Astrid Lindgren (full name Astrid Anna Emilia) was born in 1907. She spent her childhood on a farm in a peasant family.

After graduating from school, she worked in a local newspaper, then moved to Stockholm and entered the school of secretaries. On December 4, 1926, her son Lars was born. Astrid Erickson married five years later, Lindgren is her husband's surname. She returned to work only in 1937, when Lars was 11, and his sister Karin was three years old. In 1941, the Lindgren family moved to a new apartment in Dalagatan (a district of Stockholm), where Astrid lived until her death (January 28, 2002).

It was the fairy tale that made her popular - "Pippi Longstocking" (in the original Pippi, but for some reason she became Pippi in most Russian translations), Astrid Lindgren wrote her as a gift to her daughter in 1944. The book instantly became popular, it was awarded several prizes, and the publishers quickly explained to the author that you can make a living from literature.

Her first books, Britt-Marie Eases the Heart (1944) and Pippi Longstocking Part 1 (1945-1952), broke the didactic and sentimentalist tradition of Swedish children's literature, as literary critics like to say.

It is noteworthy that worldwide recognition for a long time could not reconcile the author with the Swedish State Commission on Children's and Educational Literature. From the point of view of official educators, Lindgren's tales were wrong: not instructive enough.

In 1951, Sturr Lindgren, the writer's husband, died. Astrid left children and fairy tales:

Since the early 1970s, books written by Astrid Lindgren have consistently topped the list of most popular books for children. Her works have been published in 58 languages. And they even say that if the entire circulation of Astrid Lindgren's books is put in a vertical stack, then it will be 175 times higher than the Eiffel Tower.

In 1957, Lindgren became the first children's writer to receive the Swedish State Prize for Literary Achievement. Astrid was hit with so many awards and prizes that it is simply impossible to list them all. Among the most important: the Hans Christian Andersen Prize, which is called the "small Nobel Prize", the Lewis Carroll Prize, UNESCO and various government awards, the Silver Bear (for the film "Ronnie the Robber's Daughter").

One of the minor planets was named after Astrid Lindgren, she was awarded awards and prizes from many countries of the world. The children's writer became the first woman to whom a monument was erected during her lifetime - it is located in the center of Stockholm, and Astrid was present at the grand opening ceremony. Not so long ago, the Swedes called their compatriot "the woman of the century", and last year the first museum of Astrid Lindgren was opened in Sweden.

In the 1980-90s, the writer played an important role in the political life of the country, becoming a voluntary defender of the rights of children and animals.

The most famous works of Astrid Lindgren.

Pippi Longstocking - 1945

Mio, my Mio! - 1954

Kid and Carlson, who lives on the roof - 1955

Carlson, who lives on the roof, flew in again - 1962

Carlson reappears, who lives on the roof - 1968

The famous detective Kalle Blumkvist - 1946

Rasmus the Tramp - 1956

Emil from Lenneberga - 1963

New tricks of Emil from Lenneberga - 1966

Emil from Lenneberg is still alive - 1970

We are on Saltkroka Island - 1964

Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren (Swed. Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren, nee Ericsson, Swedish Ericsson) is a Swedish writer, author of a number of world-famous books for children.

As Lindgren herself pointed out in the collection of autobiographical essays My Fictions (1971), she grew up in the age of "horse and cabriolet". The family's main means of transportation was a horse-drawn carriage, the pace of life was slower, entertainment was simpler, and the relationship with the natural environment was much closer than it is today. Such an environment contributed to the development of the writer's love for nature - all Lindgren's work is imbued with this feeling, from eccentric stories about the pirate's daughter Pippi Longstocking to the story of Ronnie, the robber's daughter.
Astrid Eriksson was born on November 14, 1907 in southern Sweden, in the small town of Vimmerby in the province of Småland (Kalmar county), into a farming family. She became the second child of Samuel August Eriksson and his wife Hannah. My father farmed on a rented farm in Ness, a pastoral estate on the very outskirts of the town. Together with his older brother, Gunnar, three sisters grew up in the family - Astrid, Stina and Ingegerd. The writer herself always called her childhood happy (there were many games and adventures, interspersed with work on the farm and in its environs) and pointed out that it was this that served as a source of inspiration for her work. Astrid's parents not only had a deep affection for each other and for the children, but also did not hesitate to show it, which was rare at that time. The writer spoke about the special relationship in the family with great sympathy and tenderness in her only book not addressed to children, Samuel August from Sevedstorp and Hanna from Hult (1973).
The beginning of creative activity
As a child, Astrid Lindgren was surrounded by folklore, and many jokes, fairy tales, stories that she heard from her father or from friends later formed the basis of her own works. Love for books and reading, as she later admitted, arose in the kitchen of Christine, with whom she was friends. It was Christine who introduced Astrid to the amazing, exciting world that one could get into by reading fairy tales. The impressionable Astrid was shocked by this discovery, and later mastered the magic of the word herself.
Her abilities became apparent already in elementary school, where Astrid was called "Wimmerbün Selma Lagerlöf", which, in her own opinion, she did not deserve.

