Fire in the music

Joseph Martin Kraus, a German-born composer who found fame in, and thanks to, the Swedish court of King Gustav III, was born 270 years ago today. He was sent by Gustav on a grand tour of Europe, and for a few months kept a rather haphazard diary of his travels, meetings and concert visits, often providing detailed and opinionated critiques of the latter.

Kraus was born in the central German town of Miltenberg in Franconia on 20 June 1756, though the family moved to Buchen in Baden-Württemberg in 1761. He began to show musical talent at an early age, and was taught piano and violin. Though pressed to study law at the University of Mainz, he moved to University of Erfurt where he focused more on music. He was obliged to remain for a year at home while his father underwent prosecution for misuse of office, but during this period he wrote Tolon, a drama in three acts, and several musical works for the local church. In 1776 he returned to study, this time at the University of Göttingen, where he came into contact with members of the Romantic literary movement, Sturm und Drang.

A fellow student at Göttingen persuaded Kraus, in 1778, to move to Stockholm where King Gustav III was well known as a patron of the arts. However, there were hard times for Kraus, and it took him three years before winning favour from the king, and being asked to write music for his opera libretto Proserpina. Following a successful premier, he was appointed vice-Kapellmeister of the Royal Swedish Opera and director of the Royal Academy of Music. Subsequently, Gustav paid for Kraus to go on a grand tour of Europe, one lasting over four years, and during which he met many leading musical figures of the day - not least Gluck, Salieri and Haydn.

During his travels, Kraus composed many works, including symphonies sometimes later attributed to others, and his flute quintet in D Major. On his return to Sweden, in 1787, he was appointed as director of curriculum at the Royal Academy of Music, and the next year he succeeded as Kapellmeister. Although he seems to have favoured instrumental music, the demands of Gustav’s court were for operas, arias and the like. In 1792, he was present at a masked ball when Gustav was assassinated. His death left the arts that he had nurtured in distress. Kraus wrote Funeral Cantata and the Symphonie funèbre, which were played at the burial ceremony. Klaus died of TB a few months later. Further information is available at Wikipedia, Artaria, and RISM.

During the early months of his grand tour, from October 1782 into 1783, Kraus kept a rather haphazard diary -  the contents alternate between painstaking detail and superficial description, and switch from imperfect Swedish to German here and there. The extant manuscript, held by Universitets-bibliotek in Uppsala, Sweden, consists of no more than 11 leaves written on both sides. According to Bertil van Boer, who wrote an essay on the diary for The Journal of Musicology in 1990, the main text ‘is a combination of travel/route description, drafts of letters, opinionated critiques of musical instruments, literary and musical works, and concerts, and descriptions of people he met during his journey.’ The essay, titled The Travel Diary of Joseph Martin Kraus, is available online at JSTOR with log-in.

In introducing Kraus’s diary, van Boer refers to the growing tradition among young people to be sent on a Grand Tour as part of their education. Specifically, though, in the music world, he refers to the diaries of Charles Burney which not only give a detailed picture of music in the Europe during the middle part of the eighteenth century, but were used as a substantial foundation for his history of music - see The wonderful echo for more. He goes on to examine and analyse Kraus’s diary in some detail - calling it ‘a hodgepodge’, and noting, for example, that Kraus only mentions three of his own musical compositions. Van Boer provides a few quotes from the diary, translated into English, including the following.

6 April 1783
‘The sixth was an academy for the benefit of a newly-established musical society; Die Israeliten in der Wilste composed by Max. Ulbikh was performed. The orchestra was strong but did not contain the promised list of 180 members, but rather only some 70-odd people. In general, the music contained much fire. The overture in D Minor had three movements; the first expressed the uproar of the people quite well. The second, in A Major, and the last, in D Major, didn’t belong at all. He [Ulbrich] proceeds into the first chorus with an idea [taken) from the first movement. [Carl Philipp Emanuel] Bach has understood the same meaning in this chorus better, I believe. The role of the First Israelite was sung by Fraulein Theresia Tauber. The aria “Will er” was too modern, the performance of the singer very poor, and her inability was even more apparent in the cadenza in the last line (“Ach, wie seyd ihr so begluckt [Begluckt seid ihr, ach]”). The Aaron was Hoffman, a wretched bass. His aria was also too modern, and in both of these arias the main problem was that the accompaniment was too strong. The same can be said for the third aria sung by Signorina Cavalieri; it was too soloistic, and the concertante complement to the voice in the English horn was not terribly successful in terms of expression.

The chorus of Israelites (“Du hist der Ursprung,” etc.), however, was far above the former and Bach’s entire work, insofar as the arias and choruses contain fire. The movement is in C Minor and a fugue. With a very well-done contrast. Father Moses interrupt the chorus with his remarks, and the answer of the people to Moses’s question - Hast du die Werke voll Wunder schon vergessen, die fur dich dein Gott getan?” - cannot bought be thought more appropriate: “Gott schlummerte” (Ungrateful people! So do you!). The composer has altered the words according to the circumstances [in general]; in this chorus as well, but with sinfully exposed gaps. The aria of Moses immediately following, however, is too trivial. The duet of both Israelites could, in another meter, be appropriate for any [secular] concert. I should mention in this regard that both singers competed quite prettily with each other as to who could be the most raging. The recitative of Moses mixed with the chorus that follows is pretty but [contains] nothing new. Moreover, the first movement of Moses’s prayer, in which the guilt and the nature of the piece certainly demands heightened tension, is fiat. The fully-worked-out chorus in C Major is well-conceived, and the [word]-painting of the women slaves is shown altogether enchantingly. This concludes the first act.

The same comments are valid for the second act, though the music is much less worthy of a church. The theme of the first recitative is too childish for the subject and characters; the chorus which begins with a solo by M[oses] ditto, the aria of the first Israelite in G Major ditto, and the unusually trivial aria of Moses with an obbligato violoncello ditto. In the second half (“Dies ist der Helden”) the accompaniment is so strong that one cannot hear the voices. In the recitative which precedes the aria, the composer paints [the words] “Doch einst vor meinem Blicken, seh’ ich die Zukunft aufgehellt” with a rising crescendo in the timpani, adding one wind instrument after another on top. The recitative ends in the same fashion but with less effect. The following aria for Signorina Cavaliert is [set] for obbligato oboe, flute, bassoon, horns and a blend of onions and garlic. The last chorus is mediocre. In general, the first half [of oratorio] far outshines the second. The fault [for this] lies partially with the text. In the last part, the composer has thoughts here and there that were heard in the first.

The execution was quite good - but not exact in piano [passages]. I did not observe many of the lesser crescendos [i.e. dynamics], and each of the desks of violins had its own bowings. The bass line was also not clear owing to the softness of the contrabasses and the lack of violoncellos. The composer has also overworked the [vocal] basses too much.

Between the two acts [I] heard the emperor’s wind band consisting of a oboes, 2 clarinets. 2 horns, [and] 2 bassoons. The composition by Johann Went was very well set for the nature of the instruments but nothing new for the mind. The execution was as admirable as could be desired. . .’

8 April 1783
‘The eighth was the same academy [as the sixth]. All of my earlier comments also apply here. Instead of the previous musical interlude (i.e., the HarmoniemusikJ, I heard Herr (Ludwig) Gehring on the flute. The tuning of his instrument was a half-step sharp, and I didn’t think that the year he was gone from Gottingen had done him as much good as it could have. The piece by [Friedrich] Graf was wonderful, as usual (p. 6r-7r].’

14 April 1783
‘The fourteenth I finally visited Gluck. He was quite polite, but told me personally that it was difficult to express himself now after his illness. His right hand also did not have its former perfect flexibility. Klopstock’s Hermannsschlacht is not yet written out, especially since, according to him, the Emperor was plaguing him about Les Daniades at the same time. At first, he wanted to use Salieri to write down [the latter] on paper for him - but he noted that it would be too much trouble, and on the orders of his doctor, he let it be. Salieri is allowed to set the opera in Paris under his own name. Cluck very clearly let it become known that Salieri has quite retained his thoughts, furthermore that he was not in favor of putting the opera on under his own name. He gave me his portrait and showed me the original painting which is a masterpiece of expression. He often repeated his contention that a simple song belonged of necessity to a stage piece. He was the first to make actors of the chorus in Paris, for previously they only stood there like statues. He allowed Orphée to be translated, but he was not satisfied with the first poet. He then accepted a mediocre one who did things more in accordance with his wishes. He is very satisfied with the scenes in Armide: “Un seul guerrier” [and] “Poursuivons notre ennemi jusqu’au trépasse,” etc. . .’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 20 June 2016.

