What Is Swedish Culture? An Attempt to Answer Stirs Debate.

What is Swedish culture? Some obvious answers might spring to mind: Abba, the films of Ingmar Bergman, Pippi Longstocking, IKEA. It’s an almost impossibly broad question — but one that Sweden’s government is trying to answer.

In 2023, the government began an initiative called the Culture Canon, with two streams: an “experts” canon and a “people’s canon.” The first involves academics, journalists, historians and other authorities who will decide on 100 works or other items of cultural importance that have played a key role in shaping Swedish culture.

The second will be made up of suggestions submitted by the Swedish public to the Culture Canon website, which can be drawn from the arts or can include everyday activities like the daily “fika” coffee and cake break or ideas like “Allemansrätten,” the Swedish right to explore nature, even on private land. So far, suggestions include saunas and the plays of August Strindberg, the 1361 Battle of Visby and Björn Borg’s five straight Wimbledon victories.

A government committee will present a report to the two canons in the summer.

Yet even the suggestion of such a definitive list is dividing opinion in Sweden. The Culture Canon is a pet project of a party with far-right roots that supports, but is not part of the government. Many in the arts scene fear that the results will project a narrow view of Swedish culture, glorifying an imagined past and shutting out the cultural contributions of minorities.

Lars Trägårdh, a historian whom the government appointed to lead the project, said in an interview that the Culture Canon would be particularly useful for helping immigrants integrate. Sweden combined a “wonderful openness to immigration with a complete lack of policies that have been able to bring all these people into Swedish society,” he said. A canon, he added, would provide new arrivals “with a map and a compass.”