The Trouble at the Högskola

2010 Arild Stubhaug

Gösta Mittag-Leffler: A Man of Conviction

p. 26-28

 

"Those who went out to visit Djursholm before the turn of the century noted that the Mittag-Leffler house was the biggest and most costly in the suburb. But the one that undoubtedly cast the most splendor over the new residential community during its first years was the home of Viktor Rydberg, who was probably Sweden's most celebrated figure at the time. Rydberg was born in 1828, and by the 1850s he had already attained great learning and renown. For the rest of his life he played a central role in the public debates. In 1890, when he settled in Djursholm, he was something of a symbol for national unity across social classes. He was a poet, a scholar, a thinker, and an intellectual giant. He was was a professor at Stockholm College, and thence one of Mittag-Leffler's colleagues. At the college he gave lectures within the humanities. Mittag-Leffler later claimed that it was because of his influence that Rydberg's villa was built in the same neighborhood as his own. At the time Rydberg was particularly regarded as "a form of advertisement"— and his home was built by the Djursholm Corporation itself. Nevertheless, according  to Mittag-Leffler, in the beginning no one spoke so scornfully about Djursholm as Rydberg did; yet eventually he came to appreciate the community. It was Rydberg's poetry book Fädernas Gudasaga (Ancestral Tales of the Gods) that served as tghe source for the names given to the roads and neighborhoods of Djursholm. The neighborhoods acquired ancient Nordic names, often of mythic origin, such as Svithiod, Urd, Saga, Jotunheim, Breidablikk, Baldershage, Midgard, and so on. The roads were named Auravägen, Drottvägen, Ymervägen, Lidskjalfvägen, Ragnaröksvägen, Sveastigen, etc. One small islet became known as Samsö, a skerry became Vägaskär, and many of the houses were given old Nordic names such as Alfheim, Brisinge, Skoga, Gimle, Glittne, Ysäter, and so on.

     Rydberg took on the job of vice-principal at Samskolan, Djursholm's new school for both boys and girls, and he became the chairman of the school board. Rydberg's brief incisive speeches at the end of the school year were published and quickly became legendary. Some of his most famous poems were also written in Djursholm .....

 

....An impressive staff of teachers was associated with the school from the start. In addition to Rydberg, who served as vice-principal and chairman of the schoolboard, the 26 year old Johan Bergman, who would later become a professor and member of parliament, was named the first principal of the school. Gerda von Friesen, who came from a well-known family of teachers, became headmistress in 1896.

 

pp. 429-430

 

"....More and more people were moving to Djursholm. Businessmen and intellectuals and many others settled in the new residential areas, which was widely regarded as an ideal place to live. Most were well-to-do and had radical interests. The average income was among the highest in the country, and one of the wealthiest was Mittag-Leffler, who according to public records had a taxable income of about five times the professor salary that he received. The most famous resident was of Djursholm was Viktor Rydberg. It was Mittag-Leffler who had persuaded Rydberg to move to Djursholm and become his closest neighbor. In spite of disagreements about the College, the two neighbors often ment at social gatherings and had private conversations. Judging by the brief notes that the two exchanged—scribbled in all haste on calling cards and the like— it seems like spiritualism, one of the popular interest of the day, was occasionally included in their conversations. In any case, there seems a hint of this in Rydberg's words: "Keenly interested in embarking with you on the foreamentioned borderline area of philosophy." Or perhaps this referred to mathematical ideas?

 

There was great sorrow in Djursholm and in the entire country when the great poet Rydberg unexpectedly passed away on September 21, 1895. As a response to the many public memorials and obituaries honoring Rydberg, Mittag-Leffler wanted to present his own portrait of the man and the writer, with whom he'd been entralled ever since his days in secondary school.

...After Rydberg's death, Mittag-Leffler and Henrik Palme, who was the founder of the Djursholm residential area, took the initative to comission one of the country's foremost sculptors, John Börjeson, to create a bust of Rydberg. The bust was unveiled in Djursholm six years later."

 

p. 701

 

"Mittag-Leffler's memories of Viktor Rydberg in KB, L62:50:85 [Mittag-Leffler writes to Sonja on 8 June 1886 that it was said of Rydberg in Germany that he had left his wife and, with her consent, had sought a "beautiful girl" in Vienna; and that he had then returned to his spouse "pleased, satisfied, and energetic." Mittag-Leffler commented: "A strange way to be faithful to one's first love, n'est ce pas?]."