How Nobile was saved

Born 130 years ago today, the Swede Einar Lundborg would become, for a brief moment in 1928, one of the most celebrated aviators in Europe - the man who first reached the stranded survivors of the crashed airship Italia and flew its commander to safety. His own account of that rescue, based closely on a diary kept during the expedition, was published that same year.

Lundborg was born on 5 April 1896 in Calcutta, the son of a Swedish missionary, and educated in Sweden before embarking on a military career. He served first in the Swedish army and then, in the turbulent years after the First World War, volunteered in both the Finnish Civil War and the Estonian War of Independence, experiences that brought him decorations from several countries and helped shape his reputation as a disciplined and resourceful officer.

By the mid-1920s he had transferred to aviation, joining the Swedish Air Force at a time when flying was still experimental and hazardous. It was this combination of military experience and technical skill that led to his selection for the 1928 Arctic rescue effort. His life was cut short only a few years later, in 1931, when he was killed during a test flight, leaving behind a brief but intensely dramatic career. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia.

The episode that secured Lundborg’s place in history followed the crash of the airship Italia, commanded by Umberto Nobile, on its return from the North Pole in May 1928. The disaster triggered one of the first large-scale international polar rescue operations, involving aircraft, ships, and expeditions from several countries, see Wikipedia for more details.

Lundborg’s account was published in English in 1928 by Viking Press as The Arctic Rescue - how Nobile was saved. This can be freely read online at Internet Archive. It records, in practical detail, the conditions faced by the rescuers: uncertain ice, extreme cold, and the constant risk that any landing might be the last. When Lundborg finally locates the survivors on the ice, he describes the landing with characteristic understatement, focusing on technical challenges rather than heroics. The central dilemma - that his small ski-equipped aircraft can carry only one passenger - becomes the defining moment of the narrative. The decision to rescue Nobile first, though controversial, is presented in the diary as a matter of operational necessity rather than personal judgement.

The only diary entries actually quoted are brief and functional. The earliest of these comes not from the ice, but from the voyage north. Describing a violent storm in which the ship ‘rolled so terrifically that it defies all description’, Lundborg notes, ‘a very bad night.’ Later, on the ice, the diary captures something more personal, though still in an understated way. Lundborg explains that he had once objected strongly to cigarettes, but, deprived of pipe tobacco and worn down by long watches, he began smoking continuously. In the book’s narrative, Lundborg, says: ‘My diary for that day reveals: “My first fag.” But it was by no means my last.’ 

The most substantial quoted diary extract comes at a moment of strain within the camp. As tempers fray among the stranded men, Lundborg records not heroism or endurance, but discord: ‘Hard words are exchanged, especially between Viglieri and Behounek. Biagi brazenly sputters something about me and the field, and altogether it looks like the beginning of the most ghastly thing that could happen - abusiveness and dissension.’ Introduced as ‘typical of the mood that prevailed among us’, the entry stands out for its relative fullness, yet it remains observational rather than introspective - a record of behaviour rather than feeling.

Alongside these fragments are a few glimpses of the diary as an object. Lundborg notes, for example, the meticulous record-keeping of Viglieri, whose own large diary tracked provisions ‘down to the very gramme’, with columns for daily use and even ‘Receipts’. And near the end of the episode, he remarks that a map case left behind on the ice ‘contained my diary’ - a passing detail that confirms how closely the act of recording accompanied the events themselves.

As beautiful as her legend

‘The evening sunlight fading to make the colours hum more and more melodiously was a pleasure to us all. Greta did not seem to notice the magical effects, of which she in pink with pink and white striped trousers became a part and in this light she became as beautiful as her legend.’ This is Cecil Beaton writing in his diary about Greta Garbo, his ex-lover who was about to turn 60. Beaton, once obsessed by Garbo had wanted to marry her. They remained friends for decades, at least until Beaton published his diaries revealing the intimacies of their relationship. Today marks 120 years since Garbo’s birth.

Greta Lovisa Gustafsson was born in Stockholm on 18 September 1905 into a working class family. She left school at 13, and looked after her ill father. He died in 1920. Thereafter, she worked briefly in a barber’s shop, before taking a job in the PUB department store. Before long, she was modelling hats, and had secured more lucrative employment as a fashion model. In late 1920, she appeared in her first film commercial for the store, advertising women’s clothing. She made further advertising films, but, in 1922, the director Erik Arthur Petschler gave her a part in his short comedy, Peter the Tramp. From 1922 to 1924, she studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre’s acting school in Stockholm; and it was during this period that she changed her name to Garbo.

The prominent Swedish director Mauritz Stiller recruited Garbo in 1924, and nurtured her for his films; but she then caught the eye of MGM’s Louis B. Mayer who asked her - still only 20 and unable to speak English - to come to the US. Once there, she and Stiller heard no word from Mayer, but eventually MGM’s head of production Irving Thalberg gave Garbo a screen test, and she was cast in Torrent. Stiller was hired to direct the next film for Garbo, The Temptress, but was soon fired. Garbo received rave reviews and went on to make eight more silent movies, turning her into a Hollywood star. John Gilbert, with whom she had an affair, was her co-star in several of these films, and is said to have taught her how to behave like a star, how to socialise at parties, and how to deal with studio bosses.

Despite concerns about her Swedish accent, she proved as much of a success when, from the early 1930s, MGM started making sound movies. Her first talkie, Anna Christie, was the highest grossing film of the year, and led to her first Oscar nomination. By 1933, she had negotiated a new contract with MGM, earning her $300,000 per film. Garbo continued to work, starring in films such as The Painted Veil, Anna Karenina, Camille and her first comedy, Ninotchka. With the success of Ninotchka, MGM chose another comedy, Two-Faced Woman, to be directed by George Cukor (who had directed Camille). This was not a critical success, and the negative reviews deeply affected Garbo. Although not intending to retire, in fact, she never made another film. Many a project was offered her in the 1940s, and she accepted some, but every one of them fell through.

Garbo never married or had children, though she had various affairs with men and women. Among these were the conductor Leopold Stokowski, the author Erich Maria Remarque, the photographer Cecil Beaton, and the poet Mercedes de Acosta. Her relationships with the latter two, in particular, have given rise to books: Greta & Cecil by Diana Souhami and Loving Garbo: The Story of Greta Garbo, Cecil Beaton and Mercedes de Acosta by Hugo Vickers (both published by Jonathan Cape, 1994).

From the early days of her career, Garbo avoided society, preferring to spend her time alone or with friends. She never signed autographs or answered fan mail, and rarely gave interviews. In 1951, she became a naturalised US citizen, and in 1953 bought an apartment in Manhattan where she lived for the rest of her life. She became increasingly withdrawn in time - though she would occasionally take holidays with friends - and was known for walking the city, dressed casually and wearing large sunglasses.

According to the 1979 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica ‘Garbo had, in the opinion of her directors and most critics, a perfect instinct for doing the right thing before the camera. Her talent, her great beauty, and her indifference to public opinion made her career unique in the history of the cinema.’ She died in 1990. Further information is available from Wikipedia, the ‘Official Garbo website’, the fan site Garbo Forever, or the online Encyclopædia Britannica.

There is no evidence I can find of Garbo ever having kept a diary. However, she was the subject of other people’s journals, and, in particular, the memoir published by de Acosta (Here Lies the Heart) and the diaries published by Beaton. She considered herself betrayed by both ex-lovers for making public such intimate details. Beaton, himself, appeared fully conscious of the hurt he might cause to Garbo by publishing his diaries - though it wasn’t until he was long dead that some of his diaries were published in an expurgated form - see Nerves before a sitting. She also features in diaries kept by Remarque, but these have yet to be published and only short quotes about Garbo have appeared (in Great Garbo: A life apart, by Karen Swenson, for example).

Beaton’s diaries - especially those from the 1940s published as The Happy Years - are full of Beaton’s obsession with Garbo. A New York Times review says: ‘The core material for Loving Garbo was drawn from Beaton’s diaries and letters, in which he recorded his impressions of Garbo in minute detail, along with every seismic tremor of their relationship. Although Beaton’s encomiums to Garbo’s cheekbones and extra-thick eyelashes betray a rhapsodic giddiness, his writing never loses its undertone of shrewdness and common sense. And much as he may adore Garbo, he repeatedly evokes her as an object to be coveted for its social and economic value.’