Astrid Lindgren in 1924
After school, at the age of 16, Astrid Lindgren started working as a journalist for the local newspaper Wimmerby Tidningen. But two years later, she became pregnant, unmarried, and, leaving her position as a junior reporter, went to Stockholm. There she completed secretarial courses and in 1931 found a job in this specialty. In December 1926, her son Lars was born. Since there was not enough money, Astrid had to give her beloved son to Denmark, to the family of foster parents. In 1928, she got a job as a secretary at the Royal Automobile Club, where she met Sture Lindgren. They married in April 1931, and after that, Astrid was able to take Lars home.
Years of creativity
After her marriage, Astrid Lindgren decided to become a housewife in order to devote herself entirely to caring for Lars, and then for her daughter Karin, who was born in 1934. In 1941, the Lindgrens moved into an apartment overlooking Stockholm's Vasa Park, where the writer lived until her death. Occasionally taking on secretarial work, she wrote travel descriptions and rather banal tales for family magazines and advent calendars, which gradually honed her literary skills.
According to Astrid Lindgren, "Pippi Longstocking" (1945) was born primarily thanks to her daughter Karin. In 1941, Karin fell ill with pneumonia, and every night Astrid told her all sorts of stories before going to bed. Once a girl ordered a story about Pippi Longstocking - she invented this name right there, on the go. So Astrid Lindgren began to compose a story about a girl who does not obey any conditions. Since Astrid then defended the idea of ​​​​education taking into account child psychology, which was new for that time and caused heated debate, the challenge to conventions seemed to her an interesting thought experiment. If we consider the image of Pippi in a generalized way, then it is based on the innovative ideas that appeared in the 1930s and 40s in the field of child education and child psychology. Lindgren followed and participated in the controversy unfolding in society, advocating education that would take into account the thoughts and feelings of children and thus show respect for them. The new approach to children also affected her creative style, as a result of which she became an author who consistently speaks from the point of view of a child. After the first story about Pippi, which Karin fell in love with, Astrid Lindgren over the next years told more and more evening tales about this red-haired girl. On Karin's tenth birthday, Astrid Lindgren wrote down several stories in shorthand, from which she compiled a book of her own making (with illustrations by the author) for her daughter. This original manuscript of "Pippi" was less carefully finished stylistically and more radical in its ideas. The writer sent one copy of the manuscript to Bonnier, the largest Stockholm publishing house. After some deliberation, the manuscript was rejected. Astrid Lindgren was not discouraged by the refusal, she already realized that composing for children was her calling. In 1944, she took part in a competition for the best book for girls, announced by the relatively new and little-known publishing house Raben and Sjogren. Lindgren received the second prize for Britt-Marie Pours Out Her Soul (1944) and a publishing contract for it. In 1945, Astrid Lindgren was offered the position of editor of children's literature at the publishing house Raben and Sjögren. She accepted this offer and worked in one place until 1970, when she officially retired. All of her books were published by the same publishing house. Despite being extremely busy and combining editorial work with household chores and writing, Astrid turned out to be a prolific writer: if you count picture books, a total of about eighty works came out of her pen. The work was especially productive in the 1940s and 1950s. Between 1944 and 1950 alone, Astrid Lindgren wrote a trilogy about Pippi Longstocking, two stories about children from Bullerby, three books for girls, a detective story, two collections of fairy tales, a collection of songs, four plays and two picture books. As you can see from this list, Astrid Lindgren was an unusually versatile author, willing to experiment in a wide variety of genres. In 1946, she published the first story about the detective Kalle Blomkvist (“Kalle Blomkvist plays”), thanks to which she won first prize in a literary competition (Astrid Lindgren did not participate in competitions anymore). In 1951, a sequel followed, “Kalle Blomkvist risks” (both stories were published in Russian in 1959 under the title “The Adventures of Kalle Blomkvist”), and in 1953 - the final part of the trilogy, “Kalle Blomkvist and Rasmus” (was translated into Russian in 1986). With Kalle Blumqvist, the writer wanted to replace cheap thrillers that glorified violence for her readers. In 1954, Astrid Lindgren wrote the first of her three fairy tales - "Mio, my Mio!" (trans. 1965). This emotional, dramatic book combines the techniques of heroic tale and fairy tale, and tells the story of Boo Wilhelm Olsson, the unloved and neglected son of foster parents. Astrid Lindgren has repeatedly resorted to fairy tales and fairy tales, touching on the fate of lonely and abandoned children (this was the case before “Mio, my Mio!”). To bring comfort to children, to help them overcome difficult situations - this task was not the last thing that moved the work of the writer. In the next trilogy - “The Kid and Carlson, who lives on the roof” (1955; transl. 1957), “Carlson, who lives on the roof, flew in again” (1962; trans. 1965) and “Carlson, who lives on the roof, plays pranks again ”(1968; transl. 1973) - the fantasy hero of a non-evil sense is again acting. This “moderately well-fed”, infantile, greedy, boastful, puffed up, self-pitying, self-centered, although not without charm little man lives on the roof of the apartment building where the Kid lives. As Baby's imaginary friend, he is a much less wonderful image of childhood than the unpredictable and carefree Pippi. The kid is the youngest of three children in the most ordinary family of the Stockholm bourgeoisie, and Carlson enters his life in a very specific way - through the window, and he does it every time the kid feels superfluous, bypassed or humiliated, in other words, when the boy feels sorry for himself . In such cases, his compensatory alter ego appears - in all respects, "the best in the world" Carlson, who makes the Kid forget about troubles. Film adaptations and theatrical productions In 1969, the acclaimed Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm staged Carlson, who lives on the roof, which was unusual for that time. Since then, dramatizations based on books by Astrid Lindgren have been constantly staged in both large and small theaters in Sweden, Scandinavia, Europe and the United States of America. A year before the performance in Stockholm, the performance about Carlson was shown on the stage of the Moscow Satire Theater, where he is still being played (this character is very popular in Russia). If on a global scale, the work of Astrid Lindgren attracted attention primarily due to theatrical performances, then in Sweden, films and television series based on her works contributed a lot to the writer's fame. The stories about Kalle Blumkvist were the first to be filmed - the premiere of the film took place on Christmas Day 1947. Two years later, the first of four films about Pippi Longstocking appeared. From the 1950s to the 1980s, renowned Swedish director Ulle Hellbum created a total of 17 films based on Astrid Lindgren's books. Hellbum's visual interpretations, with their inexpressible beauty and receptivity to the writer's word, have become classics of Swedish cinema for children. Public activity During the years of her literary activity, Astrid Lindgren earned more than one million crowns by selling the rights to publish her books and their film adaptations, to release audio and video cassettes, and later also CDs with recordings of her songs or literary works in her own performance, but she did not change her way of life at all. From the 1940s, she lived in the same - rather modest - apartment in Stockholm and preferred not to accumulate wealth, but to distribute money to others. Unlike many Swedish celebrities, she was not even averse to transferring a significant part of her income to the Swedish tax authorities. Only once, in 1976, when they collected tax amounted to 102% of her profits, Astrid Lingren protested. On March 10 of the same year, she went on the offensive, sending an open letter to the Stockholm newspaper Expressen, in which she told a fairy tale about a certain Pomperipossa from Monismania. In this fairy tale for adults, Astrid Lindgren took the position of a profane or naive child (as Hans Christian Andersen did before her in The King's New Clothes) and, using it, tried to expose the vices of society and universal pretense. In the year of parliamentary elections, this fairy tale became an almost naked, crushing attack on the bureaucratic, self-satisfied and self-interested apparatus of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, which had been in power for over 40 years in a row. Although at first the writer took up arms and tried to ridicule her Minister of Finance Gunnar Strang, heated debates followed, the tax law was changed, and (as many believe, not without the help of Astrid Lindgren) the Social Democrats were defeated in the autumn elections to the Riksdag. The writer herself was a member of the Social Democratic Party all her adult life - and remained in its ranks after 1976. And she objected primarily to the distance from the ideals that Lindgren remembered from her youth. When she was once asked what path she would have chosen for herself if she had not become a famous writer, she answered without hesitation that she would like to take part in the social democratic movement of the initial period. The values ​​and ideals of this movement played - together with humanism - a fundamental role in the character of Astrid Lindgren. Her inherent desire for equality and caring attitude towards people helped the writer overcome the barriers erected by her high position in society. She treated everyone with the same cordiality and respect, whether it was a Swedish prime minister, a foreign head of state, or one of her child readers. In other words, Astrid Lindgren lived according to her convictions, which is why she became the subject of admiration and respect, both in Sweden and abroad. Lindgren's open letter with the tale of Pomperipossa was so influential because by 1976 she was not just a famous writer: she was not only famous in Sweden, but also highly respected. An important person, a person known throughout the country, she became thanks to numerous appearances on radio and television. Thousands of Swedish children have grown up listening to books by Astrid Lindgren on the radio. Her voice, her face, her opinions, her sense of humor have been familiar to most Swedes since the 50s and 60s, when she hosted various quizzes and talk shows on radio and television. In addition, Astrid Lindgren won over the people with her speeches in defense of such a typically Swedish phenomenon as a universal love for nature and reverence for its beauty. In the spring of 1985, when the daughter of a Smålandian farmer spoke publicly about the oppression of farm animals, the prime minister himself listened to her. Lindgren heard about the mistreatment of animals on large farms in Sweden and other industrial countries from Christina Forslund, a veterinarian and professor at Uppsala University. Seventy-eight-year-old Astrid Lindgren sent an open letter to major Stockholm newspapers. The letter contained another tale - about a loving cow who protests against mistreatment of livestock. With this tale, the writer began a campaign that lasted three years. In June 1988, an animal protection law was passed, which received the Latin name Lex Lindgren (Lindgren's Law); however, his inspirer did not like him for his vagueness and obviously low efficiency. As in other cases when Lindgren stood up for the well-being of children, adults or the environment, the writer was based on her own experience and her protest was caused by deep emotional excitement. She understood that at the end of the 20th century it was impossible to return to small-scale pastoralism, which she witnessed in her childhood and youth on her father's farm and in neighboring farms. She demanded something more fundamental: respect for animals, because they are also living beings and endowed with feelings. Astrid Lindgren's deep belief in non-violent treatment extended to both animals and children. “Not violence,” she called her speech at the 1978 presentation of the Peace Prize of the German Bookseller (received by her for the story “The Brothers of the Lionheart” (1973; trans. 1981) and for the struggle of the writer for peaceful coexistence and a decent life for all Living creatures). In this speech, Astrid Lindgren defended her pacifist beliefs and advocated raising children without violence and corporal punishment. “We all know,” Lindgren reminded, “that children who are beaten and abused will themselves beat and abuse their own children, and therefore this vicious circle must be broken.” Astrid Sture's husband died in 1952. In 1961, her mother died, eight years later - her father, and in 1974 her brother and several bosom friends died. Astrid Lindgren has come across the mystery of death more than once and thought about it a lot. If Astrid's parents were sincere adherents of Lutheranism and believed in life after death, then the writer herself called herself an agnostic. Awards In 1958, Astrid Lindgren was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen medal, which is called the Nobel Prize in children's literature. In addition to awards for purely children's writers, Lindgren received a number of awards for "adult" authors, in particular, the Karen Blixen Medal established by the Danish Academy, the Russian Leo Tolstoy Medal, the Chilean Gabriela Mistral Prize and the Swedish Selma Lagerlöf Prize. In 1969, the writer received the Swedish State Prize for Literature. Her philanthropic achievements have been recognized with the 1978 German Booksell Peace Prize and the 1989 Albert Schweitzer Medal (awarded by the American Animal Improvement Institute). The writer died on January 28, 2002 in Stockholm. Astrid Lindgren is one of the most famous children's writers in the world. Her works are imbued with fantasy and love for children. Many of them have been translated into over 70 languages ​​and published in more than 100 countries. In Sweden, she became a living legend, as she entertained, inspired and comforted generations of readers, participated in political life, changed laws and significantly influenced the development of children's literature.

