Vilhelm Moberg - The Emigrants

Moberg returned to Sweden for a face-to-face confrontation with his critics. He argued that the realism of his narrative dictated the use of straight talk and believable characterization. During the ensuing “decency debate,” or “Reuterdahl feud” as it was known in Sweden, four thousand Swedes signed a petition against the novel. Moberg reported that one protester went so far as to burn the book in his furnace while singing the Swedish national anthem, “Du gamla, du fria” (The old and the free). Certain church groups in Swedish America joined the protest action.

By the mid-1950s the protest had run its course. Moberg noted that even Swedish church groups were among those present in Karlshamn, Sweden, in 1959 for the public unveiling of the statue of Karl Oskar and Kristina. A replica of that statue now stands in downtown Lindstrom, Minnesota. 1

R. McK.

NOTE

1. Moberg discussed this interlude at some length in “Romanen om utvandrarromanen,” 317–25. See also Ebbe Reuterdahl, Vem har rätt? I litteraturfejden Moberg-Reuterdahl (Uppsala: Författarens Förlag, 1951).

Compiled by Vilhelm Moberg

Pehr Kalm: En resa i Norra Amerika. I–III. (1753–1761.)

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Ole Rynning: Beretning om Amerika. (Kristiania 1838.)

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Oscar N. Olsson: The Augustana Lutheran Church in America. Pioneer Period 1846–1860. (Rock Island 1934.)

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E. Herlenius: Åkianismens historia. (Stockholm 1902.)

——. Erik Janseismens historia. (Stockholm 1900.)

M. A. Mikkelsen: The Bishop Hill Colony. (Chicago 1892.)

George M. Stephenson: The Religious Aspects of Swedish Immigration. (Minneapolis 1932.)

L. Landgren: Om Sectväsendet. (Härnösand 1878.)

Joh. Schröder: Vägvisare för Emigranter. (Stockholm 1868.)

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A. E. Strand: A History of the Swedish-Americans of Minnesota. I–III. (Chicago 1910.)

Theodore C. Blegen: Building Minnesota. (Minnesota Historical Society. 1938.)

——. Norwegian Migration to America. (Northfield 1940.)

——. Land of Their Choice. (Minneapolis 1955.)

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W. J. Petersen: Steamboating on the Upper Mississippi. (Iowa City 1937.)

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——. Gold Rush Album. (New York 1949.)

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A. W. Quirt: Tales of the Woods and Mines. (Waukesha 1941.)

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——. The Human Side of Railroading. (Washington 1949.)

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V.M.

Locarno, June 1, 1959.

Compiled by Roger McKnight

About Vilhelm Moberg:

Holmes, Philip. Vilhelm Moberg. Boston: Twayne, 1980.

McKnight, Roger, “The New Columbus: Vilhelm Moberg Confronts American Society,” Scandinavian Studies 64 (Summer 1992): 356–89.

Moberg, Vilhelm. The Unknown Swedes: A Book About Swedes and America, Past and Present. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988.

Thorstensson, Roland B. “Vilhelm Moberg as a Dramatist for the People.” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1974.

Wright, Rochelle. “Vilhelm Moberg’s Image of America.” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington 1975.

About Swedish Immigration:

Barton, H. Arnold. A Folk Divided: Homeland Swedes and Swedish Americans, 1840–1940. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994.

——, ed. Letters from the Promised Land: Swedes in America, 1840–1914. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press for the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society, 1975.

Beijbom, Ulf, ed. Swedes in America: New Perspectives. Växjö: Swedish Emigrant Institute, 1993.

Blanck, Dag and Harald Runblom, eds. Swedish Life in American Cities. Uppsala: Centre for Multiethnic Research, 1991.

Hasselmo, Nils. Swedish America: An Introduction. New York: Swedish Information Service, 1976.

Ljungmark, Lars. Swedish Exodus. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979.

Nordstrom, Byron, ed. The Swedes in Minnesota. Minneapolis: Denison, 1976.

This is the story of a group of people who in 1850 left their homes in Ljuder Parish, in the province of Småland, Sweden, and emigrated to North America.

They were the first of many to leave their village. They came from a land of small cottages and large families. They were people of the soil, and they came of a stock which for thousands of years had tilled the ground they were now leaving. Generation had followed generation, sons succeeded fathers at harrow and plow, and daughters took their mothers’ place at spinning wheel and loom. Through ever-shifting fortunes the farm remained the home of the family, the giver of life’s sustenance. Bread came from the rye field and meat from the cattle. Clothing and shoes were made in the home by itinerant tailors and cobblers, out of wool from the sheep, flax from the ground, skins from the animals. All necessary things were taken from the earth. The people were at the mercy of the Lord’s weather, which brought fat years and lean years — but they depended on no other power under the sun. The farm was a world of its own, beholden to no one. The cottages nestled low and gray, timbered to last for centuries, and under the same roof of bark and sod the people lived their lives from birth to death. Weddings were held, christening and wake ale was drunk, life was lit and blown out within these same four walls of rough-hewn pine logs. Outside of life’s great events, little happened other than the change of seasons. In the field the shoots were green in spring and the stubble yellow in autumn. Life was lived quietly while the farmer’s allotted years rounded their cycle.