• 1 Susan Sontag, “A Letter from Sweden”, Ramparts 1969, p. 30.

Being with people feels like work for them, far more than it does like nourishment.1

• 2 Juho Saari (ed.), Yksinäisten Suomi, Helsinki, Gaudeamus, 2016.
• 3 This article is a first sketch to identify a theme that is quite broad. The practical examples are (...)

2The main argument of this article is the claim that one can identify a specific Nordic attitude towards solitude, enjoying individual space, and understanding freedom as the right to detach oneself from compromising social bonds. This is a solitude understood in a positive light, and distinct from the category of negative loneliness when family and friendship bonds are missing. Many are the concerns raised about loneliness as a social problem in the Nordics, ranging from youth mental disorders to elderly care, in societies that have the highest rate of single person households in the world.2 Without denying these problems connected to society leaving people on their own, the focus here is on the various ways in which solitude is expressed as a desire, a state of regeneration, and a form of experiencing authenticity of the self. Not seldom is this Nordic self-narrative connected to a specific and romanticized relationship to nature.3

• 4 Lars Trägårdh, “Statist Individualism: on the Culturality of the Nordic Welfare State”, in The Cult (...)

3However, what here is presented as a positive conception of a happy solitude might also have a connection to the phenomenon of undesired loneliness. The question remains if Nordic societies by culturally accepting the longing for personal space as something desirable, also foster the mechanisms that might produce unwanted loneliness? In the following I will aim at shedding light on these questions by, firstly, looking at some artistic and cultural expressions idealizing and essentializing happy solitude in a Nordic national framework. Secondly, I will connect this narrative to the theory of statist individualism, as presented by Lars Trägårdh. He challenges the understanding of the Nordic welfare state as a highly collective arrangement, by claiming that the prominent agency of state institutions and public authorities in providing social security, actually enable a higher form of ‘statist individualism’, giving the individual the option of not engaging with fellow citizens if not willing to do so.4 Finally, I wish to pose some open questions concerning the feasibility in identifying a specific Nordic sense of valuing solitude in positive terms. The hypothesis is that there is a peculiar relationship to solitude as part of dealing with the challenges of modern everyday life in Nordic societies.

• 5 https://ulflundell.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/oppna_landskap.pdf
  (20/06/2024).
• 6 “Så att själen kan få ro”.
• 7 ”Där vindarna får fart / Där lärkorna slår högt i skyn, och sjunger underbart”.

4In his most popular and acclaimed song “Öppna landskap”, released in 1982, the Swedish singer-songwriter and author Ulf Lundell (b. 1949) essentializes Swedishness.5 Or at least a vast majority of his listeners have taken the song to their hearts as a modern national anthem for Swedes. Under the title “Open Landscapes”, Lundell pictures an idyll from a personal perspective. The setting is rural, pointing at the open fields of southern Sweden, rather than the dense forests further up north. Unlike in Lundell’s breakthrough novel Jack (1975), the hip bohemian circles of Stockholm City are absent. Lundell is rather occupied with his personal need to escape “some months of the year” to an open landscape, so that his “soul can be at rest”.6 He paints an image of a solitary man standing in a seashore open landscape, “where the winds catch speed”. He is alone in nature only accompanied by the “wonderful song” of larks flying high in the sky.7 The scene is romantic in its purest essence. The smallness of humans in face of the sublime nature, but in this case ‘the sublime’ does not invoke any kind of threat or potential danger. Rather, it is the optimal and most desired state, the fulfilment and pleasure of being alone and far away from urban life.

• 8 Øystein Sørensen & Bo Stråth, “Introduction: The Cultural Construction of Norden”, in The Cultural (...)

5Like the mythical figure of the free and independent Nordic peasant, lauded as a symbol for Nordic peoples,8 Lundell’s “I” is barely dependent on others, and it remains clear that this is exactly how he wants things to be. In his private space he has the right to stretch the limits of laws and regulations, and consequently he burns his own brandy – “bränner jag mitt brännvin själv” – a socially and culturally accepted form of civil disobedience in a country with state monopoly on hard liquor sales. Especially on the countryside own fabrication tends to be given a blind eye by policing authorities, and this activity is often depicted in fiction as part of Swedish life. This applies to Norway and Finland as well.

• 9 ”Där bränner jag mitt brännvin själv, och kryddar det med Johannesört / Och dricker det med välbeha (...)
• 10 Miska Rantanen, Kalsarikänni. Suomalainen opas hyvään elämään, Helsinki, S&S, 2018.

