Ett nationellt-proletärt novellepos

Ivar Lo-Johanssons Statarna

Abstract

A National-Proletarian Epic of Short Stories. Ivar Lo-Johansson’s Statarna

This essay explores Ivar Lo-Johansson’s epic collection of short stories Statarna (1936–37). The collection is chronologically ordered and centres on the lives of rural proletarians (statare) in Sweden from the concluding decades of the 19th century to the first decades of the 20th century. Ivar Lo-Johansson is generally regarded as an icon of Swedish working-class literature, and Statarna is one of the real cornerstones of Lo-Johansson’s self-created public myth. This article aims to show that the basic ideological position of the author and his epic is based on national stereotypes (a point that may be further supported with reference to his 1920’s travel books). Statarna contains several stories that touch upon the so-called ”Galizier question”, referring to the transport of rural workers from the south-eastern parts of Poland to Sweden. These workers became known as Galizians, even if they came from other parts of Eastern Europe. These stories articulate a xenophobic attitude to these workers in line with the dominant reaction of the trade unions and the labour movement in general at the time. The ”Galizians” were regarded as intruders, with a lower morale than Swedish workers, and representative of the lowest species of labour power. This was especially true in those cases where the Galizians were used as scabs (strike breakers) during strikes. The narrator doesn’t sympathise with the domestic rural workers when they become used to the presence of the ”intruders”. In one story, ”Galizierna”, in which a young woman is raped, the woman is avenged when the rapist (who is, of course, one of the ”Galizierna”) is killed by a horse. Such stories are also based on national stereotypes. After writing his famous epic, in the early 1940’s, the author wrote a program for what he called the ”social short story”. This program is also based on nationalist arguments. Swedish authors are advised to orient towards the process of social development in Sweden at the time. The process behind the building of the welfare state – the Swedish welfare state, which, according to the author’s preferences for national stereotypes, is described as unique – is the appropriate subject for creating a Swedish short story that can be identified as Swedish, and only as Swedish. The idea was never to create an epic with close ties to working-class literature internationally.