Notes from the Underground: Major Trends in Swedish Reception

Abstract

Notes from the Underground has become a relevant text in Sweden only since the second half of the 20 th century, primarily due to the emergence of translations and criticism, but also in connection with the construction of “the people’s home” (“folkhemmet”), which is what a Swedish person thinks about when reading about Crystal Palace. However, not only social ideas attract Swedish readers in Notes from the Underground; the problems of human isolation, desire, and inability to love another person more than oneself, as well as the worldview of a “paradoxalist” are also relevant to them. The multi-layered text of Notes from the Underground has not remained unnoticed either. The article examines several instances of the Notes from the Underground reception in Swedish literature, namely social and philosophical (Sven Delblank, Lars Ahlin), socio-religious (Birgitta Trotzig), existentialist (Lars Gyllensten), and aesthetic (Lars Ahlin). It is worth mentioning that even when referring to Dostoevsky’s work in social debates, Swedish authors almost never ignore its philosophical context or reduce the universal human issues raised by the novel to the purely social issues projecting them on Swedish reality.

Keywords

• dostoevsky
• notes from the underground
• reception
• swedish literature
• b. trotzig
• s. delblanc
• l. ahlin
• l. gyllensten
• k. boye
• h. söderberg.