske Arbeiderparti, DNA), is a social-democratic political party in Norway. It is positioned on the centr ...
from 1907 to 1912. He was the mayor of Nesseby from 1914 to 1915.
After serving as mayor, he worked as a teacher until his death.
![Labour parliamentary group 1906](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Labour_parliamentary_group_1906.jpg)
Saba wrote the text to ''
Sámi soga lávlla
The Sámi ( ; also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, R ...
'', which the
Sámi Conference
The first international Sámi Conference was officially opened in Jokkmokk, Sweden on August 31, 1953 and closed four days later on September 3. Since then, the Sámi conferences have come to be important venues for the Sámi across Norway, Sweden, ...
made the Sami
national anthem
A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and European n ...
in 1986.
Saba died in 1921 in
Vardø
( fi, Vuoreija, fkv, Vuorea, se, Várggát) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county in the extreme northeastern part of Norway. Vardø is the easternmost town in Norway, more to the east than Saint Petersburg or Istanbul. The administra ...
.
References
Further reading
* Eriksen, Leif (1975): ''Isak Saba, stortingsmannen'', thesis, University of Oslo
* Lindstøl, Tallak (1914): ''Stortinget og Statsraadet 1814-1914''. Kristiania
* Zachariassen, Ketil (2012):
Isak Saba, Anders Larsen og Matti Aikio – ein komparasjon av dei samiske skjønnlitterære pionerane i Norge (PDF), ''Nordlit'' 29
External links
1875 births
1921 deaths
Norwegian Sámi people
People from Nesseby
Norwegian Sámi politicians
Norwegian Sámi-language writers
Norwegian Sámi activists
Labour Party (Norway) politicians
Members of the Storting
{{Norway-politician-1870s-stub