Sweden

SWEDEN. - I. GEOGRAPHY. - The largest (450,000 sq. km.) of the Scandinavian countries; the fourth in area among the European ones (v. map under the entry NORWAY).

It occupies the eastern part of the Scandinavian peninsula and consists of a mountainous zone (on the border with Norway) that slopes down to the Baltic with a series of rolling terraces, cut by long symmetrical valleys, which frequently open out into lakes, in a monotonous landscape of forests, and, in the southern sector, by a broad expanse of plain (Götaland), which gives way to the three largest lakes of the peninsula (Vänern, Vättern and Mälaren). The coast lacks the exceptional wealth of inlets that characterizes the Norwegian one, and above all the beneficial warmth of the ocean waters.

The climate is characterized by the long duration of the extreme seasons: winter further increases this duration toward the N. (1/7 of Swedish territory lies beyond the Arctic Circle), where even precipitation — as a rule modest — becomes more abundant. Nevertheless the country feels to no small degree the effect of the warm currents of the North Atlantic.

S. is first of all a country of forests (which occupy about half of the territory, and whose products head its exports), while agriculture, despite its high technical level, cannot, given the modest extent of arable land (8% of the territory, as against 28% unproductive), suffice for national needs (more than half of the cereals must be imported). From livestock raising, ever more flourishing, substantial gains are drawn (butter, cheese); while another great resource is provided by industry, which, although it can count, in substance, only on domestic timber and iron (central S. and Lapland; the reserves of silver, copper, arsenic and zinc are modest), has brought the country to a position of privilege for the qualitative excellence of a production directed toward specialized and high-cost articles. Moreover, industrial activity has by now established itself in almost every branch: the lack of fuel is largely made up for by hydroelectric power, which includes some of the most powerful plants in Europe.

The population, quite homogeneous from the ethnic point of view (few Finns, and very few Lapps) and religious (Protestants), amounts to about 7 million souls (15 per sq. km.). Its distribution is quite varied, with minimal densities in the northern regions and strong urban concentrations in central S. and in Götaland. The capital, Stockholm (715,000 inhab.), is by far the most populous urban center; of the others only Göteborg (346) and Malmö (190) exceed 100,000 inhabitants.

S. is organized as a hereditary constitutional monarchy, with a bicameral representative government.

Giuseppe Caruci

II. CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

The Roman historian Tacitus, after treating of the peoples of northern Germany, speaks of the Suiones, peoples highly skilled in the handling of arms and accomplished sailors. From the term Suiones derive swear and the present-day Sverige (Sweden). According to Tacitus, moreover, these Suiones formed various civitates under a single chief. Ca.

five centuries later, Jordanes (De origine actibusque Getarum, composed around 550 A.D.) speaks of the suehans, the Gothic form of the term swear, as one of the peoples of Scandinavia. Nothing is known of the state organization and social life of S. in this period.

Over the course of the centuries the swear, settled in the territory around Lake Mälar, gradually extended their sovereignty over the other regions of S., occupying its eastern part. Particular importance was attained in the 8th and 9th centuries by the city of Birka, which arose on an island of the Mälar and was a notable transit center for the commercial relations of northern Europe. The first attempt at Christianization was the work of Ansgar (v.), who went to Birka around 830 and was later named archbishop of Hamburg and legate for the Nordic missions. Meanwhile a Saxon priest, Gautbert, was sent to Birka, where he remained for some time to continue the missionary activity begun by Ansgar, but the spread of Christianity provoked a very violent reaction on the part of the population, attached to its traditional divinities, so that Gautbert was forced to leave the country. Missionary activity there was also interrupted by the raids of the Vikings, but Christianity nevertheless managed gradually to gain a foothold in the country. Around the year 1000 there is news of the first baptized king, Olof Skötkonung. The new religion spread from the missionary centers of Skara, Linköping, Strängnäs, Sigtuna and Västerås, thanks also to the intense evangelization promoted by Archbishop Adalbert (v.) of Hamburg-Bremen. The claims of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen suffered a severe blow in 1104 with the establishment of the archbishopric of Lund (v.), following the demands of the kings of Denmark, who did not welcome the dependence of the Danish Church (Lund and Scania, which is the part of southern part of S., were part of Denmark) from the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, subjects and feudatories of the Empire. Around 1120 there is record of six episcopal sees in S. dependent on the metropolitan see of Lund: Skara, Linköping, Eskilstuna, Strängnäs, Sigtuna and Västerås. Eskilstuna was soon united with Strängnäs, while Sigtuna around 1140 was changed into the bishopric of Uppsala. Meanwhile, after struggles among claimants, King Sverker ascended the throne and around 1130 S. found itself united under a single sovereign. During his reign the Cistercian Order spread through the country. Erik the Saint (1157-60), his successor, is linked to the so-called first crusade in Finland, whose historicity is still highly controversial. Charles VII (1161-67), son of Sverker, taking advantage of the struggle between Alexander III and Barbarossa, and of the fact that the King of Denmark, Valdemar the Great, had recognized the antipope Victor IV, turned to the Pontiff for the establishment of a Swedish metropolis, and the request was granted by Alexander III in 1164 with the establishment of the archbishopric of Uppsala and the dependent bishoprics of Skara (with jurisdiction over the regions of Västergötland and Värmland), Linköping (Östergötland, Öland), Strängnäs (Södermanland, Närke) and Västerås (Västmanland, Dalarna), to which were later added the two of Växjö (Tröhärad) and of Abo (Finland). The first archbishop was Stephen, a monk of English origin who had in fact in 1164 been the head of the embassy sent by Charles VII and governed the archbishopric of Uppsala until his death (1185). He had found himself in serious struggles with Charles's successor, Knut Eriksson, who claimed to subject the clergy to the judgment of lay courts.

At the beginning of the 13th century, in the face of the active Danish expansionist policy of King Valdemar Sejr, and of his able adviser Anders Suneson, archbishop of Lund, the kings of S. strove to prevent both an excessive influence of that archbishop over the ecclesiastical affairs of the metropolis of Uppsala, and an extension of Danish dominion over Finland, which would have seriously compromised the freedom of their Kingdom. In 1216 Innocent III in fact addressed to King Erik Knutsson a letter, with which he recognized his sovereignty over Finland and authorized the archbishop of Uppsala to provide for the establishment of one or two bishops in that region. The fear of Danish hegemony over the Baltic therefore favored the conquest of Finland and its Christianization by S. The lands beyond the Gulf of Bothnia were conquered through the expeditions of Birger Jarl in 1249-1250 and of Torgils Knutsson, who founded the castle of Viborg (Viipuri) in the last decade of the same century. From the 13th century onward the social conditions of S. underwent a profound transformation. The strengthening of royal authority under Magnus Ladulås (1275-90) contributed to the formation of a new aristocracy, which soon became the arbiter of the country, especially in the course of the following century, when people began to dispose freely of the royal dignity, conferring it on whoever guaranteed them the greatest privileges. The political position of the Church also became markedly stronger. Moreover the preaching of the Orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic, which particularly in the 14th century spread rapidly through the country, gave rise to an intense spiritual and mystical flowering, of which the figure of St. Bridget (v.) was a luminous example. The nobles, discontented with King Albert of Mecklenburg, whom they themselves had called into the country to free themselves of Magnus Eriksson who had shown himself too autocratic, turned in 1388 for help to Margaret, queen of Denmark and Norway, and she with arms drove Albert from the country. In 1397, the representatives of Denmark, Norway and S. established the union of the three Kingdoms (Union of Kalmar).

