The Gustav Vasa 1541 bible, Pippi Longstocking, Ikea, the right to roam, paternity leave, Sámi joiks, the Nobel prize and works by Ingmar Bergman and August Strindberg all made it into Sweden’s long-awaited, much-criticised proposal for a “cultural canon”.
However, notable omissions from the list of 100 works and references that have formed Sweden’s culture and history – intended, its creators said in Uppsala on Tuesday, to establish a “shared map and compass” for Swedish citizens and new arrivals to Sweden – included Abba and anything from after 1975, a period that has seen Sweden transform into an international, multicultural society.
Critics have accused the canon of being a “nationalist education project”. In response, its committee chair, the historian Lars Trägårdh, said that Sweden needs to embrace “democratic nationalism”, telling Swedish television last week that since the second world war Swedish culture had been characterised by modernism, internationalism and multiculturalism. “They have turned their gaze away from Swedish culture and the Swedish nation,” he told SVT’s 30 Minutes.
The list is divided into 11 categories, including poems, music, economy, religion and inventions, and encompasses places, laws and even concepts.
It features Lilla Hyttnäs, the cottage in Darlarna that belonged to artists Karin and Carl Larsson; Hilma af Klint’s Målningar till templet (Paintings for the temple); Stockholm city hall, designed by Ragnar Östberg; and two songs by Gothenburg troubadour Evert Taube.
It also takes in cross-country ski race Vasaloppet, Systema naturae by naturalist Carl von Linné, Kakelungnen (a popular 18th century heating stove) and Lappkodicillen, the 1751 agreement that recognised that Sámi people have the right to move freely between Sweden and Norway.
With the exception of one of Sweden’s first synagogues, Marstrand, the religion category is dominated by Christian entries, despite Sweden’s Muslim population. It does, however, include Nattvardsgästerna (Winter Light), Bergman’s 1963 film about a priest in existential crisis, and the Swedish church’s 1958 decision to allow women to be priests.
The Swedish Arabic news site Alkompis noted that the list did not include any Islamic landmarks. “Sweden’s first mosque, Nasir Mosque, was built in Gothenburg in 1976, 49 years ago,” it said.
The decision to create a Swedish cultural canon was part of the coalition agreement for the Moderates-led government, which depends on the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats. The project has been the subject of heated debate ever since the investigation was commissioned in 2023, and has been criticised by the Swedish Academy, the Swedish Writers’ Association and members of Sweden’s national minorities, a group which includes Indigenous Sámi people.
Additionally, the committee invited the public to create an online “people’s canon” which received about 10,000 submissions, including rapper Silvana Imam, whose music includes songs protesting against racism and the far-right Sweden Democrats, and the kebab pizza, one of Sweden’s favourite dishes. Neither features in the official canon.
Trägårdh said at a press conference at Uppsala University on Tuesday that Sweden’s canon should be a “moving object” to be regularly updated and “something that creates rich possibilities for all to be successful people in modern Swedish society.”
Marlen Eskander, the founder of the Reading Promotion Institute, who left the committee last year, described the canon as “very exclusionary”.
“Setting a 50-year limit is deliberately excluding contemporary experiences,” she told news outlet Svenska Dagbladet, adding that Sweden had undergone huge changes since 1975.
Anita Kitok, head of language and culture for Sametinget, Sweden’s Sámi parliament, said: “Sametinget has not been involved in the cultural canon so I do not have any comments about the result or the process.”
The canon announcement comes at a time of heightened identity politics in Sweden that have seen the far-right flourish amid an uptick in anti-immigrant sentiment, in part through nostalgic messaging and by connecting immigration and criminality, which has since become a mainstream narrative.
The Swedish culture minister, Parisa Liljestrand, rejected criticism of the project, saying: “The canon project has been attributed with intentions that never existed anywhere else except possibly in the critics’ imagination.”
She denied that the canon marked a victory for the Sweden Democrats’ culture politics. “That is the absolutely worst way to see this. This is a project that is about inclusion,” she said.
One critic said the outcome was “laughable”. “You can’t get away from the thought that AI could have suggested it,” wrote Björn Wiman in Dagens Nyheter.
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