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Vilhelm Moberg<insert name=__subtitle>Vilhelm Moberg (the s.c.nordic FAQ)Vilhelm MobergAbout : culture,
history, places of interest and other things. This page is a part of
the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file for the newsgroup
soc.culture.nordic. Its purpose is to provide some general information
about the Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and
Iceland), to cover some of the topics frequently discussed in the
group and to introduce new readers to the group.111111 >
>
>
Vilhelm Moberg, who was born in Algutsboda in Småland, worked at
glass-works until he could afford to study, then as a journalist and
later when the incomes from his books were sufficient he became one of
the best known debaters and agitators of post-war Sweden. He was
primarily concerned with the people of the countryside from which he
came, and with the injustices making life miserable for the agrarian
proletarians.
In his
autobiographical novel Soldat med brutet gevär (1944,
"Soldier with his rifle broken in two") Moberg considers it his
calling to give a voice to the illiterate class from which he came.
The title of the novel is translated to When I Was a
Child. Unfortunately the translated title doesn't refer to
the important broken rifle motif (brutet gevär) depicted on
the right. His father was a poor soldier, and the fate of his
forefathers gave the stories used in his breakthrough novel
Raskens (1927).
In his young years Moberg was an active anti-militarist. After
Austria had been annexed by Germany 1938 Vilhelm Moberg had however
become convinced that only military strength could protect the
European states against the German aggression.
After the Russian attack on Finland in November 1939 Moberg became one
of the leading propagandists on the political left for support to
Finland, and fierce in his critic of the coalition-cabinet's attempts
to require Swedish newspapers to use self-censorship and letting the
Swedes remain without knowing of important facts about the horror of
the Winter War. Later this self-censorship was particularly aimed at
Germany's war-crimes and the Swedish concessions for German demands.
The self-censorship did of course strike against writers like Vilhelm
Moberg who got used to be refused by both publishing houses and news
papers when he tried to agitate for stronger efforts to restore the
defense forces disarmed during the apeacement years.
1941 the novel Rid i natt! (Ride this
Night!) eloquently attacks tyranny and oppression
dramatizing the necessity of men acting in the cause of freedom and
justice. After the World War the Swedish opinion became split in a
faction oriented toward the Soviet Union (mostly artists and
intellectuals) and a faction oriented toward the United States
(most of all officials). Moberg came to belong to this latter
category, and lived in the US most of the time from 1949-1956. Ten
years later he was among to the first agitators to criticize the US war
in Vietnam.
In the beginning of the 1950s Moberg was the primus motor in campaigns
to disclose a couple of scandals among the higher judicial and state
officials in the Swedish capital. Some of the scandals were the
explicit result of double standards of morality in connection with
unfaithfulness and homosexual love (both the king Gustav V and a bunch
of Cabinet members were involved). Moberg took (likely influented by
the McCarty atmosphere in the US) the side of the victims who had been
sacrificed to protect the reputation of the State leadership.
Vilhelm Moberg is probably best known for his novels of the Swedish
emigration to America: The Emigrants
(Utvandrarna 1949), Unto a Good Land
(Invandrarna 1956) and The Last Letter
Home (Nybyggarna 1956 & Sista brevet till
Sverige 1959).
At the end of his life Moberg wrote his version of
the Swedish History. Two of four parts had been printed before his
suicide 1973.
In his
autobiographical novel Soldat med brutet gevär (1944,
"Soldier with his rifle broken in two") Moberg considers it his
calling to give a voice to the illiterate class from which he came.
The title of the novel is translated to When I Was a
Child. Unfortunately the translated title doesn't refer to
the important broken rifle motif (brutet gevär) depicted on
the right. His father was a poor soldier, and the fate of his
forefathers gave the stories used in his breakthrough novel
Raskens (1927).