Swedish Academy
Svenska Akademien | |
Formation | 20 March 1786 |
---|---|
Type | Royal academy |
Headquarters | Stock Exchange Building, Stockholm |
Membership | 18 members |
Permanent secretary | Mats Malm |
Website | svenskaakademien.se |
The Swedish Academy (
History
The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King
The building now known as the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building was built for the bourgeoisie. The bottom floor was used as a trading exchange (this later became the stock exchange), and the upper floor was used for balls, New Year's Eve parties, etc. When the academy was founded, the ballroom was the biggest room in Stockholm that could be heated and thus used in the winter, so the King asked if he could borrow it.
The academy has had its annual meeting there every year since, attended by members of the Swedish royal family.[2] However, it was not until 1914 that the academy gained permanent use of the upper floor as their own. It is here that the academy meets and, amongst other business, announces the names of Nobel Prize laureates. This task arguably makes the academy one of the world's most influential literary bodies.
Members are elected by a secret ballot in the Academy and before the result is made public it must be submitted to the Academy's Patron, the
Prior to 2018 it was not possible for members of the academy to resign; membership was for life, although the academy could decide to exclude members. This happened twice to
Dag Hammarskjöld's former farm at Backåkra, close to Ystad in southern Sweden, was bought in 1957 as a summer residence by Hammarskjöld, then Secretary-General of the United Nations (1953–1961). The south wing of the farm is reserved as a summer retreat for the 18 members of the Swedish Academy, of which Hammarskjöld was a member.
On 11 April 2019, the academy published its financial statements for the first time in its history.[8] According to it, the academy owned financial assets worth 1.58 billion Swedish kronor at the end of 2018 (equal to $170M, €150M, or £130M).
The Swedish King is the only person who, apart from the members, has the right to attend the meetings of the academy. On 3 March 2022 the Swedish King attended a weekly academy meeting, the first time a Swedish king has done so in over 200 years.[9] [10]
2018 controversies
In April 2018, three members of the academy board resigned in response to a sexual-misconduct investigation involving photographer and cultural figure Jean-Claude Arnault, husband of board member Katarina Frostenson.[11] The self-proclaimed "nineteenth member of the Swedish Academy,"[12] Arnault was accused by at least 18 women of sexual assault and harassment;[11] he denied all accusations.[13] The three members resigned in protest over the lack of appropriate action against Arnault.[11][14][15] Two former permanent secretaries, Sture Allén and Horace Engdahl, called the current leader, Sara Danius, a weak leader.[11]
On 10 April, Danius resigned from her position with the academy,[16] bringing the number of empty seats to four. Frostenson voluntarily agreed to withdraw from participating in the academy, bringing the total of withdrawals to five. Because two other seats were still vacant after the Rushdie affair, this left only 11 active members. The scandal was widely seen as damaging to the credibility of the Nobel prize in Literature and the authority of the academy. "With this scandal you cannot possibly say that this group of people has any kind of solid judgment," noted Swedish journalist Björn Wiman.[11]
On 27 April 2018, the Swedish Economic Crime Authority opened a preliminary investigation regarding financial crime linked to an association run by Arnault and Frostenson, which had received funding from the academy.[17][18]
On 2 May 2018, the
On 4 May 2018, the Swedish Academy announced that following the preceding internal struggles the Nobel laureate for literature selected in 2018 would be postponed until 2019, when two laureates would be selected.[21]
The Academy's dictionaries
In pursuance of its goals of maintaining and strengthening the Swedish language, the Academy publishes three
In addition to the dictionaries the Academy has also published a four-volume grammar of the Swedish language (Svenska Akademiens grammatik, SAG) aimed at researchers, linguists and university students among others, as well as a single-volume counterpart for those requiring something less comprehensive (Svenska Akademiens språklära, SAS).
Awards and prizes
Since 1901, the Swedish Academy has annually decided who will be the laureate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded in memory of the donor Alfred Nobel.