This union, whose true juridical and political character is still a matter of varying interpretation and an object of controversy among scholars, lasted until 1523, when Gustav Vasa was proclaimed king of S. The participation of S. in the Union was however quite uncertain and the kings of Denmark did not always have their sovereignty recognized also over S., so much so that there were also native sovereigns, as, for example, Charles VIII Knutsson around the middle of the 15th century, or regents, such as Sten Sture the Elder and the Younger. The latter especially contributed decisively to the spread of a lively anti-Danish sentiment and fought against the archbishop of Uppsala, G. Trolle. Christian II of Denmark took advantage of that internal struggle to occupy Stockholm and to force S. in 1520 to recognize his sovereignty over the country and

the Union of Kalmar. Christian's tyrannical policy unleashed a few months later a general uprising, led by Gustav Vasa, who by force of arms freed Sweden from the bond of the union. He also introduced the Lutheran Reformation into the country, driven to it by motives that were not so much religious as political. Church property was confiscated for the benefit of the crown and the nobility. In 1544 the royal dignity was declared hereditary in the Vasa family. Gustav's second successor, John III, married to Catherine Jagiellon, was inclined to restore Catholicism in Sweden, but this attempt of his came to nothing beyond the publication of a uniform liturgy in 1577. His successor Sigismund III, who was also king of Poland, sought decisively to bring Sweden back into the bosom of Catholicism, but he met with the determined hostility of the Swedes, led by his uncle Charles, who at the Synod of Uppsala in 1593 had John III's liturgical reform abolished and instead had the Augsburg Confession accepted in its entirety. But Sigismund persisted in his religious program, resorting even to arms, until, defeated in battle, he had to leave Sweden precipitously. Charles, having had his nephew deposed in 1598, had himself crowned king under the name Charles IX. Charles's son, Gustavus Adolphus, who succeeded him on the throne in 1611, not only greatly raised Sweden's prestige and political power and made it the leading Baltic power, but extended its dominion over Germany through his intervention in the Thirty Years' War alongside the Protestants. He also worked for the reorganization of the Lutheran Church in the country, maintaining a kind of ecclesiastical hierarchy and various elements of the Catholic liturgy, and he rigorously prevented any Catholic influence or contamination by other sects. Only foreigners were allowed to attend Mass within the precincts of the chapels of the diplomatic legations. The sudden death of Gustavus Adolphus in battle at Lützen (Nov. 5, 1632) did not slow Sweden's political rise, thanks to the diplomatic skill of Axel Oxenstierna, who held the reins of government during the minority of Christina, the only daughter of the great sovereign and the sole heir to the throne. In the Peace of Westphalia (1648) Sweden in fact obtained territorial advantages such that they guaranteed it, together with what it had gained from Denmark by the Peace of Brömsebro of 1645, hegemony over the Baltic. It in fact obtained sovereignty over the islands of Gotland and Ösel and over regions of central and southern Sweden (Jämtland, Härjedalen, Halland) previously Danish-Norwegian; it acquired a large part of Pomerania (with the islands of Rügen, Usedom, Wollin and the cities of Stettin and Wismar), of the Duchy of Bremen (excluding the city itself) and of Verden, together with exemption from customs duties for passage through the Sound. Christina's abdication in 1654 and her conversion to the Catholic faith had no influence whatsoever on the religious conditions of the country, nor did they hinder, under the reign of her successor Charles X Gustav, the strengthening of Swedish power. By crossing the Little and Great Belt in the depths of winter with his army, Charles X forced Denmark, which was nursing plans for revenge, to recognize Swedish hegemony. By the Peace of Roskilde of 1658, in fact, the sovereignty of the Vasa was extended over the regions of present-day southern Sweden still under Danish rule: Scania, Blekinge, Bohuslän. When Charles X died in 1660, at the still young age of 38, his son and successor Charles XI was still a minor, but having come of age in 1672, he organically reformed the Lutheran Church, issued in 1686 a new ecclesiastical law that annulled any independence of the bishops and made the Church strictly dependent on the sovereign, who became practically its «summus episcopus»; he had a common catechism adopted for the whole Kingdom (1689) and a new psalter (1695). Charles XII (1697-1718), in a long war against the Russia of Peter the Great, gravely exhausted the military capacity and economic capacity of the country, with the consequence of the decline of Sweden in the Baltic and in European politics and of the predominance of Russia. The death of Charles gave beginning to what historians call the period of liberty (Frihetstid), in which political affairs became the prerogative of the four estates (Nobility, Clergy, Burghers, Peasants) at the mercy of the two parties of the Hats (Hattar) and the Caps (Mösser), which for their particular internal political aims did not hesitate to request the benevolent support of France, England, Russia, and Prussia, all of which willingly granted it with the intent of diminishing Swedish power. But in 1772, the new sovereign Gustav III with a coup d'état reestablished royal authority. A son of the age of enlightenment, Gustav III abandoned in religious matters the policy of his predecessors and issued in 1781 an Edict of toleration, which also gave Catholics the faculty to practice their religion freely. In consequence of this Pius VI established an apostolic vicariate for Swedish Catholics in 1783. In the autumn of the same year the king of Sweden came to Rome, amicably received by the Pontiff, and stayed there until Easter of 1784. In that same Holy Week Swedish Catholics were able once again to attend, after almost two centuries of persecutions, a public celebration of divine service in Stockholm. The vicissitudes of the revolutionary and Napoleonic age had subsequently grave political repercussions in Sweden. The attempts of Gustav IV Adolf to maintain neutrality between Russia and Great Britain in an anti-Napoleonic function proved vain in the aftermath of the Franco-Russian alliance: in 1808 the tsar Alexander I invaded Finland, which with the Peace of Fredrikshamn (1809) became part of the Russian Empire as an autonomous grand duchy. Gustav IV was forced to abdicate, giving way to a regime based on the division of powers, fixed in the Constitution of 1809 which, subsequently reworked, is still in force. The election of the French marshal Bernadotte as heir to the throne in 1810 (he was later King Charles XIV John from 1819 to 1844) brought to the throne a new dynasty, which still endures. When the new prince saw the star of Napoleon in decline, he promoted the alliance with Russia and with the anti-French coalition and had war declared on Denmark which, defeated, had to renounce its sovereignty over Norway, which then remained until 1905 united with Sweden. The spread of the ideas of nationality gave life to a pan-Scandinavian movement, with a single Nordic monarchy, a design not unwelcome to King Oscar I (1844-59), who hoped in this way to unite also Denmark under his own scepter. The advent of liberalism led instead in 1865 to a reform of the Diet of the four Estates and to the adoption of the representative regime with a parliament of two Chambers. Sweden, which at the Congress of Vienna had renounced all the territories south of the Baltic, modeled its policy on purely defensive criteria and accentuated, especially after 1864, its disinterest in European affairs. This neutralism spared it from being involved in the two world wars of the first half of the 20th century, and favored its orderly economic and social development with a progressive integration of the working class (represented by the social democratic party) into the political life of the country.

Silvio Furlani

III. CURRENT SITUATION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN SWEDEN

On Jan. 24, 1781, King Gustav had granted to the Catholics of S. (which since May 4, 1688 depended on the apostolic vicariate of the northern missions) certain freedoms, and by rescript of Sept. 15, 1783, he had permitted the apostolic vicar Nicola Oster, sent by the Pope, the exercise of governance and supervision over the Catholics. The first apostolic vicars had very scant success. Only under Msgr. Lorenzo Studach (1833) did the situation improve, and churches were erected in Stockholm (1837), Gothenburg (1865) and Malmö (1872). In 1860 the law was repealed that forbade native Swedes to embrace the Catholic religion under penalty of confiscation of property and exile. The decrees of 1870 and 1873 brought new facilitations. On May 19, 1951, the Chamber accepted the law of religious freedom for the first time in the entire history of the country. Thus the prohibition against building convents was also removed. The new law, which entered into force on Jan. 1, 1952, permits such buildings, subject however to the consent of the king or of the State government. Even after the new law, Catholics are forced to contribute in favor of the Protestant State Church, since Protestant parish priests are charged with the civil registry of the population. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, receives no contribution from the government.

The apostolic vicariate of S. currently has 46 priests and 2 seminarians. The number of nuns is 149, that of Catholics about 18,700, of whom 6,000 are Swedes; 27 of the priests and 140 of the nuns are foreigners: this proves clearly that the Church in S. still needs the help of the universal Church.