Carlson, Pippi Longstocking, Mio... This writer has become a literary mother of heroes loved by children and adults all over the world. Astrid Lindgren also had two real, living children - a son and a daughter. In life, she was as talented a mother as in literature - a storyteller.

Astrid Anna Emilia Eriksson was born in November 1907 in Sweden, on the Nes farm. The childhood years of the future storyteller were full of closeness to nature, which contributed to the spiritual openness and development of the creative beginning of the young Swede.

"In the parental home of Astrid, her brother and sisters lived in an atmosphere of love and harmony.

Astrid's parents met at the market when her mother was 7 and her father 13. Childhood friendship grew into sympathy, and later - into love. Samuel August and Hannah had four children: the first-born son Gunnar and three daughters, the eldest of whom was Astrid. The children helped their parents with the housework, and in their free time they rushed around the farm in search of adventure. As Astrid later recalled, adults did not hesitate to show warm feelings for each other and children, which was rare in peasant families.

On the farm, some of the children were told folk stories and legends. And the girl first heard the "book" fairy tale in the house of a friend. Her mother read to her children in the kitchen. The girl liked it so much that, plunging into the magical world, she returned to reality for a long time.

" Soon Lindgren learned to read and write, and reading became her favorite pastime forever.

And already in the elementary grades of the school, the future writer demonstrated her literary abilities.
After graduating from high school, Astrid got a job as a junior reporter for a local publication. Soon she began to live separately from her parents, fell in love with jazz, she liked modern dances, she even made a short haircut. At the same time, she also had her first novel, very tragic. Her lover, the editor of the Vimmerby magazine, Reinhold Bloomberg, was 30 years older than the girl and was married, although he was in the process of divorce. An enterprising and influential man in 1925 fell in love with a seventeen-year-old intern and began to court her beautifully. Astrid had only read about this in books. But she herself was rather struck by such an extraordinary interest in her "soul and body," as Reinhold wrote to her, than she was in love. There was something unexplored, dangerous and so attractive in this relationship, as Astrid Lindgren said in 1993:

"Girls are such fools. Until then, no one had seriously fallen in love with me, he was the first. And, of course, it seemed fascinating to me."

The 18-year-old journalist became pregnant. And if everyone knew that Bloomberg cheated on his wife, his bank account would be empty. Therefore, the pregnant Astrid left for Denmark. In a country neighboring Sweden at that time, the name of the biological father was allowed to be kept secret, so the young woman gave birth to a boy, Lars, in Copenhagen. Shortly before giving birth, Astrid met the lawyer Eva Anden, from whom she received some practical advice. And she also introduced her to the family of Marie Stevens, an intelligent and caring woman who, along with her teenage son Karl, helped Swedish mothers before and after childbirth.

Astrid came to the Stevens family with her newborn son and stayed with him until Christmas 1926. And then she had to leave in order to work, leaving her son in the care of a foster family.