6When Lundell writes that he burns his brandy by himself – själv – it indicates personal agency and the right to do as one pleases without anybody interfering.9 The Swedish word själv has various connotations. Mostly it is used as an adjective to designate the action of doing something by oneself without the help of others. Lately, själv has also received the meaning of being alone. The lines in the song can be interpreted in two ways. One is that he is himself burning the brandy, and by doing so breaking the monopoly law which prohibits domestic production of hard liquor. The second is that he is alone when he burns his brandy. Either way, the message portrays a desire for voluntary solitude. It also indicates a subversive protest and idealization of a national culture of self-medication against stress since he, “drinks it with pleasure to herring and home baked wort bread.” The bread, Swedish vörtbröd, completes the chauvinist setting for Mr. Lundell when he parties alone. It is apparent that the Finns do not have exclusive right to the concept of kalsarikännit – pantsdrunk – i.e. solitary drinking at home with no intention to dress up, understood as an act of relaxation rooted in a semi-mystical national identity practice.10

• 11 “Jag trivs bäst i fred och frihet, för både kropp och själ / Ingen kommer i min närhet, som stänger (...)
• 12 “När tuppar gal på avstånd, när det är långt till närmsta hus”.

7In Lundell’s text the narrator gets into a lyrical mood and makes the confession that he feels best when in, “peace and freedom […] where nobody comes near me, that would enclose me or steal”.11 What he means by stealing remains a bit vague, maybe writing stjäl is an emergency rhyme to the previous line’s ending word själ, meaning ‘soul’. However, the message remains explicit about how his state of happiness and comfort relies on the fact that no other person can come close to him. “When roosters crow at distance, and it is far to the closest house”,12 the following lines declare to magnify his point. This loneliness is self-chosen, and the indication is that when he chooses, he can go back to society and be among other people. But for the time being his solitude is depicted as near perfect since this solitude also contains the comforting sounds of “faraway laughter” from nightly parties. The society is still there and waits for him when he chooses to return.

• 13 Åke Daun, Svensk mentalitet, Stockholm, Rabén Prisma, 1994, p. 81.
• 14 Paul Britten Austin, On Being Swedish. Reflections towards a better understanding of the Swedish ch (...)

9All in all, the need for own space is tangible in Ulf Lundell’s lyrics, and the reception history of this modern Swedish popular music classic is a vital part of the argument here. Why has precisely this song become his most popular one, folkkär, as the saying goes in Swedish, extending his popularity to listeners that would not otherwise be his biggest fans. Paradoxically, Lundell is acclaimed by his fellow compatriots when he advocates his desire to stay away from them and enjoy the company of nature. Apparently, the listeners have identified themselves with this gospel of voluntary solitude by escaping his fellow compatriots for a while. This close relationship to nature is documented manyfold. The Swedish ethnographer Åke Daun made one of the more profound and systematic inquiries to the subject in his acclaimed book Svensk mentalitet (1989). In a pre-constructivist fashion, he set out to define typical features of the Swedish character. Conflictophobia and the virtue of independence are mentioned as such. Daun also states that the Swedes find a kind of poetry in loneliness, as far as it is not permanent nor unvoluntary, and especially when alone in nature.13 Two decades earlier, in 1968, Paul Britten Austin, a British specialist on Swedish literature, came to the same conclusion, observing that Swedes take more interest in nature than in other people.14

• 15 Bruno Selin & Matti Viherjuuri, Jokaisen miehen kirja, Helsinki, Kustannusosakeyhtiö Kivi, 1947, p. (...)
• 16 Ibid., p. 57.

10While the examples given above all refer to Sweden, there is no indication that similar features would not be applicable to most other Nordics. In a Finnish gentleman’s handbook from 1947, a comprehensive guide to the proper way of performing a respectable bourgeoise manhood, there is a section dedicated to outdoor activities. It suggests that going solo on a Sunday hike might actually be the best way of relieving work-related stress since, “soon you have no worries, and you are your own master like the eagle in the sky. Nature is your most loyal friend […] even the manliest of men is sometimes in need of support.”15 This suggests a model of harsh self-relying masculinity, where nature is looked upon as a better option than speaking to a friend. Going out alone in the nature is given as the prime remedy in case a man is especially stressed due to special circumstance of life. Also, the following advice is given: “Spend time once a week in the nature, so that you can feel life worth living.”16

• 18 Susanne Österlund-Pötzsch, “Walking Nordic: Performing Space, Place and Identity”, in Peter Aronsso (...)
• 19 Åke Daun, Svensk mentalitet, op. cit., p. 78.
• 20 Hans Gelter, “Friluftsliv: The Scandinavian Philosophy of Outdoor life”, Canadian Journal of Enviro (...)