Here are a few extracts about Garbo in Beaton’s diaries taken from published sources - the first two from Loving Garbo, the second two from Beaton in the Sixties, and the last from The Unexpurgated Beaton.

3 November 1947
‘I was completely surprised at what was happening & it took me some time to recover my bafflement. Within a few minutes of our reunion, after these long & void periods, of months of depression & doubt, we were suddenly together in unexplained, unexpected and inevitable intimacy. It is only on such occasions that one realises how fantastic life can be. I was hardly able to bridge the gulf so quickly & unexpectedly. I had to throw my mind back to the times at Reddish House when in my wildest dreams I had invented scenes that were now taking place.’

October 1956
‘She is like a man in many ways. She telephoned to say, I thought we might try a little experiment this evening at 6.30. But she spoke in French and it was difficult to understand at first what she meant. But soon I discovered, although I pretended not to. She was embarrassed and a certain pudeur on my part made me resent her frankness and straightforwardness - something that I should have respected.’

July 1965
‘I arrived at Vougliameni, the appointed bay where the yachts were harboured. Greta was the first I saw, sitting with her back to the quay, she had tied her haired back into a small pigtail with a rubber band. The effect was pleasing, neat and Chinese but the hair has become grey. The surprised profile turned to reveal a big smile. It was almost the same, and yet no, the two intervening years since we’ve last met have created havoc. I was appalled how destroyed her skin has become, covered with wrinkles, double chin, but worse the upper lip has jagged lower and the skin has perished into little lines, and there is a furriness that is disastrous. But no sign of defeat on Greta’s part. She was up to her old tricks. ‘My, my, my! Why can it be Beattie? Me Beat!’ [. . .]

In the apricot-colored light of the evening she still looks absolutely marvellous and she could be cleverly photographed to appear as beautiful as ever in films. But it is not just her beauty that is dazzling, it is the air of mysteriousness and other intangible qualities that make her so appealing, particularly when talking with sympathy and wonder to children or reacting herself to some situation with all the wonder and surprise of childhood itself.’

August 1965
‘The evening sunlight fading to make the colours hum more and more melodiously was a pleasure to us all. Greta did not seem to notice the magical effects, of which she in pink with pink and white striped trousers became a part and in this light she became as beautiful as her legend. But it is a legend that does no longer exist in reality. If she had been a real character she would have left the legend, developed a new life, new interests and knowledge. As it is, after thirty years she has not changed except outwardly, and even the manner and personality has dated. Poor old Marlene Dietrich, with her dye and facelift and new career as a singer, with all her nonsense, is a live and vital person, cooking for her grandchildren and being on the go. That is much preferable to this other non-giving, non-living phantom of the past.’

13 April 1973 [source: The Unexpurgated Beaton - The Cecil Beaton Diaries as they were written]
‘The day was not without its setbacks. Whether or not it was out of malice a commentator, after a radio interview, gave me a review of my book by - of all people - Auberon Waugh, the son of my old arch enemy. He seems to have inherited the spleen of his father. A devastating attack aimed to reduce me to a shred. It hurt. Then a horrid little woman journalist, referring to it, said, ‘You’re supposed to be a marvellous person, but they say your book is awful’ and she handed me Waugh’s review. [. . .] I do feel terribly guilty about exposing Garbo to public glare. Even though those things happened thirty years ago, my conscience has been pricking me terribly. Yet I know that if I had the option of not publishing it, I would still go ahead - and suffer. I only trust Greta can rise above it in the way she did about Mercedes’s book.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 18 September 2015.

As if I were flying

’For the first time I have broken out from the cage which encloses me, and opened a shutter to the outside world. I have touched things which I hoped were there but I have never dared to show. I am so happy for this picture. It is as if I were flying. I feel no chains. I can fly higher and higher because the bars of my cage are broken.’ This is Ingrid Bergman, the great Swedish actress, who died 40 years ago today. She lived a colourful and international life, starring in many now classic and iconic films. Although there are no published editions of any diaries (at least not in English), several of the many biographies written about her do contain a few brief extracts, such as the undated one above.

Bergman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1915. Her German mother died when Ingrid was just 3, and her father raised her, taking many photographs of his daughter, and encouraging her to pose. He died when she was 12, and she was left to the care first of an unmarried aunt who died within months and then the family of another relation. She earned a scholarship to the state-sponsored Royal Dramatic Theatre School (as Greta Garbo had done some years earlier) but left long before her three-year study period had concluded to take up professional work for a Swedish film studio. She played small roles in several films but was soon starring in others, not least Intermezzo, created for her by director Gustaf Molander. In 1937, when still only 21, she married a dentist, Petter Lindström. They had one daughter, but eventually divorced.

In 1939, Bergman starred in a Hollywood version of Intermezzo which brought her international fame, as well as in such now-iconic movies as Casablanca, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Gaslight (for which she won an Academy Award for best actress). In the mid-40s, she starred in two films directed by Alfred Hitchcock - Spellbound and Notorious. During the filming of Stromboli, released in 1950, Bergman began a love affair with the Italian director Roberto Rossellini. They had a child out of wedlock (she had not yet managed to finalise her divorce from Molander and marry Rossellini), which caused a scandal in Hollywood and prompted her to stay in Europe. 

However, by 1956, Bergman was back in the US, making Anastasia for which she won a second Academy Award for best actress. She won one further Academy Award in 1974 for best supporting actress in Murder on the Orient Express. In 1978, she starred in Autumn Sonata, directed by her countryman and namesake, Ingmar Bergman (who, confusingly, was married to another Ingrid, his fifth wife) - see A dishcloth round my soul. Having suffered from cancer for some eight years, Bergman died on 29 August 1982, her 67th birthday.

Wikipedia has these assessments of her life: ‘Biographer Donald Spoto said she was “arguably the most international star in the history of entertainment”. [. . .] Hollywood saw her as a unique actress who was completely natural in style, and without need for make-up. Film critic James Agee wrote that she “not only bears a startling resemblance to an imaginable human being; she really knows how to act, in a blend of poetic grace with quiet realism”. Film historian David Thomson, said she “always strove to be a ‘true’ woman and many filmgoers identified with her.” [. . .] According to her daughter, Isabella Rossellini, her mother had a deep sense of freedom and independence. . . “She was able to integrate so many cultures . . . she is not even American but she is totally part of American culture like she is totally part of the Swedish, Italian, French, European film making.” ’ Further information is also available at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Biography.com, or IMDB.

There are many published biographies of Bergman, and some of them make tantalising but brief mention of diaries she must have kept at different times in her life. Charlotte Chandler, for example, in Ingrid Bergman, A Personal Biography (Simon & Schuster, 2007) refers to a childhood diary in these two passages:

‘Ingrid was fourteen when Uncle Gunnar gave her a handsome leather-bound diary with a metal lock, which had her name embossed on it so there could be no mistake as to whom it belonged. For a number of years it remained her closest confidant. She called it “Dear Book.” “Uncle Gunnar told me if I wrote down my thoughts, I would have a record of them which would, years later, surprise me. I learned that even the next day, I might be surprised by what was important to me the night before. I had put down thoughts I didn’t even know I was thinking. The act of having written them down, then of seeing them written down, usually placed it in my memory, forever. I could tell my diary all of my hopes and dreams and feelings. I never had to tell my dreams to anyone because I could tell my diary. I never felt the need to lock it. No one in my family would ever have looked in it.” ’

‘Over the years,’ Chandler goes on to write, ‘Ingrid and her diary had grown apart. She gradually confided less of her innermost feelings than she had done in Stockholm and in her first years in Hollywood. As she had more exciting events to tell her diary, she told it less. She no longer took time at night to pour her heart into “Dear Book.” She found herself not taking time and not making time. One day, Ingrid looked at her diary and was shocked to find she had been writing words, not feelings, abbreviated thoughts, and she had been “guarded, careful.” “I was no longer open. My diary must have been bored by me. Had I changed? Somehow, I no longer felt the same bond with my diary. It wasn’t that I told lies to my diary. That would have been really terrible. It was more that I was evasive. What you don’t tell is a lie, too.” ’

Spoto - author of Notorious : the life of Ingrid Bergman (HarperCollins, 1997) - gives a couple of verbatim quotes from her youthful diary.

