Uplands nation
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Uplands nation (the ''Uppland Nation'') is a
student society A student society, student association, university society, student club, university club, or student organization is a society or an organization, operated by students at a university or a college institution, whose membership typically consists ...
and one of thirteen
nations A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by those ...
at
Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in opera ...
. It has traditionally recruited its members from the province of
Uppland Uppland () is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. On the small uninhab ...
, which surrounds and includes
Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...
and stretches down south to the northern part of Stockholm. The nation uses an older spelling of the toponym (but ''Upplands nation'' has also been used). , the nation has about 2,600 members.


History and building

In its earliest form, Uplands nation was founded, or may at least first be attested, in 1642, but the current nation is the result of a merger in 1823 with ''Fjärdhundra nation'' and a second one in 1829 with ''Roslags nation'', two smaller nations recruiting students from different parts of the province of Uppland (
Fjärdhundraland Fjärdhundraland or the ''land of the four hundreds'' is, since 1296, a part of the province of Uppland in Sweden. Its name refers to its role of providing 400 men and 16 ships for the leidang of the Swedish king at Uppsala. Snorri Sturluson rela ...
and
Roslagen Roslagen is the name of the coastal areas of Uppland province in Sweden, which also constitutes the northern part of the Stockholm archipelago. Historically, it was the name for all the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea, including the eastern par ...
), each of which also date to the early 1640s (the earliest documents from Fjärdhundra nation are also from 1642, while the archives from Roslags nation begin already in 1640). Before acquiring the current nation building (1825), the nation held its meetings either in the house of its inspector – the professor who had been appointed by the university to guard over the virtue and behaviour of the students of a particular nation – or in the home of one of its members. The steadily increasing size of the library forced the nation to start renting space in 1763, but as late as 1814, the protocol mentions a meeting in the home of the member "J. Almquist", i.e. the later notable writer
Carl Jonas Love Almqvist Carl Jonas Love Ludvig Almqvist (28 November 1793 – 26 September 1866) was a Swedish author, romantic poet, romantic critic of political economy, realist, composer and social critic. Biography Carl Jonas Love Almqvist was born in Stockholm ...
. The current building of the nation was built by the master turner Peter Strandman after a fire in 1809, but some of the walls date to sometime before 1770. It was acquired by the nation in 1825. The nation had previously owned the neighbouring plot for a few years, but sold this to Västmanlands-Dala nation. In the 1950s a new wing was added according to the design of the architect Sten Hummel-Gumælius. The garden of the nation includes sculptures by
Carl Milles Carl Milles (; 23 June 1875 – 19 September 1955) was a Swedish sculptor. He was married to artist Olga Milles (née Granner) and brother to Ruth Milles and half-brother to the architect Evert Milles. Carl Milles sculpted the Gustaf Vasa statu ...
and
Carl Eldh Carl Eldh (10 May 1873 – 26 January 1954) was a Swedish artist and sculptor. Full name: Carl Johan Eldh (signs on artwork as "''C.J. ELDH''"). Older brother to Albert Eldh. Biography Eldh was born in Östhammar Municipality, Uppland, the s ...
. On the garden wall along the street Sysslomansgatan is a plaque with a medallion (based on the portrait by
Johan Tobias Sergel Johan Tobias Sergel (; 7 September 1740 in Stockholm – 26 February 1814 in Stockholm) was a Swedish neoclassical sculptor. Sergels torg, the largest square in the centre of Stockholm and near where his workshop stood, is named after him. Life ...
) in the memory of the poet
Anna Maria Lenngren Anna Maria Lenngren, née ''Malmstedt'' (June 18, 1754 – March 8, 1817), was one of the most famous poets in Swedish history. Her father and brother were also poets. One of her best-known poems is ''Några ord till min kära dotter, ifall jag ...
, who grew up in a house once standing there. This wing contains twenty student rooms; another thirty are located in a different house two blocks away.


