Ellen Hagen

1873-1967.

Women's rights activist, publicist and politician.

Ellen Hagen initiated the formation of the Uppsala Women's Suffrage Association in 1902 and was its president until 1923. Hagen was one of the foremost advocates of women's suffrage in Sweden. She was married to Robert Hagen, who was County Governor of Gävleborg County from 1918 to 1922.

She was also one of the initiators of the National Association for Women's Political Suffrage, and one of the founders of Frisinnade kvinnor 1914. Hagen was chairman of the Swedish People's Party Women's Association 1938-1946 and of the Swedish Women's Civic Association 1936-1963.

Ellen Hagen also participated in international peace and suffrage work and was a Swedish delegate at the disarmament conference in Paris in 1931.

 

Burial site: 0103-1967

Image description: Ellen Hagen, unknown year. Photo: Länsmuseet Gävleborg. [The image is cropped]
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Fadime Sahindal

1975-2002.

Front figure against honorary oppression.

Fadime Sahindal, who was of Turkish-Kurdish origin, came to Sweden with her family in the early 1980s. As a student, she studied social work in Sundsvall and Östersund.

In her 20s, she started a relationship, which was not accepted by relatives. After harassment and threats from male relatives, Sahindal filed a police report and contacted the media. It was in this context that she became known to the public.

She became a symbol for other immigrant women in similar situations. At a seminar on integration issues in Parliament in 2001, she criticized the cultural patterns of certain immigrant groups and also the inability of society to support women in similar situations.

During a visit to the home on January 21, 2002, Fadime Sahindal was murdered. The father was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.

Representatives of Kurdish organizations and other immigrant groups in Sweden strongly condemned the murder of Fadime Sahindal.

Since then, several organizations, networks and funds have been set up to support vulnerable migrant women and the subsequent debate focused on honour killings and lack of support for migrant women.

Among the large number of people attending the funeral service in Uppsala Cathedral on February 5, 2002 were representatives of the government and the royal family.

 

Burial site: 0313-0861

Image description: Fadime Sahindal, 1998. Photo: Eva Tedesjö / IBLThe image is cropped]
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Helena Nyblom

1843-1926.

Author.

Helena Nyblom was one of the most prolific and popular fairy tale poets at the turn of the century.

She was born in Copenhagen in 1843, the daughter of Jørgen Roed and Emilia Amanda Kruse. Her father was a painter and professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, and her mother had an interest in ancient art and literature. Helena Nyblom thus grew up in a home characterized by intellectuality and aesthetics.

She met her future husband in Rome and they moved to Uppsala, where their home soon became a gathering place for artistically minded people from all over the Nordic region.

Nyblom published a number of short stories and poetry collections, but her real literary breakthrough came in the late 1890s with her fairy tales.

Nyblom converted to Catholicism in 1895, which was both noticed and criticized in the media.

Helena Nyblom was an active debater in the women's movement and also a cultural writer for magazines such as Nordisk tidskrift, Ny svensk tidskrift, Ord och bild and Idun.

In 1922, the autobiographical work Mina levnadsminnen was published.

John Bauer's illustration from 1913, for Helena Nyblom's "The changelings" in "Among gnomes and trolls". Photo: Wikimedia commons.

Vershuset on Östra Ågatan 65 in Uppsala. The Nyblom family lived in the house from 1864 onwards. Photo: Arild Vågen / Wikimedia commons.

Burial site: 0112-0574

Image description: Helena Nyblom, Stockholm ca 1870- ca 1880. Waldemar Dahllöf / UUBThe image is cropped]
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Hildur Ottelin

1866-1927.

Housing inspector, municipal politician, physical education teacher.

After graduating from the Gymnastics Institute in Stockholm in 1893, Hildur Ottelin moved to Skolgatan 10 in Uppsala and lived there for a time with her brother. For several years she worked as a physical education teacher and physiotherapist at Lindska skolan and Anna Wikström's trade school for blind women.

In 1903, Ottelin invested in two farms at Stamgatan (today's Geijersgatan) 7 and 10 with the intention of renting out housing and settled herself in number 10. A year later, she bought land from vicar Otto Myrberg in Rickomberga, which was later sold cheaply to working-class families, and together they formed a housing association, Rickomberga Egna Hem, of which she was managing director from 1904 to 1923.

