Talk:Erik Axel Karlfeldt

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[edit] Karlfeldt's family background

[Discussion moved from User talk:Uppland:]

Hello, I would like to discuss in which kind of family Karlfeldt was born in order to avoid an editing war. You changed my correction about lawyers family. This information was taken from this place which I consider credible. Moreover, German Wikipedia, which I also consider much credible, also mentions that he was born in ``Beamtenfamilie``. What's your opinion? Alx-pl 10:38, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The article in Svenskt biografiskt lexikon (the Swedish National Dictionary of Biography), a credible secondary source usually based on primary sources in the case of information like this, calls the father a "lantbrukare", i.e. a farmer. Nordisk familjebok says that he was born to "en gammal bonde- och bergsmannasläkt" ("an old family of farmers and bergsmän", where the latter is a type of often well-to-do farmers with interests in the local mining industry). Nationalencyklopedin gives the same information.

Additionally, a lawyer is a bourgeois profession, while even the names of the parents (just patronymics, rather than family names) show that they belong to the peasant class. I imagine that the idea that the father is a lawyer may have its origin in either him or some other member of the family having been a nämndeman, a lay assessor in a district court (häradsnämnd). The nämndemän were usually chosen among the better-to-do farmers in each härad (hundred). However, I can't find this confirmed anywhere and wouldn't introduce it into the biography at this point. It may just as well be a misunderstanding or mistranslation which has spread on the web.

Anyway, not only are Swedish reference works unanimous in describing his origins, but his background in the peasantry played an important role for his poetry. / Uppland 11:37, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK, I think your points are very much convincing to me. In particular, the description of bergsmän allows to explain all the discrepancies. Thanks! Alx-pl 12:26, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Uppland is correct in his assessment of Karlfeldt's family's occupational background, as well as in his theory about the origins of the idea of Karlfeldt's father being a lawyer. His father was indeed a nämndeman, as was his maternal grandfather and two of his great grandfathers (and several more of his ancestors, back into the 17th century). It is unfortunate that Kirjasto describes his father as a lawyer, as this is a grave misinterpretation of the term nämndeman. / jla 08:28, 2005 Apr 7 (UTC)