Pippi Longstocking, IKEA and the Nobel Prize are among 100 works, brands and ideas deemed to define what it means to be Swedish, according to a cultural heritage list presented to the government on Tuesday. But one of the country’s most notable exports was snubbed — the legendary pop group ABBA.
Drawing up such a list, or canon, was part of the election manifesto of the right-wing ruling coalition and is a pet project of the nationalist, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, who are not in the government but support it in parliament.
However some Swedish institutions and minority groups, including the Swedish Academy that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature and representatives of the Indigenous Sámi population, have criticized the initiative as too narrow and exclusionist.
All items in the canon must be at least 50 years old, which apparently made the work of pop group ABBA ineligible.
The group formed in 1972 and won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with their hit song Waterloo.
Their self-titled album, the band’s third record and the one that launched them to global super-stardom with hits like SOS and Mamma Mia, was released in April 1975.
Swedish parliamentarian Jan Ericson said ABBA is “one of the absolutely most important symbols of Swedish culture” internationally.
“What the hell were they thinking there,” he wrote in a post on X.
The timeline for eligibility also ruled out most contributions made by the roughly one in five Swedes born abroad.
Most of these immigrants arrived in Sweden after 1975.
“I think it’s very much human nature to love lists,” Lars Tragardh, a historian and chairman of the Culture Canon Committee that compiled the canon, told a news conference.
A canon, originally a set of rules or collection of sacred books accepted as genuine, such as those that make up the Bible, means a widely accepted, normative list of works. Similar projects have been done in Denmark and the Netherlands.
Aside from Sweden-founded but now Dutch-headquartered IKEA, list also includes Ingmar Bergman’s iconic 1957 movie The Seventh Seal, rebellious children’s book character Pippi Longstocking and the practice of Allemansrätten, the right to temporarily camp on privately owned nature properties.
The Swedish Academy declined to be involved in the project, saying it was divisive and put ideology before the literature.
The effort to establish the canon was launched by the government in 2023 and has cost approximately eight million Swedish kornor, the equivalent to more than $1.1 million Cdn.
The association representing the minority Tornedalians in northern Sweden complained that it was not allowed to be part of the project, which it described as “continued oppression.”
Iranian-born Swedish author Shora Esmailian told the Sydsvenskan newspaper that state-imposed canons of what it means to be Swedish would not help to create “a welcoming and equal society.”
But Culture Minister Parisa Liljestrand said the canon had been misunderstood.
“Our approach to this has always been that a Swedish cultural canon should be a living and useful tool for education, community and inclusion,” she told Tuesday’s news conference.
The canon comprises 50 cultural artifacts including novels, films, plays and musical compositions and 50 items in the societal category, drawn from religion, law and economics, along with inventions, places, products or individual events deemed key for Swedish public affairs and self-understanding.