Nicola Kowalsky

IV. LITERATURE

A written literature arises in Sweden only after Christianity introduces the Latin alphabet into the country. Of the oldest epic poetry, which flourished in the Viking era and was handed down orally, no direct testimonies remain, but echoes of it are found not only in the Edda and in the Icelandic and Norwegian sagas, but in the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus, in the Kalevala and even in certain Russian folk songs. From the pagan era only numerous runic inscriptions remain, but because of their brevity and their not always easy interpretation they cannot be considered true literary testimonies. To the

The various provincial laws, fixed in brief mnemonic verses, likewise date back in their formulation to the pagan era, even though they were written down in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Of Christian culture, which developed after the year 1000 around the churches and monasteries, numerous lives of saints, legends, chronicles and poems on religious subjects, generally composed in Latin, bear witness. It is worth recalling the four Offices and the sequence De spinea corona by Brynolphus, bishop of Skara (d. 1317), the hymn Rosa rorans bonitatem by Nicolaus Hermanni in honor of St. Bridget, and the Offices of Birgerus Gregorii. Among prose works, notable is the biography of the mystic Christina of Stommeln, written by the Dominican Petrus de Dacia (d. 1298). The only great work of poetry of the Swedish Middle Ages, however, is the Revelationes of St. Bridget (1303-73), a collection in eight books of the Saint's visions. The effective and imaginative style of these Revelationes, adhering to reality and at the same time open to the boldest mystical flights, still makes them an interesting read today, even setting aside their historical and religious value. St. Bridget also earned merit for Swedish culture by having Latin religious works translated, by founding the convent of Vadstena, where monks and nuns of the Order she created occupied themselves until the advent of the Reformation with the transcription of Latin texts and translations into Swedish. If the works of Petrus de Dacia and of St. Bridget are in line with the Neoplatonic currents that then crept throughout all of Europe, the author of the Konungastyrelse ("Direction of Kings"), a reworking of the De regimine principum of Giles of Rome, was instead inspired by the Thomistic doctrines dominant in medieval Europe.

Throughout the Middle Ages, every cultural initiative is the work of the Church, or arises in its shadow: the first Swedish university, that of Uppsala, would be founded by papal bull in 1477, and the first book would be printed in 1483, in a Franciscan convent in Stockholm. To a Franciscan is also due the first attempt, not too happy in truth, at a history of Sweden (the Prosaiska krönikan, "Prose Chronicle"), and to the religious Orders also belongs Enricus Olai, author of the Chronica Gothorum, the first important Swedish historical work. Toward the middle of the 13th century, chivalry with its religious-secular ideals and its common heritage of tales and legends also spread to Sweden. The only direct evidence of the diffusion of chivalric tales, however, is the three so-called Songs of Euphemia (Eufemia visorna). At the beginning of the 1400s the legends of Alexander the Great, of Charlemagne and of Theodoric would then be translated. Characteristic of the Nordic world, even if born under another sky and often inspired by legendary motifs that are not native, are the anonymous dance songs. Diffused with minimal variants throughout all of Scandinavia and transcribed in the following centuries according to anything but scientific criteria, they now offer no elements by which to judge whether there was in this field a particular Swedish contribution.

While throughout the Middle Ages Sweden participated in the common European culture, with the advent of the Protestant Reformation it found itself cut off not only from Rome, but from the culture of the Latin countries, even before the humanistic currents, postulating a greater freedom and independence of thought, had reached it. A modest humanist figure is that of Conrad Rugge, who took a law degree at Perugia in the second half of the 15th century and later became bishop of Strängnäs. Undoubtedly greater are the figures of Olaus Magnus (d. 1544), the last Catholic archbishop of Sweden, and of his brother Johannes. Both exiles in Rome, they sought an outlet for their nostalgia for their homeland and for their humanistic dreams of a greater past in the composition of fantastic historical works. Both the Historia de omnibus Gothorum Suenumque regibus of Olaus, published in Rome, posthumously, in 1560, and the Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus of Johannes, published in Rome in 1554, were known throughout all of Europe (the former also inspired Tasso for his Torrismondo). A greater critical sense, but not greater scientific objectivity, is found in the Svenska Krönika ("Swedish Chronicle") of Olaus Petri (d. 1552). Already a disciple of Luther at Wittenberg, he was among the first to spread Protestantism in Sweden and occupied himself, together with his brother Laurentius Petri, with the Swedish translation of the Bible desired by Gustav Vasa. Again following Luther's example, he also translated and composed numerous hymns, and the Tobiae comedia, the first Swedish dramatic attempt worthy of note, has also been attributed to him. If the Protestant Reformation indirectly came to favor the consolidation of a national language (the problems faced and solved by Olaus Petri in his biblical translation are at the basis of modern Swedish) and promoted the spread of culture among the laity, it nonetheless came on the whole to mark a halt in the cultural and scientific field, occupying minds exclusively — for decades — in religious polemics and theological disputes. Besides the already mentioned archbishop Laurentius Petri, it will suffice to cite the names of Abraham Angermannus, of Petrus Ioannis Gothus and of Laurentius Paulinus Gothus. The biography of Gustav Vasa written in 1533 by Petrus Swart and the poems in his honor composed in Latin by the court poet Henricus Mollerus serve to indicate the tastes of the time, while the uncertainties left in minds by the religious and political upheavals appear clearly in the Scandia illustrata of Johannes Messenius (1579-1639). During the reign of Gustavus Adolphus (1611-32) there is a greater interest in the sciences and in literature, by now freed from theology: the State Archive, new universities and libraries arise: Sweden, having risen by now to the rank of a great European power, no longer wishes to be second to anyone, not even in the scientific and literary field. A typical exponent of the multiplicity of interests, of the ardor for research and of the nationalist enthusiasms of the era is Olaus Rudbeck (1630-1702), professor of anatomy, scholar of botany and of philology and author of the imaginative Atland (1679), in which, going beyond the fantasies of Johannes Magnus, he goes so far as to identify in Sweden the legendary Atlantis of Plato. Of greater scientific value is the first history of Swedish law (De jure Sæanum et Gothorum vetusto) by Johan Stiernhöök. By initiating the first dictionary of the Swedish language (Gambla Sæa och Gotha males fästebur) and publishing the Codex argentus of Ulfila, Georg Stiernhjelm (1598-1672) pursues a nationalist aim, and it is the love of country that drives him to "make the muses sing in Swedish for the first time" in his epic poem in hexameters Hercules (1658), a work not lyrically inspired, but fundamental for the subsequent development of literature. The works of the numerous imitators of Stiernhjelm are now forgotten, just as Samuel Columbus (1642-79) is also forgotten, but the poems of Lars Wivallius (1605-69) and of Lars Johansson (1638-74), known under the name of Lucidor the Unfortunate, are still alive. A sort of Nordic Villon, rebellious and vagabond, Lars Wivallius composed his best songs in prison. Like Wivallius, Lucidor too lived his life singing at weddings and funerals: the joy of intoxication is felt by him with a heavy Nordic sensualism, which will later be found again in many Swedish poets. Toward the end of the century the classicizing spirit of Trissino and of Opitz, admired and imitated by Stiernhjelm and his followers, is stifled by the influence of Italian Marinism and of the second Silesian school. More than Johan Lillienstedt (1655-1732), translator of Guarini, and Christofer Levoncrona (1662-1710), it will be worth remembering Gunnion Eurelius Dahlstierna, an imitator of Marino. To France, on the other hand, look Israel Holmström, an imitator of Scarron, and Johan Runius (1679-1713). But the defeat of Poltava (1709) stifles any nationalist dream, bringing the poets back toward reality or toward a more complex religious attitude. If the religious ferment of the age finds an outlet in the hallucinated mysticism of Swedenborg (1707-78), author of many scientific and philosophical works, no less representative of the Swedish eighteenth century is the limpid simplicity of the prose of Linnaeus (1707-78), especially gripping in the description of his travels in Lapland and in Holland. More than under the sign of religious speculation, the century is, in Sweden too, under that of science and of the court, and in honor of the former and under the protection of the latter numerous academies and scientific and literary societies arise in Stockholm: last in order of time but not in importance the Swedish Academy, founded in 1786 by Gustav III, and still alive and active in the cultural life of the country. In the same year as Linnaeus's journey to Lapland (1732) the first important Swedish weekly, Then swänska Argus ("The Swedish Argus"), is published in Stockholm, on the model of Addison's Spectator, edited by Olof Dalin. A court poet, official historian of the nation and tutor of the crown prince, Olof Dalin (1708-63) is the most notable figure of the Gustavian age. More than an inspired poet or an original thinker, he was an animator and a popularizer; one recalls his History of Sweden (Sæa rikes Historia), the Story of the Horse (Saga om hästen) and some songs in honor of nature. His comedy Den afwundsjuke ("The Jealous Man") and his tragedy Brynilde are now forgotten. To the ideas of Voltairean rationalism, of which Dalin had made himself a disseminator, there begins to be opposed, after the middle of the century, a sentimentalism of the Rousseauian type, and the change of taste favors the success of the poets of the "order of the builders of thought" (Tankebyggareorden), open both to the demands of feeling and to those of reason. At the center of the group is the poetess H. C. Nordenflycht (1718-63), author of the sentimental collection Den sorgende Turturduftens ("The Sorrowing Turtle Dove"), still valid for the author's sincere search for truth, eternally at war with herself in the attempt to reconcile rationalism and sentimentalism, traditional religion and Enlightenment philosophy. Greater as poets are G. F. Gyllenborg (1731-1808) and G. P. Creutz, author of the elegant pastoral poem Atis och Camilla ("Atis and Camilla"). With the death of Dalin and of Nordenflycht, with the departure of Creutz for abroad and with the withdrawal of Gyllenborg from the field of militant literature, a void is created in the official world of Swedish letters, nor is the founding (1766) of the literary society Utile dulci enough to fill it, to which the name of the poet Oxenstierna (1750-1818) is also linked. But outside every academy and literary movement, voices of true poetry now make themselves heard: Jacob Wallenberg (1746-78) composes Min son på galeian ("My Son on the Galley") in the same years in which C. M. Bellman (1740-95) becomes the idol of the merry companies of the capital. Melody and text are indissolubly linked in his work, which brings back to life the gay Stockholm of the Gustavian era. Idol of the bohemians, and at the same time pleasing to so-called good society, Bellman was soon also admitted to the Court of Gustav III and was able to publish his collections of poetry (Fredmans Epistler ["Fredman's Epistles"] and Fredmans Sänger ["Fredman's Songs"]) through the direct intercession of Kellgren, recognized by all as literary arbiter. A translator of Young and of Ossian in his youth, librarian to Gustav III and his collaborator in the drafting of historical dramas, J. Kellgren (1751-95) passes imperceptibly in his poetry from a refined sensualism of French and eighteenth-century taste to a deeper cosmic pantheism (Den nya skapelse ["The New Creation"]) of pre-Romantic taste. Thorild's polemic was directed especially against his Enlightenment convictions. A kind of knight errant without a princess — as he himself defined himself — T. Thorild had in those years made himself a champion of the rights of nature and of feeling in the spirit of Goethe's Werther, but at bottom he too was much less distant from the Enlightenment than he believed, despite his praise of the passions (Passionerna, 1780) and his cult of genius. The last epigone of the Swedish Enlightenment was K. G. af Leopold (1750-1829), author of elegant poems and irreconcilable adversary of Thorild. Lyrically inspired, on the other hand, was B. Lidner (1757-93), similar to Thorild in temperament and fired by the same enthusiasms. Great was the expressive power he attained in the tragic poem Spataras död ("The Death of Spatara"), and truly profound the religious feeling in the poem Yttersta domen ("The Last Judgment"), where to echoes of Milton and Young are added Dantesque reminiscences. Lesser depth but greater balance are found in the works of Anna Maria Lenngren (1755-1817), most popular among her contemporaries; among her admirers is to be counted the poet F. M. Franzén (1772-1847), whose mystical religiosity and whose philosophical interests already prelude to Romanticism: famous is his poem Människans anlete ("The Face of Man"); more obscure and mystical is Det nya Eden ("The New Eden"). In Sweden too, at the end of the century, there is a resurgent interest in the classical world; its representatives, in the respective fields of aesthetic philosophy and poetry, are C. A. Ehrensvärd (1745-1800) and G. G. Adlerbeth (1751-1818). Of the first, Resa till Italien ("Journey to Italy") will be remembered; of the second, various reworkings of classical tragedies and translations from Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Racine. Sweden, already dominated by French classicist culture, now turns demonstratively toward German philosophy and poetry, while the accession to the throne of the Frenchman Bernadotte closes the tragic and agitated Napoleonic period, and the loss of Finland, compensated neither politically nor sentimentally by the annexation of Norway, gives rise to a new form of assertive nationalism.

