"Från mörkret stiga vi mot ljuset". Den socialdemokratiska memoaren som retorisk genre: exemplen Palm, Erlander och Persson

Abstract

Although Social Democratic Memoirs comprise an extensive material, these texts have not attracted any systematic analysis as a distinct and yet varied form of textual genre. The focus in this MA-paper is the Swedish Social Democratic Memoir as a rhetoric genre. The main primary material is memoirs of the pioneer August Palm (1849–1922), the father of the nation Tage Erlander (1901–1985) and the political leader Göran Persson (1949–), published 1905, 1972–82 and 2007, respectively. The general aim is to find out what is the driving power of the memoirs and, more specifically, to shed light on the images of the party history and the history of the welfare state. The method is a comparative analysis of these texts. The overarching rhetoric of Social Democratic Memoirs relate to a general ideological theme corresponding to the progression from darkness to light. Each memoir emerges from some special exigence (L.F. Bitzer, C.R. Miller), that is, an immediate need – in these cases actualized by the current position of the party and the rhetorical demands on a party member’s text commenting on that situation. Central questions are: What motivates the memoirs and how do the memoirs relate to what motivates them? The exigence which the memoirs of August Palm seem to emerge from is how the labour movement can be mobilized in the fight for the right to vote. By creating himself as a popular hero and pioneer Palm can inspire and raise the working class in that fight. The exigence which the memoirs of Tage Erlander seem to respond to is that the social democracy is challenged both from left and right during the oil crisis and depression. He writes a success story about the building of the welfare state. However, the rhetorical situation change, and so does the rhetorical strategy in later volumes. In the memoirs of Göran Persson the new liberal social democratic politics become a part of the party tradition and the progression from darkness to light. This rhetorical strategy suggests that the memoirs emerge from an exigence where many grassroot-members point out Persson as responsible for the crisis policy in the 1990’s.