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In Western Europe, during the Long Nineteenth Century and the Age of Nationalism, states needed to find a way to create loyal, national citizens who would fit a certain ideal. One of the ways that states tried to answer this problem was by educationalizing the making of “future citizens” - socializing children through mass education and a national curriculum. What we intend to do in our paper, is to analyze and compare how two different cases, Austria and Sweden, used national historical narratives to instill a certain sense of historical consciousness that would create the desired citizen while also uniting society at the national level (Friedrich, 2010). The Austrian case analyzes the writing of recent history (in their case, the Austro-Prussian “German” War of 1866 and its aftereffects) in history textbooks published from 1869 until the Interwar Period. This timeframe in particular encompasses the decades during which Austria was coming to terms with its ousting from the German Confederation and subsequent exclusion from a united Germany, as well as the time after which Austria had officially reached nation-state status (after the conclusion of the First World War in 1918). In perusing these textbooks, the role of the national historical narrative as it concerned Austria’s national identity is reconstructed. This is compared, in turn, with the Swedish case which analyzes the writing of a national historical narrative concerning the 18th century (the so called “Age of Liberty” and the reign of Gustav III) in history textbooks published from 1870 until the Interwar Period. The 18th century in Sweden was characterized by disruptions and subversions on several fronts. The national narrative concerning this period will serve as an example of how the Swedish State grappled with the issue of depicting a diverse and complex historical period while at the same time keeping education aimed at national unification and loyalty to the nation-state (Berg & Edquist 2015). T

This dissertation is a study of popular history in Sweden from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s. The aim is to investigate and discuss Peter Englund’s and Herman Lindqvist’s historical accounts and their roles as public historians during the studied period. The study problematizes recurring issues in Sweden’s popular historical tradition, including the balance between cultivation and entertainment, culture and commercialism, academic and journalistic prose, impersonal style and the author as media celebrity. The focus is on the narrative structure of Eng­lund’s and Lindqvist’s historical accounts, the mediated meaning of these accounts, and the mediated meaning of Englund and Lindqvist as popular historians. The analyses show that both Englund and Lindqvist developed a popular history that had its own constitutive character as a response to, and in contrast to, academic history, and it was based on their awareness of history as a public phenomenon. In different ways, both Englund and Lindqvist assent to more existential historical topics that the historical research had a limited interest in and under­­­standing of, such as people's dreams, beliefs and life stories. In Englund’s more academic and complex popular history the appeal to the audience's reason and critical judgement and discernment is central. At the same time, he consistently appeals to the audience's emotions and the commercial success testifies to his ability to also sustain the audience’s interest, benevolence, confidence and sympathy. Lindqvist’s distinctly commercially oriented popular history, on the other hand, primarily involves appealing to the audience’s emotions and sympathy, which are clearly prioritized at the expense of the appeal to reason and critical judgement. If Englund’s historical accounts can be characterized as being criti­­­cally educating and entertaining the audience, Lindqvist’s historical accounts can be characterized as informative entertainment. Among the gener