Artur Immanuel Hazelius (30 November 1833 – 27 May 1901) was a Swedish teacher, scholar,
folklorist and museum director. He was the founder of both the
Nordic Museum
The Nordic Museum ( sv, Nordiska museet) is a museum located on Djurgården, an island in central Stockholm, Sweden, dedicated to the cultural history and ethnography of Sweden from the early modern period (in Swedish history, it is said t ...
(''Nordiska museet'') and the
Skansen
Skansen (; "the Sconce") is the oldest open-air museum and zoo in Sweden located on the island Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden. It was opened on 11 October 1891 by Artur Hazelius (1833–1901) to show the way of life in the different parts ...
open-air museum
An open-air museum (or open air museum) is a museum that exhibits collections of buildings and artifacts out-of-doors. It is also frequently known as a museum of buildings or a folk museum.
Definition
Open air is “the unconfined atmosphereâ ...
in
Stockholm.
Background
Hazelius was born in Stockholm, Sweden as the son of Johan August Hazelius (1797–1871), a
Swedish Army officer (with terminal rank of
major general
Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...
), politician and publicist. He entered
Uppsala University
Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation.
The university rose to significance during ...
in 1854, and received his Ph.D. degree in 1860, after which he worked as a teacher, as well as participating in several school-book and language reform projects.
![Arthur Hazelius juni 2015](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Arthur_Hazelius_juni_2015.jpg)
In 1869 Hazelius was the secretary of the Swedish section at the Scandinavian
orthographic congress in Stockholm (), and published its proceedings in 1871. The radical reforms in Swedish spelling proposed there sparked opposition from the
Swedish Academy. This gave
Johan Erik Rydqvist
Johan Erik Rydqvist (20 October 1800 – 17 December 1877) was a Swedish linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precis ...
(1800–1877) the energy to publish ''
Svenska Akademiens Ordlista
''Svenska Akademiens ordlista'' (, "Word list of the Swedish Academy"), abbreviated SAOL, is a spelling dictionary published every few years by the Swedish Academy. It is a single volume that is considered the final arbiter of Swedish spelling. ...
'' (SAOL), the very conservative first edition of the Academy's one-volume spelling dictionary in 1874. However, many of the proposals from the congress were introduced in the sixth edition of the same dictionary in 1889 (''e–ä'', ''qv–kv'') and the rest (''dt'', ''fv'', ''hv'') in a spelling reform for Swedish schools, introduced in 1906 by the minister of education
Fridtjuv Berg
Johan Fridtjuv Berg (20 March 1851 – 29 February 1916) was a Swedish school teacher, author, and politician (liberal); he was Minister of Education from 1905 to 1906 and 1911 to 1914 and Member of Parliament from 1891 to 1916. Berg was the so ...
(1851–1916). Berg acknowledged that Hazelius had laid the foundation for all following spelling reforms.
Career
![Hazeliushuset beskrivelse](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Hazeliushuset_beskrivelse.JPG)
During travels in the country, Hazelius noticed how Swedish folk culture, including architecture and other aspects of the material culture, was eroding under the influence of industrialization, migration and other processes of modernity, and in 1872 he decided to establish a museum for Swedish ethnography, originally (1873) called the Scandinavian ethnographic collection (), from 1880 the
Nordic Museum
The Nordic Museum ( sv, Nordiska museet) is a museum located on Djurgården, an island in central Stockholm, Sweden, dedicated to the cultural history and ethnography of Sweden from the early modern period (in Swedish history, it is said t ...
(, now ). In 1891 he established the open-air museum
Skansen
Skansen (; "the Sconce") is the oldest open-air museum and zoo in Sweden located on the island Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden. It was opened on 11 October 1891 by Artur Hazelius (1833–1901) to show the way of life in the different parts ...
, which became the model for other open-air museums in Northern Europe. He got the idea after a visit to the world's first open-air museum,
Norsk Folkemuseum
Norsk Folkemuseum (Norwegian Museum of Cultural History), at Bygdøy, Oslo, Norway, is a museum of cultural history with extensive collections of artifacts from all social groups and all regions of the country. It also incorporates a large open- ...
, established near
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...
in 1881.
Hazelius was close friends with Swedish pathologist
Axel Key
Ernst Axel Henrik Key (25 October 1832 – 27 December 1901) was a Swedish pathologist, member of parliament, writer and rector at Karolinska Institute.
Biography
Upbringing and education
Key was born in 1832 in Johannisberg in Flisby sock ...
, with whom he shared a number of common interests and helped found the museum. The two "won special acknowledgment at the
World Exhibition in Paris 1878 where the museum was acclaimed worldwide."
Key also served as chair of the museum's board for several years.
For the Nordic museum, Hazelius bought or managed to get donations of objects – furniture, clothes, toys, etc. – from all over Sweden and the other Nordic countries; he was mainly interested in peasant culture but his successors increasingly started to collect objects reflecting bourgeois and urban lifestyles as well. For Skansen he collected entire buildings and farms.
Although the project did not initially get the government funding he had hoped, Hazelius received widespread support and donations, and by 1898 the Society for the promotion of the Nordic Museum () had 4,525 members. The
Riksdag allocated some money for the museums in 1891 and doubled the amount in 1900, the year before his death.
Personal life
Hazelius was married to Sofia Elisabeth Grafström (1839–1874), daughter of
Anders Abraham Grafström
Anders Abraham Grafström (10 January 1790 – 24 July 1870) was a Swedish historian, priest and poet.
Life
Grafström was born in Sundsvall in Västernorrland County, Sweden.
He studied at Uppsala University, where he was enrolled in 180 ...
, a historian, priest and member of the
Swedish Academy
During the last few years of his life, Hazelius lived at Hazeliushuset, one of the old buildings on Skansen. He died on 27 May 1901, and on 4 February 1902, he was interred in a grave at Skansen.
His only son Gunnar Hazelius (1874–1905) succeeded him as
curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
of the Nordic Museum. Gunnar Hazelius's daughter
Gunnel Hazelius-Berg
Gunnel Gunnarsdotter Hazelius-Berg née Hazelius (1905–1997) was a Swedish museum curator, textile researcher and writer. She spent her entire professional career at Stockholm's Nordic Museum. As the director responsible for textiles, over the ...
(1905–1997) was later costume and textile historian at the Nordic Museum. Her husband, Professor Gösta Berg (1903–1993) served as director of the Nordic Museum and Skansen from 1956 to 1963 and managing director of the Skansen Foundation from 1964.
References
Other sources
Artur Hazelius: Biographyfrom ''Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon'', Vol. I (1906), p. 467f. (in Swedish)
from ''
Nordisk familjebok'', 2nd ed., Vol. 11, col. 148ff.
External links
Nordiska museet official site
Skansen official site
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hazelius, Artur
1833 births
1901 deaths
Scientists from Stockholm
Uppsala University alumni
Swedish folklorists
19th-century Swedish educators
Swedish curators
Skansen