Academic Racism in Sweden in the First Half of XX Century: Creation and Activities of the State Institute of Racial Biology

Abstract

The article considers the creation and functioning of the first in the history of the State Institute of Racial Biology in Sweden, in Uppsala, in the 1920-1950s and became the brainchild of the country's Social Democratic Party, which was gaining strength at that time, and a group of influential public figures, like the famous scientist Svante Arrhenius. The appearance of racial biology as a direction of scientific research in the late XIX - early XX centuries, which was framed in the works of Anders Retzius, Gustav Retzius, Francis Galton, Alfred Pletz, who became ideological followers of Joseph Arthur de Gobino, father of the Aryan racial theory is traced. Particular attention is paid to the ideological principles that laid the foundation for the institute, as well as the practical results of its activities. Particular attention was paid to the activities of Herman Lundborg as the head of the institute and the promoter of academic racism in the country - his lectures, publications and the dissemination of his ideas in Sweden. The reasons for the transformation of the institute in the mid-1930s, its evolution as a research institution in the 1940s, and then the extinction of activity up to its abolition as an independent institution are examined.