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Ulf Zander is a Full Professor of History at Lund UniversityThe Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg was responsible for saving the lives of thousands of Jews in Budapest between 1944 and 1945. He is recognised by the Israeli state as one of the Righteous among the Nations. This book examines both Wallenberg’s activities during the Holocaust and the ways posterity has remembered him. It explores secret Swedish diplomacy and how Wallenberg was transformed over time into a Swedish brand. It considers the political aspects of Wallenberg’s Americanisation and analyses his portrayals in music, film and television. Representations of Wallenberg as a monument are discussed with special reference to Swedish and Hungarian examples. The question of how Wallenberg’s memory can and should be kept alive in future is an essential issue related to the politics of memory.
An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.
1 Raoul Wallenberg: an evolving history
2 Raoul Wallenberg, the War Refugee Board and the Holocaust in Hungary
3 The Scarlet Pimpernel: from the French Revolution to the 1970s in Chile
4 Raoul Wallenberg and Sweden: from bone of contention to brand
5 The Americanization of Raoul Wallenberg
6 The immortalized Raoul Wallenberg
7 The history-cultural Raoul Wallenberg
Index
This book examines Raoul Wallenberg’s activities during the Second World War, and looks at how his disappearance was handled during the Cold War and after the fall of the Berlin Wall in Sweden, Hungary, and the USA.
While Raoul Wallenberg: Life and legacy discusses important events in the life of the Swedish diplomat, it is not a traditional biography. Starting out from Wallenberg’s time in Budapest in 1944-45, the book analyses how he went from being a highly sensitive issue in Swedish politics to becoming a personification of humanitarian effort during the Holocaust, as well as a Swedish foreign-policy brand. Fictional portrayals of Raoul Wallenberg are another essential feature: in looking at the many ways in which his life has been represented in monuments, on opera stages, in a television serial, and in a feature film, it becomes obvious that scholarly historical perspectives have not set the agenda for engagement with Wallenberg. Finally, the study raises a vital issue: in what ways can Wallenberg’s memory be kept alive when the distance to those events with which he was so powerfully connected recede into the distance?
Based on comprehensive source materials, this book provides new, evidence-based knowledge of Swedish, Hungarian, and American diplomacy and foreign policy while paying attention to national perspectives. It contributes to timely new interpretations of Raoul Wallenberg as a symbol and a brand.