‘For the very first time people asked for my autograph. [The crew] all praise me, and I must keep my head with all these compliments. I only wish I had been really good in every scene. In the rehearsals I think it is good, but then there is a take and somehow it is not the same. One thing that made me happy was that Sten Undgren, the actor who plays my clergyman lover, believes our love scenes are so passionate that possibly they will not get past the censor.’

1935 (her first premiere at the Skandia Theater was forthcoming)
‘I am insecure and secure at the same time, I am unsure about all the publicity there has been. I hope the public will think I can live up to it. What would Mama and Papa have said if they could see me here in my loneliness? I long to be able to creep into someone’s arms to find protection and comfort and love.’

In Ingrid Bergman - The Life, Career and Public Image (McFarland & Co, 2012), David Smit says: ‘In her diary, Bergman is practically ecstatic about her experience on the film: “You can’t get everything on a platter, you have to pay for everything. I paid with Rage in Heaven for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I would have paid anything for this picture.” She goes on to claim that she has never been happier, that she will never get a better part, a better director, a better leading man, and a better cameraman. With these people she can give herself over entirely to her work.’ And he quotes an entry from her diary (also available in other biographies:

January-March 1941
‘For the first time I have broken out from the cage which encloses me, and opened a shutter to the outside world. I have touched things which I hoped were there but I have never dared to show. I am so happy for this picture. It is as if I were flying. I feel no chains. I can fly higher and higher because the bars of my cage are broken.’

Finally, there is Bergman’s own book: Ingrid Bergman: My Story written with Alan Burgess (Thorndike Press, 1980). Bergman’s diary is mentioned half a dozen times, mostly in regard to her time on the film Stromboli, but the only actual quotes provided are no more than single words. 

Enjoy thy existence

‘Another day, another revolution of light and shade. Enjoy thy existence, sayest thou, holy dawn of morning, animating glance of love, beam of God! Thou wakest me once more from my darkness, givest me a day, a new existence, a little life.’ So begins a short diary kept by the Swedish writer and feminist reformer Fredrika Bremer, born 220 years ago today.  Although this diary and some entries from a childhood diary have been translated and published in English, most of Bremer’s autobiographical writing was published in the form of letters and travelogues.

Bremer was born on 17 August 1801 near Åbo, Sweden (now Turku, Finland), the second daughter of five children in a well-off family. Aged three, the family moved to Stockholm where they purchased Årsta Castle, some 20 miles from the capital, as a place to spend the summers. Along with her sisters, she was tutored privately, taught to cook and manage a house, and enjoyed family journeys in Europe. A gifted linguist and talented miniaturist she was also considered an awkward and rebellious child. Biographies note, for example, that she struggled with her constricted, secluded existence, and that diary entries from 1822 to 1823 reveal her impatience: ‘How stagnant, like a muddy pool, is time to youth dragging on a dull and inactive life . . . I am only twenty-two, and yet I am often tired of the world and wish I were taken from it. But then, we do lead a very dull life.’

Bremer found some fulfilment in charity work around the castle estate; and she took up writing - her work being published anonymously - to raise funds to help the cottagers. Eventually, however, once her writing had become popular, she revealed her identity, and she won an award from the Swedish Academy. Her father died in 1830, and thereafter she felt less constrained by family mores. She went to live with a friend - Countess Stina Sommerheilm - in Norway for some years. She wrote and published several novels - her 1837 masterpiece, The Neighbors, being inspired by the countess’s tales of an elderly relative. Partly thanks to translations by Mary Howitt, the novels brought her international fame. In 1849, she travelled to America, touring the Atlantic Coast and Deep South, intent on studying the social and political conditions as they applied to women. She met many eminent American writers, and letters she wrote at length to her younger sister were later published.   

Following her return to Sweden, Bremer co-founded the Stockholm Women’s Society for Children’s Care, to assist the orphans left by a cholera outbreak in 1853, and the Women’s Society for the Betterment of Prisoners to provide moral guidance and rehabilitation of female inmates. In mid-1854, the London Times published her “Invitation to a Peace Alliance” alongside an editorial rebuke of its pacifist appeal to Christian women. In the latter years of her life, she continued to make appeals to society for money to benefit various charitable institutions. She lived to see Sweden pass a law that unmarried women could attain their majority at 25 years of age, and she experienced the introduction in Stockholm of a seminary for the education of female teachers. From 1856, she spent five years on the Continent and in Palestine, thereafter publishing an account of her travels in several volumes. She died in late 1865. Further information is available from the Fredrika Bremer website, Wikipedia and Enyclopedia.com

Bremer seems to have kept a diary during different periods of her life. Some early diary entries can be found in Life, Letters, and Posthumous Works of Fredrika Bremer, edited by her sister, Charlotte Bremer - available online at Internet Archive. But a more substantial diary written later in her life -  during an unidentified year in fact - is contained in A Diary, The H___ Family, Axel and Anna, and Other Tales as translated by Howitt (also available at Internet Archive). The style is quite chatty; many of the entries are pages long and include long passages of dialogue. The following extracts are from the fourth edition published by George Bell & Sons in 1892. 

1 November 18__
‘Another day, another revolution of light and shade. Enjoy thy existence, sayest thou, holy dawn of morning, animating glance of love, beam of God! Thou wakest me once more from my darkness, givest me a day, a new existence, a little life. Thou lookest upon me in this light and sayest, follow the moments! They scatter in their flight, light and flowers; they conceal themselves in clouds, but only to shine forth again all the lovelier; follow them, and let not the shade find thee before thou hast begun to live!

Thus thought I with a great, home-departed spirit, as in the dawn of morning I awoke and saw the beam of daylight penetrating into my chamber, and involuntarily stretched forth my arms to meet it. It was neither bright nor cheerful ; it was the misty beam of a November day, but still light from the light which brightened my life’s-day, and I greeted it with love. . .’

14 December 18__
‘We have passed some weeks in visiting the collections of works of art, academies, and various other public institutions of the capital. To many of these I shall often again return, for many of them have had great interest for me. And wherein indeed lies the worth of a solid education, if it does not enable us to understand and value every species of useful human activity, and open our eyes to life in all its affluence. It offers us also an extended life. I remarked too with pleasure, how willingly scientific men turn themselves to those in whom they perceive a real interest, and where they feel that they are understood.

Lennartson, who was our conductor in these visits, by his own great knowledge and by the art of inducing others to unfold theirs, increased our pleasure in the highest degree. And how highly esteemed and valued is he by all. Flora listened attentively to him, but seldom to any one else, and betrayed quite too great a desire to shine herself. Selma belongs to those who say little themselves, but who understand much, and conceal much in their hearts. Lennartson and I listen attentively to all her remarks. They always contain something exciting, and often something suggestive. She has a beautiful and pure judgment. A good head, together with a good heart, is a glorious thing in a human being.

Now it is necessary to sit still; to be industrious, and to finish Christmas knick-knacks in ten days. It is not my affair.’

1 January 18__
‘A bouquet of fresh flowers, and a cordial hand-pressure from the Viking - is the glad impression which I have derived from the forenoon visits.

In the Evening. Ready-dressed for the Exchange Ball, in black, with lace; pearls in my hair, on my neck and arms.

Be quiet, Selma, dear! Thou shouldst not make me vain! Thou shouldst not mislead thy elder sister.

Flora goes with “the Beauty” to the Exchange, and makes her toilet with her. I am not in good spirits, and I fancy that I shall have no pleasure. But still, however, a quiet observer need not experience any annoyance, when she herself will not play any part. It is now more than ten years since I saw the world in a New-Year’s Assembly in Stockholm. How will it now appear to me? “Allons et voyons!” ’

11 January 18__
‘St. Orme comes hither sometimes early in the morning, and desires to speak alone with my stepmother. She always looks disturbed at this; and when she returns from these conferences, she is always annoyed and uneasy till some new impression removes this. I suspect that their private conversations have reference to money which St. Orme borrows. May the good-nature of my stepmother not bring her into embarrassment. I have heard that which is bad spoken of St. Orme’s affairs, of his life and connexions. Felix also may be misled by St. Orme’s sophisms, and by the example of his friends, the Rutschenfelts, into evil ways. I have spoken with Brenner of my suspicions respecting St. Orme; but the Viking takes the field for him, and is, since his residence in Paris, under obligations to him, which makes him unwilling to believe anything bad of him.’

