COMMUNICATION, DISSENTERS AND

POPULAR CULTURE IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

EUROPE

By KARIN DOVRING

here are t w o definitions of Popular Culture that

can explain the intriguing topic of its communication. One is that it is a culture anyone can
participate in. No higher education necessary!
Baseball games for instance can be watched
from coast t o coast today in the United States
by everyone who wants to. It is also a part of
this definition that popular culture is looked
down upon by certain elites of people.
popular
culThe other definition is that .
ture comes not from the deep ranks of the common man b u t is
handed down by an elite that has already lost interest in it and
often has contempt for it. But it has been relied upon a long time
and has had prestige. Part of it is therefore selected and picked
u p by the large mass public who makes it i n t o a parochial culture
or a counter-culture. Witness for instance the famous colorful
paintings by peasants in Dalecarlia in Sweden in the eighteenth
century who reproduced pictures from the richer classes' literature
to decorate the walls of their farmsteads.' This came t o be looked
upon as typical folk art.
The first definition-anyone can participate in popular culture unless he is t o o highbrow-makes popular culture receptive
to mass communication. The other definition-popular culture as
a handed down culture from the ruling classes-makes i t a problem how this mass communication is handled and by whom.
On the continent in Europe and in my native country
Sweden, scholars and literary critics of today and yesterday do
not always look upon literary popular culture as a kind of belles
lettres or even a topic worth research. This may seem strange to
anyone who was brought u p with the rich English literary tradition, for instance. One can just think of Shakespeare who was
able t o talk t o different levels of people a t the same time to
understand that popular culture may be a much more sophisticated
I

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JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

concept among Anglo-Saxon publics. But the fact is that most writers d o not
have the Shakespearean genius b u t write in a more sectarian manner for a specific public. And that opens u p the way for separate cultures or ghettos of
communication in art, literature and culture in general.
Popular literary culture is not only looked upon with a certain contempt
by critics of art and literature. They also look for a remedy and see as their
task t o improve the common mans supposedly low taste and opinions. According t o these critics, that can only happen by introducing the common man
to the upper classes own particular literature which for instance in Sweden is
supposed t o be strongly influenced by literature from abroad, such as Thackeray
or Shakespeare, or Goethe or Racine or Cervantes, and lately belles lettres across
the Atlantic. Even when the Swedes prepared a revolution that disposed of their
king in 1809, i t was the upper classes that guided public opinion according t o
foreign patterns. The outstanding cultural magazine a t the end of the eighteenth
century that served as the revolutions propaganda and literary instrument
covered its rebellious message behind a smokescreen of scholarly topics. And it
was written by highly educated revolutionaries and filled with translations from
German magazines without any formal acknowledgment of the sources.
Whether the magazine really got to the common man, can be questioned. Even
the revolution was successfully carried out without any demands for great
popular support. What the common man, the mass public, read, or listened to,
or sang was neither the revolutionaries nor the scholars concern i n the
authoritarian environment. Most of the scholarly critics saw themselves as
educators of the common man. And the job was t o teach him their concept of
good taste. Consequently, the critics were blind t o the influence from the common mans culture. It was from the very beginning looked upon as simpleminded and uncivilized. I n the words of a Swedish poet a few centuries ago:
Only the cry from the wilderness was once S ~ e d i s h ! ~
Now the whole thing was not that bad. Sweden had many good writers
and artists. But all the time when analyzing their works the scholarly critics
were mostly interested in tracing influences from foreign cultural sources in t h e
domestic works because foreign art and literature were looked upon as superior.
And when any domestic influence was acknowledged, the influence was attributed t o Swedish upper-class writers and artists of high education and extensive
travels. It was a kind of cultural inbreeding. And the task was t o prove how
Swedish writers or artists influenced each other in style, composition, choice
of topic, and so on. This was also coupled with a strong contempt of organized
religion. Sweden had a powerful Lutheran State Church that for centuries had
been the instrument of a police state in ideological matters and communication
with the population a t large. But such contempt of influence from popular
culture o n upper class culture is not only t o be found in Sweden. Literary
critics in France for instance were sure that Rabelais was an atheist, a forerunner of their own highbrow outlook. Some years ago, however, the famous
French historian Lucien Febvre proved that all the characteristics which were
typical of Rabelais: his style, his jokes with heaven and hell, his way of writing,
~ atheism or contempt of r e l i g i ~ n . On
~ the contrary, all
were all inspired M O by