While French classicism had reigned supreme especially in the capital, German thought finds its first cultivators in the provinces, especially among the students of the University of Uppsala. It is they who found the first Romantic society, Musis amici, soon (1807) transformed into the Aurora förbundet ("Aurora League"). The soul of the group of the "Phosphorists," as these young men were called after their journal Phosphorus, is the young P. D. A. Atterbom (1790-1855), and his is the prologue prefixed to the first issue of the journal to set out the aesthetic-philosophical program of the movement, inspired by Romantic metaphysics and by the Schellingian doctrine of the unity of nature and spirit. Less obscure is the Romantic symbolism of his poetic cycle Blommorna ("The Flowers"). To escape the dissatisfaction of the present, they dreamed of distant and fabulous lands, such as the biblical Orient, or simply lands more favored by climate, such as Italy, but only a few of these young men, and among them Atterbom, were able to realize their dream. The Italian experience, preceded by direct contact with the major representatives of German Romanticism, led Atterbom to a greater conceptual clarity, or at least to a greater plasticity and formal richness. To this experience are directly linked the two allegorical-lyrical poems Lyckslighetensö ("The Island of Bliss") and Fagel Blå ("The Blue Bird"), in which the nostalgic desire for beauty of all Swedish Romanticism is overcome in the name of a higher ethical demand. Appointed professor of aesthetics at the University of Uppsala, Atterbom occupied himself with enthusiasm with literary criticism; his work Svenska siare och skalder ("Swedish Seers and Poets") is considered the first attempt at a Swedish literary history.

