Moberg, Vilhelm

Autor: Moberg, Vilhelm
Rok: 1898-1973

Biogr./Hist. údaje: Švédský spisovatel a historik.
Zdroj: Autoritní databáze Národní knihovny ČR

Karl Artur Vilhelm Moberg (20 August 1898 - 8 August 1973) was a Swedish journalist, author, playwright, historian and debater. His literary career, spanning more than 45 years, is associated with his series The Emigrants of four books published between 1949 and 1959, concerning the Swedish emigration to the United States in the 19th century, as well as the two movie adaptations made from the books by Jan Troell. Among other works are Raskens (1927) and Ride This Night (1941), a historical novel of a 17th-century rebellion in Småland acknowledged for its subliminal but widely recognised criticism against the Hitler regime.A noted public intellectual and debater in Sweden, he was famous for very vocal criticism of the Swedish monarchy (most notably after the Haijby affair), likening it with a servile government by divine mandate and publicly supporting its replacement with a Swiss-style confederal republic. He spoke out aggressively against the policies of Nazi Germany, the Greek military junta and the Soviet Union, and his works were among those destroyed in Nazi book burnings. In 1971, he scolded Prime Minister Olof Palme for refusing to offer the Nobel Prize in Literature to its recipient Alexander Solzhenitsyn – who was refused permission to attend the ceremony in Stockholm – through the Swedish embassy in Moscow.Moberg's death by self-inflicted drowning also rendered much attention, following his long struggle with depression and writers' block.