Erik Gustaf Geijer

• 1. Introduction

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  Erik Gustaf Geijer was a Swedish writer, historian, poet, philosopher and composer whose work helped shape Sweden's romantic idea of its own past. Later historians have puzzled over one verdict on his career. One commentator suggested his conversion to liberalism was perhaps as much a coming out of the closet as a genuine change of belief. Geijer was born on the 12th of January 1783 at Geijersgården, his family's estate in Ransäter, in the Swedish province of Värmland. He died on the 23rd of April 1847 in Stockholm. What could turn a scholar's late-life politics into something that sounds like a private confession rather than a public argument? How did one poem convince Swedes to picture their ancestors as heroic Vikings? Which of his ambitious histories did he start and never finish? What music did a man known mainly for prose and lecterns actually leave behind? And what became of the house that carries his name, and of the family line that followed him?

• 2. An Academic Rise at Uppsala

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  At the gymnasium in Karlstad, young Geijer first trained for the university studies that would define his career. He then moved to Uppsala, where in 1806 he earned his master's degree. Three years earlier, in 1803, he had already won a historical prize offered by the Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. In 1809 he traveled to England, a trip that came the year before he took up a post as a lecturer in history at Uppsala.

  By 1815 Geijer was serving as an assistant to Eric Michael Fant, the professor he would soon succeed. Two years later, in 1817, he became a full professor of history at Uppsala University. A statue of him now marks the campus. He went on to serve as rector of the university four times, in 1822, 1830-1836 and across 1843-1844. As the university's representative, he sat in the Riksdag of the Estates among the Church of Sweden clergy. He served there from 1828 to 1830, and again from 1840 to 1841.

  Geijer joined the Swedish Academy in 1824, taking seat number 14, and he served on an education committee from 1825 to 1828. In 1830 he became a member of Pro Fide et Christianismo, a Christian education society. Five years later, in 1835, he joined the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. That same restless energy for joining institutions would soon find an outlet outside the university, in a new society dedicated to Sweden's ancient past.

• 3. Reviving the Vikings

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  In the very first issue of Iduna, the journal of Geijer's new society, readers encountered a poem called The Viking. It went on to become his most famous piece of writing. The poem cast the Vikings as the heroic Norsemen many people still imagine today. It marked a turning point in reviving Norse culture's reputation among Swedes. Geijer had helped found the group behind that journal, the Geatish Society, known in Swedish as Götiska förbundet.

  Alongside the poet Arvid August Afzelius, Geijer also gathered Sweden's older folk songs into print. Their three-volume collection, Svenska folk-visor från forntiden, appeared in Stockholm between 1814 and 1816. That same appetite for grand national narratives would soon lead him into an ambitious history of Sweden, one he never finished.

• 4. Histories Left Unfinished

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  Records of Sweden, known in Swedish as Svea Rikes häfder, was supposed to run from Sweden's mythical origins all the way to Geijer's own time. He finished only its introductory volume. His next attempt, Svenska folkets historia, filled three volumes published between 1832 and 1836. It was planned as part of a wider series of European histories edited by Leo and Ukert. It never reached beyond the abdication of Queen Christina in 1654. Despite being incomplete, these works still count among the highly regarded contributions to Swedish history. Geijer's account of the Swedes up to Charles X was later translated into English by Turner, published in London in 1845 with a biographical introduction.

  Gustavus III had left behind personal papers at Uppsala University, sealed under a condition that they remain closed for fifty years after his death. Geijer took on the job of examining and editing them once that time had passed. The resulting book, Gustaf III's efterlemnade papper, appeared in 1843-45. The papers turned out to contain little or nothing of value.

  Minnen, a set of personal memoirs, appeared in Uppsala in 1834. After Geijer's death, his collected works, Samlade Skrifter, filled eight volumes published in Stockholm between 1873 and 1875, with a bibliographic treatise added by Teodblad. Those eight volumes of collected works sat alongside an entirely different body of work. Geijer had spent decades quietly composing chamber music, piano pieces and songs.

• 5. A Composer's Private Catalogue

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  A Violin Sonata in G minor, composed in 1819, sits among several chamber pieces Geijer wrote across his lifetime. His catalogue also includes a Piano Quintet in F minor from 1823. A Piano Quartet in E minor followed in 1825, though it was not published until 1865. He returned to the string quartet form late in life too, finishing one in B during 1846-47.

  For piano alone, Geijer produced a sonata in G minor as early as 1810, the same year he also wrote a Fantasi in F minor. Further piano pieces followed over the next two decades, including a Divertimento in 1824, a Midnattsfantasi in 1833 and a Scherzo in 1838.

  Sångstycken med ackompagnement för Piano-forte, a songbook published in 1834, opened Geijer's long series of songs, most of them set to his own words. Songs made up by far the largest part of his musical output. In 1839 he wrote Mod och försakelse for the singer Jenny Lind. His song Förgät mig ej was composed in 1846 and published in the magazine Nordstjernan in 1847; it may have been the last song he ever wrote. That body of songs and sonatas outlived Geijer by decades, much like the house in Uppsala that would later carry his name.

• 6. Home and Bloodline

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  North of the university library in central Uppsala stands Geijersgården, a mansion where Geijer himself lived from 1837 until 1846. Its main building had actually been constructed decades earlier, between 1737 and 1738. The estate took on its current appearance around 1850, a few years after Geijer's death. Uppsala University took over the property in 1934. Since 1965 it has housed the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, known in Swedish as Hammarskjöldfonden. A fire badly damaged the building's western wing, and restoration was completed in 1983. The site is now protected as a historic property under Sweden's Cultural Monuments Act.

  Hugo E. G. Hamilton, Geijer's own grandson, connects him to a line of well-known Swedish writers. Hamilton was the grandfather of the noted cultural figure and author Olof Lagercrantz. He was also the great-grandfather of the author and journalist David Lagercrantz and of his sister, the actress Marika Lagercrantz. Geijer's granddaughter Eva, a sister of Hugo Hamilton, was the mother of the Swedish author Agnes von Krusenstjerna.

  An English-language anthology titled Freedom in Sweden: Selected Works of Erik Gustaf Geijer appeared in 2017. It offers his writing to a new set of readers entirely on its own terms.