Later, Ottelin became a housing inspector under the Board of Health and in 1912 she became the first woman to become a member of the City Council when she was elected for the Social Democrats. Similarly, Ottelin also became the first woman in the county council chamber.

As a politician, she became known for her many controversial proposals and her involvement in housing and elderly issues. Hildur Ottelin continued to be involved in municipal affairs until her death.

Since 1950, a street in Uppsala, in the Rickomberga area, bears her name.

 

Burial site: 0148-1933

Image description: Hildur Ottelin, ca 1916- ca 1927 Photo: Klara Hacksell / UUBThe image is cropped]
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Hans Järta

1774-1847.

Civil servant, politician, author.

Hans Järta (originally Baron Hans Hierta) became a student in Uppsala at the age of 13, an official in the Cabinet for Foreign Correspondence at the age of 18, and a secretary in the Judicial Audit Department four years later.

At the age of eighteen, Järta was hanging out with the men in the conspiracy against King Gustav III. Järta was at the masquerade ball in 1792 when the shot against Gustav III was fired. Afterwards, Järta gave some misleading information about the shooting, but there is only circumstantial evidence as to whether he was involved in the actual assassination plan. Nor was he ever accused of involvement in the murder.

Järta renounced both his nobility and his parliamentary position at the Riksdag in 1800 in protest against Gustav IV Adolf and the monarchical autocracy and took the name Järta (the family name was Hierta).

Järta was one of the men behind the 1809 coup d'état and, after the king's abdication, was one of the leaders in the Riksdag that year. He was secretary to the Constitutional Committee during the drafting of the 1809 Constitution.

Järta was also governor of Kopparbergs län 1812-1822, a member of the Swedish Academy in 1819 and moved to Uppsala in 1825 where he worked as a writer. In Uppsala, Järta held a literary salon, which competed with Malla Silfverstolpe's salon.

Järta later became head of the National Archives from 1837-1844.

The tall gravestone that adorns the cemetery refers to his son of the same name, who died as a young student in 1825.

 

Burial site: 0112-0588

Image description: Hans Järta. Photo: From Emil Hildebrand, History of Sweden up to the twentieth century, vol 9 (1910) / Wikimedia Commons. [The image is cropped]
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Ann Margret Holmgren

1850-1940.

Author, feminist.

Ann Margret Holmgren was one of the leaders of the women's movement for suffrage and peace. In the early 1900s, she became increasingly involved in women's issues through Ellen Kay and Lydia Wahlström.

Holmgren participated in the formation of the Association for Women's Political Suffrage in 1902 and traveled around the country, agitating and lecturing on the issue of suffrage until universal suffrage was decided in the Riksdag in 1919.

Holmgren was vice-chairman of the Swedish Women's Peace Association and one of the founders of the Swedish Women's Civic Federation in 1921.

She published pamphlets related to the suffrage movement and also published life drawings in the books Pionjärer (1928-1930) and Minnen och tidsbilder (1926).

 

Burial site: 0125-1141

Image description: Ann Margret Holmgren, unknown year. Photo: Unknown photographer / Stockholm City Museum. [The image is cropped]
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Dag Hammarskjöld

1905-1961.

Official, Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Dag Hammarskjöld grew up in Uppsala, where his father, Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, was governor. From 1936 to 1945, Hammarskjöld was State Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, moving to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1946.

In 1947-1948 he was a Swedish delegate to the OEEC negotiations, Cabinet Secretary in 1949-1951, and Consultative Minister in 1951-1953. Hammarskjöld was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1953 and the following year succeeded his father as a member of the Swedish Academy.

Hammarskjöld's leadership skills were necessary to streamline the complex UN organization, and his personal integrity, diplomatic skills and commitment to the UN idea gave authority to his role as Secretary-General.

Dag Hammarskjöld died in 1961 in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the same year.

In 1963 his diary entries were published under the title Vägmärken. In the Peace Chapel in Uppsala Cathedral there is a memorial stone with the inscription:

 

Not I but God in me Dag Hammarskjöld 1905-1961.

 

Burial site: 0116-0834C

Image description: Dag Hammarskjöld, 1959 New York, USA. Photo: United NationsThe image is cropped]
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