Hövdingen och hans äreminne : En idéhistorisk studie av Brantingmonumentet på Norra Bantorget

Sammanfattning: This subject of interest in this paper is the ideas expressed and formulated in the making andinauguration of the Branting-monument at Norra Bantorget in Stockholm. The initiative for a monument honoring the late Social Democratic leader Hjalmar Brantingwas taken at the Swedish Social Democratic Party Congress in 1928. In 1935 the party board decided to give the task of designing the monument to the much renowned artist Carl Eldh. A national fund-raising campaign for the monument was also initiated. In1942 the model of the monument was completed, but because of the war it was stored in a shelter. On June 2, 1952 the monument was inaugurated with great ceremony. Old working movement songs and anthems were played and sung and speeches were made by the Prime Minister Tage Erlander, Stockholm City Council President Carl Albert Andersson, and three foreign guests: Salomon Grumbach, Camille Huysmans and Paul LöbeIn the Social Democratic daily press reporting on the inauguration and in the speeches from the inauguration one can track several important recurring themes. It is clear that they were eager to define Branting as a prudent reformist and anti-communist. It also points out that both Branting was a big Swede that the whole nation stood behind, but also a great European and internationalist. But it also adds time to let different people describe Branting on a personal level, thus both strengthening the heroic image of Branting and making the image of Branting more personal. Even liberal newspapers adopted much of this rhetoric. The only newspaper that in the true sense took a fairly critical stance in relationship to the inauguration was the communist Ny Dag.