13 January 18__
‘My bad suspicions have their entirely good, or I will say, bad foundation. Hellfrid Eittersvärd wrote a note to Selma this morning, wherein she asked a loan of fifty rix-dollars. She needed this sum to pay the pension of her youngest brother, and would be able to repay it in two months. With eyes flashing with desire to gratify Hellfrid’s wish, Selma showed the letter to her mother, and prayed her to advance the desired sum, which she had not now herself.

“With infinite pleasure, my beloved child!” exclaimed my stepmother, who is always ready to give; hastened to her writing-desk, and opened the drawer where she usually keeps money; but suddenly she appeared to recollect something, and turned pale. She took out a purse, which a few days before was full of heavy silver-pieces, put in her hand instinctively, but drew out merely a few rix-dollars. A painful confusion painted itself on her countenance, as she said, almost stammering, “Ah! I have not - I cannot now! St. Orme has borrowed all my money. He promised to bring it me back again in a few days, but - in the mean time - how shall we manage it?”

My stepmother had tears in her eyes; and her troubled appearance, her pale cheeks - I sprang immediately up to my chamber, and came down again quickly with a few canary-birds (so my stepmother and Selma, in their merry way, call the large yellow bank-bills; whilst the others, just according to their look and their value, have the names of other birds).

Selma embraced me, and danced for joy at the sight of the yellow notes. But my stepmother took them with a kind of embarrassment - a dissatisfied condescension, which somewhat grieved me. She promised that I should soon receive back the bills. And if I “must borrow from her, I might be sure that,” and so on.

Her coldness cooled me. In the mean time we governed the state together in the afternoon, and handled “the system,” and other important things, I will not venture to say exactly according to what system if not — according to the system of confusion. My thoughts were in another direction. They followed Felix and Selma. He seemed to wish to speak to her alone, and she seemed on the contrary to wish to avoid him, in which also she succeeded.’

Am I completely finished

‘Do I, or do I not, have the energy to continue? Am I completely finished, or will I feel renewed after a few weeks of rest? It is really not at all easy to say, but it is just as well that Aina gets used to the idea that I don't have the energy to continue. Then, if things go better, no damage will have been done.’ This is Tage Erlander, Sweden’s long serving Prime Minister, writing in his diaries some 15 years before he finally gave up the top job. His diaries were a key resource for Erlander himself - born 120 years ago today - when writing his memoirs, but also for his biographer Olin Ruin.

Erlander was born on 13 June 1901 in Ransäter, Sweden. He studied political science and economics at Lund University becoming involved in student politics, and graduating in 1928. After completing his compulsory military service in the Signals Corps he joined the editorial staff of the encyclopaedia Svensk Upplagsbok while at the same entering local politics. In 1930, he married Aina Andersson, and they had two children. In 1932, he was elected as a member of parliament, and, when, in 1938, he was made minister for social affairs, he left his editorial job. He was one of most senior officials responsible for the establishment of secret internment camps in Sweden during World War II. He was appointed minister without portfolio in the cabinet in 1944, and minister for education the following year. Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson died suddenly in 1946, and Erlander was unexpectedly chosen as his successor and and as leader of his Social Democratic Party.

Erlander continued his predecessor’s development of the country’s model welfare state - a middle way between capitalism and communism. He introduced a very high rate of progressive taxation which allowed him to raise pensions, put in place a child allowance scheme, introduced statutory holidays and medical insurance, and extend social services. He also expanded education for younger children and adults. Having remained in office as Prime Minister for 25 years - one of the longest terms in any democracy - he resigned in 1969, even then the Social Democrats still retained an absolute parliamentary majority. He died in 1990. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the New York Times obituary.

Erlander was a conscientious diarist, often making entries on a daily basis. These diaries became his most important resource when compiling six volumes of memoirs. More recently, his son, Sven, has edited the diaries, in Swedish, for publication in many volumes. Some information about the published diaries can be found here. The only diary extracts translated into English that I can find are in Olof Ruin’s biography: Tage Erlander: Serving the Welfare State, 1946-1969 (translated into English by Michael F. Metcalf). This can be read online at University of Pittsburgh Digital Collections, or borrowed digitally from Internet Archive. According to the publisher: ‘This definitive political biography is both the study of an individual style of leadership and the role of the prime minister in a parliamentary state. It shows Erlander as a complex and engaging intellectual fiercely loyal to his party, agitative yet dedicated to cooperation between parties. [. . .] Ruin is the first scholar to be given unrestricted access to Erlander's diaries.’

Here are several extracts from Erlander’s diaries as translated and found in Ruin’s biography (though without Ruin’s narrative context).

10 February 1950
‘If only it could be. I return to what I wished for so much a few months ago: to find a way out so I could disappear quietly without hurting the party. It would be nothing other than a flight from reality.”

‘I must try to be more careful, more dignified, and more stiff. . . On the other hand, of course, they chose me because I am what I am. And thus my position should not make me change the very character that elevated me to that position.’

12 October 1952
‘Would I regret such a move [to retire]? Yes, in just the same way as one is sorry about some adversity or about an unfavorable article. . . . But no more than that. I felt in 1946 that my election as party chairman was a mistake, although I was exceedingly proud of what had happened. I have changed my mind to a certain extent. Things have gone better than I feared they would. But I will feel no sorrow if I am liberated.’

1 January 1953
‘Do I, or do I not, have the energy to continue? Am I completely finished, or will I feel renewed after a few weeks of rest? It is really not at all easy to say, but it is just as well that Aina gets used to the idea that I don't have the energy to continue. Then, if things go better, no damage will have been done. It is difficult to say how long it will be before others begin to question my abilities. But when [Minister of Justice] Zetterberg told me yesterday that he had not discussed his argument with Skôld with me because he felt sorry for me in view of how tired I've looked recently, then things have gone too far. People cannot feel sorry for the prime minister; it is better to dislike him!’

10 April 1954
‘He apparently found me to be all too exaggerated and eager. I should calm down. At first I thought he meant that my workload was breaking me down, but when he described how I racked my brain on Sunday by rattling off rapid replies, I understood what he was getting at. He’s probably right.’

30 October 1957
‘And what is it that you lust after so much? To have the pleasure of wrestling with unpleasant and complicated issues every day? To be subjected every day to a shower of insults and more or less hidden criticism from those who should support you? What is it that drives you? Is it a sense of duty, as we like to think it is? Nature must have some other strategem to get people to trick themselves into doing the necessary job.’

12 January 1959
‘The opening of the Riksdag is always tiring, although less so now than before. But all this swinging and swaying and standing at attention is more exhausting than a major political speech. I am interested in the latter and it prods me into formulating what I have to say. But an empty ceremony and the subsequent small talk over lunch at the Palace require continual activity. All to no purpose.’

Eliasson the go-between

Happy 80th birthday Jan Kenneth Eliasson. A Swedish diplomat and politician, he served as ambassador to the US, and as Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations under Ban Ki-moon. His remarkable track record as an international mediator has been widely recognised, and was, in fact, the focus of a 2001 biography, The Go-Between: Jan Eliasson and the Styles of Mediation. The book, which starts with a preface by Kofi Annan, includes a number of references to, and quotes from, Eliasson’s personal diaries.

Eliasson was born on 17 September 1940 into a working-class family in Gothenburg, Sweden. As a gifted student, he was selected to take part in a student exchange programme with the US in 1957 (where he briefly met the future President, Senator John F. Kennedy, at a Democratic party fundraiser). In 1962, he graduated from the Swedish Naval Academy and became an officer in the Swedish Royal Navy. By 1965, he had completed a master’s degree in economics and passed the entrance exam for the Swedish diplomatic corps. He returned to the US as First Secretary in Sweden’s embassy during the early 1970s. In 1980, he opened Sweden’s first embassy in the newly renamed state of Zimbabwe. From 1982 to 1983, he acted as Diplomatic Advisor to the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. He was Director General for Political Affairs in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 1983 to 1987 (during which period he took part in a UN mission, mediating in the Iran–Iraq War), and from 1988 to 1992 he acted as Sweden’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York (where he also served as the Secretary-General’s Personal Representative on Iran/Iraq).

