"Huru Sverige danats" : En analys av bilder av djur, naturlandskap och mannen/kvinnan i landskapsbilden i Läsebok för folkskolan från åren 1868, 1899 samt 1922

Sammanfattning: The aim of this essay was to look at and compare the imagery in three editions of the Läsebok för folkskolans second department from the years 1868, 1899 and 1922 with a special focus on images of animals, nature scenery and the man / woman in the landscape image to see if and in that case how the images communicate a special kind of citizen image / patriot image in collaboration with the texts. It also aims to investigate whether there was any educational reason for using images in the Läsebok för folkskolan. In order to answer the essays aim a theoretical point of departure has been Benedict Anderson's theory about imagined community, but also Eric Kaufmann & Oliver Zimmer's theory of nationalization of nature versus naturalization of the nation. The method used is an image analysis attempting to understand what the image expresses by looking at the different meaning levels of the image along with the text to which the images belongs. The results show that you can see a shift in the images themes, from tradition 1868 to a romanticization of the same themes 1899 until it in 1922 became more important for the authors and the image setters to give the students a picture of a modern Sweden. Furthermore the results show that you can categorize the images in different kinds of Swedishness. This has been illustrated as a circle with a center, outer edge and periphery which contains different kinds of Swedishness. Together these images gives a picture of an imagined community of what Swedishness means. It has also been possible to see a clear nationalization of nature in the images of animals and nature scenery that occur in the second department. Finally it is hard to say how big the role the image had as an educational tool but it is still possible to say that the pictures must have had a certain influence on how the image of Sweden was produced to the students.