During the years 1990-2004 the folklorists Bengt af Klintberg and Christina Mattsson produced 750 programs for the national Swedish radio company, Sveriges Radio. The programs were called “Folk Memories” and invited listeners to send in questions and contribute their knowledge concerning all sorts of popular traditions. Bengt af Klintberg commented upon examples that were already known, and when new traditions were mentioned the producers asked the listeners for further evidence.
This folklore collecting is unique both because of the long time period during which it was conducted and because it made it possible for tradition bearers to contribute knowledge that the collectors did not know they were missing.
In all 20,000 letters from listeners were sent to the program, and Sveriges Radio has made the wise decision to deposit the material in Sweden’s largest folklore archive in the Nordic Museum, Stockholm. In his book Folkminnen (Folk Memories) Bengt af Klintberg discusses fifty-five themes from this rich material. The selection covers a wide span of folkloristic genres: narratives, folk beliefs, calendar traditions, games, rituals, sayings, and rhymes.
For each example Klintberg presents earlier known variants and attempts to determine age, origin, and distribution. In some cases, one or more of these factors are given, but often the reader is invited to follow stimulating research tours through folklore archives, libraries, and legend collections, where a letter from a listener functions as an incomplete treasure map.
Klintberg’s studies are intellectually inspiring to follow, and in addition the reader is offered rich amounts of cultural history as well as a detailed understanding of popular traditions, oral narratives, and Swedish everyday life.
This is just one example: today, in many places along the Swedish east coast, the last day of the summer vacation is celebrated with bonfires and parties with fermented herring. Klintberg is able to demonstrate that this tradition actually originates from a celebration after the end of a pestilence epidemic in late sixteenth-century Venice. “Venetian Nights” has been and still is celebrated in several places, both in Europe and the USA. Tourists brought the tradition to Finland in the nineteenth century, and from there it migrated to the Swedish side of the Gulf of Bothnia.
Klintberg’s book is a collection of examples that show how attitudes to human life and existence come and go, how changes in society give rise to new values and vice versa. Each of the fifty-five themes dealt with makes a new contribution to the understanding of contemporary society in Sweden and many others places. Not least important are all the testimonies about international influences contributing to what we today consider to be Swedish culture. Christina Mattsson mentions in her introduction that the producers received proud letters from listeners of Central and East European origin who had recognized traditions from their respective home countries.
The material treated in the book has been collected in written form. Very little information is given about how the narratives were told or how the sayings were used. Bengt af Klintberg together with Christina Mattsson and thousands of Swedish radio listeners have provided us with knowledge about and access to rich and important folklore material. To analyze this material from the perspectives of performance and process are central tasks that other scholars ought to undertake.
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[Review length: 541 words • Review posted on July 29, 2008]