The scene of departure was well remembered by the foster mother. Never before had Marie Stevens met a woman who, having given birth in such circumstances, would have been so happy with her child. Many years later, in 1950, when the boy grew up and his own son was already born, the old foster mother from Copenhagen sent Astrid a letter, where, among other things, she wrote: "You fell in love with your baby from the first moment."
In January 1927, Astrid continued to study at the Bar-lok school in Stockholm, where they taught typing, accounting, bookkeeping, shorthand and business correspondence. After graduating, she went to work. In the photographs of those years, Astrid Erickson is most often sad and unhappy. She missed her son very much. Whenever possible, she tried to visit her boy:

“I was paid 150 crowns a month. You won’t get fat with this. And you won’t particularly travel to Copenhagen, and most of all I aspired to go there. But sometimes with the help of savings, loans and mortgages, I managed to scrape together money for a ticket.”

Twenty-four or twenty-five hours of communication, first every second, and then every third or fifth month for three years - that's all Astrid could afford. In those years, she could not be a real mother to Lasse, but thanks to rare trips to Copenhagen, the boy developed an image of "mother" - a process that Aunt Stevens and Carl tried to stimulate. In the family of foster parents Stevenson Lars was brought up to 5 years.

Perhaps the children's books of the famous storyteller Lindgren would not have been so poignant if the young Astrid Erickson had not experienced separation from her newborn son. The writer hid these details for a long time for the sake of her first-born Lars, and only now a full biography of Astrid Lindgren has been published, shedding light on the events of 90 years ago.
In Stockholm, Astrid met Nils Sture Lindgren, director of the Royal Automobile Club. In 1928, he took her to the post of secretary. And two years later, he made Astrid an offer:

“He admitted that he fell in love with me at first sight and for all these two years he did not take his eyes off me,” the writer later recalled. “I told him everything about myself and, of course, about my son. He never hesitated: “I love you, which means I love everything that is part of your life. Lars will be our son, take him to Stockholm.”

After the wedding in 1931, Lindgren took her son, and 3 years later she gave birth to a daughter, Karin. Niels adopted Lars and gave him his last name. The couple lived in a happy marriage for 21 years.
Astrid Lindgren was a very unusual, as they would say now, non-standard mother: while other ladies were having polite conversations, sitting on benches and watching the children playing, she took part in the entertainment of her kids and even climbed trees with them.

“The children were always proud of their hooligan mother, who took part in all the games with pleasure. And once, in front of their eyes, she jumped into the tram at full speed (for which the conductor fined her).

Astrid's daughter, Karin, in an interview, when asked about her mother, said:

“Astrid loved children very much, she loved being with children very much. And it was very good for us, her own children, she loved to study with us very much! .. On the other hand, she made certain demands on us. But they were not rigid, and it was not difficult for us to comply with them. Astrid wasn't a strict mom!

The happy and calm childhood of the son and daughter of the famous storyteller allowed them to grow up as accomplished and harmonious people. Lars was very capable of engineering and became a good engineer. He died before his mother, and Astrid was very upset by the loss of her son.
Karin, having matured, became a translator. According to the will of the writer, she must follow the publications and translations of her fairy tales. The Saltkrokan family society includes Karin herself, her husband, son, daughter and granddaughter. They deal with, among other things, the issue of brands. Karin is a kind of guarantor of the preservation of the legacy of Astrid Lindgren.

Biography

Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren is a Swedish writer, author of a number of world-famous children's books, including "The Kid and Carlson, who lives on the roof" and the tetralogy about Pippi Longstocking. In Russian, her books became known and very popular thanks to the translation of Lilianna Lungina.

early years

Astrid Lindgren was born on November 14, 1907 in southern Sweden, on the farm of Nes (Näs) near Vimmerby in the county of Kalmar, into a peasant family. Her parents - father Samuel August Eriksson and mother Hanna Jonsson - met in the market when he was 13 and she was 7 years old. In 1905, when Hannah was 18 years old, they got married. Astrid became their second child. She had an older brother Gunnar (July 27, 1906 - May 27, 1974) and two younger sisters - Hanna Ingrid Stina (March 1, 1911 - December 27, 2002) and Ingegerd Britta Salome (March 15, 1916 - September 21, 1997).

As Lindgren herself pointed out in Mina påhitt, 1971, a collection of autobiographical essays, she grew up in an age of "horse and cabriolet." The main means of transportation for the family was a horse-drawn carriage, the pace of life was slower, entertainment was simpler, and relations with the natural environment were much closer than today. This environment contributed to the development of the writer's love for nature.

The writer herself always called her childhood happy (there were many games and adventures, interspersed with work on the farm and in its environs) and pointed out that it was this that served as a source of inspiration for her work. Astrid's parents not only had a deep affection for each other and for the children, but also did not hesitate to show it, which was rare at that time. The writer spoke about the special relationship in the family with great sympathy and tenderness in her only book not addressed to children, Samuel August from Sevedstorp and Hanna from Hult (1973). Hannah died in 1961, Samuel in 1969.

The beginning of creative activity

As a child, Astrid was surrounded by folklore, and many jokes, fairy tales, stories that she heard from her father or from friends later formed the basis of her own works. Love for books and reading, as she later admitted, arose in the kitchen of Christine, with whose daughter, Edith, she was friends. It was Edith who introduced Astrid to the amazing, exciting world that one could get into by reading fairy tales. The impressionable Astrid was shocked by this discovery, and later mastered the magic of the word herself.

Her abilities became apparent already in elementary school, where Astrid was called "Wimmerbün Selma Lagerlöf", which, in her own opinion, she did not deserve.

Years of creativity

After her marriage in 1931, Astrid Lindgren decided to become a housewife in order to devote herself entirely to caring for children. During the Second World War, for 6 years she kept a diary, which was published by the Salikon publishing house in connection with the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. In 1941, the Lindgrens moved into an apartment overlooking Stockholm's Vasa Park, where the writer lived until her death. Occasionally taking on secretarial work, she wrote travel descriptions and rather banal tales for family magazines and advent calendars, which gradually honed her literary skills.

According to Astrid Lindgren, "Pippi Longstocking" (1945) was born primarily thanks to her daughter Karin. In 1941, Karin fell ill with pneumonia, and every night Astrid told her all sorts of stories before going to bed. Once a girl ordered a story about Pippi Longstocking - she invented this name right there, on the go. So Astrid Lindgren began to compose a story about a girl who does not obey any conditions. Since Astrid then defended the idea of ​​​​education taking into account child psychology, which was new for that time and caused heated debate, the challenge to conventions seemed to her an interesting thought experiment. If we consider the image of Pippi in a generalized way, then it is based on the innovative ideas that appeared in the 1930s and 40s in the field of child education and child psychology. Lindgren followed and participated in the controversy unfolding in society, advocating education that would take into account the thoughts and feelings of children and thus show respect for them. The new approach to children also affected her creative style, as a result of which she became an author who consistently speaks from the point of view of a child.