During the 1990s, Eliasson, in his capacity as Chair of the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) committee working on emergency relief, was one of the driving forces behind the formation of the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs in 1992, becoming its first Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs. As such, he mediated crises in Myanmar and Sudan. After leaving the UN, he worked as mediator in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 1994 to 1999, he was Swedish State Secretary for Foreign Affairs; and from 2000 to 2005 he was Sweden’s Ambassador to the US. 

In 2005, Eliasson was unanimously elected President of the United Nations General Assembly, for its sixtieth session, a position he held for a year. Thereafter, he served again, briefly, in the government as Minister for Foreign Affairs, until his party lost the 2006 election. From 2006 until 2008, he acted for Kofi Annan as a special envoy to Darfur, Sudan. In 2012, he was appointed Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a post he held until 2016. In 2017, he was appointed by the Swedish Government as governing board chair of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. He is married to Kerstin Eliasson, former Swedish State Secretary for Education and Science, and they have three children. He has authored many books and articles and is a frequent lecturer on foreign policy and diplomacy. Since 1988, he has been a visiting lecturer on mediation, conflict resolution and UN reform at Uppsala University. Further information is available from Wikipedia and Nordics Info.

In 2010, the United States Institute of Peace published a book - entitled The Go-Between: Jan Eliasson and the Styles of Mediation - written by Isak Svensson and Peter Wallensteen, with a preface by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The book can be previewed at Amazon or Googlebooks. In their introduction, the authors say: ‘We have been fortunate enough to discuss these mediation cases with Ambassador Eliasson. [. . .] We have also had access to Mr. Eliasson’s personal diaries from these mediation experiences. Such quotes have a reference to the date they are recorded in the diary. Interviews and diary entries are translated from Swedish by the authors.’ It may be some time before Eliasson’s diaries are published if ever, but, thanks to Svensson and Wallensteen, here are four short extracts.

3-4 March 1994
‘This is almost unbelievable. Here I am in a rundown guesthouse with windows demolished by the recent bombings in tiny, mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh, which finds itself in the middle of a bloody war over its own existence and future. I have almost never felt the unique power and mechanisms of hatred and violence as clearly.’

9 April 1994
‘There is competition and power ambitions at the heart of this.... The parties clearly feel pushed around and need us - possibly to play one negotiator against another.’

20 September 1994
‘My most recent visit took place three years ago in mid-September, together with Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar. His main objective was to free the hostages captured in Lebanon. . . Even today, I still have difficulties in accepting “the deal" - the guilt of Iraq . . . in return for assistance in the Bekaa Valley.’ 

23 September 1994
‘If I do not have the confidence of the Russians. I need to consider whether I should terminate my own role, or Sweden’s role, as a mediator in this mission. However, first we need to know whether CSCE is ready to give a substantial contribution to the security of the region. If not, we should probably leave. To give our blessings to a solution that the parties do not want should not be a Swedish concern.’

Toast, joints, mulberry trees

Pehr Kalm, a Swedish-Finnish explorer and botanist, died 140 years ago today. He’s best known for being one of Carolus Linnaeus’s students, and for spending several years in North America seeking out seeds and plants - not least the red mulberry - to bring back and improve agricultural possibilities in his home land.

Kalm was born in 1716, in Sweden, where his Finnish parents had taken refuge during the Great Northern War. His father died weeks after Kalm was born; and a few years later his mother and he returned to Finland (but academics argue over Kalm’s exact nationality). He studied sciences at the universities in Turku and Uppsala, and was a student of the naturalist Carl Linnaeus (dubbed the ‘father of modern taxonomy’). Kalm became much interested in the useful application of botany in agriculture and industry.

During the mid-1740s, Kalm was engaged in field research in Sweden, Russia and Ukraine. Then, in 1747 he was appointed Professor of Economic Natural History at the University of Åbo in Turku. Very soon after, though, he set off on a mission, planned by Linnaeus, to collect economically-useful plants - particularly red mulberry for silk worms - in North America.

On his journey, Kalm spent six months in England, before arriving in Pennsylvania in 1748 where he met the leading American naturalists. He made the Swedish-Finnish community of Raccoon (now Swedesboro in New Jersey) his base of operations. There, he acted as a substitute pastor in the local church, and even married the widow of the former pastor. Two major trips took him north, firstly to New York, Albany, Lake Champlain, and Canada, and, secondly, to Canada again.

Kalm returned to Turku in May 1751, where he remained for the rest of his life, teaching and writing. He died on 16 November 1779. Wikipedia has a good short summary of his life, as does one found at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. Here is how the latter concludes: ‘Kalm was one of the outstanding utilitarian Linnaean botanists, one genus and 90 species of plants being named for him. His major legacy, his book, stimulated natural history in Sweden and provided Europeans with an accurate and wide-ranging account of North American conditions and customs. Kalm’s descriptions of Canadian life and mores are among the best found in travel literature concerning the country.’

Kalm’s diary of his journey was first published in Stockholm in the 1750s as En Resa til Norra America. This was translated into English by John Reinhold Forster and sold in England in three volumes in the early 1770s. The full English title reads: Travels into North America; containing its natural history, and a circumstantial account of its plantations and agriculture in general, with the civil, ecclesiastical and commercial state of the country, the manners of the inhabitants, and several curious and important remarks on various subjects.

Original copies are available through Abebooks costing hundreds or thousands of pounds, but a 1970s reprint can by bought much cheaper. However, the full texts are freely available at Internet Archive. Here are several extracts taken from volume two of Kalm’s original volumes as found at Internet Archive. (These are relatively short diary entries though most are much longer with detailed descriptions of the flora/fauna, culture and society he finds).

14 April 1749
‘This morning I went down to Chester: in several places on the road are saw-mills; but those which I saw today had no more than one saw. I likewise perceived that the woods and forests of these parts had been very roughly treated. It is customary here, when they erect saw-mills, wind-mills, or iron-works, to lead the water a good way lower, in case the ground near a fall in the river is not convenient for building upon.’

24 April 1749
‘To-day the Cherry-trees began to fhew their bloffoms; they had already pretty large leaves. The Apple-trees likewife began to bloffom; however the Cherry-trees were more forward: They likewife got a greenifh hue from their leaves. The Mulberry-trees were yet quite naked and I was forry to find that this tree is one of the lateft in getting leaves, and one of the firft which gets fruit.’

6 May 1749
‘The Mulberry-trees (Morus rubra) about this time began to bloffom, but their leaves were yet very fmall. The people divided them into male and female trees or flowers; and faid that thofe which never bore any fruit were males, and thofe which did, females.’

22 May 1749
‘The locusts began to creep out of their holes in the ground last night, and continued to do so to-day. As soon as their wings were dry, they began their song, which is almost sufficient to make one deaf, when travelling through the woods. This year there was an immense number of them.’
 
4 June 1749
‘I found vines in several gardens, got from the old countries. They bear annually a quantity of excellent grapes. When the winters are very severe, they are killed by the frost, and die quite to the ground; but the next spring new shoots spring up from the root.’ 

This article is a revised version of one first published 10 years ago on 16 November 2009. 

The Swedish emigrant

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Andrew Peterson, a Swedish farmer who, as a young man, emigrated to North America, and successfully developed a claim in Minnesota, farming arable and livestock, but especially apple orchards. He is remembered today, among the 15,000 or so Swedes who also emigrated in a first wave to the US, not only because he kept a diary - kept  for 40 years - but because a 20th century Swedish author used the diaries extensively as source material for a series of popular novels, later made into successful films.

Anders Petterson was born in Vastra, southern Sweden, on 20 October 1818, into a family of farmers. He went to work as a farm hand on other farms, but returned to take over the family business when his father died in 1846. However, a few years later, in 1850, he, his sister and others from the locality set off together to emigrate to North America. They embarked from Gothenburg in May, and, after a gruelling voyage, disembarked at Boston in July. Four weeks later, they settled in the Burlington district, Iowa, to where other Swedes had immigrated.

In 1854, Andrew Peterson (as he now called himself) joined a new Baptist congregation, and the following year he moved with a group of the congregation to Carver County, Minnesota - not then part of the United States. He settled on a claim near Clearwater Lake - later known as Lake Waconia. In 1858, Peterson married Elsa Engeman Anderson, and they had nine children. They successfully developed their farm with livestock and crops; over time Peterson became well known for the quality of his apple orchards. He died in 1898. More information is available from the Andrew Peterson website or Mnopedia.

