Magnus Bäcklund (12 December 1866 – 26 June 1903) was a Swedish missionary to

Chinese Turkestan Chinese Turkestan or Chinese Turkistan, is a geographical term or historical region corresponding to the region of the Tarim Basin in Southern Xinjiang (south of the Tian Shan mountain range) or Xinjiang as a whole which was under the rule of ...

with the

Mission Covenant Church of Sweden The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden ( – until 2003 'Swedish Mission Covenant'), founded in 1878, was a Swedish evangelical free church in the Radical Pietist tradition. It was the second-largest Protestant denomination in Sweden, after the ...

. Magnus was born in Alstakan, Gunnarskog parish,

Värmland Värmland () is a ''Provinces of Sweden, landskap'' (historical province) in west-central Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Dalsland, Dalarna, Västmanland, and Närke, and is bounded by Norway in the west. Name Several Latinized version ...

. He grew up in a poor family and had to work hard. He found employment at ''Östlund & Almqvist'' in

Arvika Arvika is a locality and the seat of Arvika Municipality, Värmland County, Sweden with 14,244 inhabitants in 2010. Geography The town of Arvika is situated at Kyrkviken, a bay of Glafsfjorden, Sweden's only inland fjord, a remnant of the tim ...

. He studied German, French, and Greek during this time. In 1895, he travelled to Kashgar, but being delayed, he studied

Uyghur Uyghur may refer to: * Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia (West China) ** Uyghur language, a Turkic language spoken primarily by the Uyghurs *** Old Uyghur language, a different Turkic language spoken in the Uyghur K ...

in Bukhara, and only arrived in Kashgar June the following year, 1897. In Xinjiang, he worked at the Mission hospital. On 26 June 1903 he died of typhoid fever,Hartmann, Martin. Chinesisch-Turkestan; geschichte, verwaltung, geistesleben, und wirtschaft. Halle a.S.: Gebauer-Schwetschke druckerei und Verlag m.b.h, 1908., Pg. 107

/ref> and was buried in

Kashgar Kashgar () or Kashi ( zh, c=喀什) is a city in the Tarim Basin region of southern Xinjiang, China. It is one of the westernmost cities of China, located near the country's border with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. For over 2,000 years, Kashgar ...

. He was 36 years old.

Bibliography

*J. Lundahl (editor), På obanade stigar: Tjugofem år i Ost-Turkestan. Stockholm, Svenska Missionsförbundet Förlag, 1917 *E. John Larsson, Magnus Bäcklund: ett Guds sändebud i Centralasien, Kristinehamn: Värmland, 1914.

Notes

External links

Mission and Change in Eastern Turkestan
(English Translation of select chapters of ''Mission och revolution i Centralasien'') Swedish Protestant missionaries Protestant missionaries in China Christian missionaries in Central Asia 1866 births 1903 deaths Deaths from typhoid fever Swedish expatriates in China infectious disease deaths in China People from Arvika Municipality {{Sweden-reli-bio-stub