After the first story about Pippi, which Karin fell in love with, Astrid Lindgren over the next years told more and more evening tales about this red-haired girl. On Karinee's tenth birthday, Astrid Lindgren made a shorthand record of several stories, from which she then compiled a book of her own making (with illustrations by the author) for her daughter. This original manuscript of "Pippi" was less carefully finished stylistically and more radical in its ideas. The writer sent one copy of the manuscript to Bonnier, the largest Stockholm publishing house. After some deliberation, the manuscript was rejected. Astrid Lindgren was not discouraged by the refusal, she already realized that composing for children was her calling. In 1944, she took part in a competition for the best book for girls, announced by the relatively new and little-known publishing house Raben and Sjogren. Lindgren received the second prize for Britt-Marie Pours Out Her Soul (1944) and a publishing contract for it.

In 1945, Astrid Lindgren was offered the position of editor of children's literature at the publishing house Raben and Sjögren. She accepted this offer and worked in one place until 1970, when she officially retired. All of her books were published by the same publishing house. Despite being extremely busy and combining editorial work with household chores and writing, Astrid turned out to be a prolific writer: if you count picture books, a total of about eighty works came out of her pen. The work was especially productive in the 1940s and 1950s. In the years 1944-1950 alone, Astrid Lindgren wrote a trilogy about Pippi Longstocking, two stories about children from Bullerby, three books for girls, a detective story, two collections of fairy tales, a collection of songs, four plays and two picture books. As you can see from this list, Astrid Lindgren was an unusually versatile author, willing to experiment in a wide variety of genres.

In 1946, she published the first story about the detective Kalle Blomkvist (“Kalle Blomkvist plays”), thanks to which she won first prize in a literary competition (Astrid Lindgren did not participate in competitions anymore). In 1951, a sequel followed, “Kalle Blomkvist risks” (both stories were published in Russian in 1959 under the title “The Adventures of Kalle Blomkvist”), and in 1953 - the final part of the trilogy, “Kalle Blomkvist and Rasmus” (was translated into Russian in 1986). With Kalle Blumqvist, the writer wanted to replace cheap thrillers that glorified violence for her readers.

In 1954, Astrid Lindgren wrote the first of her three fairy tales - "Mio, my Mio!" (trans. 1965). This emotional, dramatic book combines the techniques of heroic tale and fairy tale, and tells the story of Boo Wilhelm Olsson, the unloved and neglected son of foster parents. Astrid Lindgren has repeatedly resorted to fairy tales and fairy tales, touching on the fate of lonely and abandoned children (this was the case before “Mio, my Mio!”). To bring comfort to children, to help them overcome difficult situations - this task was not the last thing that moved the work of the writer.

In the next trilogy - “The Kid and Carlson, who lives on the roof” (1955; transl. 1957), “Carlson, who lives on the roof, flew in again” (1962; trans. 1965) and “Carlson, who lives on the roof, plays pranks again ”(1968; transl. 1973) - again the fantasy hero is not evil. This “moderately well-fed”, infantile, greedy, boastful, puffed up, self-pitying, self-centered, although not without charm little man lives on the roof of the apartment building where the Kid lives. As Baby's semi-adult friend from a semi-fabulous reality, he is a much less wonderful image of childhood than the unpredictable and carefree Pippi. The kid is the youngest of three children in the most ordinary family of the Stockholm bourgeoisie, and Carlson enters his life in a very specific way - through the window, and he does it every time the kid feels superfluous, bypassed or humiliated, in other words, when the boy feels sorry for himself . In such cases, his compensatory alter ego appears - in all respects, "the best in the world" Carlson, who makes the Kid forget about troubles. It is important to note that Carlson, despite his "flaws", under certain conditions is capable of such actions that can serve as an example to follow - to scare and drive the robbers out of the Kid's apartment, or in a mild form to teach a lesson to forgetful parents (the case of a little girl from attic, which was left alone).

Screen adaptations and theatrical productions

In 1969, the illustrious Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm staged Carlson, who lives on the roof, which was unusual for that time. Since then, dramatizations based on books by Astrid Lindgren have been constantly staged in both large and small theaters in Sweden, Scandinavia, Europe and the United States of America. A year before the performance in Stockholm, the performance about Carlson was shown on the stage of the Moscow Satire Theater, where he is still played (this character is very popular in Russia). If on a global scale, the work of Astrid Lindgren attracted attention primarily due to theatrical performances, then in Sweden, films and television series based on her works contributed a lot to the writer's fame. The stories about Kalle Blumkvist were the first to be filmed - the premiere of the film took place on Christmas Day 1947. Two years later, the first of four films about Pippi Longstocking appeared. From the 1950s to the 1980s, renowned Swedish director Ulle Hellbum created a total of 17 films based on Astrid Lindgren's books. Hellbum's visual interpretations, with their inexpressible beauty and receptivity to the writer's word, have become classics of Swedish cinema for children.

Personal life

At the age of 18, Astrid became pregnant by the editor of the Vimerby magazine, Axel Gustaf Reinhold Blumberg (May 29, 1877 - August 26, 1947). However, Bloomberg then had a difficult period - he was divorcing his former wife Olivia Frolund, and although they no longer lived together, they were formally married, because of which Astrid's pregnancy could give rise to a discrediting reputation for adultery around Bloomberg, and therefore they did not could get married. Because of this, Astrid, in order to avoid rumors, was forced to leave Vimmerby, and in December 1926 she gave birth in Copenhagen (in Denmark, single mothers were then allowed to give birth without disclosing the name of the biological father) son Lars (December 4, 1926 - July 22, 1986 ), and since there was not enough money, Astrid had to leave her beloved son there in Denmark in the family of foster parents named Stevens. Leaving the post of junior reporter, she went to Stockholm. There she completed secretarial courses and in 1931 found a job in this specialty. Before that, in 1928, she got a job as a secretary at the Royal Automobile Club, where she met Niels Sture Lindgren (November 3, 1898 - June 15, 1952). They married in April 1931, and after that Astrid was able to take Lars home (although Nils adopted him and Lars also took on the name Lindgren after that, Reinhold Blumberg recognized him, and after his death Lars received his part of the inheritance due to him). Married to Lindgren, Astrid had a daughter, Karin Niemann, on May 21, 1934.

Astrid's great-niece on the part of her brother Gunnar is the well-known detective writer Karin Alvtegen in Sweden.