The Swedish Academy annually awards nearly 50 different prizes and scholarships, most of them for domestic Swedish authors. Common to all is that they are awarded without competition and without application. The Dobloug Prize, the largest of these at $40,000, is a literature prize awarded for Swedish and Norwegian fiction.[24][25]
The Big Prize
Swedish: Stora Priset, literally the Big Prize, was instituted by King
Other awards
The academy awards around 50 prizes each year. A person does not have to apply nor compete for the prizes.
Full list of awards (in Swedish)
Current members
The current members of the Swedish Academy listed by seat number:
Seat | Picture | Member | Born | Age | Elected | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. | Eric M. Runesson | 1960 | 63 | 2018 | ||
2. | Bo Ralph | 1945 | 78 | 1999 | ||
3. | David Håkansson | 1978 | 45 | 2023 | ||
4. | Anders Olsson | 1949 | 74 | 2008 | Permanent secretary 1 June 2018 - 1 June 2019[26] | |
5. | Ingrid Carlberg | 1961 | 62 | 2020 | ||
6. | Tomas Riad | 1959 | 64 | 2011 | ||
7. | Åsa Wikforss | 1961 | 62 | 2019 | ||
8. | Jesper Svenbro | 1944 | 80 | 2006 | ||
9. | Ellen Mattson | 1962 | 61 | 2019 | ||
10. | Peter Englund | 1957 | 66 | 2002 | Permanent secretary 2009–2015. | |
11. | Mats Malm | 1964 | 59 | 2018 | Permanent secretary | |
12. | Per Wästberg | 1933 | 90 | 1997 | ||
13. | Anne Swärd | 1969 | 55 | 2019 | ||
14. | Steve Sem-Sandberg | 1958 | 65 | 2020 | ||
15. | Jila Mossaed | 1948 | 75 | 2018 | ||
16. | Anna-Karin Palm | 1961 | 63 | 2023 | ||
17. | Horace Engdahl | 1948 | 75 | 1997 | Permanent secretary 1999–2009 | |
18. | Tua Forsström | 1947 | 76 | 2019 |
Permanent secretaries
Order | Seat | Picture | Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy | Born | Years | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. | 11. | Nils von Rosenstein | 1752 | 1786–1824 | ||
2. | 13. | Frans Michael Franzén | 1772 | 1824–1834 | ||
3. | 12. | Bernhard von Beskow | 1796 | 1834–1868 | ||
4. | 5. | Johan Erik Rydqvist | 1800 | 1868–1869 | pro tempore | |
5. | 15. | Ludvig Manderström | 1806 | 1869–1872 | ||
6. | 12. | Carl Gustaf Strandberg | 1825 | 1872–1874 | pro tempore | |
7. | 9. | Henning Hamilton | 1814 | 1874–1881 | ||
8. | 11. | Bror Emil Hildebrand | 1806 | 1881–1883 | pro tempore | |
9. | 8. | Carl David af Wirsén | 1842 | 1883–1912 | pro tempore in 1883–84 | |
10. | 6. | Hans Hildebrand | 1842 | 1912-1913 | pro tempore | |
11. | 11. | Erik Axel Karlfeldt | 1864 | 1913–1931 | ||
12. | 14. | Per Hallström | 1866 | 1931–1941 | ||
13. | 13. | Anders Österling | 1884 | 1941–1964 | ||
14. | 7. | Karl Ragnar Gierow | 1904 | 1964–1977 | ||
15. | 14. | Lars Gyllensten | 1921 | 1977–1986 | ||
16. | 3. | Sture Allén | 1928 | 1986–1999 | ||
17. | 17. | Horace Engdahl | 1948 | 1999–2009 | ||
18. | 10. | Peter Englund | 1957 | 2009–2015 | ||
19. | 7. | Sara Danius | 1962 | 2015–2018 | ||
20. | 4. | Anders Olsson | 1949 | 2018-2019 | pro tempore April–June 2018[27][26] | |
21. | 11. | Mats Malm | 1964 | 2019- | As of 1 June 2019[28] |
See also
- List of members of the Swedish Academy
- List of language regulators
- Bellman Prize
- Dobloug Prize
- Backåkra
References
- ^ "Litteraturbanken | Svenska klassiker som e-bok och epub".
