The Emigrants

Introduction to The Emigrants

Begun in Sweden and completed in California, this first volume of the Emigrant Novels appeared in 1949 with the Swedish title Utvandmrna. It was published in English in 1951 as The Emigrants.

Nineteenth-century Swedish emigration to America took place in three principal phases: individual, group, and mass migration. Group emigration was most common between 1845 and 1865 as powerful forces, so-called push factors, led many commoners to abandon Sweden. Typical push factors were famine and religious persecution. Most group emigration consisted of from fifteen to two hundred people who banded together to start farming or religious settlements in America.

Moberg’s first words say that The Emigrants is the tale of one such group. Aside from their general dissatisfaction, the individuals in this group have little in common, however. Instead each person is motivated by a different push factor: crop failure, persecution by the civil authorities, religious dissent, personal problems, social ostracism, and unfair employment practices. In this sense, the group from Ljuder parish represents a convenient imaginative microcosm of one era in Swedish emigration.

While Moberg carefully traced the background of each of the novel’s figures, he left no doubt as to the tale’s main character. Karl Oskar Nilsson has all the potential for material success on the American frontier. He is young, strong, hard-working, and knowledgeable about farming practices. Yet in defying his father and the local authorities in Sweden he becomes a marked man. When he later curses God, Karl Oskar is in disfavor with the Almighty as well.

In Robert and Kristina, Moberg presented foils to Karl Oskar. Robert’s daydreaming and his interest in books contrast to his older brother’s attention to practical detail. Kristina’s attachment to her home in Småland puts her ideas at serious odds with her husband’s firm belief in their American future.

The Emigrants is a tightly woven story that met with immediate success in Sweden and America. Nevertheless troubles surrounded the book in the early years after its publication. A group of conservative Swedish educators, churchmen, and legislators objected to the vulgar language in the novel, especially the expressive idioms used by Ulrika. This group, led by an Uppsala writer named Ebbe Reuterdahl, also charged that Moberg’s novel slandered the good name of Smålandish emigrants.

Moberg returned to Sweden for a face-to-face confrontation with his critics. He argued that the realism of his narrative dictated the use of straight talk and believable characterization. During the ensuing “decency debate,” or “Reuterdahl feud” as it was known in Sweden, four thousand Swedes signed a petition against the novel. Moberg reported that one protester went so far as to burn the book in his furnace while singing the Swedish national anthem, “Du gamla, du fria” (The old and the free). Certain church groups in Swedish America joined the protest action.

By the mid-1950s the protest had run its course. Moberg noted that even Swedish church groups were among those present in Karlshamn, Sweden, in 1959 for the public unveiling of the statue of Karl Oskar and Kristina. A replica of that statue now stands in downtown Lindstrom, Minnesota.¹

R. McK.

NOTE

1. Moberg discussed this interlude at some length in “Romanen om utvandrarromanen,” 317–25. See also Ebbe Reuterdahl, Vem har rätt? I litteraturfejden Moberg-Reuterdahl (Uppsala: Författarens Förlag, 1951).