Geijer, ERIC GUSTAF

Geijer, ERIC GUSTAF, Swedish historian, was born at Ransäter, in Vermland, January 12, 1783. He was sent at sixteen to the university of Upsala, and in 1803 gained the prize awarded by the Academy of Stockholm for the best essay on the Swedish administrator, Sten Sture. From this period he devoted himself to the study of the history of his native country. Beginning to lecture at Upsala in 1810, he was shortly afterwards nominated to a post in the office of the National Archives; in 1815 he was elected assistant-professor, and in 1817 professor of History at Upsala. Geijer exercised a marked influence on the poetic no less than on the historical literature of Sweden. As early as 1810 he, along with several friends, founded the Gothic Society, in whose magazine, the Iduna, first appeared several of Geijer's best poems, and the early cantos of Tegner's Frithiof. Great as is the value of Geijer's historical works, he unfortunately did not complete any one of the vast undertakings which he planned. Thus, of the Seva Rikes Hafder, or Records of Sweden (1825), which were to have embraced the history of his native country from mythical ages to the present time, he finished only the introductory volume. This, however, is a thoroughly good critical inquiry into the sources of legendary Swedish history. His next great work, Svenska Folkets Historia (3 vols. 1832–36), was not carried beyond the death of Queen Christina. To Geijer was entrusted the task of examining and editing the papers which Gustavus III. had bequeathed to the university of Upsala with the stipulation that they were not to be opened for fifty years after his death. They appeared in 1843–46. Geijer died at Stockholm, 23d April 1847. Of his other historical and political works we need only mention specially The Condition of Sweden from the Death of Charles XII. to the Accession of Gustavus III. (1838), and Feudalism and Republicanism (1844). Besides these he edited the continuation of Fant's Scriptores Rerum Suecicarum Medi Evi (1818–25), and Thorild's Samlade Skrifter (1819–25), and, along with Afzelius, a collection of Svenska Folkvisor (1814–16). During the last ten years of his life Geijer took an active part in politics; but, although his political writings possess great merit, the very versatility of his powers diverted him from applying them methodically to the complete elaboration of any one special subject. He was also known to his countrymen as a musician and composer of no mean order. His collected works were published by his son, with a biographical sketch (13 vols. 1849–56; new ed. 1873–75).