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Sven Hedin (1865 - 1952) |
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Swedish explorer of Asia, writer, and geographer, the last person to receive a Swedish knighthood (1902). Hedin was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1913. Of his journeys Hedin wrote several accounts, which became extremely popular. His classical work, Through Asia, appeared in 1898. Hedin had a phenomenal memory and his books, with their vivid details, are still fascinating reading for anyone who is interested in Asian cultures. "Din drömska färd över haven Sven Hedin was born in Stockholm, the son of Ludwig Hedin, Chief Architect of Stockholm, and Anna Berlin Hedin. Already at an early age Hedin was inspired by the books of James Fenimore Cooper and Jules Verne, and the exploits of Livingstone and Erik Erik Nordenskiöld, whose voyage on the "Vega" through the Bering Strait into the Pacific aroused great enthusiasm in Sweden. Already at the age of twelve he decided to pursue the life of an adventurer. "Happy is the boy who discovers the bent of his life-work during childhood. That, indeed, was my good fortune", Hedin later said. However, the first opportunity to follow his calling opened up when he studied at the University of Stockholm. "During the spring and summer of 1885, I was consumed with impatience for the moment of departure. Already, in imagination, I heard the roar of the waves of the Caspian sea and the clangour of the caravan-bells. Soon the glamour of the whole Orient was to unfold before me." (from My Life as an Explorer, 1930) He accepted work as a tutor in Baku, on the Caspian Sea, and his rides on horseback led to the travel book Genom Persien, Mesopotamien och Kaukasien: reseminnen (1887, A journey through Persia and Mesopotamia). During these years he learned to speak Tatar and Persian. He even spoke Mongolian better than his interpreter. After returning to Sweden in 1889, Hedin studied geography and geology at the Universities of Uppsala and Berlin. In 1890 he served briefly as an interpreter with the Swedish/Norwegian embassy to the Shah of Persia and started a 3 600 mile long journey through Asia. Hedin was blinded in the early 1890s in one eye, and suffered from it until he was 82 – after an operation the sight was restored. Hedin returned home in 1891. He published in the same year Konung Oscars beskicking till schahed ac Persien år 1890. In 1892 he received his PhD – at the age of 27. Hedin's doctoral thesis was entitled Der Demavend nach eigener Beobachtung. During this period in Sweden he met Mille Broman, his great love, who married Albert Lindström. She died in 1928. "Asia became my cold bride", Hedin once wrote – he never stopped loving her, although in 1922 he forgot Mille for a period, when he fell in love, at the age of 57, with "Schwester" Elizabeth. She was 31-years-old and married to Count Fugger. Hedin began in October 1893 a journey that lasted three years. "The whole of Asia was open before me. I felt that I had been called to make discoveries without limits – they just waited for me in the middle of the deserts and mountain peaks. During those three years, that my journey took, my first guiding principle was to explore only such regions, where nobody else had been earlier." In his account of his famous journey through Asia (1898) Hedin described how he saved one of his servants by bringing him water in his boots. Later he returned to this episode several times in his drawings and writings. Between the years 1893 and 1935 Hedin made four expeditions to Central Asia. He charted maps of significant areas in Pamir, Taklamakan, Tibet, Transhimalaya (also called Hedin Mountains). In 1900-01 he made two attempts to reach Lhasa, but the race was won by a Japanese scholar Ekai Kawaquchi, who was a genuine Buddhist monk. However, Hedin met in 1906 Taši Lama, to whom he gave a medicine box made of aluminum. The Dalai Lama had fled in 1904 when the British troops entered Llhasa, and Taši Lama became the most powerful man in Tibet. In 1909 Hedin returned to Stockholm to his family as a celebrated figure. August Strindberg's sudden attack in 1910 was a deep blow to Hedin. The writer called him – unjustly – "an ordinary land surveyor", and considered Hedin's scientific achievements "humbug". As a writer Hedin was more lively and able than most of the novelists of the time. In 1913 Hedin became a member of the Swedish Academy. During World War I Hedin was on Germany's side, expressing his views in Från fronten i väster (1914). In Kriget mot Ryssland (1915) he depicted enthusiastically the war on the Eastern front. The war prevented further journeys but in 1923 he