Imaging Community: Sweden in ‘cultural propaganda’ then and now

Abstract

This article discusses the dynamic interplay between autostereotypes and xenostereotypes in the historical context of the Swedish Institute, the government agency responsible for Swedish cultural relations with other countries. More specifically it suggests empirical examples of how ‘national image’ and ‘imagining the national’ have infused one another in the post-war world. Drawing on the archives and publications of the Swedish Institute as well as the archives of the Press Department of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the article's chronological emphasis lies on the late 1940s. Using this historical perspective, it concludes with some reflections on the Institute's current Nation Branding strategies.

Keywords:

• the Swedish Institute
• cultural diplomacy
• Nation Branding
• national identity
• propaganda
• Swedish model

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the generous support from Jacob Letterstedts Stipendiefond, administered by the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, which allowed me to present an earlier version of this article at the European Social Science History Conference in Lisbon, 1 February 2008. I would like to thank Jenny Andersson and Mary Hilson for their constructive comments on that paper.

Notes

1 Svenska institutet, Sverigebilden 2008 , 9. Here, as in the following, the translation from Swedish is my own.

2 ‘Imagined communities’ refers to Benedict Anderson's widely cited Imagined Communities.

3 The Swedish historian Bo Stråth notes that the concept of ‘the Swedish Model’ first seems to have been used by the French journalist and politician Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber in 1967. ‘The attention from abroad provided Swedish self-understanding’, explains Stråth, ‘The concept of the Swedish model was gradually adopted, not only abroad but also in Swedish public debates’. See Stråth, Folkhemmet mot Europa, 205–6. Stråth makes a similar point about the role of foreign renditions of Sweden in his ‘Poverty, Neutrality and Welfare’. In a comprehensive discussion of national Swedish self-perception during the Cold War, Sten Ottosson also notes how descriptions of Sweden abroad functioned as ‘catalysts and pin-pointers of Swedish self-perception’, see his ‘Bilden av Sverige’, 6. Another scholar to note the mutual relationship (although he does not analyze it) between images of the nation (in his case Norway) ‘from within’ and ‘from without’ is Jacobsen in ‘Bilder av Norge og de norske. Norge sett innenfra og utenfra’, passim. See also Carl Marklund's contribution to this volume.

4 Musiał, Roots of the Scandinavian Model, 235. The terms ‘autostereotype’ and ‘xenostereotype’ have also been used (in passing) in the case of Swedish identities by Stråth in ‘Poverty, Neutrality and Welfare’, 396.

5 Musiał, Roots of the Scandinavian Model. Since Musiał published his thesis Ottosson has contributed to filling some aspects of this gap with his research on Swedish self-perceptions during the Cold War. In Svensk självbild under kalla kriget he analyzes speeches of Swedish Prime Ministers and Ministers for Foreign Affairs; in ‘Bilden av Sverige’ Ottosson analyzes Swedish Cold War political self-perception as it was expressed in domestic public debate and opinion polls. For that purpose he expressly seeks out debates spurned by foreign writers’ publications about Sweden.

6 The Inquiry's initiative appears not least to have been a response to pressure from representatives of Swedish businesses on the North American market. They had formed the Swedish Industries Fund in reaction to American anti-Swedish opinion in the winter of 1941–42, and financed Swedish information activities in the USA during the war. See ‘Memorandum beträffande svensk upplysningsverksamhet i Förenta Staterna’, in Dahlman to Thorsing, 25.1.45, 103a. Riksarkivet (RA), Utrikesdepartmentet (UD), Pressbyrån (Avd. I), Vol. 159,