12The aspect of getting away from big crowds and Nansen’s prominent position as a national hero and educator, combines for an authorative agenda-setting for how to properly enjoy outdoor life. According to ethnographer Susanne Österlund-Pötzsch, outdoor activities as a way to reconnect with nature date back to 19th century national romantic ideals of “instilling ‘sound’ standards into a population with sudden access to free time and means for consumption.”18 Åke Daun also traces this Nordic particularity to the bourgeois upper classes embracing outdoor life in the late 19th century as part of exemplary citizenship and practicing a nationally defined special relation to nature.19 These practices have been adapted by lower social classes when urbanization and improved economic conditions have made it both desirable and possible. Here seems to be the origin of the often-repeated axiom that practicing outdoor life is connected to “the self-image of Scandinavians as a nature loving people.”20

• 21 Susan Sontag, “A Letter”, op.cit., p. 26.
• 22 Ibid., p. 29.

14Half a century has passed since Susan Sontag in 1969 aired her disappointment over Sweden, Swedish society, and the Swedes in the thought-provoking account “A Letter from Sweden”. Even if Sweden has changed a lot since then, some of her main points give reason for reflection here. And again, even if the focus is on Sweden, most points are valid for the other Nordic countries, with maybe some exceptions for Denmark. Sontag found the Swedes emotionally underdeveloped and that “avoidance of antagonism sometimes goes to really supersonic extremes.”21 Engaging in fierce debates, being of different opinion, and showing strong emotions was something Swedes would avoid, while rather accepting bad service at restaurants or enduring underperforming work colleagues without expressing their opinion. Confronting other people and sharing urban spaces seemed to make Swedes uncomfortable, since “people bump into you without apology”.22 For the well-travelled east coast intellectual Sontag, Swedish life apparently came as a chock. Her dissection of Swedish society repeats many clichés:

• 24 Gustav Sundbärg, Sveriges land och folk, Stockholm, Norstedt & Söner, 1901. See also Lars Trägårdh, (...)
• 25 Lars Trägårdh, “Statist Individualism”, op.cit., p. 264.
• 26 Susan Sontag, “A Letter”, op.cit., p. 30.

15Sontag’s analysis echoes the perhaps most classic self-inspection of the Swedish national character, Gustav Sundbärg’s Sveriges land och folk from 1901. In contemplating on flaws in the national character, as part of searching for remedies to the overseas emigration wave, he noted that “the Swede, at the same time as he is a great naturalist, not seldom is a rather poor judge of human nature”.24 Lars Trägårdh has hinted that the theme of “the independence-minded, nature-loving, ‘I-want-to-be-alone’, ‘socially disadvantaged’ Swede”, actually can be traced back further in time, accounted for mainly in foreign travel accounts.25 Susan Sontag is thus one witness in a long tradition of detecting this certain cultural pattern. That nature seems to be the only “object of passion”, while “Swedes easily tire of other human beings”, Sontag confirms by introducing the concept of människotrött (tired of people), that she has been introduced to while in Sweden.26 Thus, Sontag positions herself among those who see this relation to nature as a demand for a safe-haven and escape from other people. She views this relationship to nature as a deep-rooted cultural habit of caring for one’s mental health:

• 28 Ibid. Italics in original text.

16A major manifestation of this longing for peace and quiet in the helm of nature is unquestionably the summer cottage. Sontag mentions how people of all income levels own a boat or a small country house, or both since “their rhythm demands the withdrawal into nature, which house and boat make more feasible. Nature means being as far from people as possible.” Sontag experiences this as a paradox, “in a nation so drastically underpopulated.”28

• 29 Marianne Gullestad, The Art of Social Relations. Essays on Culture, Thought and Social Action in Mo (...)
• 30 Saila Poutiainen, “To Be in Peace and Quiet [”olla rauhassa”] at the Finnish Summer Cottage: A Cult (...)

