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Historical Outline
LEARNED SOCIETIES IN SWEDEN
For a very long time there have been several academies for the various branches of learning in Sweden. The explanation for this in a country otherwise famous for its homogeneity in many respects is to be found in the fact that several academies in Sweden were – as they still are – independent bodies, not state authorities. Like most other occidental countries, Sweden saw a spontaneous growth of learned societies, particularly in the 18th century. English and French models exercised great influence on the structure and methods of work of these bodies, which came into existence both on a national and local level.
The oldest still extant learned society in Sweden would seem to be the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala founded in 1710. Next comes the Royal Academy of Sciences founded in 1739.
The Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, which is today the national academy responsible for what is now called the humanities and social sciences, was established in 1753. In addition, there are academies for arts, music, technology, forestry and agriculture, and for military sciences. In some provincial university towns there are also quite important learned societies, dating from the 18th to the 20th century. The attribute ‘Royal’ in the name of a learned society does not indicate that the body concerned is a public institution. It simply means the Sovereign had consented to act as its patron. By tradition the statutes of Royal academies are subject to the King’s assent. In some cases, academies receive state grants and subsidies, but on the whole they are financed essentially by the income from their own funds, created in the course of time through gifts and legacies.
In spite of their independence in principle, the national Swedish academies enjoy official recognition and a high official status, and act to a great extent as recognized spokesmen of science, arts, and letters in international contacts. Also, they are entrusted with other important international tasks, for instance as the official partners in cooperation with learned societies abroad.
KUNGL. VITTERHETSAKADEMIEN
Founded in 1753 by Queen Lovisa Ulrika – sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia, wife of King Adolf Fredrik of Sweden and mother of Gustav III – the present Kungl. Vitterhetsakademien was originally intended to promote ”letters” in the broad sense of contemporary usage, i.e. literature, history, criticism, and scholarship over a wide range of subjects corresponding, on the whole, to the ”humanities”, and ”social sciences” according to modern concepts. Special attention was to be given to the study, and supervision, of inscriptions, coins and medals.
One of the earliest foreign members of the Academy was Voltaire. The Queen’s Academy of Letters flourished for only a short time. She became increasingly engaged in the political dissension of the period; the small circle of grands seigneurs who had formed the core of the Academy was dispersed and for decades the Academy languished. In 1786 King Gustav III, anxious to have a truly literary Academy of his own, created the Swedish Academy, to which he entrusted the task of promoting – and supervising, according to the normative aesthetics of the period – the development of language and literature in a narrower sense. At the same time the King re-established and reformed his mother’s academy and it was now given its present name Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien (The Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities), which was meant to stress its learned rather than literary character.
The Academy thus became a forum for humanistic learning, initially with heavy emphasis on archaeology, inscriptions, coins, medals, and the preservation of national antiquities. In fact, through an unusual arrangement, the head of what is today the National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet) – an office created by Gustavus Adolphus II in the early years of the 17th century – was made Perpetual Secretary to the Academy ex officio. This original symbiosis, which made the Academy, in fact, a kind of public agency in some of its doings and which also obviously tended to strengthen the position of Nordic archaeology as an object of the Academy’s work, lasted until 1975. In that year, the National Heritage Board was organized on the same pattern as other public agencies at the national level.
The Academy, relieved of its administrative responsibilities, could concentrate wholly upon its tasks as an independent learned society. However, a small number of estates are still managed by the Academy itself and remain its property.
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