Social work

During the years of her literary activity, Astrid Lindgren earned more than one million crowns by selling the rights to publish her books and their film adaptations, to release audio and video cassettes, and later also CDs with recordings of her songs or literary works in her own performance, but nothing didn't change her lifestyle. From the 1940s, she lived in the same - rather modest - apartment in Stockholm and preferred not to accumulate wealth, but to distribute money to others.

Only once, in 1976, when the tax collected by the state amounted to 102% of her profits, Astrid Lingren protested. On March 10 of the same year, she went on the offensive, sending an open letter to the Stockholm newspaper Expressen, in which she told a fairy tale about a certain Pomperipossa from Monismania. In this fairy tale for adults, Astrid Lindgren took the position of a profane or naive child (as Hans Christian Andersen did before her in The King's New Clothes) and, using it, tried to expose the vices of society and universal pretense. In the year of parliamentary elections, this fairy tale became an almost naked, crushing attack on the bureaucratic, self-satisfied and self-interested apparatus of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, which had been in power for 40 years in a row. Finance Minister Gunnar Strang sneered in a parliamentary debate: "She can tell stories, but she can't count," but was later forced to admit that he was wrong. Astrid Lindgren, who turned out to be right from the start, said that she and Strang should have traded jobs with each other: "It's Strang who can tell stories, but he can't count." This event led to a large protest during which the Social Democrats were heavily criticized both for the tax system and for disrespecting Lindgren. Contrary to popular misconception, this story did not cause the electoral defeat of the Social Democrats. In the autumn of 1976, they received 42.75% of the vote and 152 out of 349 seats in parliament, which was only 2.5% worse than the result of the previous elections in 1973. However, this was enough for an opposition coalition to form in the government, led by Thorbjørn Feldin.

The writer herself was a member of the Social Democratic Party all her adult life - and remained in its ranks after 1976. And she objected, first of all, to the distance from the ideals that Lindgren remembered from her youth. When she was once asked what path she would have chosen for herself if she had not become a famous writer, she answered without hesitation that she would like to take part in the social democratic movement of the initial period. The values ​​and ideals of this movement played - together with humanism - a fundamental role in the character of Astrid Lindgren. Her inherent desire for equality and caring attitude towards people helped the writer overcome the barriers erected by her high position in society. She treated everyone with the same cordiality and respect, whether it was a Swedish prime minister, a foreign head of state, or one of her child readers. In other words, Astrid Lindgren lived according to her convictions, which is why she became the subject of admiration and respect, both in Sweden and abroad.

Lindgren's open letter with the tale of Pomperipossa was so influential because by 1976 she was no longer just a famous writer, she was highly respected throughout Sweden. An important person, a person known throughout the country, she became thanks to numerous appearances on radio and television. Thousands of Swedish children have grown up listening to books by Astrid Lindgren on the radio. Her voice, her face, her opinions, her sense of humor have been familiar to most Swedes since the 50s and 60s, when she hosted various quizzes and talk shows on radio and television. In addition, Astrid Lindgren won attention with her speeches in defense of such a typically Swedish phenomenon as a universal love for nature and reverence for its beauty.

In the spring of 1985, when the daughter of a Smålandian farmer spoke publicly about the oppression of farm animals, the prime minister himself listened to her. Lindgren heard about the mistreatment of animals on large farms in Sweden and other industrialized countries from Christina Forslund, a veterinarian and lecturer at Uppsala University. Seventy-eight-year-old Astrid Lindgren sent an open letter to major Stockholm newspapers. The letter contained another tale - about a loving cow who protests against mistreatment of livestock. With this tale, the writer began a campaign that lasted three years. In June 1988, an animal protection law was passed, which received the Latin name Lex Lindgren (Lindgren's Law); however, his inspirer did not like him for his vagueness and obviously low efficiency.

As in other cases when Lindgren stood up for the well-being of children, adults or the environment, the writer was based on her own experience, and her protest was caused by deep emotional excitement. She understood that at the end of the 20th century it was impossible to return to small-scale pastoralism, which Astrid had witnessed in her childhood and youth on her father's farm and in neighboring farms. She demanded something more fundamental: respect for animals, because they are also living beings and endowed with feelings.

Astrid Lindgren's deep belief in non-violent treatment extended to both animals and children. “Not violence,” she called her speech at the 1978 presentation of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (received by her for the story The Brothers Lionheart (1973; transl. 1981) and for the writer’s struggle for peaceful coexistence and a decent life for all Living creatures). In this speech, Astrid Lindgren defended her pacifist beliefs and advocated raising children without violence and corporal punishment. “We all know,” Lindgren reminded, “that children who are beaten and abused will themselves beat and abuse their children, and therefore this vicious circle must be broken.”

Astrid Sture's husband died in 1952. In 1961, her mother died, eight years later - her father, and in 1974 her brother and several bosom friends died. Astrid Lindgren has come across the mystery of death more than once and thought about it a lot. If Astrid's parents were sincere adherents of Lutheranism and believed in life after death, then the writer herself called herself an agnostic. Astrid herself passed away on January 28, 2002. She was 94 years old.

Awards

In 1958, Astrid Lindgren was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen medal, which is called the Nobel Prize in children's literature. In addition to awards for purely children's writers, Lindgren received a number of awards for "adult" authors, in particular, the Karen Blixen Medal established by the Danish Academy, the Russian Leo Tolstoy Medal, the Chilean Gabriela Mistral Prize and the Swedish Selma Lagerlöf Prize. In 1969, the writer received the Swedish State Prize for Literature. Her philanthropic accomplishments were recognized with the 1978 German Booksell Peace Prize and the 1989 Albert Schweitzer Medal (awarded by the American Animal Welfare Institute).

Film and animation

Almost all of Astrid Lindgren's books have been filmed. Several dozen films were made in Sweden from 1970 to 1997, including the entire series about Pippi, Emil from Lönneberga and Kalle Blumkvist. Another constant producer of film adaptations was the USSR, where animated films based on the Carlson series were shot. "Mio, my Mio" was filmed as an international project.

