Migrant Culture in Sweden with Focus on Georgian-Swedish Literary Contacts

Abstract

The paper takes as its point of departure approaches to the maintenance of language and culture in immigrant communities in Sweden and how members of these communities are encouraged to preserve their home language and cultural iden­tity while also acquiring Swedish. This includes the opportunity for children of Georgian immigrants in Sweden to study Georgian as their home language at school, including the teaching of Georgian culture.

Sweden today is a country that has received large groups of immigrants, mos­tly after World War II. The Georgian community in Sweden is relati­vely small and primarily formed during the post-Soviet period.

However, Sweden is not only a country of immigration. In earlier periods, from the mid-nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, Sweden was cha­rac­­terized by extensive emigration from its rural population, primarily to the United States.

The paper briefly introduces the Swedish emigrant literature with its most prominent representative, the author Vilhelm Moberg (1898-1973). He has become internationally renowned for his four “Emigrant novels”: (Utvandrarna (The Emig­rants), Invandrarna (The Immigrants), Nybyggarna (The New Land), and Sista brevet till Sverige (The Last Letter Home).

The paper notes that the Georgian-Scandinavian literary contacts date back to the end of the nineteenth century. Amid increased Scandinavian interest in the Caucasus during this period, the Danish explorer Olaf Lange included an introduc­tion to Georgian literature and translations of Georgian poetry in his travelogue from the Caucasus (1891), intended to introduce a Danish and broadly Scadinavian audi­ence to the classics of Georgian literature.

Despite its relatively small numbers, today’s Georgian community in Sweden actively promotes Georgian-Swedish literary con­tacts. This involves original literary production, with Georgian poet Zurab Rtveliashvili as its best-known representative. He lived in emigration in Sweden from 2010 to 2020. Members of the Georgian community in Sweden are also actively working on translating Georgian literature into Swedish and Swedish literature into Georgian.  

The catalogues of the central libraries in both countries – Kungliga biblioteket (The National Library of Sweden) and Sakartvelos erovnuli bibliotek’a  (The National Library of Georgia) – have been explored to make an inventory of literature trans­lated from Swedish to Georgian and from Georgian to Swedish. More translations have appeared in recent decades, based on translations directly from Swedish and Georgian, the languages of the originals. Some works translated in the Soviet period, used Russian as the mediating language.

An important hub for presenting Georgian literature in Sweden is the Malmö-based publishing house Smockadoll, founded by poet and translator Kristian Carl­sson. It has published thirteen Geor­gian titles in Swedish, partly in collaboration with Georgian partners. Smockadoll’s Georgian publications include two books by the emigrant poet Zurab Rtveliashvili, Poesins diktatur (2015) and 150.000 Mega­hertz (2016). Another central publication is a collection of translations of works by 28 modern Georgian poets, Den kaukasiska fallenheten (2018).

Swedish literature is well represented in translation to Georgian. Many of the Swedish books in translation have been issued by Sulakauri Publishing in Tbilisi, founded by Bakur Sulakauri, a translator and Swedish specialist. Sulakauri Publishing has a special focus on children’s literature in Swedish, with authors such as Astrid Lindgren, Tove Jansson, and Sven Nordqvist.