 

2011 Pieter Dhondt
National, Nordic or European?
Nineteenth-Century University
Preview

 

(p. 161-162) Only through the study of philosophy, they asserted, could one come to real knowledge. Viktor Rydberg's cantata on the day of the promotions exemplifies Sahlin's ode to philosophy.⁶⁴ The cantata uses the image of the Israelites wandering  in the wilderness as a metaphor for its central theme; the wandering of huma nity through history. For the Israelites, their destination was Canaan, the promised land on the other side of the river Jordan; according to Rydberg, the final goal for mankind, and the end of history, was the kingdom of God. In the cantata, the university is of descisive importancy for the history of humanity.  Every faculty receives its own special mission associated with a particular problem in history. for the first faculty, that of theology, the associated problem was doubt, doubt about the existence of a Promised Land, a kingdom of God at the end of history. The faculty of Law was associated with the problem of chaos and lawlessness. The answers to this problem are not Moses' stone tablets, an Old Testament parallel to the modern code of law, but the total immaterial voice of God from the mountain Sinaï. It seems as if Rydberg was talking about natural law, echoed in the  hearts of humans. For the third faculty, that of medicine, the problem is of course sickness. Last, but to Rydberg absolutely not least, comes the faculty of philosophy. Its vocation is twofold: firstly an intellectual task to guide humanity through darkness with the light of thought; and secondly, the artistic, poetic and prophetic task, to see and express ideals, grounded in transcendent eternity, to their fellow humans.

⁶⁴ Rolf Lindborg, Viktor Rydbergs kantat, en essä (Lund, Signum 1985)

As such the cantata fitted perfectly into the general ambitions of the quartercentenary: it emphasised the importance of the philosophical faculty, it stressed the crucial place of the university within society, and it presented Uppsala University as an excellent mixture of old and new tendencies. As was the case at man of the other nineteenth-century university jubilees, the Uppsala quatertcentenary reflected a prevailing feeling of romantic idealism. Rydberg's cantata illustrates this romantic idealism perfectly. The response of the audience on the performance was easy to guess: overwhelming enthusiasm by both the guests from Northern Europe as well as by those from elsewhere. However, many correspondents from Northern Europe added some clearly critical remarks about the conservative message that was hidden within the cantata.

The conflict in Uppsala between the human and natural sciences continued long after the festitivities of 1877. The new university's main building, which opened in 1877, became absorbed within discussions similar to those of the jubilee. The building was designed as a palace in Renaissance style, monumental at least in the interior. In the long gallery, plaster casts of antique sculptures bore witness to the still unbroken power of neo-humanist aesthetics. The human sciences very quickly occupied most of the building, which strengthened the impression that it was a bastion of only one of the two camps: the idealist, conservative one, as opposed to the often more liberal and materialist philosophy of the natural sciences and medicine. The conservative attitude of the university authorities was was confirmed by the inscription above the entrance of the great hall: “Tänka fritt är stort, men tänka rätt är större [To think free is great but to think right is greater]”, opposing with this the the free-thinking, liberal attitude towards research within the experimental sciences. This inscription is taken from Thomas Thorild, an eighteenth-century poet, and expresses the Stoic idea that Divine order is also the order of rational thought. In this regard, Uppsala was running markedly behind in comparison with the rest of Sweden. The jubilee can therefore be considered a celebration of a university idea which was about to disappear, although the persons involved did not realise it yet."

 

(p. 217) ....Viktor Rydberg's cantata at the quatercentenary of Uppsala university was just such a text. It is still being reprinted in the anthologies of Swedish verse today.

But the cautionary note was sounded in the very decade in which Cox was writing, the 1880s, by the Swedish scholar and man of letters Viktor Rydberg, in a book about the interpretation of Germanic myths. Rydberg referred to the 'mistake which has played and still plays a large and regrettable role in the study of mythology', namely 'the immense importance which linquists give to a mythical name...If one has established that a name means 'He who shines' or "He who thunders', the assumption has immediately been that one has thereby established in nuce all the characteristics of the personality with this name.' To make this assumption is, Rydberg argued, badly to misjudge the true multiplicity of mythical characters. ¹⁹ In spite of such warnings, the quest for the etumos logos continued to flourish in the twentieth century."

19. Rydberg (1889) 442-3, cited by Jan de Vries (1961) 250-3. For help with the translation from the Swedish I am indebted to Ann-Louise Schallin.