Peterson kept a daily record of his life - barely more than a sentence or two each day - for over 40 years, starting at the time of his journey by sea from Sweden. His children donated the diaries to the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS), where they were discovered in the late 1940s by the renowned Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg. He mined the diaries extensively for The Emigrants - a popular series of four novels published 1949-1959 - about a Swedish family moving to Minnesota in the 1800s. Two acclaimed films were also made from the books, starring the actors Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman.

Earlier this year, it was announaced that all the diaries would be translated, digitised and made available online by this autumn - see The Carver Country Historical Society and the local newspaper Star Tribune. At the time of writing this project had not come to fruition, however, here are a few extracts found online: 1856-1858 extracts from an article by Carlton C. Qualey available on the MNHS website; and the rest from a page on the Andrew Peterson website.

21 May 1850
‘Almost calm wind, but the Brigg was roling much off the waves. Less seasickness after passing Skagerack. We saw a little of Far Sund point Norway - that was the last we got to see of our old Scandinavia.’

2 July 1850
‘Early in the morning we saw Bostons lighthouses with fire, but it was far away out from land on islands. These are to show sailships when it is dark. Later came a steamboat and asked our Captain if we needed pulling assistance to the harbour, but we had a good wind, so he did not need help. Shortly after, came the pilot in his fancy boat, and he was as Captain into the harbour. Shortly after the Pilot arrived came the Quarantine - Doctor on board to see if if all were in good health, which we were. In the afternoon we went in to the dock and went upp to see the big city of Boston.’

18 June 1855
‘Bought the claim from Germans for 25 Dollar. Payed Fisser’s son 5 Dollars for his help. Per Daniel went to St Paul.’

19 June 1855
‘Hoed and planted potatoes on my claim. I had Alexander and Jonas - Peter and John to help me.’

20 June 1855
‘I went for the second time to Alexander and John to help them with the logshanty. [. . .] I was cutting gras (for hay) and did a rake. In the afternoon we had a meeting with holy communion, and decided to make a united Parish.’

February 1855
‘13th slaughtered the Swines among other things 14th morning cut up the Swines, afternoon worked in the shop.’

11 March 1856
‘Gut rails all day. Have now 2,000 rails.’

20 May 1856
‘Last night we fished. Got the boat full. Got home at noon. Then I planted potatoes and grubbed the place for my cornfield.’

23 May 1856
‘We church folks planted corn for Nilsson.’

28 November 1856
‘Borrowed Jonas Broberg’s oxen to haul logs for the fence on the other side of the maples. Alfred was here with his oxen and hauled logs. He owed me 2 1/2 days work. One day I counted off for the oxen and the half-day I counted off for the sinkers he made for the seine and the mending of the net. In the evening Nilsson and I made up our account for the last period of boarding and the 6 1/2 days of work I had done and the boards I had given that should count off when I built his cow shed because of the board I had when I built mine.’

1 April 1857
‘In the morning I went over to Johannes and we made up our accounts both old and new. We are now square except that Johannes still owes me $3.00 for corn.”

15 September 1858
‘In the morning I was over at Johannes and chopped corn-stalks. At noon John went with me home and started plowing for the wheat. In the evening at 5 o’clock Elsa and my expectations became a reality, a marriage.’

August 1862
‘20th we were frightened of the Indians so we moved out to the island in klearwater lake, and so we lay there till the 21st at night when we went home.’

March 1898
‘28th in the morning frank went to waconia with a full cart of wheat, at night the boys transported manure. The snow is now good for sleighing I am not well, I am in Bed.’

29 March 1898
‘The boys transported manure - I was in Bed - we had bright weather but not mild weather.’

I hope the ewes heard me

‘I got the fence by the cowshed finished and couldn’t help yelling in triumph. Getting it done at last felt fantastic. I hope none of the real farmers heard me. I hope no one heard me. Then again, I hope the ewes heard me. They could do with something to think about.’ This is from a delightful diary, published today by Quercus, charting the daily practice and the metaphysical delights of sheep farming. Written by Axel Lindén, a Swedish literary graduate who decided in 2014 to drop his doctoral studies in favour of a simpler life, On Sheep is heralded by the publisher as ‘a sensitive and entertaining meditation on the small wonders in our world.’

Axel Lindén was born in 1972, studied literature at Uppsala University, and was teaching in Stockholm when, it seems, he was hit by an early mid-life crisis. In his introduction to On Sheep, he explains how he became increasingly aware of potential global environmental crises. He drew the conclusion - ‘a bit hastily’ he notes in retrospect - that ‘the only way to seriously tackle the threat to the climate and global injustice while also making sure of the bare necessities when it all came tumbling down was to start growing our own food and chopping our own wood. And getting some sheep.’ 

As it happened, his parents, who owned a farm in southern Sweden, were wanting to retire, and so he (and presumably his wife, though she is not mentioned explicitly in the intro) decided the family would move out of the city to take over part of their farm. And so, by mid-2014, Lindén found himself focussing on being a sheep farmer (although exactly how this came about is not clear - there’s very little biographical or contextual detail with the diary).

On Sheep: Diary of a Swedish Shepherd contains extracts from Lindén’s diary from July 2014 through until October 2016. The published extracts are sometimes daily though with many gaps, and they vary in length from one line to half a page or so. Lindén develops an interesting relationship with the sheep, which he sometimes personifies. For example, when he falls ill with pneumonia he notes how the sheep could have escaped if they’d tried running off. He writes about how the ewes don’t have names (unlike the rams who have a duty to perform as individuals) but they do have numbers (because, he says, they are first and foremost flock not individuals). Nevertheless, he uses these numbers rather affectionately. There’s one ewe, for example, ‘as calm as an old pine tree. That’s number 018; she’s always been particularly sociable.’

The diarist’s prime concern, initially, seems to be to record the practical details of his new life, his responsibilities towards the sheep, and his need to make a living from them. In time, he develops an appreciation of the spiritual and emotional value of manual labour, caring for other living things, and staying connected to the earth, and he finds himself meditating on more philosophical and existential matters. Eventually, however, he finds he cannot stop thinking about the sheep as anything other than a source of income, and all the back-to-earth novelty starts to fade. In one of the last diary entries, he writes simply: ‘The uncomplicated sense of being a shepherd and immersed in the life of the sheep lacks vitality now.’

On Sheep, as translated by Frank Perry from the original Swedish Fårdagboken, is published on 20 September 2018 by Quercus. And, with thanks to Quercus, here are several extracts from the book.

30 August 2014
‘I’ve done almost nothing today with the little woolly’uns. I have been thinking about them though. I checked on the water for the ewes. I even went and stood in the middle of the flock to help them stay used to a human presence and to keep the relationship going. Trust is a perishable commodity, in life and in the sheep biz.’

2 October 2014
‘I got the fence by the cowshed finished and couldn’t help yelling in triumph. Getting it done at last felt fantastic. I hope none of the real farmers heard me. I hope no one heard me. Then again, I hope the ewes heard me. They could do with something to think about. Though they’re doing well enough, just trudging along must get a bit tedious. Imagine if all you had to worry about were your most basic needs. Am I hungry? Thirsty? Am I feeling cold? It’d be enough to drive you crazy. Or leave you feeling completely calm.’

2 December 2014
‘Sometimes, like today, prising the silage out of the bale is all but impossible. Somehow the tufts of grass manage to weave themselves inextricably together. I keep at it and get sweaty. And angry. We’re supposed to work collectively on this farm of ours, that’s the whole idea, though clearly it doesn’t apply to everyone. I’m the only one doing any work, I think bitterly. I don’t get worked up normally but an unexpected rage starts bubbling up inside when I have to labour hard enough to be out of breath. It is cathartic.’

22 December 2014
‘The sick ewe appears to be recovering. She’s grazing along with the others. Her name is 195. Using numbers might seem a bit impersonal but it feels appropriate nonetheless. Sheep are flock first and foremost and not individuals. We only use real names for the stud rams. Not because we have more respect for them but because for a brief period they have a duty to perform as individuals.’

10 April 2015
‘A couple of the mums - we call them ‘mums’ when they’ve just had lambs - keep shoving their lambs away so they can’t get at the teat. We have to hold these mums still a couple of times a day. I was absolutely furious with them at first but now I’ve come to terms with the fact that they’re just being sheep. You can’t identify with these animals. They are utterly unlike us.’

