G.005.1 - Postcard previously posted on this blog 2012-04-20
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| Karl XII:s staty. Stockholm. - Förlag Oscar Ellqvist, Nr 9. (Statue of King Charles XII of Sweden.) |
Många Hälsningar från en vän - ALARIK
To: Herr Gustaf Ekman, Storegd, Fristad
Runes are very old letters which Germanic people used before they started using Latin letters in the Middle Ages. In its broadest sense, the word runes can mean any cryptic letters, but it usually means the alphabets used by Scandinavian people from about the year 150 AD to the Middle Ages. The oldest of these is called the Elder Fuþark, used from about 150 to 800 AD.
Interest in runes and Old Norse mythology etc had a sort of renaissance here for a while back in the so-called "Romantic Nationalism" of the 19th and early 20th century.
So the name of the friend who sent the card seems to be Alarik. It is an old masculine Germanic name meaning "ruler of all". Whether this was his real name or not, I don't know. But the name Alarik was added to (i.e. given a "name day" in) the Swedish almanac in 1901. (It is still included - 5 August - but I don't think there are a lot of Alariks around in our time. Names do tend to "come and go", though...)
One famous Alarik in history was Alaric I, king of the Visigoths from 395 to 410 - said to be the first Barbarian ruler to invade Italy. He was a professed Christian and was also seen by some Christians as God's wrath upon a still pagan Rome.
The statue on this postcard is of the Swedish king Karl XII (1682-1718), in Swedish history often called the Warrior King. The statue in Stockholm shown on the postcard was made by Johan Peter Molin (1814-73). It's cast in bronze and weighs 2½ tons.
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| Modern photo from Wikipedia |
The young women in the foreground on the old postcard are female Salvation Army soldiers, dressed in typical hats, and carrying guitars and and leaflets.
It's one of those street views which may seem ordinary at first glance - just a statue and some random people - but which could just as well be used to convey a hidden message... To me there seems to be a certain irony in the fact that the women soldiers here are turning their back on the old warrior king, and are walking in the opposite direction to where he is pointing!
The Salvation Army, founded 1865 in London, was introduced in Sweden in 1882 by Hanna Ouchterlony. (Wikipedia) She was born in Värnamo, Sweden, in 1838. From 1857 to 1864 she served as housekeeper with relatives in Stockholm; then opened a book shop in Värnamo. In the 1870s, she had a religious crisis, and became active within Christian social work. In 1878, she got acquainted with Bramwell Booth (son of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army) who was visiting Värnamo for recreation. She became identified with the values of the Salvation Army, and Booth considered her suitable to introduce the movement to Sweden. Between 1878 and 1881, she took correspondence courses from the Salvation Army; and in 1881, she visited London, staying in the home of Catherine and William Booth. She became an officer of the Salvation Army in London 28 November 1882; and upon her return to Sweden, introduced the movement here.
Hanna served as chief of the Swedish Salvation Army from 1882 until 1892. In 1887–1888, she also founded the Norwegian Salvation Army. She travelled for the Salvation Army in the United States in 1892 and was the territorial leader of the movement between 1894 and 1900. She retired in 1904 and died in Stockholm in 1924.
Linking to Sepia Saturday 691 - On the Street
What a great discerning eye you have for those Salvation Army women! And I'm glad to hear the history of it in Sweeden. Now I'm going to check my Booth ancestors and see if they (early settlers in America) might be cousins of the English Booths. Somehow I think someone in the family would have claimed it by now if they were related. I know they bemoaned that we aren't related to the theatrical Booths. Glad you reposted this for this week's meme at SS!
ReplyDeleteBarbara, it struck me recently that I probably have quite a few early posts on this blog that weren't linked SS, and which may deserve a "second chance"... So I'll keep that in mind for those weeks when I can't think of something "new"! Good luck with your own research - one never knows, really, when something might pop up that one did not know before!
DeleteAs always, an interesting and informative post. And to think how long the fine organization of the Salvation Army has lasted and grown! We used to have a wonderful Salvation Army thrift shop here in Sonora, but for some reason they pulled up stakes & left. It couldn't have been for non patronage as the store was always full of shoppers. 'Tis a 'too bad' mystery. :)
ReplyDeleteGail, we do still have a Salvation Army thrift shop in my town, and my general impression is that their shops and other charity projects are probably still the most well-known and trusted of that kind over here.
DeleteThis was a fascinating postcard to use again for our Sepia Saturday theme. I would not have guessed the name was in rune code. I may have similar examples in some of my postcards from Scandinavia. I think in the early days of postcards, codes were a way of insuring privacy from nosy postmen. I've seen messages in Esperanto, Latin and pig-latin, and numerical or letter codes. I now check the messages of all the postcards I consider buying for my collection and often it's the message rather than the picture that decides. My postcard this weekend was one of those that made the cut because of the short note.
ReplyDeleteThank you for enlarging the women in the picture, as I would have missed them otherwise. I've seen a good number of 1890-1900 era photos of Swedish-American Salvation Army groups. The women are almost always with guitars which is unusual since it is brass bands that are usually associated with the Salvation Army. I think your assessment to their hidden symbolism may be right, at least from the photographer's perspective. It makes an otherwise static image come to life.
Mike, personally I associate the Salvation Army with guitars a lot more than with brass bands. (In numbers, it's a rather small denomination here.)
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