In 1862, the popular author Viktor Rydberg (1828-1895) published his Bibelns lära om Christus (The Doctrine of the Bible on Christ), presenting a rational understanding of Christ as the ideal man, though not God. Rydberg wrote from a purely idealistic position, using Platosim as a defense against materialism. His position was anti-clerical,though not anti-Christian. The book became very influential and paved the way for later liberal influences among common, educated people.

 
 

2013 Minna Törmä   Enchanted by Lohans: Osvald Siren’s Journey into Chinese Art

 
... he had certainly read the works of the Romantic poet and writer Viktor Rydberg (1828—95). The Theosophical Society in Sweden (Teosofiska Samfundet) had been founded on Rydberg's initiative in 1889. Rydberg himself was never active ...
 
 

2013 Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe Mysteries and Secrets of Numerology - Page 161

To the south was the equally fatal heat of Muspelheim. Buri became the grandfather of Odin, and was thus the first god. The great nineteenth-century Swedish academic Viktor Rydberg found an interesting parallel between the early Norse myths and the Zoroastrian creation stories. What he commented on in particular was that a giant ox or cow features in both sets of stories, and that the numerological “3” also recurs in both. The highly significant numerological “3” appears again when Ymir has 3 children: a boy and a girl grew from under his arms and a son who possessed 6 heads came from his legs and feet. Buri, whom Audhumla the cow had released from the primordial ice, became the father of Borr, who in turn had 3 sons. These were the brothers Vili, Ve, and Odin, who was destined to become the chief of the gods in due time. These 3 brothers…
 

2014 Edgar Allan Poe's Korpen [The Raven]

 
En av dem somdå försökte överföra diktens ”magiska musik” till svenska var Viktor Rydberg. Han har blivit kritiserad för att ha tagit sig allt för stora friheter isittsvåra rön.Nu börman docknämna, attpå den tiden användeman nästan aldrig ordet ...

One who attempted to translate the poem's "magical music" into Swedish was Viktor Rydberg. He has been criticized for taking for great liberities ....
 
…tolkad av Viktor Rydberg:
...as translated by Viktor Rydberg:

Trött ennatt
jagsatt och drömdevid
engammal bok, där glömde,
bakom seklers förlåtgömde
tankar hägrade förbi.
Knapptjag börjat slumra,
förrän något knackade på dörren,
något pickade på dörren –
ticketick det ljöd ...

2014 Gustaf Fröding Prosa: Volym 1 och 2

 
.. levat ett sönderslitet liv, som givit deras fiender vapen i händerna, men de höra alla till ”prometeiska släktet”, som Viktor Rydberg talar om i en av sina dikter och som består av de egentlige ledarne för mänskligheten på dess väg till förädling.
Parkerna i gläntan, vetska
 
 
GUDASAGA. Fädernas gudasaga berättad för ungdom av Viktor Rydberg. Stockholm. Albert Bonnier. Under ovannämnda anspråkslösa titel har den frejdade författaren i samlad form utgivit resultaten av sina med vanlig samvetsgrannhet och ...
 
Därför är också t. ex. den förr i världen så förhatade kättaren Viktor Rydberg i dessa dagar frikallad från hånet och smädelsen – ty den förnuftigt och humanistiskt religiösa världsåskådning han företräder är numera ingen ny och kämpande lära, ...
 
That is why, for Instance, the sooner the world so hated heretic Viktor Rydberg these days frikallad from the mockery and confounded - for the sensible and humanistic religious worldview he represents is now no new and fledgling doctrine.
  
 

2015 Tapio Tamminen Kansankodin pimeämpi puoli

 
Part of a much longer passage in Finnish:
 
Perheen lähipiiriin kuulunut Viktor Rydberg oli tuolloin usein nähty vieras Sagatunissa. Rydberg istuskeli iltaa monesti isännän kanssa hiljalleen hämärtyvässä kesäyössä huvilan avaralla verannalla. Usein puheenaiheet sivusivat molempia kiehtovaa pohjolan muinaista historiaa. Isäntä kertoiuusimmista kallolöydöistään. Rydberg puolestaan palasi yhäuudelleen mieliaiheeseensa: mistä arjalaisetkansat olivat kotoisin. Viktor Rydberg oli uppoutunut skandinaavisten myyttien maailmaan 1880luvun alussa niin perusteellisesti,että häntäeivaimonsa mukaan uulemmasaanut hevin kirjoituspöytänsääärestä. Pohjoismaalaiset myytit muistuttivat häkellyttävästi perinteisiä intialaisia jumalmyyttejä.Näin ainakin Rydberguskoi. Rydberg vakuutteli Retziukselle, että vertailevan myyttitutkimuksen perusteella yhtäläisyydet voitiin osoittaa kristattomasti.
 

