Konstruktionen av militär manlighet i Snoilskys Svenska bilder

Abstract

The Construction of Military Masculinity in Snoilsky’s Svenska bilder: The paper presents an analysis of the construction of military masculinity in Carl Snoilsky’s Svenska bilder (Swedish Pictures). The construction of military masculinity is discussed as an important element of the cultural memory formulated in this Swedish canonical cycle of historical poetry. Taking Jan and Aleida Assman’s theory of cultural memory as a theoretical starting point, the article juxtaposes it with literary studies of masculinity to reflect on the meaning of military masculinity. War poetry and military poetry is identified as the dominant type of the poetic form of the cycle, and gendered patterns of cultural memory are discussed as reproducing the patriarchal principles of the nineteenth-century historiography. The dominant model of masculinity in Svenska bilder is presented as marked by militaristic values combined with the ethos of bourgeois masculinity. As the cycle assigns different military roles to the different stages of a man’s life, the dynamics of the meanings of masculinity is shown through the category of age. Chivalrous boyhood is presented as a stage preceding youth subordinated to the norm of homosocial military socialisation. The image of the adult man fighting at war is discussed as an amalgam of heroising and deheroising strategies. The presence of war veterans and the concept of the citizen-soldier in Svenska bilder is seen in the article as the confirmation of the hegemonic military model in the cycle.