Mamma Mia! The list of disputed Swedish cultural heritage includes Ikea – but not Abba

Pippi Longstocking, Ikea and the Nobel Prize are among the 100 works, brands and ideas deemed to define what it means to be Swedish, according to a list of cultural heritage presented Tuesday to the government. But one of the most notable exports in the country has been snubbed – the legendary POP Abba group.

Deactivating such a list, or canon, was part of the manifesto of the right-wing steering coalition and is a draft company of nationalist democrats of anti-immigration Sweden, which are not in government but which support it in Parliament.

However, certain Swedish institutions and minority groups, including the Swedish Academy which awarded the Nobel Prize in literature and representatives of the indigenous population, criticized the initiative as too close and exclusive.

All the articles of the Canon must be at least 50 years old, which apparently made the work of the Pop Abba group ineligible.

The group formed in 1972 and won the Eurovision Song competition in 1974 with their successful song Waterloo.

Their eponymous album, the group’s third album and the one who launched them to Global Super-Stardom with successes like Sos And Oh momwas released in April 1975.

The Swedish parliamentarian, Jan Ericson, said that Abba is “one of the absolutely important symbols of Swedish culture” internationally.

“What were they thinking there,” he wrote in an article on X.

The calendar for eligibility also excluded most of the contributions paid by approximately one in five Swedes born abroad.

Most of these immigrants arrived in Sweden after 1975.

“I think it’s really human nature to love lists,” said Lars Tragardh, historian and president of the Culture Canon Committee that compiled the Canon, to a press conference.

A barrel, originally a set of rules or collection of sacred books accepted as authentic, as those who make up the Bible, means a largely accepted normative list. Similar projects were carried out in Denmark and the Netherlands.

Aside IKEA based on Sweden but now Dutch, the list also includes the emblematic film of Ingmar Bergman from 1957 The seventh sealThe rebellious character of the Pippi Longstocking children’s book and the practice of Public lawThe right to temporarily camp on private properties.

The Swedish Academy refused to get involved in the project, claiming that it was a source of division and put the ideology before literature.

The effort to establish the cannon was launched by the government in 2023 and cost about eight million Swedes Kornor, equivalent to more than $ 1.1 million CDN dollars.

The association representing the minorities torn in the north of Sweden complained that it was not allowed to be part of the project, which it described as “continuous oppression”.

The Swedish author of Iranian origin, Shora Esmailian, told the newspaper Sydsvenskan that the cannons imposed by the state of what it means to be Swedish would not help to create “a welcoming and equal society”.

But the Minister of Culture Parisa Liljestrand said that the barrel had been misunderstood.

“Our approach on this subject has always been that a Swedish cultural cannon should be a living and useful tool for education, community and inclusion,” she told Tuesday’s press conference.

The Canon includes 50 cultural artefacts, including novels, films, plays and musical compositions and 50 articles in the societal category, drawn from religion, law and economics, as well as inventions, places, products or individual events considered as a key for Swedish public affairs and self -understanding.