Notable people

Former curators (chairmen) of the nation include the chemist and later Nobel laureate
Svante Arrhenius Svante August Arrhenius ( , ; 19 February 1859 – 2 October 1927) was a Swedes, Swedish scientist. Originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, Arrhenius was one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. He received ...
and the later Secretary General of the U.N. and Nobel peace laureate
Dag Hammarskjöld Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld ( , ; 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 196 ...
. Other members have included the songwriter Prince Gustaf, the Duke of Uppland, a central figure in Uppsala student life in the 1840s who died young in 1852, the philosopher
Pontus Wikner Carl Pontus Wikner (19 May 1837 – 16 May 1888) was a famed Swedish lecturer in philosophy and professor of aesthetics in Oslo (Christiania) from 1884. Wikner's contribution to homosexual history consists foremostly of producing the first descr ...
, and the writer C. J. L. Almqvist, already mentioned above. The diplomat
Hans Blix Hans Martin Blix (; born 28 June 1928) is a Sweden, Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party (Sweden), Liberal People's Party. He was Minister for Foreign Affairs (Sweden), Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs (1978–1979 ...
, who studied Law in Uppsala, was director for the theatre society of Uplands nation for a year. Among the inspectors (University-appointed faculty members whose task it is to supervise the nation's activities) can be mentioned
Nathan Söderblom Lars Olof Jonathan Söderblom (; 15 January 1866 – 12 July 1931) was a Swedish clergyman. He was the Church of Sweden Archbishop of Uppsala between 1914 and 1931, and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize. He is commemorated in the Calen ...
, Archbishop of the
Church of Sweden The Church of Sweden ( sv, Svenska kyrkan) is an Evangelical Lutheran national church in Sweden. A former state church, headquartered in Uppsala, with around 5.6 million members at year end 2021, it is the largest Christian denomination in Sw ...
and recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...
. An important part in the lore of the nation is played by a young boy who never actually matriculated in the nation: Svante Wijkman, who was born in a local bourgeois family and died 1837, during his last year in the
Cathedral School Cathedral schools began in the Early Middle Ages as centers of advanced education, some of them ultimately evolving into medieval universities. Throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, they were complemented by the monastic schools. Some of these e ...
in Uppsala. After his premature death, his mother donated scholarships both to the school and to the nation, which her son presumably would have joined in the near future if he had lived. A posthumous portrait of young Wijkman accompanied the donation. Ignorance of the - easily verifiable - real identity of the boy in the picture among members has led speculations about his early death being the result of too much partying and he has been claimed to haunt the nation. Besides the Wijkman room (''Wijkmanska rummet'') where the portrait hangs, other institutions of the nation have been named after him, including a brass band (''Wijkmanska blecket''), a pub (''Svantes källare'') and a café (''Café Wijkman'').Svante Wijkman
, at the Uplands nation website.


Inspektors

;Roslags nation ;Fjärdhundra nation ; Uplands nation


Notes


References and further reading

''All references are in
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
'' *Eugène Lewenhaupt, ''Anteckningar om Uplands nation i Upsala före 1830'', Upsala, 1877. *Isidor Carlsson, ''Uplands nation 1800-1914: En skildring'', Uppsala: Upplands nation 1915. *Isidor Carlsson, "Upplands nations hus", in Albin Roosval (ed.), ''Nationshusen i Uppsala. Illustrerade skildringar af flera författare'', E. Lundquist: Stockholm 1915, p. 19-36. *''Studenten, staden och sanningen: bilder och essayer: utgivna med anledning av Uplands nations 350-årsjubileum'', Bengt Erik Rydén (ed.), Uppsala: Uplands nation 1992. (Published for the 350th anniversary of the nation) * Svedberg, Theodor (The), "Arrhenius, Svante", ''Svenskt biografiskt lexikon'', vol. 2, p. 287-301.


External links


Uplands nation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uplands Nation Nations at Uppsala University Uppland Student organizations established in the 17th century