POPULAR CULTURE IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EUROPE

561

Rabelais performance had instead been patterned o n the friars popular way of
delivering sermons t o lively crowds. Only if you a t heart belong t o a certain
ideology and are a true believer d o you dare make jokes a b o u t your saints.
That is what Rabelais did, himself a friar, in his literary works. Now-one can
ask-what remains of the artist Rabelais when most of his patterns were inspired
by popular religious culture? Lucien Febvre gives the answer himself-Rabelais
added his genius.
Another illustration of the same phenomenon gives Thackerays Vanity
Fair. When the book time and again was translated into German, French,
Swedish and Norwegian, its title proved t o be an intriguing problem for the
translators. Most of the translations did not at all catch the real sense of the
title Vanity Fair or follow the connotations the title had for Thackeray himself. By digging into popular culture of Thackerays time one could find however that Thackeray had been greatly influenced not only by the Ecclesiastes in
the Bible and his Vanitas Vanitatum, but another influence was even more
direct. In Thackerays youth there circulated among the large mass public a
very popular pamphlet reprinted from Bunyans The Pilgrims Progress. The
pamphlet had the title Vanity Fair and the Trial and Death of Faithful, f r o m
the Pilgrims Progress. I t describes the fair of vanity in this world and can serve
as a blueprint t o the philosophy and society which Thackeray then so masterly
described in his Vanity Fair. Thackeray had trouble finding a name for his new
book. But suddenly one night he jumped u p from his bed, ran around his room
three times and shouted: Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair. More clear
illustration of the sleeper effect of popular culture on belles lettres is rare in the
world literature.6
Political mass referendum often reveals a strong conservative trend in
public opinion. This conservatism is deeply rooted in old social and economic
condition^.^ It is first in o u r time with mass affluence in many parts of the
world that the common man was gwen a choice of values in life and options t o
act according to his own preferences. In other parts of the world people are
still bound by their age-old poverty and have not much individual choice; their
selection of art, literature, and popular culture strictly limited by their societys
poverty and what the society could afford to give them or found wise t o give.
So, i n art and literature the common man had t o accept whatever culture was
given t o him. And that gift was often what the upper classes had discarded or
found safe t o dispose of. The common mans financial poverty made him accept
what had been found reliable and used and glamorized by the upper classes.
This cemented his conservatism and obedience to a hierarchy of prestige both in
politics and spiritual life and to critics of art and literature. Power holders in the
community seemed determined that it should stay that way, judging from the
manner in which they communicated with the population.
Culture always originates from an elite in spirit and mind. But that elite
was not permitted t o come u p among the population a t large. Sweden, for
instance, was for many centuries in some ways a totalitarian state: the fact is
that u p t o 1951 you had to be a member of the Lutheran State Church if you
wanted to become a member of the Swedish government. And as a rule you

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JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

could n o t leave the state church unless you proved that you would enter another
religious organization. Church and state were hand in glove even though the
Social Democratic government in this century tried t o loosen those ties. And
that is a particular story of communication a n d popular culture since the Socialist
government had o n its program t o do away with the state church. But the
Socialists communicated their new doctrine in the same way as the state church
had always communicated with the population: by serious speeches and solemn
appearances, like a minister from his pulpit. That is, you can communicate
with people only in the manner they are used to. The consequences are obvious
even today in Swedish news media. You seldom see many smiles o n the face of
a Swedish newscaster a t work. He is just as solemn as the preacher was when he
was the communicator of news from heaven and earth from his pulpit and told
the truth a n d nothing but the true facts. The interesting thing is that modern
communication in Sweden seems quite unaware of its pattern of authoritative
church; the Socialists instinct for old reliable ways of communicating has not
created any general understanding among intellectuals, news media or population
a t large that the state church has not in fact been abolished in the pattern of
communication. The old church has only been replaced by new political and
social pulpits which claim t o have the truth and preach i t t o t h e public.
The churchs close relation t o the state made the clergy an instrument for
thorough supervision of its parishioners. Eventually this led t o the creation of
the worlds first statistical office in Stockholm in 1756. The ministers looked
upon themselves as the peoples educators in true religion and attitudes t o the
g ~ v e r n m e n t .And
~
the scholarly critics of art and literature followed the
clerical pattern and regarded themselves as educators toward a good taste of
the large unsophisticated public. Even Alfred Nobel saw t o it when he wrote
his famous will creating the Nobel prizes, that the literary global prize is made
a tribute t o this education toward good taste. The prize should go t o the
most idealistic literature-that is the literature good for the common man.
And who should decide what is good taste? and ideals? Of course, a committee, a hierarchy of upper class intelligence, taste and education. And rather
separated from the common man and his life and culture.
Literature and art as education of the common man for a certain taste
called good by the authorities, is an idea with obvious parallels in various
political movements yesterday and today. Popular culture is and has always
been exposed t o educators. First in our time, economic affluence has created
an optional society that gives popular culture a choice among many opportunities t o follow its own way. But i n most societies popular culture is still a t the
mercy of various educators. How these educators communicate culture and
make i t popular has been very little studied. Evita Peron, the woman dictator
in Argentina was a specialist in this communication. Her last Will and Testament
is fruitful material for research here. But she is by n o means an exception.
Most politicians, of whatever creed, make a point of their roots in a popular
culture which they guide according to their own purpose.
It can be discussed whether art for arts sake ever has been permitted in
popular culture. Art in popular culture has always had a substantial message