20 August 2015
‘Someone asked me what sheep smell like. I don’t really know, never thought about it. That will be up to the beholder’s . . . nose. The ewes have a gland right next to their teats. It looks like a suppurating wound, which makes finding out what it smells like pretty off-putting. The gland helps guide the newborn lamb, presumably by scent alone. My family often say I smell of sheep when I’ve been shearing them. I think the smell is like that of a well-worn sweater, still bearable, but in need of a wash.’

A dishcloth round my soul

‘I look through my diary notes from work on A Dream Play [Strindberg], not very encouraging reading. I was in bad shape, uneasy, dejected, tired, my right hip hurting and aching continually, and mornings were troublesome. My stomach was sabotaging me with cramps and attacks of diarrhoea. Tedium hung like a damp dishcloth round my soul.’ This is from the diary of Ingmar Bergman, Sweden’s greatest film director born a century ago today. Although he left behind ‘extensive diaries’, only a very few have ever been edited or published in Swedish, and none have appeared in English, except for a handful of extracts in Bergman’s autobiography.

Bergman was born on 14 July 2018 in Uppsala, Sweden, into a devout Lutheran household, though he himself later said he lost his faith at the age of eight. And, at the age of nine, he acquired a magic lantern, a possession which inspired an early fascination with theatre. As a teenager, he was sent one summer to Germany where he attended a Nazi rally, seeing Adolf Hitler. In 1937, he started at Stockholm university, studying art and literature, spending most of his time on theatre, and going to see films. Though he never completed his studies, he began to write scripts, and, in 1942, directed his own play, Caspar’s Death, which led to him being offered film script work for Svensk Filmindustri. The following year, he married Else Fisher, with whom he had one child, though they were divorced two years later. Bergman would marry four more times, and have at least eight more children.

In 1944, Svensk Filmindustri released Hets (Frenzy) directed by Alf Sjöberg, then Sweden’s leading film director, with an original screenplay written by Bergman. It was an international success, and led to Bergman being offered the chance to write and direct a film of his own, Kris (Crisis) released in 1946. During the next ten years or so he wrote and directed more than a dozen films, including Fängelse (Prison) and Sommaren med Monika (Summer with Monika). He achieved international success with Sommarnattens leende (Smiles of a Summer Night) in 1955 which was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Soon after, he directed Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal), also nominated for the Palme d’Or, and Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries) which won numerous awards. Many other films followed, some of which he made on the island of Fårö, where he spent much time.

In early 1976, Bergman was arrested by the Swedish authorities for tax invasion. Although the subsequent investigation collapsed and the charges were dropped, Bergman suffered a breakdown, closing his Fårö studio, suspending projects and removing himself to Germany. By the late 1970s, he was returning on visits to Sweden,  resuming his role as a director at Royal Dramatic Theatre, directing for Swedish television, and, in 1982, directing his last film, Fanny and Alexander (which won four Oscars, including best foreign film). Only in 1984, though, did he return permanently to live in Sweden. Retired from film directing, he continued to write scripts for film and television and to direct plays (such as A Dream Play). He died in 2007. Further information is available at Wikipedia, the Swedish Film Database, IMDB, New York Times obituary, and Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Jan Holmberg writing for the Swedish Film Database gives this assessment of Bergman. ‘Basically the same theme with variations permeates all of Bergman’s works: a universe peopled by dysfunctional families, humiliated but vampiric artists and an absent God symbolized by the characters’ overall inability to communicate. His style is austere and unobtrusive, except for his uncompromising close-ups, denuding the human face as at once enticing and mysterious. Bergman’s importance to the art of film cannot be overestimated. His insistence on doing most of his works in his native Swedish, so minor a language, and their nonetheless resounding around the world is unprecedented. He is without a doubt Sweden’s foremost twentieth century artist; perhaps the foremost ever.’

Most of Bergman’s literary output consisted of screenplays for his own films and those of other, but he also wrote plays, short stories, novels, essays, and two autobiographical works (Magic Lantern published in English by Hamish Hamilton in 1988, and Images: My Life in Film published by Arcade Publishing in 1994). According to the Ingmar Bergman Foundation website, his literary remains also include ‘extensive diaries and letters’ the vast majority of which remain unedited and unpublished. As far as I can tell, the only substantial extracts from Bergman’s diaries that have been published came in 2004, with Tre dagböcker (Three diaries), a compilation of the diaries of Ingmar Bergman, his wife Ingrid and their daughter Maria von Rosen covering just the years 1994 and 1995 (starting with Ingrid’s cancer diagnosis). Publication, by the Swedish company Norstedts, received publicity in the English media because of the revelation by Ingmar Bergman that he had had a secret daughter with a Swedish countess in the 1950s - see the BBC or Fox News for example.

Tre dagböcker has not been translated into English, but further details can be found at the Ingmar Bergman Foundation website, which also provides this translated quote from the foreword: ‘A few words on the editing of the diaries. They were written in the moment, and were never intended to be read by anyone author than their authors. Hardly anything has been changed or corrected. Almost everything has been presented exactly as it was written. Nor have we abridged the sections that contain a plodding monotony. They stand in contrast to the upsetting drama that has affected us.
Some may wonder why we have chosen to make such rough and unpolished documents public. The answer is that it has been a part of the grieving process. We have not attempted to hide or excuse our own shortcomings or our helplessness. This is no literary work, but a document. Not a book, but a testimony.’

Otherwise the only published trace of Bergman’s diaries I can find in English are in The Magic Lantern (as translated by Joan Tate) - this can be freely read online at Internet Archive. It was republished in 2007 by University of Chicago Press which described the book thus: ‘More grand mosaic than linear account, Bergman’s vignettes trace his life from a rural Swedish childhood through his work in theater to Hollywood’s golden age, and a tumultuous romantic history that includes five wives and more than a few mistresses. Throughout, Bergman recounts his life in a series of deeply personal flashbacks that document some of the most important moments in twentieth-century filmmaking as well as the private obsessions of the man behind them. Ambitious in scope yet sensitively wrought, The Magic Lantern is a window to the mind of one of our era’s great geniuses.’

Here are the only mentions by Bergman in The Magic Lantern of his diaries/note books (the page numbers refer to the pdf form at Internet Archive, not the published book).

Page 23
‘I look through my diary notes from work on A Dream Play [Strindberg play], not very encouraging reading. I was in bad shape, uneasy, dejected, tired, my right hip hurting and aching continually, and mornings were troublesome. My stomach was sabotaging me with cramps and attacks of diarrhoea. Tedium hung like a damp dishcloth round my soul.’

Page 24
‘On Friday 14 March we had the First run-through [of A Dream Play], letting it all go through without interruptions or re-runs. In my diary I wrote: “Frustrating run-through. Sitting there glaring. Totally outside. Totally unmoved. Well, time enough.” (The premiere had been planned for 17 April, seventy-nine years to the day-after the world premiere.)’

Page 46
‘For a month or so, we had been visited by two quiet, courteous gentlemen from the Tax Authority, who had been given a space in our temporarily empty office and were busy going through our accounts. They had also expressed a wish to be allowed to examine my Swiss firm, Personafilm, so we immediately sent for all the books and placed them at the gentlemen’s disposal.

No one had the time to bother about these quiet individuals in the empty room. According to my diary notes, I see that a voluminous memorandum from the Tax Authority landed with us on Thursday 22 January. I did not read it but sent it on to my lawyer.’

Page 47
‘In my notes on 22 January, I seem to be less worried about the memorandum from the Tax Authority than about a painful eczema that had broken out on the third finger of my left hand.

Ingrid and I had been married for five years. We lived in a newly built apartment house at Karlaplan 10 where Strindberg’s House had once stood.

We led a quiet bourgeois life, meeting friends, going to concerts and the theatre, seeing a number of films and working with gusto.

This is a brief background to what happened on 30 January and subsequently. There are no notes in my diary for the months that follow. I returned to writing them, intermittently, about a year later. So what follows will be what I remember in momentary images, sharply in focus, but blurred at the edges. . .’

Page 107
‘The summer was hot. Neither my wife, Ka’bi, nor I felt like hunting for a holiday house, so we stayed in Djursholm, paralyzed by the heavy thundery heat and our own despondency. I noted in my intermittent diary: “Life has precisely the value one puts on it,” undoubtedly a banal way of putting things but, to me, such insight was so breathlessly new I could not implement it.’