In the same years there also lived in Uppsala, outside every literary group and polemic, E. J. Stagnelius (1711-95). Tragically aware of the dualism between matter and spirit, he composes highly musical poems of hallucinated sensuality and intense mysticism, which are among the highest lyrical expressions of Swedish literature. Besides the vast poetic cycle Liljor i Saron ("The Lilies of Sharon"), his poem Vladimir den store ("Vladimir the Great") and the tragedy Bacchanterna ("The Bacchantes") are to be remembered. The severe lyric of Eric Sjöberg (1794-1828), better known under the pseudonym Vitals, who also lived in Uppsala, in open polemic with the Phosphorists, is also inspired by a Platonic mysticism. The struggles of the late eighteenth century between the supporters of classicism and the pre-Romantics seem now to be rekindled between the representatives of the two Romantic currents of the Phosphorists and the Goths. The members of the Gothic League (Götska Förbundet), founded in Stockholm in 1811, opposed their ethico-historical ideals to the purely aesthetic ones of the Phosphorists, and to the escape into space dreamed of by these they preferred an escape into time, in the direction already indicated centuries earlier by Olaus Magnus. The official head of the League was P. H. Ling (1776-1839), better known for having created Swedish gymnastics than for his mediocre poems; but the most notable personality of the group was without doubt E. G. Geijer (1783-1847), poet and historian, philosopher and musician. In the first issue of the journal Iduna (1812) were published his poems Odalbonden ("The Free Peasant") and Vikingen ("The Viking"), which immediately made him famous throughout Scandinavia. The free peasant who rebuilds kingdoms and countries brought to ruin by the the whims of war of the powerful and the Viking driven by an eternal restlessness to wars of conquest in a foreign land are for Geijer the symbol of the ancient Nordic liberties and of the eternal characteristics of the nation. His historical works Svea rikes haffder ("Annals of the Kingdom of Sweden") and Sveaika folhets historia ("History of the Swedish People"), both masterpieces of Swedish romantic historicism, are also inspired by the same nationalist ideals. The other great poet linked to the Gothic movement was E. Tegnér (1782-1846). A conservative in politics like Aterbom (Geijer, on the other hand, would pass over in 1838, in a dramatic and demonstrative manner, to the liberal camp) and a great admirer of Napoleon, in whom he saw the genius of the century incarnate, Tegnér was immediately known throughout S. for his patriotic poem Svea (1811), inspired by the painful loss of Finland. Far from both the historicism of Geijer and the dark metaphysics of the Phosphorists, Tegnér is the heir, in a romantic climate, of the best Gustavian tradition, and his beautiful odes of thought show him in search of a clarity and a humanity in the spirit of Weimar classicism. His short poem in hexameters Fritiofs Saga ("The Saga of Fritiof"), in which neoclassical taste and romantic enthusiasm for Nordic antiquities are fused with great elegance, enjoyed enormous success throughout the North. But shortly after the publication of the Saga of Fritiof, the poet's spirit darkened, and from then on Tegnér would only rarely succeed in achieving in poetry that equilibrium which no longer sustained him in life. Among the epigones of Romanticism it is worth remembering K. A. Nicander (1799-1839), a melodious singer of Italy in works that aroused the enthusiasm of his contemporaries. Italy would also be the principal source of inspiration for C. V. Böttiger (1807-78) and for C. J. G. Snoisky (1841-1903), continuers in this of the romantic tradition. But even if the epigones would continue to echo its motifs for many years, the golden age of Swedish Romanticism may be considered finished around 1830, when a more realistic conception of life and literature led to a predominance of prose over poetry, of exact description over fantastic evocation and transfiguration, and interests gradually came to be polarized, in the literary field as well, on social problems. A typical representative of this period of transition is Jonas Love Almquist (1793-1866), inclined to Swedenborgian mysticism and in conflict not only theoretically (he was perhaps a murderer, and certainly a bigamist) with traditional Christian morality, romantically attracted by distant times and countries, yet realistically intent on the solution of contemporary social problems. Among his vast production, of very uneven value, are found some of the most interesting works in Swedish literature: the fantastic and ingenious story of Tintomara, that of Araminta May, and the tale Signora Luna, all included in the enormous collection of dramas, novels and tales Törnrosens bok ("The Book of the Briar Rose"). The scandal aroused by his fine tale Det gör an ("It Can Be Done") was enormous. While Almquist thus poses the problem of the working woman and of her right to love, even outside the bond of marriage, Federica Bremer (1801-65) struggles so that equal rights may be granted to women both in the field of education and in that of the administration of family property; great was the success both of her novels of bourgeois milieu (to be remembered are Presidentens döttrar ["The President's Daughters"], Grannarna ["The Neighbors"]) and of her travel descriptions in America (Hemmen i den nya världen ["At Home in the New World"]) and in Europe (Livet i gamla världen ["Life in the Old World"]). While Almquist and Federica Bremer seem to prelude the literature of the future, Gunnar Wennberg (1817-1901) instead draws inspiration from the Bellmanian tradition of sung poetry for his Gluntarna ("The Boys"), joyful and sentimental dialogues of student life. The traditional Swedish nationalism inspires — in the same years — both C. W. Strandberg (pseud. Talis Qualis; 1818-77) and O. P. Sturzen-Becker (pseud. Orvar Odd; 1811-69), passionate supporters of Scandinavism. The national patriotic note predominates in the literature in the language

Swedish literature of Finland, by then under Russian rule, where a romantic interest in the people was joined by nostalgia for Nordic antiquities, felt as national. The foremost representative of this romanticism is J. L. Runeberg (1804-77), singer of the wretched life of the peasants of his land in the poem Elgskytarne ("The Elk Hunters"), evoker of a mythical Nordic world in Kung Fjalar ("King Fjalar") and creator of the poetic national epic Fänrik Stål signer ("Tales of Ensign Stål") inspired by the Russo-Swedish war of 1808-1809. Also in Finland, national history is likewise recalled in the tone of legend by Z. Topelius (1818-68), known especially for his fairy tales. Meanwhile, in Sweden, A. V. Rydberg (1828-95) drew inspiration from Almquist and from French naturalism: remembered are the romantic novella Singoalla and the two historical novels Den siste athenaren ("The Last Athenian") and Vapenmeden ("The Armorer"), the first inspired by the conflict between the classical world and Christianity in the Hellenistic period, and the second by the conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism, set in the age of the Protestant Reformation. Similar aspirations toward a Christian religious freedom outside all dogma are found in his work Bibelns lära om Kristus ("The Bible's Teaching on Christ"). Less conceptual effort and greater artistic balance are found in the Romerska signer om apostlarne Paulus och Petrus ("Roman Tales of the Apostles Paul and Peter") and in Romerske kejsare i marmor ("Roman Emperors in Marble"). An equal idealism, but a greater interest in social problems, is found in the works of Carl Snoilsky (1841-1903), whose poems on Italian subjects have already been mentioned and who may be considered a disciple of the Parnassians. He is the principal representative of the "Pseudonyms" (Signaturer), all members of the "Society of the Nameless" founded at Uppsala in 1860. By now the age of romantic idealism has definitively set even in Sweden, where, as in Denmark with Brandes and in Norway with Ibsen and Bjørnson, literature confronts the social and political problems of the day. The most prominent and most debated figure of this period is that of A.

Strindberg (1849-1912). Highly sensitive and ruthless, freethinker and mystic, liberal and socialist, anarchist and Nietzschean, he was always fanatically attached to his conviction of the moment; egocentric in a paroxysmal and pathological manner, he was in every way endowed with true genius and powerful creative force. Great was the scandal he aroused in 1879 with Röda rummet ("The Red Room"), which may be considered the first modern Swedish novel; more balanced and artistically valid, though less original, is Hemsöborna ("The Inhabitants of Hemsö"). Very different in tone is I Hafsbandet ("On the Sea"), where the Nietzschean morality of the superman is announced. A declaredly autobiographical character belongs to Tjänstekvinnans son ("The Son of the Servant Girl"), Inferno, and the frightful Plaidoyer d'un fou, directed against his wife in particular and the female sex in general. The same misogynistic fury inspires the dramas Fadren ("The Father") and Dödsdansen ("The Dance of Death"), while more detached and objective, in its ruthless naturalism, is the one-act play Fröken Julie ("Miss Julie"). The dramas Till Damaskus ("Toward Damascus") and Advent ("Advent") testify to a mystical crisis, Catholic-leaning more in form than in substance, while the religious symbolism of the expressionist drama Drömspelet ("The Dream Play") no longer has much that is Christian. The writers of "Young Sweden," directly influenced by Danish naturalism and by contemporary Norwegian literature, knew how to make the most of his stylistic and formal conquests in the field of narrative. Among them are remembered G. af Geijerstam (1858-1909), Anne Charlotte Edgren (1849-92), Ola Hansson (1860-1925), later a follower of Nietzsche and finally converted to Catholicism, and Victoria Benedictsson (1850-88; pseudonym of Ernst Ahlgren). By now naturalism, which has fought, and in part won, its battle, has nothing new left to say, and against the "cobbler's realism" of the writers of "Young Sweden" there rises around 1890 the voice of V. von Heidenstam (1859-1940), of O. Levertin (1862-1906) and of the other neo-romantics. Just as naturalism had opposed the romantic cult of ideals, now it is opposed in the name of an aristocratic ideal of beauty. If the silent demonstration of grief of the proletarian masses at Strindberg's death sanctions the social scope of his success, in the literary field the aristocratic aestheticism of Heidenstam triumphs instead. After a youth spent largely in Italy and in the East, Heidenstam achieved success with the collection of poems Vallfart och Vandringsår ("Pilgrimage and Years of Wandering") and with the novel Endymion ("Endymion"). There follow the essay Renaissance ("Renaissance") and Pepitas bröllop ("Pepita's Wedding"), a fierce satire of naturalism written in collaboration with O. Levertin. The juxtaposition of two worlds is also the principal motif of Hans Alienus, and the temporary return of the protagonist Hans to his northern homeland preludes the poet's definitive return to the nature of his country. The land of Sweden and the Swedish people, "too small to create a great kingdom but great enough to generate great men," are henceforth the favorite motifs of the poet who aspires to become the bard of the nation. Remembered are the collections of poems Ett folk ("A People") and Nya Dikter ("New Poems"), the novels Karolinerna ("The Soldiers of Charles XII"), Heliga Birgittas pilgrimsfärd ("The Pilgrimage of St. Bridget"), Folke Filbyter and Bjälboarvet ("The Inheritance of Bjälbo"), the historical essays Svenskarna och deras hövdingar ("The Swedes and Their Chieftains") and the autobiography När kastanjerna blommade ("When the Chestnuts Bloomed"), published posthumously in 1941.

