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Sven HedinSwedish traveler, geographer, journalist and writer.
Date of Birth: 19.02.1865
Country:  Sweden |
Content:
Biography of Sven Hedin
Sven Anders Hedin was a Swedish explorer, geographer, journalist, and writer. He was born on February 19, 1865, in Stockholm, Sweden, and passed away on November 26, 1952, in Stockholm. Hedin is known for his major expeditions to Tibet and Central Asia from 1893 to 1909, which helped fill in many "white spots" on the world map. In Tibet alone, he mapped approximately 170,000 square kilometers. Despite the simplicity of his distance calculation method, many of his maps had only minor errors compared to modern standards (according to the estimates of Karl Rosen in 1918, the maximum error in distance was 2%).
Accomplishments
Hedin was the last person to be granted nobility by the Swedish king in 1902, as the institution of nobility was formally abolished in 1975. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was perhaps the most famous Swede in the world, and his books were published in many countries, including the Soviet Union. Hedin openly expressed his support for Hitler and published articles and books in support of Germany during World War II. Hitler considered him one of his friends. However, at the same time, at Hedin's request, several Jewish families were saved in Germany, and participants of a conspiracy against the occupiers in Norway were pardoned (their death sentences were replaced by 10 years of imprisonment, and almost all of them survived the war). When Hedin prepared an anti-American book for publication in the early 1940s, Germany refused to publish it because Hedin admitted in the book that he was 1/16 Jewish and had no intention of denying his heritage. Nevertheless, when Hitler committed suicide, Hedin wrote an obituary for the newspaper "Dagens Nyheter," in which he spoke positively about him.
After the war, Hedin's request led to the pardon of German General Falkenhorst, who commanded forces in Norway (his death sentence was commuted to 20 years in prison, and he was soon released).
Bibliography
- "Genom Persien, Mesopotamien och Kaukasien: reseminnen" (Through Persia, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus: travel memories), 1887
- "Genom Khorasan och Turkestan: minnen från en resa i Centralasien 1890 och 1891" (Through Khorasan and Turkestan: memories from a journey in Central Asia 1890 and 1891), 1892-93
- "En färd genom Asien" (A Journey Through Asia), 1-2, 1898
- "Asien - Tusen mil på okända vägar" (Asia - A Thousand Miles on Unknown Roads), 1-2, 1903
- "Över land till Indien" (Overland to India), 1-2
- "Scientific results of a journey in Central Asia 1899-1902," 1-7, 1904-07
- "Transhimalaya: upptäckter och äventyr i Tibet" (Trans-Himalaya: Discoveries and Adventures in Tibet), 1-3, 1909-12
- "Från pol till pol" (From Pole to Pole), 1-2, 1911
- "Fronten i väster" (The Front in the West), 1915
- "Kriget mot Ryssland" (The War against Russia), 1915
- "Ein Volk in Waffen: den deutschen Soldaten gewidmet" (A Nation in Arms: Dedicated to the German Soldiers), 1915
- "Southern Tibet: discoveries in former times compared with my own researches in 1906-1908," 1-12, 1915-22
- "Till Jerusalem" (To Jerusalem), 1917
- "En levnadsteckning" (A Biography), 1920
- "Jehol - Kejsarstaden" (Jehol - The Imperial City), 1931
- "Eroveringstog i Tibet" (Conquest Expedition in Tibet), 1934
- "Stora hästens flykt" (The Flight of the Great Horse), 1935
- "Tyskland - 60 år" (Germany - 60 Years), 1939
- "Chiang Kai-Shek: marskalk av Kina" (Chiang Kai-Shek: Marshal of China), 1939
- "Mitt liv som upptäcksresande" (My Life as an Explorer), 1-4, 1930
- "Det kämpande Tyskland" (Fighting Germany) (written with the participation of Sven Hedin), 1941
- "History of the expedition in Asia 1927-1935," 1-4, 1943-45
- "Utan uppdrag i Berlin" (Without a Mission in Berlin), 1949
- "Mina hundar i Asien" (My Dogs in Asia), 1952
