La narrativa: i cuentos popolari saharawi

SvD introduced in 1918 a “daily cultural column” [“kulturella dagskrönika”], a forum for cultural issues from an international perspective, and other newspapers, like Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällposten followed suit (Nilsson 1975: 68-69). The first Swed-ish regular cultural journalism page appeared in GHT in 1918 (Gustavsson 2008).³ It was soon followed by equivalents in other newspapers, such as DN, employing its first cultural editor in 1919 (Nilsson 1975: 70) and SvD, which engaged Fredrik Böök, Professor of Literary Studies, as cultural editor in 1923 (Elam 2010: 18). According to Rydén (1987: 461-462) Fredrik Böök, was “the leading critic in the leading newspaper for literature” during what he identifies as the golden age of Swedish literary criticism (1907-1928). Another ‘great critic’ John Landqvist (e.g. DN and Aftonbladet between 1911 and 1974) polemicized against Böök (Rydén 1987: 467) in this era’s version of meta-critique. Landqvist argued that a critic who is not also a novelist/poet has the advantage of being able to deem as inferior that which he could have done himself.

Many critics at this time were however novelists/poets, as well as members of the Swedish Academy. Thereby they enjoyed great power in the field.

The constitution of regular cultural pages in major newspapers during the 1920s is explained like this by Harrie:

…the way communication worked in our vast country, is that they [the large news-papers, now aspiring to become national newspapers] could not deliver news before the local press did, but they could well outbid them with lavish stuff for their reading pleasure. The cultural material was part of this since the national audience consisted to a large extent of people who wanted to ‘be updated’ on timely conversations about what was happening at the centres of power. (Cited in Nilsson 1975: 74).

Some newspapers did not feature regular cultural pages until the 1930s/40s (Nilsson 1974: 41). During these decades the cultural material often appeared on the same page as editorials and political debate articles, like in Aftonbladet (Nilsson 1975: 78).

KRISTINA RIEGERT & ANNA ROOSVALL

Aftonbladet turned in 1946 into an evening tabloid and Expressen appeared as its competitor (Nilsson 1975: 77-78). To this day Aftonbladet’s cultural section is still placed close to editorials and debate – far from entertainment, and Expressen eventu-ally adopted this structure.

Furthermore, during this time period, what Rydén (1987: 476-481) calls “the defining battle” of Swedish literary critique occured (1929-1945): a battle between conservatism and modernism, which modernism eventually won.

Autonomy struggles and increased politicisation: 1950s-1960s Olof Lagercrantz was cultural editor at DN 1951-1960, and subsequently one of its editors-in-chief, 1960-1975. He had crucial influence on Swedish cultural journal-ism’s development, through his style of critique and battle for an autonomous cultural desk, free from the influence of editors-in-chief and other stakeholders. Lagercrantz was a literary scholar (who previously worked at SvD, 1940-1951). When he joined DN (1951), the cultural page could not print opinions that were in conflict with the newspapers’ editorial position (also true of other newspapers at the time, Lundqvist 2012: 235-236). Lagercrantz stated in his declaration of intent that, “the premier task of cultural debate is to examine and assess the values and norms that rule contemporary society and guide thought and action” (cited in Lundqvist 2012: 239). The cultural desk was not to have ‘the right’ opinions, but to ‘freely ask the right questions’ – to constitute a field of intellectual experiment. Lundqvist claims that this declaration was an expression of the independence of the cultural pages from the editorial page, which Lagercrantz recurrently had to fight for (Fact box 2). Lagercrantz’s position encouraged other Swedish newspapers to grant cultural desks more autonomy so that they could reflect different (generally more radical) editorial lines than the otherwise mainly bourgeois press (Nilsson 1975).

