This is a collection of poems about Swedish history, written by the eminent 19th century poet Carl Snoilsky. I understand these poems as a way to deal with history and ultimately making sense of one’s predicament. Ranging from Gustavus Vasa to Carl XII, Snoilsky collects gedichte from various moments in Swedish national history, mostly from the 16th to the 19th century. I once heard American sociologist Richard Sennett scoff at the idea that stone age dwellers of Sweden were Swedes. He was shamelessly unaware of the Swedish viewpoint on the matter.
I have always liked kings etc, but whatever. Some poems take the perspective of the common man, like “På Värnamo marknad”, but mostly it is a royal affair, along with some noblemen who were generals. I like recognizing historical information in the poems. I think Snoilsky based a lot of the poems on Anders Fryxell’s book of Swedish history. It is a nation-building exercise. I found the book at our family summer cottage. Written before the spelling reform, lots of words have old-style orthography. A favorite among the poems is “Den gamla fröken” which is a meditation on the passage of time and memories passed on through generations.
As a child, I often took walks along “Snoilskyvägen” in Stockholm, a fact which made me unconsciously sympathetic to this name – which must be slavic in origin, but belonged to a family of German-speaking nobility when Carl Snoilsky was born. Snoilskys grandfather was Johan Banér, who named banérgatan. The family name was originally Znojilšek, then Snoilshik, Snoilski, von Snoilsky, Snoilsky. It seems to be of Slovenian origin! The name Znojile is derived from znoji(d)lo (‘sunny or sun-facing area’) from the verb znojiti (‘to be warmed by the sun’).
I guess most of the material concerns the 18th century. Some of the people that are mentioned throughout the collection:
Gustav Eriksson Vasa (1496-1560)
Erik XIV, King of Sweden (1533 – 1577)
Johan Banér (1596-1641)
Gustav II Adolf (1594-1632)
Torsten Stålhandske (1593-1644)
Erik Dahlbergh (1625–1703)
Olof Rudbeck (1630-1702)
Hedvig Eleonora (1636-1715)
Kristina (1626-1689)
Carl XII (1682-1718)
Gustav III (1746-1792)
Bellman (1740-1795)
A M Lenngren (1754-1817)
Kellgren (1751-95), Stiernhjelm (1798-1872), Lidner (1757-1793)
Carl Olof Cronstedt (1756-1820)
Anders Fryxell (1795-1881)
Skip to content
Kinship of all Species 