What is the Dictionary of Swedish National Biography?

The Dictionary of Swedish National Biography is a biographical dictionary that was first published in 1917. This dictionary is a general list, based on first-hand sources, of significant people and their achievements at various stages in the development of Swedish society.

The Dictionary of Swedish National Biography is part of Riksarkivet, the National Archives of Sweden, and its publication is financed by Government funding. 34 volumes have been published up to 2019. Each volume comprises 800 pages, and to date more than 9 000 family and individual biographies have been published, spanning some 27 200 pages and so making the Dictionary of Swedish National Biography one of the biggest reference works in the Nordic countries.

The Dictionary of Swedish National Biography is an outstanding aid for historians, sociologists, teachers, librarians, journalists, students, family and local researchers, etc.

Who is included?

The Dictionary of Swedish National Biography includes people who have been active in Sweden, or who have acted for Sweden abroad. Biographies are given only for deceased people, although people still living were also included up to volume 10.

"Sweden" refers to the boundaries of our nation throughout history. This means that people active in Finland up to 1809 are included. People active in the Baltic and Northern German areas which formed part of the Swedish nation are included for the period over which these areas belonged to Sweden. However, people active in Norway over the period 1814-1905 are not included as Norway was in union with Sweden at that time. In other words, Norway was merely part of a union and not part of the Swedish nation. People active in the Danish areas which became Swedish in the 17th century are included from the time these areas were incorporated in the Swedish nation.

In chronological terms, the Dictionary of Swedish National Biography covers more or less the period that is covered by written source material. It is possible to study the fates of individuals in these written sources. Biographies are given for only a handful of people who were active before AD 1000.

In professional terms, the achievements of individuals have the most influence when it comes to their selection, and not their titles or positions. That said, kings, queens, prime ministers, archbishops and field marshals are included throughout. Otherwise the public achievements of people in their lifetimes are evaluated, or else how significant these achievements are to posterity is considered.

Individual biographies

Each individual biography comprises elements for which the editorial team is responsible and elements for which an externally recruited author is responsible. The editorial team produces the basic facts at the start of every biography. These details are verified with primary sources as far as possible. The details include when and where the person in the biography was born and died, the names of his or her parents, the name of his or her spouse and biographical information on the person. A list of qualifications is also compiled, to include the person's education and career. This provides precise dates of degrees and awards. These details are also gleaned from primary sources. No other biographical reference work in Sweden verifies its details in this very precise manner.

Specialists in the field in question are engaged as authors for the biographies in the first instance. In many cases, this leads to new research carried out by qualified experts in various fields being presented in the biographies.

The biographies end with a brief account of the archive and letters left by the person in the biography, along with an exhaustive list of printed works produced by the bibliographer on the editorial team. There is also a list of sources and references for the biography which provides tips on further reading on the person in the biography.

Family biographies

These biographies are written by the editors at the Dictionary of Swedish National Biography and provide information on the origins of the family and how the family members discussed in separate individual biographies are related to one another. They also provide brief biographies of people who do not warrant biographies of their own but who have been considered worthy of mention. There are also independent family biographies which have no links to separate individual biographies. If the family relationships are difficult to graph and there are many family members, the editorial team prepares family trees.

Checking facts

When family biographies and lists of qualifications are prepared, as many details as possible are checked against first-hand sources. It appears that there is a lot of inaccurate information and even outright errors in biographical and genealogical literature. These are being corrected little by little in the Dictionary of Swedish National Biography. Errors may even occur occasionally in the Dictionary of Swedish National Biography, and so each volume ends with corrections and additions.