7 The America Inquiry considered it to be of great importance that the Institute not be perceived as an official body of Government propaganda. Therefore it suggested that its structure and financing should ensure it be seen as a joint venture between state and society, between public and private interests (this design following that of equivalent organizations in other countries – for instance the British Council, founded in 1934, and Det Danske Selskab founded in Copenhagen in 1940). The Institute was constituted as an association of businesses and non-profit organizations. Its members were to pay an annual membership fee, thus contributing to half of the Institute's budget. The other half was to be met by the State. Each year the Council, consisting of 100 representatives of the Institute's members, gathered to elect members of the Executive Board and review and approve the budget and the Director's Annual Report. The Council elected seven members of the Board, the Government appointed three. Membership of the Council rotated among the Institute's members on a three-year basis, half of the members being chosen by the paying members and half of them appointed by the Government. The Government's appointees were intended to ensure representation from Swedish ‘cultural life’; religion, education, co-operatives, popular movements and the fine arts. For this reason, the Institute is particularly well-suited for the study of salient interpretations of Sweden and Swedishness, as its members constituted influential individuals purportedly representing all spheres of Swedish society.

8 Amerikautredningen, Betänkande med utredning och förslag angående Sveriges kommersiella och kulturella förbindelser med transoceana länder, 2–3.

9 Boheman, ‘Sveriges aktuella läge’, Speech at the Council Meeting 29.1.45. RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 159.

10 Hedin, ‘Protokoll vid sammanträde den 10 januari’, Svenska industrifonden. In Dahlman to Thorsing, 25.1.45, 103a. RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 159. English original. The American-Swedish News Exchange had been established after the First World War. Its office in New York was in part supported financially by the Institute.

11 Marell, ‘Protokoll vid sammanträde den 10 januari’, Svenska industrifonden. In Dahlman to Thorsing, 25.1.45, 103a. RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 159.

12 See for example Brandel, ‘P.M. angående Burnett Andersons artikel om Social-Sverige för Look’, 21.2.50. RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 305; Tallroth, ‘P.M. angående publikationer om Sverige på grundval av diskussioner inom institutets publikationsnämnd’, 26.4.45. RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 169.

13 Musiał, Roots of the Scandinavian Model, passim.

14 Lamm to Tegnér. 5.3.45. RA, Svenska institutet (SI), Hemmamyndigheten (HM), Serie EIII, Vol. 7.

15 Svenska institutets verksamhetsberättelse 1945-46, Bilaga 5: ‘Om omhändertagandet av utländska studiebesökande i Sverige’. RA, SI, HM, Serie BVII, Vol. 1.

16 Dahlman, ‘Intryck och erfarenheter från USA’, Speech at the Council Meeting 27.5.46. SI, HM, Serie AI, Vol. 1.

17 Upplysningsnämnden, ‘Yttrande ang. omorganisationen av Utrikesdepartementets pressbyrå’ in Henriksson, Redogörelse.

18 Boheman, ‘Sveriges aktuella läge’, Speech at the Council Meeting 29.1.45. RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 159.

19 Andersson and others, Introduction to Sweden, 277.

20 Dahlman, ‘Intryck och erfarenheter från USA’, Speech at the Council Meeting 27.5.46. RA, SI, HM, Serie AI, Vol. 1.

21 Granberg, ‘Några synpunkter på de svenska förbindelserna med Amerika’, Speech at the Council Meeting 16.12.46. RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 160.

22 Boheman to Hérnod, 17.6.44, 25, RA, UD. Avd. I, Vol. 159.

23 Schmidt, ‘Protokoll fört vid möte med vetenskapens representanter’, 28.4.45. RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 169. Asta Kihlbom, the Institute's representative in London, expressed a similar opinion at the same meeting.

24 Quoted in Hildeman, Upplysningsvis, 9.

25 ‘ang. Sverige i amerikansk press’, Report from the Swedish Embassy in Washington, 12.3.48. A similar point is made in ‘ang. Sverige i amerikansk press’, Report from the Swedish Embassy in Washington, 25.3.48. Both documents in RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 303.

26 Evelyn Waugh, ‘The Scandinavian Capitals: Contrasted Post-War Moods’, The Daily Telegraph 11.11.47. Copy in RA, SI, HM, Serie FIIa, Vol. 174; Henry Anatole Grunwald, ‘Sweden, Well-Stocked Cellar’, Time, 31.12.50. Copy in RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 307.