travelled round the world. American women Hedin called spoilt and uneducated. In Moscow and St. Petersburg he was celebrated by Communist commissars as a guest of honor, although they knew his opinions about Bolshevism. From Peking to Moscow he traveled by Dodge and by train. With German, Danish, Chinese, and Swedish scientists he travelled in the Gobi Desert and Turkestan between the years 1927 and 1935. During this period Hedin met Chiang-Kai-shek, head of the Nationalist government and generalissimo of all Chinese Nationalist forces, of whom he also published in 1939 an admiring book. In 1933 Hedin helped the Chinese government retain control of the Sinkiang province, by mapping out the old Silk Road of Marco Polo so that it could be motorized. Hedin's China expeditions provided material for three books, The Flight of Big Horse (1936), The Silk Road (1936) and The Wandering Lake (1940). In 1930 Hedin received the first Hedin medal, which was founded the same year for significant geographic, especially cartographic research of less known areas. From 1937 to 1949 he worked on the thirty-five volumes which detailed his expedition to Northern China. Hedin was also politically active. In one of his books he warned of Russian expansion and spoke for strong military defence and a political orientation towards Germany. He kept warm relations with Germany all his life, and was a supporter of the Nazis. In 1929 the German optical company Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar presented a Leica camera to him with the serial number 25000. Like a number of his books, Amerika i kontinenternas kamp (1941/1944) was also translated into German (Amerika im Kampf der Kontinente, 1943). Hedin argued in it, that if Hitler's various peace offers had been accepted, the ongoing World War II could have been avoided. Hedin also met Hitler and Göring a few times and in 1940 he had long discussions with Führer about politics. At that time the explorer was 75 but still appeared youthful and vigorous. When Hitler wanted to know his secret, Hedin recommended yoghurt. Behind Hedin's visits to Berlin was his fear that the Soviet Union would again start a war against Finland. It could lead to the situation, where the Red Army would stand on the border of Sweden. To his disappointment, Hitler had his own plans. In 1940 he confessed in a letter: "Även med risk av Hitlers vrede står jag med liv och själ på Finlands sida, ty Finlands undergång betyder ett dödlingt hot mot Sverige och för mig är Sveriges välfärd dyrbarare än vänskapen med Tyskland." In 1945 Hedin wrote to one of his German friends: "Im dritten Reich ist alles schief gegangen. Hitler ist allmählich verrückt geworden." (Everything has gone wrong in the Third Reich. Hitler has gradually become mad.) After the war Hedin denied that he knew the truth about concentration camps. He was not the only prominent figure who supported Germany – the Nobel writer Knut Hamsun was arrested for some time and placed on trial for his opinions. Hedin continued to follow world politics and in 1949 prophesied: "Mao is the best thing that has happened to China in a thousand years. " For the younger Swedish writers he was an easy target – the Nobel writer Harry Martinson said that Hedin was an imperialist who happened to be born in a small country. However, he managed to overcome with his natural charm Per Lagerkvist's negative attitude towards him. Sven Hedin died on November 26, 1952. On his table he still had a photograph of Mille Lindström, stuck inside a small religious calendar. Hedin's excellent panoramic drawings have been of significant help, even up to the latest decades, in interpreting satellite photographs. For further reading: Äventyr på riktigt: berättelsen om upptäckaren Sven Hedin by Axel Odelberg (2009); The Intellectual Unmasked: Sven Hedin's Political Life from Pan-Germanism to National Socialism: a Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota by Sarah Kristina Danielsson (2005); Southern Silk Road: In the Footsteps of Sir Auriel Stein and Sven Hedin by Christopher Baumer (2000); World Authors 1900-1950, volume 2, ed. by Martin Seumour-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens (1996); To the Heart of Asia: The Life of Sven Hedin by George Kish (1984); Sven Hedin: en biografi by Eric Wennerholm (1978); The Great Explorers by P. Pennington (1974); 100 Great Adventures, ed. by J. Canning (1969); Sven Hedin as Artist by G. Montell (1964); Vad fann Sven Hedin? by J.G. Andersson (1935); Sven Hedinin seikkailut Aasiassa by F. V. Härmä (1910) - Note: Sven Hedin appeared in Göran Tunström's novel Juloratoriet (1983). Selected works:
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