Screen adaptations

1968 - Kid and Carlson (dir. Boris Stepantsev)
1969 - Pippi Longstocking (dir. Olle Hellbum. Screenplay Astrid Lindgren)
1970 - Carlson returned (dir. Boris Stepantsev)
1971 - Kid and Carlson, who lives on the roof (dir. Valentin Pluchek, Margarita Mikaelyan), film-play
1974 - Emil from Lönneberga (dir. Olle Hellbom)
1976 - The Adventures of Kalle the Detective (dir. Arunas Zhebryunas)
1977 - Brothers Lionheart (dir. Olle Hellbom)
1978 - Rasmus the tramp (dir. Maria Muat)
1979 - Are you crazy, Madiken! (dir. Goran Graffman)
1980 - Madiken from Unibakken (dir. Goran Graffman)
1981 - Rasmus the tramp (dir. Olle Hellbum)
1984 - Roni, the robber's daughter (dir. Tage Danielson)
1984 - Pippi Longstocking (dir. Margarita Mikaelyan)
1985 - Tricks of a tomboy (dir. Varis Brasla)
1986 - “We are all from Bullerby” (dir. Lasse Hallström)
1987 - "New Adventures of Children from Bullerby" (dir. Lasse Hallström)
1987 - Mio, my Mio (dir. Vladimir Grammatikov)
1989 - Lively Kaisa (dir. Daniel Bergman)
1996 - Supersleuth Kalle Blomkvist risks his life (dir. Göran Karmbak)
1997 - Kalle Blomkvist and Rasmus (dir. Göran Karmbak)
2014 - "Ronya, the robber's daughter" (TV series, dir. Goro Miyazaki).

Honors

Laureate of the Janusz Korczak International Literary Prize (1979) - for the story The Brothers Lionheart.
In 1991, a Danish rose variety, Astrid Lindgren, was named after the writer.

In 2002, the Swedish government created the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for achievements in children's literature. The prize is awarded annually and the prize fund is 5 million SEK.

On April 6, 2011, the Bank of Sweden announced plans to issue a new series of banknotes in 2014-2015. Astrid Lindgren's portrait will be placed on the obverse of the 20 Swedish krona note.

Perhaps the children's books of the famous storyteller Lindgren would not have been so poignant if the young Astrid Erickson had not experienced separation from her newborn son, who was born out of wedlock. The writer hid these details for a long time for the sake of her first-born Lars, and only now a full biography of Astrid Lindgren has been published, shedding light on the events of 90 years ago.

Astrid Erickson, early 1920s. (Photo: Private archive / Saltkrå kan)

In Sweden in the 1920s, it was not necessary for journalists to get higher education. The training took place in the editorial offices themselves: it was generally accepted that a person was either born for this work or not.

The fact that Astrid Erickson got a job at Vimmerby Tidning at the age of 15, she owed to the editor-in-chief and owner of the newspaper, Reinhold Bloomberg. A few years earlier, he had had the opportunity to be convinced of the outstanding literary abilities of the girl. Astrid went to school with Bloomberg's children, and one day, in August or September 1921, teacher Tengström showed Bloomberg an extraordinary essay written by thirteen-year-old Astrid Erickson.

Editor Bloomberg has not forgotten either the essay or the author. More than a year later, in the summer of 1923, having passed the exam at a real school, Astrid Erickson entered the Vimmerby Tydning as an intern. A monthly salary of sixty crowns was then the usual payment for interns in Sweden - for this money they not only wrote obituaries, small notes and reviews, but also sat on the phone, kept journals, proofread and ran into the city on errands.

Astrid's first man

A seemingly promising career as a journalist came to an abrupt end in August 1926, when it became impossible to hide the fact that the Vimmerby Tydning intern was in a position. The father of the child was neither a former classmate, nor a young peasant, nor a business traveler, oh no. The father was the owner and editor-in-chief of Vimmerby Tydning, almost fifty-year-old Reinhold Blumberg, married a second time after the death in 1919 of his first wife, who left him seven children.

Reinhold Blumberg (1877–1947), owner and editor of Vimmerby Tiding from 1913 to 1939 and father of Astrid Lindgren's first child. (Photo: Private archive)

And this enterprising and influential man in 1925 fell in love with a seventeen-year-old intern and began to look after her beautifully. Astrid had only read about this in books. The girl did not reject the admirer and entered into a love affair with him, which, for obvious reasons, was kept secret and lasted more than six months, until Astrid's pregnancy in March 1926.

She herself was rather struck by such an extraordinary interest in her "soul and body," as Reinhold wrote to her, than she was in love. But there was something unknown, dangerous and attractive in this relationship, Astrid Lindgren said in 1993: “Girls are such fools. Until then, no one had seriously fallen in love with me, he was the first. And, of course, it seemed fascinating to me.”

It also broke all taboos. Not only because of Astrid Erickson's utter inexperience and naivety in the sexual field, but also because Reinhold Blumberg was a married man in the process. In addition, the editor-in-chief of Vimmerby Tydning and the respected tenants Ericksons, Astrid's parents, were not only acquaintances, but also worked together on several occasions.

"I wanted a child, his father did not"

The exact circumstances of Astrid's affair with her boss, who at that time no longer lived with his wife Olivia Bloomberg, are unknown. The general public during the life of Astrid Lindgren never learned the name of the father of the child. Astrid wanted to keep the secret as long as possible. First of all, for Lasse. "I knew what I wanted and what I didn't want. I wanted a child, but not his father."

Astrid Lindgren's own, complete and accurate interpretation of the events of 1926 has never been published, but was thoroughly retold by her biographer Margareta Strömstedt in The Great Storyteller. The Life of Astrid Lindgren, published in 1977 on the occasion of the writer's seventieth birthday. Prior to that, for thirty years it seemed that the girl had come to Stockholm to study, where a few years later she met Sture Lindgren, whom she married, after which she gave birth to two children, Lasse and Karin.

However, everything was not so simple. Astrid was much more confused about her relationship with Reinhold than she later admitted. Bloomberg, for his part, was still in love and in 1927 paid for their joint trip to the baby. Only in March 1928, Astrid finally decided and abandoned her relationship with her father, Lasse, saying that their paths from now on diverge forever.

Storgatan 30, Vimmerby. Editor-in-chief Bloomberg lives here with his family and the editorial office of his newspaper was located in the 1920s. Around the corner is a printing house where a newspaper is printed every Wednesday and Saturday. (Photo: East Gotland Regional Museum)

From the very beginning of the relationship, Reinhold wanted to completely own Astrid, which she categorically did not like. After she moved to Stockholm in September 1926, he reproached her for going to study to be a secretary without consulting him. Astrid's intentionally superficial letters disappointed the demanding romantic from Vimmerby, who made a plan for their joint future (only a protracted divorce prevented him) and did not tolerate interference: “You write so little about yourself. Is it not clear that I want to know a lot, a lot more about you? ".

How could you?

What Astrid found in Reinhold, besides the fact that he was her first man and the father of an unborn child, not only her mother Hannah asked herself, but also Lindgren herself in her old age. “Neither to myself nor to Hannah could I answer the question “how could you?” But when could young, inexperienced, naive fools answer it? How is it in this story of Sigurd about the frivolous Lena? I read about her in my early youth Not at all a beauty, the writer assured, she "still was in demand in the market of desire". I read and thought with some envy: "Oh, if only I could be like her!" Well, I succeeded. True, I did not foresee."

