From Colonial Oppression to Social Utopia the Decolonization of Norrland and Its Limits in the Swedish Historical Novel the Great Wrath (Den Stora Vreden)
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From Colonial Oppression to Social Utopia The Decolonization of Norrland and its Limits in the Swedish Historical Novel The Great Wrath (Den stora vreden) PETER FORSGREN Introduction ORTHERN S WEDEN – Norrland – constitutes more than half of the country’s area but houses only about ten percent of its population. N Over the centuries, Norrland was mainly seen as a sparsely populated wilderness that was loosely connected to the rest of the nation, as a kind of internal colony available for exploration and exploitation.1 This perspective shapes, for example, Carl Linnaeus’s Iter Lapponicum (Journey to Lapland), which describes his grand tour of Lapland in 1732. During the second half of the nineteenth century, industrialization strengthened the colonial character of the relation between Norrland and the rest of Sweden, even though the population of Norrland doubled during this period and its woods, mines, and hydropower became crucial for the development of Swedish industry. For the Sami, the in- digenous people of Norrland, industrialization led to radical changes, since the Swedish State responded to the demands of industry with a change of policy: it would no longer acknowledge earlier agreements with the Sami. At the same time, the Swedish attitude toward the Sami became more colonialist and evolu- tionistic: against the backdrop of rapid development, the Sami were mainly seen as an inferior people destined to become civilized or to be wiped out.2 1 Sverker Sörlin, Framtidslandet: Debatten om Norrland och naturresurserna under det indus- triella genombrottet (Stockholm: Carlsson, 1988): 9–20, 49–93, and Anders Öhman, “Vad är en norr- ländsk identitet?” in “Rötter och rutter”: Norrland och den kulturella identiteten, ed. Anders Öhman (Acta Regiae Societatis Skytteanae; Umeå: Institutionen för Litteraturvetenskap och Nordiska Språk, 2001): 10. 2 Lennart Lundmark, “Lappen är ombytlig, ostadig och obekväm”: Svenska statens samepolitik i rasismens tidevarv (Bjurholm: Norrlands Universitetsförlag, 2002): 11–17, 61, 145–69. 266 P ETER FORSGREN The development of Norrland was intensely debated during the decades around the turn of the twentieth century. Did industrialization merely reinforce colonial exploitation or did it also make it possible for Norrland to become a fully integrated part of Sweden for the first time? Olof Högberg’s novel Den stora vreden (The Great Wrath), published in 1905, took part in this debate about the historical and future development of Norrland.3 Like many other authors from northern Sweden, Högberg intended to rewrite and decolonize the history of Norrland as well as to construct a new, ideal position for the region in a modern Swedish nation. This chapter is focused on the question of how this decoloniza- tion of Norrland is imagined in Högberg’s novel. It is an issue that, in a broad sense, can be related to the postcolonial field of research, especially to questions related to the problems of being the silenced Other and of being defined as a periphery.4 These are images of Norrland that play an important contextual role in The Great Wrath and that are also problematized throughout the novel. My analysis will concentrate on several decolonial literary strategies, in- cluding Högberg’s use of orality and other aspects of regional culture; his treat- ment of the Sami people and their place in an ideal Norrland; and the role that the archive, voices, and claims play in the novel. Finally, I will assess the new Norrland that Högberg envisions and its effectiveness as a decolonial option for the people of Norrland, including the Sami. The Great Wrath frames the history of Norrland as a history of colonization. A major theme in the novel is the resentment of the people of Norrland at having been a neglected part of the nation for centuries, governed by unqualified priests and government officials, with the rulers of Sweden more interested in overseas colonies than in the country’s northern region. The theme of wrath dominates the novel and is represented in multiple ways throughout the text. It is also closely connected to ideas of rebellion, doom, liberation, and rebirth. The setting of The Great Wrath spans the late-seventeenth and early-eigh- teenth centuries, a period when Sweden was about to lose its position as a dominant political power in northern Europe due to the many wars it had waged, particularly against Russia. Like any other historical novel, it is filled with historical events and persons; it also offers an interpretation of history that reflects the time in which the novel was written – that is, an historical con- sciousness. I use the term ‘historical consciousness’ to refer to the specific way a 3 Den stora vreden is a Swedish-language novel that has not been translated into English, but for ease of communication I refer to it henceforth as The Great Wrath. 4 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (1992; London & New York: Routledge, 1994): 4, 9, 15, 38–39..