SVEN HEDIN

'Sven Anders Hedin' (February 19, 1865 - November 26, 1952) was a Swedish explorer, geographer and geopolitician. His achievements include the production of the first detailed maps of vast parts of Pamir, the Taklamakan Desert, Tibet, the ancient Silk Road, and the Himalayas. He seems to have been the first to realise that the Himalayas are a single mountain range.

Contents

Life

Political views

Expeditions

Selected publications

Bibliography

External links

Life

Hedin was born in Stockholm. Between 1886 and 1892 he studied geology, mineralogy, zoology, and Latin in Stockholm, Uppsala, Berlin, and Halle. He was a student of Ferdinand von Richthofen.
Between his graduation in 1892 and 1935 he led several expeditions to Central Asia. In 1902 he was the last Swede ever to be ennobled with a hereditary title. He became a member of the Swedish Academy in 1913.
Although primarily an explorer, Hedin was also the first to unearth the ruins of ancient Buddhist cities in Chinese Central Asia. In 1899 he discovered the ancient Chinese garrison town of Loulan (Lou-lan) in the Takla-Makan. Many manuscripts unearthed by him at Loulan proved to be of great historical importance.
In his later expeditions he became the first to map large parts of the Tibetan highlands but, like Nikolai Przhevalsky before him, never reached his ultimate goal: the then forbidden city of Lhasa.

Political views

Being a Germanophile since his days of study in Berlin, Hedin was (together with Queen Victoria of Sweden) a strong advocate for a Swedish alliance with Germany during World War I, and he wrote several books about his experiences from journeys along the front lines. This attitude caused him to lose several influential friends in England and the USA, notably Lord Kitchener.
Hedin was a personal friend of Gustav V of Sweden (and his spouse Victoria of Baden) and paid them regular visits. It was he who drafted (together with Carl Bennedich) the so-called ''borggårdstalet'' ("the speech at the royal castle") which was read after the peasant armament support march arrived in the royal castle. In this speech the king denounced Karl Staaff's defence policy, which led to the latter's resignation.
Sven Hedin felt that Soviet Russia posed a great threat to the West, and this may be part of the reason why he supported and admired Adolf Hitler (who in turn admired him) before and during the Third Reich. The original publication of his book "Germany and World Peace" was funded by the German government, but the text included the following lines:
:''In my blood, every sixteenth drop is of Jewish origin. I cherish this sixteenth drop and I do not want to lose it.'' (Wallström 1983:265)
The book was banned in Germany. Although it has never been proved that Hedin supported Nazi Germany and National Socialism, it is known that he was in contact with Hitler and other prominent Nazi-politicians, and was well aware of the Nazi concentration camps (Danielsson 2005).

Expeditions

★ 1885-1886 First journey to Russia, the Caucasus, Persia, Iraq, and Turkey.

★ 1890-1891 Second journey to Persia and Central Asia

★ 1893-1897 Central Asia. Whilst crossing the Taklamakan Desert only Hedin and two members of his four men crew survived. Tibet and finally Beijing.

★ 1899-1902 Central Asia. Mapping of Tibet. He also unsuccessfully tried to reach Lhasa.

★ 1905-1909 Third expedition to Central Asia, particularly the Himalayas, where he spent significant time in Tibet, where he probably was the first to discover the Trans-Himalaya mountain system.

★ 1914 Toured German military positions in Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg.

★ 1926-1935 The so-called ''Sino-Swedish Expedition'' (partly sponsored by the German government and the airline Lufthansa) to the Gobi Desert and Mongolia. During this time, he also met Chiang Kai-shek, whom he found to be an impressing personality.

Selected publications

★ 1887 ''A Journey Through Persia and Mesopotamia''

★ 1891 ''Konung Oscars beskickning till Schahen af Persien, år 1890'' (in Swedish)

★ 1898 ''Through Asia''

★ 1903 ''In Asia''

★ 1904-1907 Co-author of ''Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia 1899-1902''

★ 1909 ''Transhimalaya''

★ 1914 ''With the German armies in the West'' (English translation published in England in 1915).

★ 1925 ''My Life as an Explorer''

★ 1934 ''A Conquest of Tibet''

★ 1949 ''Ohne Auftrag in Berlin'' (En: 'Without orders in Berlin'), Buenos Aires

Bibliography

★ Wallström, T. 1983. ''Svenska upptäckare''. Bra böcker, Höganäs.

★ Brennecke, Detlef. ''Sven Hedin''. rororo Bildmonographie, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1986 (ISBN 3-499-50355-7).

★ Danielsson, S.K. 2005: ''The Intellectual Unmasked: Sven Hedin's Political Life from Pan-Germanism to National Socialism'', dissertation, Minessota 2005

External links

★ Excellent biography also listing publications and further literature