Med fötterna i det nya och det gamla : Lars Johan Hiertas syn på social och ekonomisk frihet i Aftonbladet och Riddarhuset år 1830–1835

Sammanfattning

In writing the history of the modernising of Sweden in the middle of the 19th century, the liberal editor and publisher Lars Johan Hierta has gotten a prominent role. His newspaper Aftonbladet founded in 1830 has become a symbol for the new classical liberal free press. One aspect of Hierta as a political figure that has been largely overlooked within previous research is that he was also a member of parliament in Riddarhuset, the state of the nobility in Sweden. Aftonbladet has within previous research also been described as a central institution in, what Habermas has described as, the new public sphere in Sweden. Riddarhuset can also be described as a part of the old representative culture that according to Habermas preceded the new public sphere. This study aims to analyse how Hierta adjusted his advocation for social and economic freedom after Aftonbladet and Riddarhuset as contexts. In doing so the study also seeks to describe the state the new public sphere and the old representative culture in Sweden in the 1830s, a topic that has been frequently debated in previous historical research. The study finds that Hierta had to adjust to the aristocratic conception of virtue in Riddarhuset, while he described the nobility as the main villain of society when writing in Aftonbladet. The study also finds that the representative culture and the new public sphere were historical contexts that existed side by side in the 1830s. But actors like Hierta moved between the two spheres, and brought ideas and concepts from the new public sphere into Riddarhuset which can be seen as the beginning of the crumbling of the old representative culture.