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“Europe, constantly this Europe” is a study of intellectual birth
published:
Photo: JONAS EKSTRÖMER / TT
In the days I could It has been celebrated that World War II established the brand 75 years ago, that Europe was liberated and that a new era of international cooperation was marked (at least formally). But history bounced us back and the crown pandemic stopped virtually everything.
At the end of the war it was Elin Wägner (1882-1949) was no longer at the center of the intellectual debate and it was not his diligent peace and pacifist work that he had won. Rather, the world lay in the trash.
But in part he still understood it well: Europe finally agreed. And the peace movement grew stronger, as did the environmental movement and small-scale demands.
I Per Wirténs Europe, constantly this Europe, with the ambiguous subtitle Elin Wägner’s lost love We are moving further into Wägner’s dynamic 1920s. Trips to the international congress of women’s peace movements, to the Rhineland. The meeting with Europe and a German nationalist man, August Knight of Eberlein, “The poor”. And her path to becoming a truly independent intellectual, albeit forced into odd jobs. Love for Eberlein seems to have been lost in the early 1930s, around the same time as love for Germany and the dream of European cohesion. It is somewhat fervently based on Wirtén’s well-written and sometimes personal study, inevitably perhaps because it relates precisely to the decades when the history of Europe could have been written quite differently.
The French occupation Rhineland, shortly after the First World War, is quite detailed, as a training element for Wägner himself. Civil resistance gave hope. Wägner traveled there to report to the Swedish press, but became increasingly involved and wanted to publish the target journalism for more analytical and commentary texts.
It is easy dream of steaming train stations, refrigerated apartments, out-of-work activists and perhaps even Fogelstad Civic School. But Elin Wägner’s female combat context and her work as editor of Tidevarvet are very problematic.
It is as if they were never really in phase with each other, Wägner and the women’s fight. He seems to have been looking for too much movement, instead he participated in several. Per Wirtén’s study is a balanced expression, personal and, perhaps, of a boring disappointment. Europe, constantly this Europe reflects the commitment of Wirtén and Wägner. This continent of constant conflicts and high tailings, still prosperous despite war, decolonization and the crown. And still at a decent distance from Sweden.
HISTORY
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