The family belonged to Viktor Rydberg's  inner circle at the time he was a frequent visitor to Sagatunissa. Rydberg sat in the evening with his host as a summer's night gradually faded on the vast veranda of the villa. Often the topics touched upon fascinating ancient history of the North. ... Rydberg, in turn, returned again and again to favorite theme: the origin of the Aryan nations. Viktor Rydberg was immersed in the world of Scandinavian myths in the early 1880s ...At least, Rydberg believed. Rydberg's theory assured that in the outcome of an investigation of  comparative mythology similarities could be shown ... between the Germanic, Iranian, and Hindu mythic traditions.

The opening of Snorre Sturlasson's Heimskringla and his Prose Edda have two rather different myths concerning the origin of Odin and the Nordic Asas, the main group of Norse Gods, and their movement from southeastern Europe to the high North. The one from the Prose Edda is evidently based on the migration myths from other Germanic nations, and ultimately based on the chronicle, written in the mid-seventh century  by an unknown Frankish author, who is usually called Fredegar, on the origin of the Franks. This riddle was solved in a plausible way by the Swedish historian and philosopher Viktor Rydberg more than 100 years ago...

The migration myth in the Prose Edda originally was the result, as shown by Rydberg, of a confusion between Po and the Rhine, and between Pavia and Batavia. The migration myth in Heimskringla could have been the result of Norse traders . ..

Linguistic evidence favoured the European origin of the Aryan, Rydberg said, but it was not yet conclusive. Although the Asiatic theory continued to be more generally accepted, the proponents of the European origin had a least succeeded in  raising significant concerns which forced the propenents of the Asiatic origin to modifiy their theory significantly to grant that while the origin of the Aryan was in Asia, the culture might over time become uniquely Germanic. Instead of migrating from Asia in linguistically distinct groups, the Aryans were now taken to have 'formed one homogenous mass which gradually on our continent divided itself into Celts, Teutons, Slavs, and Greco-Italians'. For Rydberg, the origin of the Teutons 'in the Central and Northern part of Europe' was not inconsistent with the Asiatic origin of the Indo-European.

Rydberg went beyond the linguistic evidence in his efforts to establish the uniqueness of Teutonic mythology. He took as his evidence work in craniology and anthropology in order to bolster his argument. In what Ibn Khaldun called the Northern Wastes, the ancient Teutons 'were less exposed to mixing with non-Aryan elements' and so were able to maintain the purity of their 'original racial type'. Ancient histories described them as 'Tall, white ...   ...

...Rydberg's mention of Latham's work is not merely a passing reference. Latham's belief in the European origin of the Aryans is approvingly contrasted with Pictet's and Max Muller's view of the Asiatic origin. Rydberg's own ...

2015 Johan Ling, ‎Peter Skoglund, ‎Ulf Bertilsson Picturing the Bronze Age, Page 13

The arguments for a more flexible dating: Viktor Rydberg
 
Only a few years later, in 1881, in the preface to the Baltzer large illustrated works that is commented upon below, the famous author Viktor Rydberg (Fig. 2.14) introduced the theory that the rock carvings could be dated even more precisely to the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. In this text, he also includes some mild attacks against Montelius' opinion. Here Rydberg, the very prominent writer that he was, appears at least as scientific in his analytical reasoning as the acclaimed rock art researchers in the 1800s. After examining the six different arguments that Montelius highlights concerning the age of the rock carvings (see above), he concludes that '... they belong either to the Bronze Age Rock Art. This almost century-long new period started with the debate between Gunnar Ekholm and Oskar Almgren on the issue of the rock carvings being the result of beliefs and actions in the cult of death or that of fertility, which ran in the early part of the 1900s (Ekholm 1916; 1922; Almgren, O. 1927). Actually, it was not until the last decade or so that the focus has shifted back to the dating issue, among the first to do so being Oskar Almgren's son, Bertil Almgren, who also holds the professor's chair in Uppsala. As a result of his analyses of style in the design of the ships on the rock carvings in Bohuslän and Scania, he demonstrated that many of the depictions had been carved in the Early Bronze Age (Almgren, B. 1987). More recent studies based on ship typology by Flemming Kaul (1998; 2003) and Johan Ling (2006; 2008) present chronological schemes built on different ship types. Ling has also tested the proposed chronology using modern and independent shoreline displacement studies, the result of which seems to have confirmed his hypothesis. Rydberg argued further that a careful comparative study of the rock carvings when they occur in completely reliable depictions and mappings, would shed much light on an era that is far beyond all historical accounts, even if one would never succeed in finding the key to a comprehensive interpretation of the carvings. He touches here upon the main reason behind Baltzer's documentation project: that a more complete and reliable catalogue would enable scientists to better comprehend and interpret the rock carvings. This argument remains valid and is in fact a perfect description of a classic scientific research process with three stages: observation, analysis and interpretation. It illustrates in an obvious way that the study of rock art in Bohuslän had finally entered into the scientific era during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. One interesting fact is that the two people who were of vital importance for this process, namely the renowned archaeologist Oscar Montelius and the celebrated author Viktor Rydberg, were two of the then leading liberal personalities (Baudou 2012a: 193). which coincided with the First World War, Montelius seems to have adopted a more conservative outlook generally, reflecting the prevailing view of the time (Baudou 2012b; Goldhahn 2012: 206). Moreover,  Rydberg was also a member of the Board of the University of Stockholm when the delicate matter of Montelius' appointment as professor was dealt with in 1887 (Baudou 2012b: 260pp.)
  