POPULAR CULTURE IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EUROPE

563

that has made popular culture parochial despite the theory that anyone can b u t t
in. Beauty i n popular culture has been in the eyes of the beholder since the beholders have been members of limited communication ghettos which each had
their special values vaIid i n certain environments-certain communication realms.
These values the insiders found lovely or repulsive depending on the special
God save the Queen may
indoctrination their communication gave them.
be a lovely song for the crowd outside Buckingham Palace, b u t not necessarily
evoke the same feelings of beauty among Irish rebels.
Let me illustrate all these principles by taking you t o eighteenth century
Sweden. This was a time of new developments in cultural and political life.
Later historians of literature have as usual concentrated their research of this
age on the influence on Swedish culture from the French Revolution and Enlightenment. That is, on upper class literature. But the large bulk of the population had other reading habits. They began t o be fed u p with the poetry and
sermons and news casts they were forced t o digest every Sunday from the State
Churchs pulpits. So, the popular need for new emotions and personal involvement in the religion which was their only spiritual food, could not be prevented.
All books published in Sweden a t the time had to be approved by a state
censor. When he one day in the spring of 1743 found a manuscript o n his desk
in his office in Stockholm that contained religious poetry, he was not enthusiastic. As a good Swedish citizen he found the official religious song-book much
more beautiful. But he gave nevertheless his imprimatur since the songs already
had been used by many. Obviously, there were others who found them beautiful. When this book, The Songs of Zion, was published in April, 1743, it sparked
off a new popular culture in Sweden, a counter-culture that came to shake the
whole Swedish society. The social conflict it created was expressed in religious
symbols a n d frame of references since that was the language of the mass public
at the time, j u s t as it is now among certain black civil rights fighters in the United
States. Translated i n t o more secularized terms: what happened was that a mass
movement, a popular culture emerged that fought for the individuals freedom
in thought and speech and set the stage for democratic political developments.
It got wide popular support by its skill in communicating its new ideas in a powerful totalitarian hostile environment.
The Lutheran faith-once imported from Germany-had become a matter
of national pride and security in Sweden. And the hatred and suspicion of
Catholics had been fostered during the religious wars Sweden fought on the
European theater. Therefore anyone attacking or changing the Lutheran faith
and its communication t o the people was not only a dissenter b u t a political
traitor. The Swedish clergy were made responsible by the state for checking in
on every Swedes political and religious education which was the same thing.
And the supervision did not stop with the laymen. I t included the ministers
themselves. They had t o preach what was called the genuine Lutheran faith and
nothing else. That was to ask or trouble since Protestantisms very character is
opposition and rebellion. This state of mind does not cease t o exist just because
one kind of Protestantism is in power. Suddenly the ministers reported t o the
Department of Justice in Stockholm that people did not attend the neighbor-