17The demand for peace and quiet and the fact that summer cottages form such a vital part of Nordic culture is of importance here. Anthropologist Marianne Gullestad has made an explicit claim on this in the case of Norway. Describing a culture of cherishing peace and quiet (fred og ro) as a counter-balance to tension, bother and rush, she points to a national culture of appreciating the home, and with that also the second homes, as a fundamental cultural category and safe space from burdening social life.29 In a new study on Finnish “cottage talk”, Saila Poutiainen convincingly argues for the recurring motive of people not wanting to be disturbed at their summer cottages. With an extensive empirical data taken from media discussion forums, she concludes that the concept of voluntary solitude is understood by many Finns as a holistic experience, and as such almost as a necessity.30

• 31 Pertti & Maarit Alasuutari, Mökkihulluus. Vapaa-ajan asumisen taika ja taito, Rovaniemi, Lapin ylio (...)
• 32 Laura Kolbe, “Unelma kahdesta kodista”, in Suomen kulttuurihistoria 4, Kirsi Saarikangas et al. (ed (...)

18Others have looked into the fact that there are about 500 000 summer cottages in Finland, which roughly means that over half of the 5,5 million population have access to an own second home. The summer cottage culture also implies the economic priority given to such a considerable investment for families, who often live year around in detached houses with plenty of nature nearby.31 The development has been steady, bridging the bourgeoisie villa culture of the late 19^th century with a later cottage culture embraced by the middle classes. The latest trend according to historian Laura Kolbe has been to seek remoter and pristine locations for investing in cottages with high architectural ambitions where, “urbanized people seek a durable relation to nature, own space, and quiet.”32

• 33 Gøsta Esping-Andersen, The Tree Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Princeton, Princeton University Press (...)

19In recent years the concept of statist individualism, as coined by Lars Trägårdh, has emerged as one alternative and culturally based analysis of the features of Nordic society. In short, the main idea is that what we know as the Nordic welfare state model, is not just a massive collective arrangement for providing broad social security and equal opportunity, but also a system that enables the individual citizen to detach oneself from the nearby social relations. As established by the Danish sociologist Gøsta Esping-Andersen in his classic typology of three different welfare regimes, the Nordic social democratic model is characterized by the strong bond between state and individual (Esping-Andersen 1990).33 This means that the broad and often universal state funded benefits are targeted to the individual citizen, and not to the family, as is more often the case in the more conservative continental (and Catholic) welfare regime, that also provides fairly extensive benefits, but in the name of the subsidiary principle leaves agency to families and civil society actors (voluntary organizations, churches, insurance companies, employers).

• 34 Henrik Stenius, “The Good Life is a Life of Conformity: The Impact of Lutheran Tradition on Nordic (...)

20While the Anglo-American capitalist welfare regime is built on a low level of state interference and support scheme, the Nordic model gives prominence to state agency. As Henrik Stenius has suggested, in the Nordic countries the state intervenes, sometimes quite brusquely, by entering “the living room, the kitchen, the larder, the nursery, not to mention the bedroom”, without any considerable and conscious opposition by its citizens.34 By this he refers to state and municipal authorities, ranging from public schools to healthcare and various state funded agencies that over the years have introduced standardized kitchens, obligatory sexual education, nutrition recommendations, and flour treatment for children’s teeth, to mention only a few. The individual from-the-cradle-to-the-grave relationship with the welfare state often bypasses the agency of parents since the individual is protected from potential bad parenthood. Parents can only access medical records of children in their late teens with the child’s consent. And youngsters are expected to establish their own independent adult life at a younger age than in most other parts of the world.

• 35 Lars Trägårdh, “Statist Individualism”, op.cit., p. 255.

21This strong bond between state and individual is based on the principle of decommodification of social relationships. The state provides the opportunity to realize own personal life goals. Free university education, including universal student benefits, makes it easier to disregard potentially harmful pressure imposed by family traditions. Social relations are meant to be based on voluntary preferences, not on a restricting set of pre-established social relations that are hard to overcome. You can choose if, and with whom, you engage socially. Trägårdh sees this as the ‘culturality’ of the Nordic welfare state, and here lies the chicken-or-egg question connected to voluntary solitude and what he refers to as statist individualism. He questions the dominating discourse of a modern and political genesis of the Nordic model social contract and suggest that it “derives far less from the efforts made by ‘rationalizing’ intellectuals than from complex and historically contingent cultural legacies.”35

• 36 https://areena.yle.fi/1-2199726 (15/06/20204).
• 37 Ibid.