In 1960, when Lagercrantz and political editor Sven-Erik Larsson both became DN’s editors-in-chief, the cultural desk became increasingly politicized, and as the division between politics and culture between the two leaders became blurred, clashes increased between them (Lundqvist 2012: 276-280). A study of the cultural material⁴ in 11 Swedish dailies concludes that societal issues in cultural coverage increased by more than 50 per cent between 1960-1965, mostly in newspapers that previ-ously had relatively little of it (SvD, Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällposten, Aftonbladet), but also in DN and Stockholmstidningen which already had a great deal of societal material (Nilsson 1974: 132). This accelerated during the latter part of the 1960s (an average 75 per cent increase 1965-1969) reflecting the rise of anti-authoritarian and counterculture movements in Sweden (Ibid. 136). Furthermore, the placement of this material was increasingly concentrated on the cultural pages (Ibid. 138). In 1969 societal subjects constituted more than 30 per cent of the cultural page material (Ibid. 178). Elam (2010) terms cultural journalism as politicized from this decade on (see also Forser 2002: 146).

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The 1960s was also a time when “the questions asked” were increasingly about other parts of the world. Agneta Pleijel, later Aftonbladet’s cultural editor, a famous novelist and academic, worked as a poetry critic at Kvällsposten 1966-1968, a time of radical-ism at this newspaper too (Sjögren 2008: 578). After a trip to Ethiopia in 1967, she wrote a series of articles on poetry and politics, introducing new more global outlooks which included reviewing new types of cultural products, such as a Vietnam War documentary (Ibid. 585-586). The Vietnam War was also debated fiercely on DN’s cultural page, and several people employed there covered other parts of the world, e.g. France, Latin American literature (Lundqvist 2012: 277, 289).⁵

Concurrently the cultural pages started to adjust to the broader editing style of the newspaper, thus appearing more journalistic and less highbrow, going for “more brash angles and tougher approaches” (Nycop 1968: 49, cited in Nilsson 1974: 44).

Certain writers were spotlighted, with recurring columns and vignettes (Nilsson 1974:

51). Some cultural content was handled on ‘entertainment’ or ‘stage pages’; theatre, music and film was regularly presented within that frame (Nilsson 1974: 52).⁶ In 1954 a separate desk with a separate editor had been created for DN’s “theatre page”

and it expanded during the 1960s (Lundqvist 2012: 312). Lundqvist calls these pages

“alternative cultural pages”, since they were less aesthetically conservative and lacked the debate element (Ibid. 313, 320).They contained the seeds of the later integration of culture and entertainment that blossomed in the 1990s-2000s.

Fact Box 2

Autonomy feuds at the cultural page at DN: three controversies • 1954: Lagercrantz was prohibited by the editor-in-chief to publish an article by the

Finnish-Swedish poet Hagar Olson critical of the campaign for Swedish nuclear weapons (which DN was engaged in).

• 1957: Lagercrantz who had risen in rank and was part of the editorial team published an article critical of nuclear weapons without showing it to the Editor-in-chief be-forehand. (Lundqvist, 2012: 253-254)

• 1966: An article by world famous author and director Peter Weiss about Vietnam was published as a leading article on the cultural page. DN’s Chairman of the Board called Weiss a communist and asked Lagercratz to denounce the article in the edito-rial space. Lagercrantz, who was himself critical of the article, underlined that the newspaper should also publish opinions that were not its own. A debate cannot be considered free if every time an article expresses opinions that appear dubious to owners or Editors-in-chiefs an editorial appears objurgating its author. Those who confuse what is published in the byline on the cultural page with the newspapers’ official opinion have misunderstood the principles according to which the newspaper is and should be handled, writes Lagercrantz (1990: 107-108).