Behind this quote was hidden not only the awareness of his actions and a sense of guilt, but also the accumulated resentment against a more experienced man, who perfectly understood what risk he himself and especially his young lover were exposed to without using. Later, she angrily reprimanded the elderly Reinhold Bloomberg in a letter dated February 22, 1943: "I had no idea about contraceptives, and therefore could not understand the measure of the monstrous irresponsibility of your attitude towards me."

The explanation for such ignorance must be sought in puritanism, which in the 1920s still dominated public policy towards. According to the law, any advertising or public mention of contraceptives, which anyone could buy, provided that he had knowledge of their existence, was prohibited in Sweden. That is why only a few Swedes - especially in the provinces - understood how to avoid unwanted pregnancies.

Eighteen-year-old Astrid Erickson in autumn 1926 (Photo: Private archive / Saltkrå kan)

Astrid Lindgren paid a high price for her affair with Bloomberg. She lost her job and the prospect of later finding a place in a newspaper bigger than Vimmerby Tydning. And in the fall of 1926, when it became difficult to hide the pregnancy, Astrid had to leave her home and city and go to Stockholm. Lindgren described parting with Vimmerby as a joyful escape: “Being the object of gossip is like sitting in a pit with snakes, and I decided to leave this pit as soon as possible. , they didn't drive me out. By no means! I kicked myself out."

Where to secretly give birth to an unmarried woman

Astrid enrolled in shorthand and typing courses and one day read about a certain metropolitan lawyer who helps unmarried pregnant women in difficult circumstances. Astrid found Eva Anden and told not only about her own sad situation, but also about a secret engagement with Reinhold and about the divorce process, which increasingly influenced the situation with childbirth (Blumberg's wife tried her best to collect evidence of her husband's infidelity and was already very successful in this) .

The lawyer advised the girl to go to Copenhagen and give birth at the Royal Hospital - the only one in Scandinavia where the names of the child's parents could be kept secret and from where information was not sent to the Population Registry or other government bodies. Eva Anden also recommended that Astrid leave the child in the Danish capital with a foster mother until she and Reinhold could take him to Sweden. The lawyer contacted Marie Stevens, a smart and caring woman who, along with her teenage son Karl, helped Swedish mothers before and after childbirth.

Eva Anden (1886–1970) – Sweden's first female lawyer In 1915 she founded her own law firm. (Photo: Erik Holmen/TT)

It was Carl who took Astrid to the Royal Hospital in a taxi when the contractions began. Three years later, on January 10, 1930, the same calm, reliable Karl took the three-year-old Lasse by train to Stockholm, to "mother Lasse", as he and Ms. Stevens consistently and unobtrusively called Astrid at home.

After the birth of Lars

The boy saw the light on December 4 at ten o'clock in the morning, and a few days after the birth, Astrid, with little Lars Blumberg in her arms, returned to Mrs. Stevens and did not part with him until December 23. On the eve of 1926, Astrid said goodbye to her child, Aunt Stevens and Carl. Her path was home to Näs and then north to Stockholm.

This scene was well remembered by the foster mother. Never before had Marie Stevens met a woman who, having given birth in such circumstances, would have been so happy with her child. Many years later, in 1950, when the boy grew up and his own son was already born, the old foster mother from Copenhagen sent a letter to Astrid, where, among other things, she wrote: "You fell in love with your baby from the first moment."

Villa Stevns 5-6 km from the center of Copenhagen. There, on the second floor, Lasse spent the first three years of his life. (Photo: Private archive)

In January 1927, Astrid continued to study at the Barlock School, where they taught typing, accounting, bookkeeping, shorthand and business correspondence. In the photographs of those years, Astrid Erickson is most often sad and unhappy. The piercing happiness and euphoria that came after a successful birth was replaced by despondency, pain and regret.

She had a room in a boarding house, a steel bed, clothes, and usually enough food, which she owed in no small part to parcels from home: about once a month and a half, a basket full of supplies from Hanna's pantry arrived. For this, the eldest daughter immediately thanked in letters: "What a luxury - to cut off a decent piece of bread for yourself, spread it with first-class Wimmerby butter and put a piece of mother's cheese on top, and then eat it all. I experience this pleasure every morning, while there is something else in the basket - that remains."

Longing, pessimism, and occasional suicidal thoughts made themselves felt most strongly when Astrid was alone in the big city on long Sunday afternoons. Incessant thoughts about Lass drove her out into the street early in the morning, and everything that on other days was squeezed out and drowned in numerous worries emerged from the subconscious.

And on weekdays, a disappointed twenty-year-old mother without a child became an energetic, sociable Miss Erickson, who knew how to get along with everyone around. She typed blindly, slid her fingers over the keyboard without looking, was good at shorthand, and was not afraid of correspondence in English and German. All these skills were later useful to Astrid Lindgren - a writer, editor, and for relatives and friends, a diligent correspondent.

Work in Stockholm and trips to Copenhagen to visit my son

At the first job, where Astrid entered in 1927, she was supposed to pick up the phone, say: "The Radio Department of the Swedish Book Trade Center!" - listen and apologize. She had to take complaints from dissatisfied customers who were unable to tune their new radio - the latest technology.

During the interview, the head of the office made it clear that after the flight of the previous employee, he no longer needed nineteen-year-olds, but Astrid Erickson did what she always knew how to do perfectly: she sold herself. She turned on charm, humor, energy and convinced the employer that she could be relied upon, although she was only nineteen.

“I was paid 150 crowns a month. You won’t get fat with this. And you won’t particularly travel to Copenhagen, and most of all I aspired to go there. But sometimes with the help of savings, loans and mortgages, I managed to scrape together money for a ticket.”

Astrid Erickson's old passport, with numerous blue and red stamps, shows that Lars Bloomberg's mother traveled from Stockholm to Copenhagen and back twelve to fifteen times in three years. Often she took the cheapest overnight train, leaving on Friday; a return ticket cost 50 crowns, and you had to sit all night. In the morning she would arrive at Copenhagen Central Station, hop on a tram and enter the gate of Villa Stevns before noon. There was a day left for almost continuous communication with Lasse: in order to go to work in Stockholm on Monday morning, Astrid had to leave Copenhagen early on Sunday evening.

Twenty-four or twenty-five hours of communication, first every second, and then every third or fifth month for three years - it seems to be not much, but in the ocean of longing, these single trips were precious drops. In those years, Astrid could not be a real mother to Lasse, but thanks to trips to Copenhagen, the boy developed an image of "mother" - a process that Aunt Stevens and Carl tried to stimulate. Out of their kindness, they described in detail the state of Lasse's health, his speech and motor development, and daily active games.

To be continued.