Of Levertin, who soon joined Heidenstam in the struggle against naturalism, one should remember the beautiful lyrics of Legender och visor ("Legends and Songs"), of Nya Dikter ("New Poems") and of Dikter ("Poems"), the refined Rococonoveller ("Rococo Novellas"), the acute essays Diktare och drömmare ("Poets and Dreamers") and Svenska gestalter ("Swedish Figures"). His masterpiece, however, is undoubtedly the poem Kung Salomo och Morolf ("King Solomon and Morolf").

While the landscape evoked by Heidenstam is often generic, the nature of the Swedish province, and especially of Värmland and Dalecarlia, is sung with great immediacy and without any suspicion of rhetoric by G. Fröding (1860-1911) and by E. A. Karlfeldt (1864-1931). Common to both is an exclusive love for their native land and a great capacity for the humorous evocation of provincial and peasant life. A complex and tormented temperament, Fröding, after the success of his first two collections of verse, Guitarr och Dragharmonica ("Guitar and Accordion") and Nya dikter ("New Poems"), seeks in vain to soothe in song his ever-growing anguish, until the scandal he unintentionally provoked with certain poems in the collection Stänk och fikar ("Splashes and Fragments") drives him definitively beyond the threshold of madness. More serene is the muse of Karlfeldt, averse to philosophical and religious problems, content to abandon himself to the intoxication of song and to verbal virtuosity. His collections of poetry are remembered (often set to music, according to Swedish tradition): Fridolins visor ("The Songs of Fridolin"), Fridolins lustgård ("Fridolin's Pleasure Garden"), Flora och Pomona ("Flora and Pomona"), Flora och Bellona ("Flora and Bellona") and Hösthorn ("Autumn Horn"). Still around 1890 Värmland is also evoked in an atmosphere of legend and poetry in the famous novel Gösta Berlings Saga ("The Saga of Gösta Berling") by Selma Lagerlöf (v.). Very successful was this writer's subsequent production, sustained more by enthusiasm and faith in ideal values than by great stylistic and formal abilities. Fröding, Karlfeldt and Selma Lagerlöf sing of the Swedish province precisely while it is about to be definitively swept away by the advance of industrial civilization: from now on the daily reality of provincial life will be examined with impassive eyes, will often be described as a function of social polemic, will be the object of satire or humor, but will no longer be poetically transfigured. Already cracked by realistic preoccupations is the neo-romanticism of Pär Hallström. Stockholm, on the other hand, finds its poetic singers, of an almost crepuscular tone, in H. Söderberg (1869-1947), author of the well-known novel Martin Birks ungdom ("The Youth of Martin Birks"), and in Bo Bergman. Interest shifts from the city to its inhabitants with S. Siwertz (1882), an attentive observer of the newly enriched bourgeoisie of the first postwar period, in his novels and especially in Selambs ("The Selambs"). Nothing poetic will any longer attach to the image of the Swedish capital in the crude novel Kunggatan by Ivar Lo-Johansson, one of the many modern Swedish proletarian writers.

It is difficult to trace in a unified way the development of Swedish literature over the last fifty years, successively, when not simultaneously, influenced by the various movements of European thought as well as by American narrative, and determined by the fusion and cohesion of tendencies that are different from one another, often irreconcilable in their countries of origin. Among the proletarian writers, several come from Norrland. Already at the end of the 19th century the voice of protest from this region had made itself heard in Pelle Molin (1864-96); there followed, among others, Olof Högberg (1885-1932: his novel Stora vrede ["The Great Wrath"] is remembered), Gustav Hedenvind Eriksson, Eyvind Johnson. The only voice of consent to the process of industrialization to which the country was being subjected was that of L. Nordström (1882-1942). A work of social polemic, always set in Norrland, is the novel Timmerdalen by Martin Koch, the earliest in time of the Swedish proletarian writers, while the sadness of the landscape and the misery and isolation of the inhabitants are poetically relived in the work of Dan Andersson (1880-1920), who from that sadness and that misery knew how to free himself only in artistic transfiguration, creating poems of intense musicality and demonic beauty (one recalls the collection Svarta ballader ["Black Ballads"]) and artistic short stories of a strong realism. Great had been the impression aroused by the First World War, which broke out while the world of Swedish letters seemed to be converting, under the influence of Bergsonian philosophy, to a greater faith in life, but even stronger and more decisive were the consequences of the chaotic European postwar period: characteristic are the titles of Siwertz's novel, Eldens återsken ("The Reflection of the Fire"), and of Pär Lagerkvist's first collections of poetry: Ångest ("Anguish") and Kaos. The experience of German Expressionism was decisive for Harriet Löwenhielm (1887-1918), who from a subtle and intellectual lyrical play comes to cry out her anguish before pain and death, and for Edith Södergran (1892-1923), an inspired Finnish poet writing in Swedish. That the disorientation in the field of thought preluded a crisis in the social and economic field became especially clear after Kreuger's suicide (1932) put an end to a period of fictitious prosperity. Good testimony to this moment of crisis is given in the collection of essays Två generationer ("Two Generations") by Sven Stolpe, already stirred by that religious crisis which, after bringing him close to the Oxford movement, would make him a convinced adherent of the Catholic faith. Contemporary (1929) is the debut of "five young proletarian writers" (A. Lundkvist, Harry Martinson, J. Kjellgren, G. Sandgren and E. Asklund), who exalted the life of the instincts and the modern civilization of machines in an almost Futurist style, one that owes as much to American narrative as to Surrealist automatic writing. The European political reality after 1930, which could not leave these young men many illusions about the real progress of the world, then led them to slide toward an increasingly openly left-wing attitude, at least until the outbreak of the Second World War. A. Lundkvist, the leader and theorist of the movement, is today an authoritative literary critic of Marxist inspiration (the representatives of traditional positivist criticism are H. Schück, M. Lamm, G. Castrén, O. Sylvan and F. Böök).

