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Literature and the Railroad: The Term “Järnvägsbibliotek” [Railroad Library] in Swedish 19th-Century Newspapers The 19th century saw the emergence of modern literary institutions in Sweden, and publishing and distribution of literature developed rapidly. Simultaneously, Swedish society was quickly modernized. Industrialization, urbanization and emigration were large-scale processes that transformed everyday life and the social patterns of the country. Not surprisingly, 19th century Swedish literature came to deal with these changes. However, distribution and consumption of literature were also affected by new techniques. In this article, the effects of the new railroads upon literature are studied. The analysis is based on the concept of “järnvägsbibliotek” (“railroad library”) and its use in 19th century Swedish newspapers. This term had several different meanings. It could refer to actual libraries, i.e., book collections, available to travelers at the train stations. But it could also mean literature published or re-published in cheap booklets. The creation of these book collections and booklet series was of course a direct effect of modernization. But they were also mobilized in the struggle against phenomena that were perceived as negative effects of the modern changes in society, such as social unrest, alcoholism and emigration. Journalists and policy makers hoped that a wider distribution of literature could have a morally edifying effect on the population. The instrumental values of literature were put first. With the right selection of literature, and under the supervision of librarians and publishers with appropriate competence for the purpose, the “järnvägsbibliotek” (“railroad libraries”) were championed as a way to curb the social unrest that came with the modernization of 19th-century Swedish society.

The lack of a local Jewish community did not prevent medieval Swedish clerics and lay people from being interested in Jews and Jewish questions. They bought, translated, read and preached from most of the available textual sources and thus spread the widely available views of the hermeneutical Jew: a cruel, stubborn and ugly person and at the same time a cipher for the entire Jewish people both in biblical times and today. This article gives an overview of the Latin and vernacular manuscripts with anti-Jewish motifs and texts and shows that the main and most common textual models and motifs were available in Swedish libraries and collections, from legends via apocryphal texts to fake disputations – adding up to a relatively complete ‘hermeneutical Jew’. A focus was, as in the rest of Europe, on Passion-related piety, which was the most common form of piety in the late Middle Ages – and usually connected with distinct anti-Jewish features. The fact that we can establish direct and indirect textual and narrative lines of tradition between the medieval codices and modern printed booklets of the nineteenth century proves the long-lasting intelligibility of anti-Jewish stereotypes in Sweden – developed and spread completely independently from the Jewish minority. The medieval perspective thus adds a much-needed nuance to the debate about antisemitism in the North: it did not need any actual Jews; it simply made up its own, based on the general Christian tradition.