Anders Chydenius
Anders Chydenius, or in other words the Scandinavian Adam Smith, was a Fin-Swedish politician, economist, priest and a member of the Swedish parliament. He was one of the most significant politicians during the 18th century in the Fin-Swedish society where Finland at that time belonged to Sweden.
Chydenius had a strong belief in freedom, democracy and the human value. He meant that they had an imporant role in order to create a better society. During his time in the Swedish parliament he demanded free trade, free labor, freedom of the press and much more. We should also not forget that, even if he was a priest of the swedish church, he believed in religious freedom.
He was mainly more radical than the other politicians since he often took up the essence, the important questions which often were hidden behind the scenses of the powers. Chydenius' influence is based in his succinctly way of writing. His works are still readable, something that cannot be done with most of the political publications during the same epoch.
For more information about Anders Chydenius, please visit:
http://www.chydenius.net/historia/elama/r_johdanto.asp
Eng: http://www.chydenius.net/eng/index.asp
My first question to myself is, why don't we read about this person in school? I mean, from what I've been reading he seems like a quite important person in the Swedish history, and nobody have even mentioned him in those all years I've been in school.
The fact that we don't really know very much how the process of the enlightment was in Sweden when it comes to people is kind of funny. We read a lot about the French revolution, the industrial revolution etc, since they were more important. But we read very little about how it was in Sweden.
In my opinion, I think that history that have affected you a lot, are the most interesting history to read. When you read about that kind of thing, you can somethimes feel like you are not really reading history, but you're reading somebody's diary.
// Erik B.
Well don't you think that if you search trough the history you could find a alot of interesting people you havn't heard about, but what do you think make this man so special?
If we only read about our swedish history don't you think that it would be kind of boring. And would we then really understand why it is in a certain way in Sweden if we only were taught about the history that concern us?
I see what you mean.
Yes, history would be very boring if we would only read about Swedish history. But I still think we should at least get to know something about Sweden. Not to focus on it, only to ge an image of it.
Otherwise, this person seem to be at least a bit significant for the Swedish way to democracy. So I wonder why we havn't talked about him. But that's because we do not really focus on Swedish history. And I can undestand that. It didn't really happen much in all those early years in Sweden.