An ever more conscious tendency to the left is also found in the successful works of Harry Martinson, sailor and vagabond (Kop Parväl; Resor utan mål ["Journeys Without a Goal"], Nässlorna blomma ["The Nettles Bloom"], and Vägen ut ["The Way Out"]). While the self-taught writers of proletarian origin (among them also R. Värnlund and Moa Martinson) generally take no interest in formal problems, or are in the avant-garde from the stylistic point of view, the writers coming from the bourgeois classes and from the academic world mostly do not break away from tradition: thus the poets W. E. Ekelund and A. Österling, lyrical cultivators of beauty in an atmosphere of classical serenity (analogous is the inspiration of the Finnish poet E. Zilliacus), the art historian K. Asplund, the novelist G. Hellström, Hjalmar Bergman (1883-1931), a whimsical and ironic evoker of the Swedish province in his novels and his plays. More sentimentally banal is the somewhat decadent irony of the provincial idylls of Birger Sjöberg (1885-1929); a savory humor and a taste for caricature are found instead in the stories of A. Engström (1869-1940). From the world of the nobility come two women writers very different from each other in temperament and destiny, Marika Stiernsted, an elegant author of pleasant novels, and Agnes von Krusenstjerna (1894-1940), a pitiless and soft observer of a pathologically abnormal world, to which she herself belongs, and which she artistically transfigures, deluding herself into thus finding a justification for it even on the moral plane. An equally diseased sensibility but a lesser artistic balance, compensated however by a greater engagement in the face of life's problems and by a more intense lyrical inspiration, is found in the work of Karin Boye (1900-41), who died tragically in the early years of the war, after having warned, in her novel Kollokain, against the suffocation of human freedom by totalitarian States. Undoubtedly healthier, in all her production, is Elin Vägner, continuer of Ellen Key's struggle for the rights of women, trusting in the positive values of Christianity and in the victory of good over evil. A greater social commitment can be noted in the works of Anna Lenah Elgström, already known for her leftist tendencies and recently converted to Catholicism. A denier of every transcendence remains instead Erik Blomberg; tragically aware of human limitation, he has sought to overcome it with a total adherence to socialism; the presence of a divine being is also denied by Stellan Arvidson and by Johannes Edfelt, though the latter is trusting in the final victory of the forces of the spirit. A bizarre grotesque note is at times assumed by the desperate anguish of Nils Ferlin, who has read in vain, as he himself says, "Freud, Adler and also the Bible," and who knows how to enthuse his compatriots, and especially the young, with singsong verses (music and text are often inseparable), in which humor and sarcasm do not succeed in completely hiding his emotion before the misery of the world. A greater commitment and a more profound religious sense of life, albeit outside of any dogmatic clarity and of any confessional faith, is found in the works of H. Gullberg and of Pär Lagerkvist, without doubt the two greatest contemporary Swedish writers. Already shaken by the First World War and by a postwar period in which "life was honored and man was despised," they were led by the events of war and by the ideological discussions of recent years to deepen ever more, by different paths and in different ways, their search for the why of life. Inclined by nature to mysticism and faithful to the traditional values of poetry (but his last collection of poems, from 1952, Dödimask och lustgård ["Death Mask and Gardens"], astonished by its modernism) Gullberg often sings of his disillusionment before life and of his hope in the beyond; his collections of poems are remembered: Kärlek i tjugonde seklet ("Love in the 20th Century"), At overvinna världen ("To Overcome the World"), Fem bröd och två fiskar ("Five Loaves and Two Fishes"). More complex perhaps is the nature of Pär Lagerkvist, Nobel Prize 1951. Poet and essayist, novelist and playwright, from the anguish and pessimism of his first works, already mentioned, Lagerkvist passed first to a vague love for humanity (cf. the novel Det eviga leendet ["The Eternal Smile"]), then to an open defense of the values of the spirit against brute violence (Bodeln ["The Hangman"]) and is by now solely preoccupied, outside of any formal research, with the problems of existence and the search for its positive values (cf. the drama De vissa sten ["The Philosopher's Stone"] and the novels Dvärgen ["The Dwarf"] and Barabbas). Among the literary works inspired by the wave of nationalism that ran through almost all of S. during the war, we recall the novels Sommernatten ("Summer Night") by Sten Selander, Hemland ("Homeland") by Gunnar Mascoll Silfverstolpe and the gripping historical novel Rid i nat ("Ride Tonight") by W. Moberg. Quite different is the character of the humorous historical novel Röde orm ("Red Serpent") by V. B. Bengtsson, a true flight on the wings of fantasy and good humor from everyday reality. One can say, as a general rule, that with the Second World War interest in the so-called proletarian literature with an autobiographical background, and that instead problems of broader ideological scope are preferred, even in the economic field; of interest is an essay by Folke Fridell from 1947, which calls for a new social literature no longer of class, one that can address the problems of the human personality mortified and stifled by modern industrial civilization. Characteristic in this regard is the latest novel of Homeric inspiration, by Eyvind Johnson (Strändernas svall), himself a writer of proletarian inspiration.

If the first postwar period had been largely under the sign of German Expressionism, one now notes instead a clear influence of French literature (Sartre, Camus, Malraux) and American literature in prose, and of Eliot in poetry. While the problems of narrative are generally of content (from the formal point of view it suffices to note the increasingly frequent use of the interior monologue), poetry is felt in terms of the lyrical value of the word, whether it be understood as symbol or as musical entity. Much discussed is a new type of hermeticism, disdainful of everything that may appear too easy, whose principal representatives are Stig Dagerman, Karl Vennberg and Erik Lindegren. Among modern writers to be remembered are also Olle Hedberg, Olov Hartman, Olof Lagerkranz, Iria Browallius, Lars Ahlin and Silvan Arnér.

Alda Manghi

V. ART

Swedish territory enters the sphere of European artistic civilization relatively late. The testimonies of the archaic cultures of the prehistoric era are not differentiated by particular characteristics. The rock paintings of the Bronze Age (Bohus) appear consistent with the scarcely evolved formal process of peripheral cultures. Thus, even later, the faint contact with Roman figurative civilization determines, as often happens at the margins of productive zones, an involution of borrowed forms and a progressive resolution into a heraldic and allegorical symbolism, from which it is difficult to trace back to the original cultural data. The Swedish populations, like the others of the Scandinavian region and barbarian peoples in general, achieve original results only in artifacts for domestic use and in goldsmithing. In this field it is possible to find, from the 6th century through the 11th, objects denoting an advanced technique and a formal skill that sometimes attains the level of a work of art.

In the early Middle Ages the exchanges that appear most evident, up to the era of the Viking conquests, involve Irish art. The stones with anthropomorphic figurations of the island of Gotland and the panels decorated with plant interlace, flat and dense, of Uppland, reveal hands accustomed to wood carving, which translate, simplifying them, the compositional rhythms of contemporary Irish stelae and miniatures (9th-10th centuries). Unless the process is the reverse, as has recently been proposed. The Viking conquests widen the field of influences, establishing contacts with the Byzantine and Arab East. Then begins, through the intermediary of Russia (875-975), the importation of goldsmith's objects, of which notable burial testimonies remain (Island of Björkö, necropolis of Polom in the province of Vyatka). This is the critical period of Viking civilization, poised between East and West, as Dawson has acutely observed, before turning decisively westward with the conversion to Catholicism. Up to this fundamental date it is not possible to speak of architecture: the very few surviving wooden constructions, which are moreover quite late (11th century), have nothing singular, apart from some fine carved decoration.

The use of stone as a building material begins after the conversion. It is the moment of the Romanesque, in the forms of Lombard architecture. This contact is historically explained by the pilgrimage of King Erik Ejegod to St. Nicholas of Bari, in 1908. On the return journey he obtained from the Pope the erection of the archiepiscopal see of Lund (1104), and very probably engaged on that occasion Italian master builders (among whom was the Comacine Donatus named in the Necrologium Lundense), to whom he entrusted the task of erecting the buildings necessary for the growing Swedish religious community. The stylistic affinity of the decorative patterns of the cathedral of Lund (v.) with those of the churches of Lombardy and particularly with S. Ambrogio in Milan, S. Michele in Pavia, the cathedral of Modena has been amply demonstrated by Anderson. The forms of Italian Romanesque nevertheless failed to determine a general stylistic orientation and, wearily repeated here and there, ended very soon by being submerged without regret by the bolder modules of French and Spanish Romanesque and Gothic. Upon this influence, to which the most important architectural monuments of the 13th century are assigned, is soon superimposed that of German Gothic forms, present in the same rebuildings of the cathedral of Lund, and also at Kinköping in Östergötland and in the cathedral of Uppsala (ca. 1290), the historically most important temple of the region, today disfigured on the exterior by an unfortunate nineteenth-century restoration. These constructions are characterized by the constant presence of the ambulatory. Radiating chapels and a double-bulb dome indicate moreover the Cistercian matrix of the church of Varnhem in Västergötland.

If one cannot yet speak of either an art or a local school, it must nevertheless be recognized that by the end of the 14th century the stylistic orientation is by now definitively established: Swedish figurative culture is increasingly fusing with the German one. Sculpture, painting and miniature clearly indicate this process. German artists intervene in ever greater numbers in S.: the greatest among them is perhaps that Bert Notke to whom the statue of St. George in the cathedral of Stockholm (1471) is due. To this period also belongs an interesting group of frescoes in the rustic churches around Lake Mälar, which finally attest the rise of a local style with a broadly popular character within the framework of the linear Gothic tradition, destined to resist throughout the following century and beyond (e.g., at Kalknälnigar, Mälinigar, etc.). When the forms of the Italian Renaissance, through the mediation of the Mannerism disseminated by the treatises that appeared in the course of the 16th century (Vitruvius, Serlio, Vignola, etc.), spread throughout Europe, S., which had already adhered to the Protestant Reformation, finds in its princes — who are giving the start to the country's era of greatest splendor — the most effective promoters of artistic activity. From this moment civil building acquires predominance. The royal castles of Vadstena and Kalmar indeed testify, in the complex of their structures and decoration, to the presence of artists oriented toward a Nordic translation of late-Renaissance Italian motifs. Eyes are turned to Italy especially during the reign of John III (1569-92) who, as the author of the Cronaca of Stockholm attests, "would gladly have made of his city a Rome and a Venice." The greatest architect of this period, the marble-worker Dionisius de Wale, author of the first design of the Jakobkirke (1580), seems to have been of Italian origin: also of Italian origin are the Parr, who for three generations worked in the service of the royal house (G. Battista at Borgholm and Kalmar, Francesco at Güstrow: their work was continued by Cristoforo and Domenico, until 1602).