27 For example, ‘Sweden on the Fence’ was the title of a commentary published in a series of American newspapers in May 1948 according to ‘ang Sverige i amerikansk press och radio’, Report from the Embassy in Washington, 28.5.48. RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 303.

28 Quoted in ‘England vill ha besked om svensk debatt’, Stockholms-Tidningen, 14.8.45. Copy in RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 159.

29 Svenska institutets verksamhetsberättelse 1945-46, Bilaga 5, ‘Om omhändertagandet av utländska studiebesökande i Sverige’. RA, SI, HM, Serie BVII, Vol. 1.

30 Granberg, Speech at the Council Meeting 28.5.45. RA, SI, HM, Serie AI, Vol. 1.

31 ‘Svenska institutets verksamhetsberättelse 1947-48’ (unpublished). RA, SI, HM, Serie BVII, Vol. 1.

32 There were exceptions; Swedish literature was for example reportedly popular in the Netherlands. See Granberg to van Marken, 26.4.48 and Lagerberg to Granberg, 22.3.50. RA, SI, HM, Serie FIIa, Vol. 175.

33 Andersson and others, Introduction to Sweden, 16.

34 Ibid., 275.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid., 275–6.

37 Ibid., 275.

38 Thorsing to Dahlman, 6.10.47. Copy to the Swedish Institute 28.11.47. RA, SI, HM, Serie FIIa, Vol. 175.

39 Urry, Consuming Places, 132.

40 Horne, The Great Museum, 10.

41 Tallroth to Kastrup, 26.9.47. RA, UD. Avd I, Vol. 160. The end result was eventually considered successful. According to a member of staff at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, translations of Swedish information publications were generally of low quality ‘except for Introduction to Sweden’. See ‘P.M. ang samtal med ambassadsekr Lind den 31 augusti angående svensk-amerikanska kulturfrågor’. RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 304.

42 Alm, Americanitis, 313.

43 Wiklund, I det modernas landskap, 117–8.

44 Quoted in ‘England vill ha besked om svensk debatt’, Stockholms-Tidningen, 14.8.45. Copy in RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 159.

45 Hughes, ‘Tourism and the Semiological Realization of Space’, 20.

46 There was admittedly official recognition before the war of the importance of handling of foreign perceptions of Sweden, resulting in a re-organisation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Press Department (see Henriksson, Redogörelse), but it was the post-war era which saw the full effects of that recognition, not least through the establishment of the Swedish Institute.

47 See Tallroth, ‘Vårt kulturella utbyte med utlandet’, 201; Dahlman, at the Institute's Council Meeting 27.10.47. RA, UD, Avd. I, Vol. 160.

48 Svenska institutet, ‘The Swedish Institute’.

49 Attracting global media attention, the Institute in 2007 launched a Swedish Embassy in the online virtual world Second Life. It was inaugurated by the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs (or, more precisely, by his avatar).

50 Svenska institutet, Sverigebilden 2008 , 17.

51 Anholt-GMI, ‘How the World sees the World’.

52 Svenska institutet, Sverigebilden 2007 , 4.

53 Ibid., 3.

54 The Swedish Institute, Brand Sweden, 7.

55 Ibid., 8.

56 Research critically engaging with these areas is still relatively limited. For research critically engaging with Nation Branding, see for example van Ham, ‘Place Branding – The State of the Art’; Wang, ‘The Power and Limits’; Villanueva Rivas, Representing Cultural Diplomacy, particularly 51–3. Villanueva Rivas also briefly discusses the contents of ‘Brand Sweden’, 161–7, as do Lundberg and Tydén, Sverigebilder, 17–22. See also Brita Lundström's ongoing research into the historical roots of corporate Brand Sweden, undertaken at the Division of History of Science and Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.

57 The Swedish Institute, Brand Sweden, 1.

58 Ibid., 4.

59 Ibid., 3.

60 Svenska institutet, Sverigebilden 2008 , 11.