- ^ "Royal attendance at the formal gathering of the Swedish Academy". Kungahuset.se. Swedish Royal Court. 2011. Retrieved 10 August 2017.
- ^ The Academy Swedish Academy
- ^ "Nobel Judge Steps Down in Protest". BBC News Online. BBC. 11 October 2005. Retrieved 13 October 2007.
- ^ Associated Press, "Who Deserves Nobel Prize? Judges Don't Agree", MSNBC, 11 October 2005. Retrieved 13 October 2007.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
- ^ Därför lämnade Lotta Lotass Svenska Akademien, 25 November 2017.
- ^ "Svenska Akademiens verksamhetsberättelse för 2018" (in Swedish). 11 April 2019.
- ^ "Kungen dök upp på Akademiens möte: "Det var nog 200 år sedan det inträffade"". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). Dagens Nyheter. 7 March 2022. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
- ^ "Kungen deltog i sammankomst". Swedish Academy (in Swedish). Swedish Academy. 4 March 2022. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
- ^ a b c d e Christina Anderson (12 April 2018). "In Nobel Scandal, a Man Is Accused of Sexual Misconduct. A Woman Takes the Fall". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
- ^ Forsberg, Birgitta (23 June 2018). "Arnault – historien om "Akademiens 19:e medlem"". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish).
- ^ Andersson, Christina (20 April 2018). "Nobel Panel Admits Inquiry Found Sexual Misconduct, but Nothing Illegal". The New York Times.
- ^ David Keyton (6 April 2018). "3 judges quit Nobel literature prize committee". The Washington Post. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 7 April 2018. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
- ^ "Sexual Misconduct Claim Spurs Nobel Members to Step Aside in Protest". The New York Times. Reuters. 6 April 2018. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
- Dagens Industri. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
- Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå. 27 April 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
- ^ Tibbling, Jan (27 April 2018). "Förundersökning inledd i ärende med koppling till Svenska Akademien" [Preliminary investigation in a case linked to the Swedish Academy started]. Ekobrottsmyndigheten. Swedish Economic Crime Authority. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
- ^ Holmgren, Mia (2 May 2018). "Kungen: Det är nu Akademiens ansvar att vidta nödvändiga åtgärder" [The King: The academy is now responsible for taking necessary action]. Dagens Nyheter. Dagens Nyheter. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
- ^ Andersson, Elisabet. "Fyra personer får lämna Akademien" [Four persons have been granted permission to leave the academy]. Svenska Dagbladet. Svenska Dagbladet. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
- ^ "Nobel Prize for Literature postponed amid Swedish Academy turmoil". BBC. BBC. 4 May 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
- ^ Store norske leksikon (2005–2007) (6 October 2017). "Svenska Akademien". Store norske leksikon.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "Official Swedish dictionary completed after 140 years". The Guardian. Agence France-Presse. 25 October 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
- ^ Website of the Swedish Academy describing the prize (Swedish language)) Archived 16 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Store norske leksikon (2005–2007) (30 November 2021). "Doblougprisen". Store norske leksikon.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ a b Anders Olsson Svenska Akademien
- ^ "Sara Danius ersättare: "Samtal med kungen ledde fram till detta"". Expressen (in Swedish). Retrieved 13 April 2018.
- ^ Lindkvist, Hugo (26 April 2019). "Mats Malm blir ny ständig sekreterare i Svenska Akademien". Dagens Nyheter. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
Other sources
- Walshe, Maurice O'Connell (1965). "Introduction to the Scandinavian Languages", Andre Deutsch Ltd., 1st edition, p. 57
External links
- Official website (in Swedish)
- Official website (in English)
- SAOL on the web – Free
- SAOB on the web – Free