The 17th century, on the other hand, marks the definitive triumph of French influence, with the supremacy of the La Vallée families (Simon, author of the Ritterhaus of Stockholm, 1637-39; Jean, 1620-96, architect of the church of Queen Christina: neither of them unmindful of the lessons of Vignola and Palladio) and Tessin (Nicodemus the Elder, 1615-81, active in the castles of Borgholm, Erikshery, Mälssäker, etc. and in the cathedral of Kalmar; Nicodemus the Younger, 1654-1728, who left the unmistakable imprint of his style, substantiated by a vast and elaborate humanistic culture, especially in the Royal Castle of Stockholm). Around these architects gravitated a crowd of pupils and imitators, among whom there were not lacking some Swedes worthy of memory, such as H. Blume (1638-1666), Güran Josua Törnqvist, called Aldencrantz (1668-1739), and the members of the Carlberg family, military architects. The fortune of the Tessins drew to S. French sculptors and painters, who were employed in the decoration of the Royal Castle of Stockholm and had commissions in profusion from the Swedish nobility. It will suffice to recall for all of them S. Bourdon. Other foreigners also acclimatized easily: indeed, to a German, David Klocker of Hamburg, admitted even among the nobility becoming von Ehrenstrahl, belongs the honor of being considered the founder of the local school of painting.

After the severe crisis that threatened Sweden following the collapse of Charles XII and that dispersed the court artists, building activity resumed during the reign of Frederick I (1720-50). He entrusted the direction of the works of the Stockholm Castle to Karl Härleman and favored other French artists, such as the sculptor Bouchardon and the painter G. Taraval. But the most fertile era of ambitious works and the most characteristic of Swedish figurative culture was the reign of Gustav III, who summoned back to Stockholm the best Swedish artists trained abroad (e.g., the painters L. Pasch, P. Krafft, von Breda, C. G. Pilo, E. Martin). In Rome there resided from 1768 to 1778 the sculptor who can rightly be considered the most representative of all those Sweden has produced, Johan Tobias Sergel, an epigone, among the first, of Neoclassicism.

Throughout the entire 19th century the exchange with Western Europe was continuous. Swedish artists, who were growing in number and founding national circles and associations intended to spread artistic culture in their country of origin, resided for long periods in the European capitals and readily adapted themselves to the various orientations that characterized the unstable contemporary climate.

After the stagnation — which was not only Swedish — of the Neoclassical and Pre-Raphaelite periods and of historical and genre painting, the attraction of the schools of Düsseldorf and Paris determined the two fundamental currents from which the most lively personalities of the 19th century would emerge, namely the painters J. F. Höckert, S. M. Larsson, E. Bergh and the sculptors J. Börjesond and P. Hasselberg. Above all of them stands out, in the second half of the century, E. Josephson, a vigorous landscape painter and colorist. The Association of the Konstnärstorbundet attempted, between 1890 and 1900, a twilight experiment, on the margins of decadentism, but it was soon swept away by the affirmation of Impressionism. None of these movements, nor even the subsequent ones of the Jaune, Cubism, Expressionism, Dadaism, etc., whose center of radiation was Paris, has been able to produce in Sweden artists of broad European renown, if we except, perhaps, A. Engström, whose influence is detectable, as regards humorous drawing, in Germany and in other Central European countries.

The 20th century is characterized above all by the great urbanistic and building expansion. To the classicist eclecticism prevailing in the first decades, and more closely adhering to the taste of Swedish patrons than the contemporary Art Nouveau style, belong works of great bulk, though aesthetically hybrid, such as the Stockholm City Hall, completed in 1923 by R. Östberg. Around 1930 rational architecture also triumphed in Sweden. To that period date back the master plan of Stockholm and the related constructions, rightly considered exemplary currents of that style and of the solutions it postulated. But in the last decades the influence of Le Corbusier and Gropius and the reaction to rationalism, determined by the affirmation of the new concepts of organic architecture, has aroused promising initiatives: the happiest has undoubtedly been the creation of the Gudheden district in the city of Göteborg.

VI. SCHOOL SYSTEM

In its school system Sweden is greatly affected by the country's geographical conditions: a large area and a relatively small population, with dwellings scattered and separated by great distances, so that the distribution of schools is subject to considerable inequality and ranges from a maximum of density in the large urban centers to an ever greater sparseness as one moves from the smaller centers to the countryside, especially in Lapland. Hence a great decentralization in the direction, control and administration of educational institutions and a decisive role in them on the part of the municipalities.

The school system comprises four main stages:

1. Preschool education

It runs from the age of 2 to 7 and is carried on mainly in the family or in institutions due to private initiative, for example that of large industrial establishments; therefore nursery schools and kindergartens are not very numerous.

2. Primary education or "Folkskola"

It runs from the age of 7 to 14, is compulsory and free, and is in the hands of the individual municipalities. It is divided into two sections: lower, from 7 to 9 years, with a program mainly of reading and writing and exclusively female teachers; upper, from 9 to 14 years, with male and female teachers and with an increase in subjects: religion, the national language, history, etc., manual work, gymnastics and sports.

3. Secondary education

It is mainly state-run and covers a period of 7-8 years and four types: a) theoretical secondary education, which opens the way to the university and is divided into two consecutive phases: the "Real skola" of 4 or 5 years, which ends with the "realexamen"; the "Gymnasium", of 3 years, which concludes with the "studentenexamen", and is distinguished into "Latinungymnasium" with a classical orientation and "Realgymnasium" with a scientific orientation. For girls there is also a school of their own of 7 years, called "Flickskola". b) practical secondary education with a theoretical-practical orientation for the training of technical experts for commercial, industrial, administrative and agricultural careers, for which there are distinct: industrial, commercial, technological, agricultural and naval schools. To this may be added the "Folkskoleseminarium" for the preparation of future teachers, admission to which is gained with the "realexamen". c) vocational secondary education, with exclusively practical aims, organized with the cooperation of the State, employers and the trade-union organizations of the workers. They are generally evening schools and the pupils can at the same time carry on their work in the various enterprises. d) special secondary education, which serves adults and takes various forms and organizations.

4. University education

The university and the higher institutes are entered by means of the "studentenexamen". The universities are the following: University of Uppsala, founded in 1477 (Faculty of theology, law, medicine, philosophy, which also includes letters and natural sciences); University of Lund, founded in 1668 (with the same Faculties); University of Stockholm, founded in 1871 (Faculty of letters, law and natural sciences); University of Gothenburg, founded in 1889 (Faculty of philosophy, letters and natural sciences). In Stockholm there are also the three Academies: of music, of fine arts and of graphic arts; the Central Institute of gymnastics and two Social Institutes for the training of social workers. Sweden also has various "Colleges" for medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, engineering, economic sciences, agriculture, forestry and commerce.

As the number of those seeking higher education steadily increased, in order to level out the difference in study opportunities between the city and the village and at the same time create a broader organizational unity, the school commission proposed in 1946 to create a second comprehensive school of 9 years, with three cycles of 3 years each: elementary, middle and upper, and the establishment of it, if possible, in all municipalities. Other reforms concerned the lyceum and the training of elementary teachers skilled in the application of active methods and of experiments or tests, also indicated by psychology. The proposals were implemented from 1949: comprehensive school of 9 years: "Enketskola"; lyceum of 4 years; a new "general section", added to the classical one (Latin and French) and to the modern one (mathematics and English), with the aim of giving importance to history, psychology and sociology in order to train future State officials.

In 1945 the Swedish Institute was also created in Stockholm to coordinate and support cultural relations with foreign countries by encouraging intellectual exchanges. For its part, Sweden proposes to send its delegates to help Swedes who seek contact with foreign countries, to organize study trips and series of lectures for Swedes abroad and for foreigners in Sweden, to distribute books, articles, films and records about Sweden; to establish courses, congresses and exhibitions to make Swedish literary and scientific works known abroad; above all to help foreigners to obtain documentation on the different aspects of Swedish life (social organization, public hygiene, work, sports, agriculture). - See plates CX-CXIII.

Celestino Testore