SCOTTISH SCHOOL OF EUROPEAN ETHNOLOGY — ALEXANDER FENTON
SCOTTISH SCHOOL OF EUROPEAN ETHNOLOGY — ALEXANDER FENTON

Summary/Abstract: Alexander Fenton (Shotts, 26 June 1929 – Edinburgh, 9 May 2012), professor emeritus of Scottish Ethnology, is known in his own country and in Europe as an outstanding scholar of Scottish country life who established European ethnology in Scotland. He put his region on the map of European ethnology and at the same time introduced the concept, scope and even the name of this field of research into Scottish research. Besides participating in scholarly discourse in Scotland and internationally, he also spoke a language that was understood by the general public in his own country and on field trips he was able to speak with farmers in many countries of Europe in their Germanic, neo-Latin, Slav or other native language. His great achievement for European ethnology is reflected in the words with which a well known public figure began the obituary in The Independent (“Sandy Fenton was among the very greatest scholars of the Ethnology and Antiquities of Scotland”, [Sir] Tam Dalyell, 15 May 2012). The use of the familiar form of his name here is no exception: everyone at home and abroad addressed Professor Fenton as Sandy. From the international viewpoint his work represented a major contribution to the attainment of the main goal of European ethnology. The discipline of Ethnologia Europaea “has set itself the task of breaking down not only the barriers which divide research on Europe from general ethnology, but also the barriers between the different national schools within the continent. It will ensure the presentation of all the basic results of regional investigations and serve as a forum for fruitful discussion” (editorial address by the Danish professor of European Ethnology in the journal Ethnologia Europaea, 1984).

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