A 113-year-old ice yacht recently sailed out into Riddarfjärden. The ship, like the strollers who carelessly Instagrammed from the frozen water in front of Stockholm City Hall, carried memories of the wolf winters of yesteryear.
I thought of little Dag Beskow. On a Sunday in March 1922, he and his brothers went onto the ice below Villa Ekeliden in Djursholm. He’s unlucky. A forty-year-old engineer in a wolfskin coat, chairman of the local ice hunting club, arrives from Stora Värtan. Much too late he sees Dag, who is hit by the ice hunting blades, hits his head on the ice and dies.
The tragedy becomes omnipresent, not least for Dag’s parents. Annika Persson tells how they deal with the death of their son in her beautiful book “Elsa and Natanael Beskow – a love story”, and the theme also appears again in the new Elsa Beskow exhibition at the Thielska Gallery in Stockholm, “Enchanted Everyday”. “You cannot recover from the death of a child,” writes Annika Persson. On an artistic level, the accident forms the background for the threatening, melancholic mood in “Journey to Land Längesen,” which the grieving mother claims to have created in the “presence” of her dead son.
“Blomsterfesten i täppan” from 1914, in which the delicate flowers are disturbed by the uprooted weeds, is a brutal analysis of the class society of the time
Elsa Beskow’s visual world, on the other hand, always interacts with her time. The seemingly idyllic “Blomsterfesten i täppan” from 1914, in which the beautiful flowers are disturbed by the uprooted weeds, is a brutal analysis of the class society of the time. The radicalism in the social-improving zeal that shaped both Elsa and Natanael Beskow’s life’s work is reflected in a treacherous blaze of color.
Hers is published today Time, the modern breakthrough, as a separate country to dream about. The faith of the future lay like candle smoke over the ice. Social Democrats and Liberals agreed on a universal development optimism at the individual level; Lecture societies, workers’ institutes, study circles and public libraries emerged. The formation coalition ultimately also included conservative forces. The belief that it is man’s destiny to rise to the light became a generally accepted fact.
In this zeitgeist, Elsa and Natanael Beskow were central figures, inspired by the fact that it must be possible to create a better world. Elsa Beskow published Hattstugan in 1930, just a few years after Per Albin Hansson’s famous speech about the people’s home, and so the disobedient children in the book were given both a practical home, guided by the sure patriarchal hand of the new foster father, and a modern summer house. The unfashionable, unhealthy and unreasonable would be expressed through both public education and social services. The Beskow couple were convinced that a good society is not only created by making resolutions and Reichstag decisions, but that it must grow inside people every day.
Among other things, a group of young men “of the strong thug type” appear in the reading room, throw plates out of vases, fight and throw sweets at each other
1912, same year As ABF begins gathering workers for training and reading books, Natanael Beskow opens the doors to Birkagården in Stockholm, a social work center inspired by the English settlement movement and aimed at community between people across all ages, professions and opinions.
In her book, Annika Persson talks about how the district’s less affluent young people in particular find their way there. Among other things, a group of young guys “of the clear thug type” appear in the reading room, throw plates out of vases, fight each other and throw sweets at each other. The employees come up with the idea of promoting their interest in sports and replenishing their energy through physical activity. In parallel to the reading exercises, they can do gymnastics and listen to lectures about adventures and sporting successes. Later, an adult education course was set up for unemployed seasonal workers, an activity that developed into the Birkagården adult education center in Marholmen, outside Stockholm.
The solution of time is the interplay of duty and freedom. There is hardly any gentle morality that permeates Elsa Beskow’s books, from the harsh rhetoric of class struggle in Party in the Flowerbed to the relentless thought of punishing children in Hatstugan (try the rice first, then the honey cake).
But the Beskows’ worldview always built on faith in people and their potential to grow and be enlightened from within. Natanael Beskow believed in the ability of each individual to develop the qualities that civic life requires: initiative, openness, solidarity, responsibility and consideration.
There is a lot that connects their time with ours. We see the madness of war and the despair of how what people have built and created is used to kill and destroy. During the First World War, Natanael Beskow witnessed how the bonds between peoples, the exchange of scientific knowledge, religious expression, art and trade goods were torn apart. During the Second World War, Birkagården welcomed Jewish refugees from Germany, including famous names such as the artist Lotte Laserstein and the later doctor Jerzy Einhorn. Thanks to his moral courage, headmaster Gillis Hammar was one of the first on the Nazis’ list of enemies who had to be eliminated if they came to power.
In today’s brutality Of course, in a strong political climate, committed humanists like Elsa and Natanael Beskow can seem extremely pathetic. That’s precisely why they are exemplary. Their vision of illuminating people from within is the exact opposite of today’s political practice, not least in the area of public education. Today, many around the government dream of the exact opposite, including in the ideas document “Tidö 2.0”, in which representatives of the Timbro and Oikos think tanks jointly outline their visions for the next term in office. This includes the explicit proposal to phase out all state support for Swedish public education.
Such a policy would not only be deeply un-Swedish and devoid of history, but also the exact opposite of what today’s society needs most. Rather, our time is crying out for a new Natanael Beskow, inspired by the idea of creating new institutions that enable people to grow together. This should be as politically uncontroversial as combating cardiovascular diseases or avoiding poisons in drinking water.
Last but not least, need one dispels the illusion that adult education centers and study associations are a kind of bedroom full of parasitic social elements. Rather, public education should be viewed as part of national defense, with a special responsibility to combat disinformation. Anyone with any degree of historical understanding recognizes that a functioning total defense requires both bombers and libraries.
It is difficult to imagine a clearer example of the role of education in defending Sweden
Maybe Natanael Beskow’s confident network building would be a new strategy? Benton Wolgers – one of the current teachers at Birkagården Adult Education Center – has suggested that public education representatives should invite all politicians, regardless of party or decision-making level, so that they can see the social benefits of the activity with their own eyes. There are examples where, not least, local politicians changed course after understanding what a community college really is and does. In this way, it would have been possible, for example, to avoid the sad irony that the Markaryd Adult Education Center had to close this summer before it had time to start its general course with a preparatory profile, where students could read up on university degrees while at the same time delving into civil defense, home preparation and overall defense knowledge. It is difficult to imagine a clearer example of the role of education in defending Sweden.
Elsa and Natanael Beskow died the same year, 1953, thirty years after his son’s accident on the ice. The book about the land of Längenen ends with a reunion and consensus between goblins, dragons and humans, and today it is easy to see Elsa Beskow’s combination of realism and fantasy as a prerequisite for maintaining mental health in our time. Or as a reviewer described the world-improving potential of “Putte’s Adventure in the Blueberry Forest” as early as 1901: “A powerful remedy against melancholy, lifestyle and similar witchcraft.”
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