KRISTINA RIEGERT & ANNA ROOSVALL

Politics, popular culture and diminishing editorial power: 1970s-2000s During the 1970s, the political tendencies in cultural journalism became more green than red (Lundqvist 2012: 321), and the key definers of critique from the 1960s – Marxist perspectives, opposition towards the USA – were gradually substituted by

‘postmodernism’ and ‘deconstruction’ (Rydén 1987: 514). Influential critics were e.g.:

Mats Gellerfeldt (SvD) who incidentally blamed literary criticism for the bad state of Swedish prose (Rydén 1987: 510) and Ruth Halldén (DN, Upsala Nya Tidning) who focused on foreign literature (Rydén 1987: 504-505). Rydén (1987: 505) underlines that Halldén, like the aforementioned Anna Branting, can be seen as a representative of woman critics in that she was independent and unattached: woman writers have often “kept themselves outside of decision-making circles”. While this independence may sound laudible, the downside is that men have mainly made the decisions and had the power to keep others out. This time period overall contains a greater share of woman critics (Rydén 1987), but when Agneta Pleijel became cultural editor at Aftonbladet 1975 she was still the only woman among seven people at the cultural desk (Forser 2002).

After the introduction of an op-ed page in SvD in 1974 (by Gustaf von Platen), DN followed suit in 1984 (Lundqvist 2012: 362). This is significant because debate had previously mainly occurred in the cultural sections (Nilsson 1974: 50, 140, Lundqvist 2012: 362). When a separate op-ed page was introduced and placed opposite the cul-tural page in DN in 1984 the relatively new culcul-tural editor, Arne Ruth (1982-1998), saw this as an asset; political-economic elites would populate the op-ed page allow-ing the cultural page to remain the home of free writers. Further, the cultural page was focused on arguments and dialogue, while the op-ed page was not necessarily interested in exchange (Lundqvist 2012: 363). In 1990 Culture appeared as a separate section in DN – as did News, Work and Money, Stockholm/Sport.

Ruth viewed this division as an opportunity to get more space for culture (Ibid. 392).

Others were sceptical, noting that culture was transformed from being the most vital part of societal debate to being part of “entertainment journalism” in a supplement to the main newspaper. Ruth however thought that “light culture” should be treated seri-ously (Ibid.). He concurrently recruited people with diverse political leanings to write about society, e.g. investigative journalist Maciej Zaremba and literary scholar Stefan Jonsson, and also wrote societal cultural journalism himself (Lundqvist 2012: 366, 402).

In 1998 Ruth resigned following continuous battles with the owners, the managing director and the board, after which the board eliminated the cultural editor’s autonomy (Lundqvist 2012: 376, 403). The next cultural editor, Ingrid Elam resigned after a year.

Lundqvist (2012: 404) notes that Elam, Ruth, and before them Lagercrantz, Torsten Fogelqvist and John Landqvist all left their cultural editorships at DN following au-tonomy conflicts.

Oscar Hemer (2010: 22) who worked at the cultural desk at Sydsvenska Dagbladet describes his newspaper’s “culture battle” for autonomy, which started in 1991.

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CULTURAL JOURNALISM AS A CONTRIBUTION TO DEMOCRATIC DISCOURSE IN SWEDEN

cording to Hemer (2010: 31) the 1990s attempts to subordinate the cultural desks were due to market-induced structural re-organisation of the press. While some cultural journalists bemoaned the blurring of boundaries between high and popular culture (e.g Gustavsson 2008), it was fear of loss of autonomy and voice in important societal debates that drove these battles, says Hemer (2010: 26, 31). At Sydsvenska Dagbladet culture subsequently had to merge with entertainment, essential opinion journalism migrated to other parts of the newspaper, the space for critique decreased, and autonomy had to be yielded (Hemer, 2010: 28, 33). Ingrid Elam, cultural editor at Göteborgs-Posten and DN, summarized conflicts between cultural journalists and owners: “While cultural writers dream of their texts permeating every recess of society and preferably toppling a government or two, the newspaper owners would rather juxtapose culture with coffee and brandy” (Örnberg 1995: 5-6).

Today only Åsa Linderborg, cultural editor at Aftonbladet is independent of the editor-in-chief, which made her declare: “I am the last cultural editor” (Riegert et.

al. 2015). In recent years, many regional newspapers owned by conglomerates have merged their cultural desks with larger newspapers in the same conglomerate. This connects to the “crisis” in journalism (Blumler 2010) and should be viewed in relation to digitalisation, which will be discussed at the end of this chapter.