Nordstrom Byron J. Culture and Customs of Sweden (ENG)

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focus is on what these terms have meant in the past and what they are coming

to mean in the present. Another is on the status, roles, and issues facing

women. The last is a look at the ongoing evolution of an educational system

that offers almost literally cradle to grave opportunities for individual growth

and development. Chapter 4 is about fun, special times Swedes celebrate and

how they do so; customs; foods; leisure activities; and sports. Chapter 5 takes

a look at the major mass media of Sweden: the press, radio, television, and the

internet. It is about how Swedes are informed and entertained. Chapter 6 sur-

veys Swedish literature—ﬁrst by looking at its histor y, and then turning to

several important genre, including crime ﬁction and immigrant literature,

and examining what contemporar y Swedes read. Chapter 7 introduces the

per forming arts—theater, op era, dance, music, and ﬁlm. Chapter 8 surveys

the past and present of Sweden’s art, architecture, and design.

One of the most challenging aspects of writing this book was obtaining cur-

rent information. It is one thing to reﬂect on one’s own experiences or impres-

sions, and quite another to make the contents useful, accurate, and up-to-date.

Scholarly books and articles on many of the themes considered were, of course,

very important, but they were also often years out of date. More current

printed material s in periodicals or the press helped to ﬁll some of the gaps.

Conversations with Swedish friends were frequently useful, too. Not surpris-

ingly, the internet proved to be an absolutely essential tool—one that is contin-

uously evolving as an increasingly important aid to research. However, it also

had its limitations, some of which became very clear as I worked through this

project. One, of course, was the sheer glut of information. Some good, some

bad. All research involves source evaluation, and applying various measures of

reliability to internet sources was essential. Another downside of the internet

is that many Web sites are not permanent. (Perhaps none are.) Information that

was available one day was gone another.

In the end I was glad to have ta ken on this project. However, I w as time

and again reminded of the pitfalls that are inherent in an undertaking of this

kind and aware of the limitations in terms of accuracy and completeness I

faced. At the core of these is the assumption that there are such things as

national cultures and customs or that a national group, even one supposedly

as homogeneous as Sweden’s, can be deﬁned by some set of shared historical

events, famous people, images, icons, festivals and celebrations , foods,

cultural artifacts, politics, ideals, beliefs, everyday behaviors, etc. What is

manifestly clear is that all deﬁnitions of Sweden’s (and any other countr y’s)

culture and customs are going to be skewed and vary widely. Time, place,

the perspectives of the observer, generation, age, ethnicity, political afﬁliation,

religious beliefs, context, audience, and intended purpose are some of the

factors that will inﬂuence these deﬁnitions. Also, trying to develop such

x PREFACE

deﬁnitions is like attempting to hit a target that seems to be moving faster and

faster under the inﬂuence of both internal and externals forces. Today’s

Sweden is vastly different in many many ways from just a generation or two

ago, and almost e ver y aspect of life is caught up in an ongoing and endless

process of transformation that makes pinnin g down the countr y’s culture

and customs all that more difﬁcult.

PREFACE xi

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Acknowledgments

THERE ARE M ANY who deser ve thanks for their help. Completion of the

project would have been impossible without the ﬁne scholarship of my col-

leagues in Sweden, the other Nordic countries, the United Kingdom, and

the United States. Also indispensable were the many very ﬁne Web sites used

in this book, especially those maintained in Sweden by individuals, organiza-

tions, and government agencies such as the Church of Sweden, the Swedish

Institute, Statistics Sweden, Skolverket, the Nordic Museum, or the Swedish

Film Institute; and the conversations I had with a number of very helpful

people I reached via these Web sites. Special thanks go to Roland Thorstensson

and his students in the Gustavus Adolphus College Semester in Sweden

Program for 2009 who read, reviewed, and recommended changes to many

of the chapters; to Helena Karlsson, Roger McKnight, Glenn Kranking, and

Brian Magnusson for help with several parts of the book; to Gustavus

Adolphus College that provided me with a semester sabbatical; and to my

wife, Janet, for her patience, encouragement, proofreading, and editorial

comments.