 

2015 Eva Bonnier Börs och katedral : Six generations of Bonniers

Låt mig ta Viktor Rydberg som ett slående exempel. Rydberg hade debuterat med Den Siste Athenaren 1859 hos Lars Johan Hierta men Albert blev intresserad och tog kontakt med Rydbergs »agent« S.A. Hedlund, huvudredaktör vid  Göteborgs Handels och Sjöfartstidning, som skötte alla ekonomiska mellanhavanden och han erbjuder sig att bli Rydbergs förläggare. Sedan drar det ut på tiden men agenten hör av sig och undrar vad Albert vill betala för en översättning av första delen av Goethes Faust. I mars 1875 hör agenten av sig till flera förläggare och erbjuder översättningen till högstbjudande och då slår Albert till och betalar den för den tiden fantastiska summan av 5,000 kronor. »Jag kan inte neka att beloppet av honoraret 5 000 kronor är – om än kanske icke mer än vad det därpå nedlagda arbetet kan vara värt – likväl för våra förhållanden och för en bok av icke större omfång – rätt betydligt. Framtiden skall utvisa ...
 
“Let me take Viktor Rydberg as a striking example. Rydberg had debuted with The Last Athenian in 1859 of Lars Johan Hierta but Albert became interested and contacted Rydberg's "agent" S.A. Hedlund, editor-in-chief of Gothenburg Trade and Maritime Magazine, who did all his financial dealings, and he offered to become Rydberg's publisher. Then pull it out at the time but the agent in touch and wonder what Albert would pay for a translation of the first part of Goethe's Faust. In March 1875 includes the agent himself to several publishers and provides translation to the highest bidder and then beat Albert and pay it on time fantastic sum of 5000 crowns. "I can not deny that the amount of the honorarium of SEK 5000 is - though perhaps no more than it subsequently abandoned the work may be worth - well for our circumstances and for a book of no greater extent - the right considerably. The future will tell…”
 
 

2015 Normand Bosowski   The Esoteric Codex: The Æsir, p. 48

 
 Theories: Some 19th-century scholars theorized that Meili's mother is Jörð, a goddess and the personified Earth. Also during the 19th century, Viktor Rydberg theorized that Baldr and Meili are one and the same.
 
 

2015 Harold Burham The Esoteric Codex: Deities of Knowledge

 
“In the theories of Viktor Rydberg, Mímir's wife is Sinmara, named in the poem Fjölsvinnsmal. According to Rydberg, the byname Sinmara (“sinew-maimer”) refers to Mímir-Niðhad's queen ordering Völund's hamstrings to be cut”
 

2016 Per Wisselgren The Social Scientific Gaze: The Social Question and the Rise of Academic Social Science in Sweden

 
Benjamin Kidd's best-seller Social Evolution (1894), which came out in 14 editions in the space of four years in England and was translated into a number of languages. One of its enthusiastic readers in Sweden was the author and Professor of Cultural History Viktor Rydberg, who also wrote the introductory preface to the Swedish edition, and Rydberg was in his turn cited by Johan Leffler and Gustav Steffan as a thinker with a distinct sociological gaze. Charles Letoureau and Herbert Spenser received a similar reception.