22In the TV documentary series, The Norden, produced in 2014 by the Swedish language branch of the Finnish YLE state broadcasting company, this phenomenon is illustrated quite concretely. A young Italian man is given a mic and sent out on the streets of Oslo to stop people to ask them if they know their neighbours. The vast majority gives a negative response, even one person stating “no, why would I, they are not my friends.”36 Only one exception stands out, a young man that says that he knows pretty much everything about his neighbours, but as it turns out he is not Norwegian but British. The conclusion that the series creators, journalists Lasse Grönroos and Joakim Rundt, make is that “happiness for the Nordics is when nobody knocks on your door and demands something from you. Here it is a democratic human right to be let undisturbed.”37

• 38 Susan Sontag, “A Letter”, op. cit., p. 28.
• 39 Stefan Nygård, “The Two Faces of Debt”, in The Politics of Debt and Europe’s Relation to the ‘South (...)

23The emancipation of the individual by extensive welfare measures also creates an expectation that one is to not rely on other fellow citizens. The concept of individual freedom in its Nordic version somehow connects to the idea of not having to depend on others, and to not be a burden to others. To be in debt is then to renounce one’s self-determination. To stand in debt of gratitude is then difficult to include in a sense of personal freedom. Susan Sontag, while working on a film project, was baffled and nearly offended by her Swedish fellow crew members asking if they can borrow a cigarette from her assuring that they will give one back the next day.38 She interprets this difficulty of accepting generosity and to extend it as a deeply rooted fear of being exploited. While in many other cultures being indebted can be understood as a positive relational bond, the Scandinavian word skuld/skyld for debt also means guilt (comp. German Schuld).39 In the Eurozone bailout debates after 2008, many Finnish politicians followed the German lead on hinting the guilt of southern states such as Greece and Italy in failing to meet the austerity measures and having to depend on other member state’s help. This was largely seen as immoral and untrustworthy behaviour by most Finns. And the politicians were swift and accurate in reading this popular sentiment. After all the Finns are taught already in the history classes in school that Finland was the only country that diligently paid off all its war reparations debts.

• 40 Henrik Ibsen, An enemy of the People, London, Stage Door, 2013, p. 77.

24Can we speak about a cultural concept of Nordic happy solitude as one of the features that characterize these societies and its entire population? Given the various examples presented to support this assumption, the contours of a theme can obviously be sketched. Many more examples could be given like the righteous hero Dr. Tomas Stockmann in the final scene of Henrik Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People (1882) when he utters, “let me tell you, that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.”40 In the case of the likes of Henrik Ibsen, we can ask whether his daring societal critique is not just an exemple of naturalist-inspired positioning typical of its time and universal in its essence for the self-fashioning of a public intellectual? And is a possible ideal of the lone, independent, and uncorrupted Homo Nordicus, not afraid to go against the majority’s opinions, just an exclusively male thing?

• 41 Henrik Berggren & Lars Trägårdh, Är svenske människa? Gemenskap och oberoende i det moderna Sverige(...)
• 42 Thomas F. Van Laan, “Ibsen and Nietzsche”, Scandinavian Studies, No 3, 2006, p. 259.

25Lars Trägårdh has together with Henrik Berggren developed the thesis of statist individualism reframing it as a “Swedish theory of love”. Here the chief idea is that true love the Swedish (and Scandinavian) way is to give each other own space, as a sign of love, respect, and genuine understanding of one’s partners innermost needs. In their book with the same title, which is a translation from the original Swedish language edition, they suggest that love in the Nordics is understood as giving own space to one another. They connect the search for true romantic love to “prefect independence”, tracing this idea back to early 19^th century literature, with special refence to Carl Jonas Love Almqvist.41 Both Almqvist and Ibsen challenged societal norms, the former inspired by Rousseau and the latter probably by Nietzsche.42 Female emancipation plays a vital part in the work of both, but still with an exclusive male gaze.

• 44 Sakari Pölönen, “Rakkauden analyytikko”, Helsingin Sanomat, July 10 2023.

27When facing the inevitable and too early end of her life, suffering from cancer, Mari Ruti according to one obituary, deliberately chose to face death alone without even her partner next to her at the death bed.44 Part of her legacy was her self-made academic status, starting from a very humble Finnish family background to gaining a prominent position in the academic world as professor of Critical theory and Gender and Sexuality Studies at The University of Toronto. Assuming she to some extent approached her social reality in North America through her own cultural background, her work and explicit reference to generative solitude as a counterbalance to what she referred to as the hectic life, comes under a special light. As a very strong female voice, she made generative solitude as a positive resource part of her academic legacy.