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Chronology

c. 10,000 BCE Oldest evidence of human habitation in the far south

c. 4000 BCE Evidence of earliest farming

c. 2300 BCE Boat Axe People’s In-Migration

c. 1800 BCE Earliest evidence of bronze production

Tanum rock carvings

c. 500 BCE Earliest evidence of iron production

c. 400 Earliest Gotland picture stones

c. 780–1100 Viking Age. Swedish activity was mainly to the east into what is

now Finland, the Baltic states, and Russia

c. 800–1100 Gradual conversion to Christianity

1164 Archbishopric of Uppsala established

1397–1523 Kalmar Union Period. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are

linked in a kind of federation

1477 Founding of Uppsala University

1489 Bernt Notke’s statue of St. George Slaying the Dragon

1520s Sweden effects a lasting break from the Kalmar Union

An independent monarchy under Gustav I Vasa develops

The Reformation comes to Sweden

1535 Va

dersolstavlan painting of Stockholm

1611 Gustav II Adolf becomes king. Perhaps the best-known

Swedish monarch (d. 1632)

1620–1720 Sweden’s Age of Greatness or Age of Empire. For much of this

century the Baltic was under Swedish control or inﬂuence

1645 First Swedish newspaper, Ordinari Post Tijdender

1697 Fire destroys the old Three Crowns Palace in Stockholm

1700–21 Great Northern War ends Sweden’s Age of Empire

1719–72 Era of Liberty. A fascinating period when the power of the crown

was subject to the rule of parliament

A “golden age” for Swedish painting

1773 Founding of the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet

1788 Founding of the Royal Dramatic Theater

1809 Coup that led to a new constitution and a new dynasty

Finland is ceded to Russia

1814 Sweden and Norway enter into a dynastic union

1840s A period of emigration begins that lasts for nearly a century.

About 1.25 million Swedes leave

1842 School Reform

1866 National Museum opens in Stockholm

1868 First Swedish Folk High Schools

1870s Industrialization accelerates

1905 Dissolution of the Union with Norway

1906 Selma Lagerlo

f’s Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson is

published.

1907 Nordic Museum opens

1908 Universal male suffrage

1912 August Strindberg dies

xvi CHRONOLOGY

1917 Hemutsta

llning, The Home Exhibition in Stockholm

1921 Women’s suffrage is introduced

1925 Beginnings of Swedish Radio

1927 First Volvo goes into production

1930 Stockholm Exposition featuring Functionalism

1930s Social Democratic Party achieves politi cal control and begins to

develop the “people’s home,” e.g., the welfare state

1939–45 Sweden maintains a tenuous neutrality during World War II

1945 First Pippi Longstocking book appears

1945–90 Period of nominal nonalignment in foreign and security policy

1950 Pa

r Lagerkvist’s Barabbas is published

1956 First Swedish television broadcast

1958 Modern Museum of Art opens in Stockholm

Sweden hosts the World Cup soccer competition

Church of Sweden approves ordination of women

1965–74 Million Programme undertaken to increase housing in Sweden

1972 ABBA comes together as a musical group

1973 Carl XVI Gustaf becomes king

1976 Social Democrats’ 44 years in power end

1986 Assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme

1995 Sweden joins the EU

The free newspaper Metro appears on Stockholm subways

2000 O

resund Bridge opens, creating a ﬁxed link with

Denmark and the Continent

Disestablishment of the Church of Sweden

2005 June 6 becomes Sweden’s national holiday

2009 Sweden adopts a gender-neutral marriage law

CHRONOLOGY xvii

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Land, People, and a Brief History

CONTEMPORARY SWEDEN is often deﬁned as a prosperous, ultramodern,

democratic, capitalist, social welfare state. To be slightly more detailed, it is a

place with one of the highest standards of living in the world; where ci tizens

enjoy the beneﬁts of one of the most generous social welfare systems in the

world;wherethestateandprivateindustryhaveformedasymbioticrelationship

to encourage growth and full employment; where life expectancies are the eighth

longest in the world; where women enjoy greater equality than almost anywhere

else in the world; where literacy is nearly 100 percent; where the arts receive gen-

erous support from the state; where protecting the environment has long been

an important issue; where cooperation and peace in the world are highly valued;

where exiles and refugees from the most troubled places in the world are wel-

come; where ethnic, racial, and religious diversity have become some of the most

important features of the contemporary Swedish landscape; and where personal

modesty, moderation, cooperation, and coziness are key words governing peo-

ple’s behaviors. Sweden is also a country with ﬁrm ties to its long history and

perhaps exaggerated fondness for its contributions to the Viking Age, to its

Age of Greatness in the seventeenth century, when it controlled much of the

Baltic, and to its colorfu l folk traditions and calendar of special celebrations

spread across the year that help deﬁne its national identity.

Onthenegativeside,somebelieveSwedenisaplacewherethewelfare

state is really a nanny state that has removed or s tiﬂed individua l initiative,