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JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

hood church services they should according t o the Law. instead they went t o
other church buildings t o listen t o other Lutheran ministers whom they believed
they understood better. Those ministers who got the wrong crowd were young,
with n o tenure, had traveled abroad, knew foreign languages and therefore
foreign ideas. The bishops had sent o u t truth-squads who were sitting in on
these suspected ministers sermons and took notes o n what was said. Meantime,
there were strange effects among the people. People began t o criticize the
church and the government a n d t o have encounter meetings in their homes,
where laymen read the Bible and used the Songs of Zion-all of it illegal. Some
of the Songs were imported from Catholic Germany and all of the Songs were
extremely ugly which anyone with good taste must find, t o q u o t e the
government. And not only did the dissenters hold illegal meetings, they also
stopped gambling, drinking and chasing women and demanded that their
ministers do the same. There were also rumors that certain characters had bypassed the immigration authorities and been smuggled into Sweden. They had
been seen o n Stockholms streets in strange clothes and without Whigs with
natural shoulder-long hair. The Swedish clergy were sure that the suspects were
ordained ministers in a confused German sect which mixed Catholicism and
Protestantism and therefore did not care what church they visited or what songbook they used since they thought all religions equally good. Some of them
got arrested at the encounter meetings where they were found singing from the
Songs ofZion together with the Swedish dissenters. So it was high time for
action against all this popular subversion lest the Swedish state disintegrate, as
a nervous loyal clergyman wrote t o the Swedish government.
Meantime, the new popular culture was spreading everywhere. Anyone
could join. Monitoring public opinion did not help, since it displayed only the
symptoms of the public disease as the politico-religious counter culture was
labeled. S o the remedy against i t must be found in the dissemination of
thoughts, t o use Pope John XXiIIs term for the communication of ideas.
The truth squads content analysis of sermons and songbooks showed
only that dissenters and loyalists used the same terms such as God, Love, Peace,
or Sin. German influence was traced b u t that was all. Meantime the counterculture was spreading from the mass public t o the intellectuals. An anonymous
scholar sent for instance a research paper t o the government. He was obviously
o n the dissenters side but proved beyond a d o u b t that the suspected, foreigninfluenced concepts could be found everywhere in the Lutheran State Churchs
hymn books as well as in the dubious Songs of Zion. The confusion grew and
the government was ready to strike down the counter-culture with force when
German orthodox scholars speeded t o help the establishment in Sweden. The
Germans had faced the same problems. But had the Swedish clergy looked into
the quantitative relations, into the balance in the suspects use of the familiar,
originally approved concepts? What did they talk much a b o u t ? What did they
omit? I n what context, favorable o r unfavorable? When did they use the
general concepts that were common property for all religions? What kind of
God did they communicate t o the public, for instance?
The Swedish clergy caught o n fairly soon. When the Swedes analyzed

POPULAR CULTURE IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EUROPE

565

public opinion according t o these rules of quantitative semantics, the results

became obvious. It was true that o n the surface the suspected sermons and the
Songs of Zion did not seem subversive. But the undercurrents of the message
which had inspired all this new counter-culture against the government came
out as certain popular attitudes to essential concepts. And they were communicated t o people in a manner that influenced public opinion in a new way.
For instance, God and Peace were mentioned many times. And what is repeated
frequently comes t o dominate the public mind. But the concept of God was
communicated in a frame of references t o a suffering, bleeding peace-loving
Christ who loved not only all mankind but above all every single individual.
This gave the ignorant public the notioff that each person had a tremendous value
in Gods eyes so that any individual was more important than any public institution, be it government or church. This was a different meaning from what the
Lutheran State Church taught in political and heavenly science. This influenced
the public t o democratic unrest and rebellion against the government.
Then, there was also the matter of timing. How could anyone insist that
he communicated a genuine Lutheran faith if he all the year talked a b o u t nothing
else b u t Gods love and suffering and peace which should be mentioned mostly
o n Good Friday and Christmas? Such an all-year teaching of a loving and forgiving G o d did not produce the image of a God of Justice which would communicate obedience for divine and civil law and order.
When familiar concepts such as Gods love or forgiveness were repeated
t o o many times and in strange contexts, o r omitted from contexts where they
belonged, it did not matter anymore that they were familiar and used in all kinds
of talk or songbooks, approved or suspected. The use of them revealed a new
attitude of the communicator and conveyed a new opinion t o the public. This
happened because a new vocabulary was created covering a counter-culture or
communication realm with new meanings in familiar concepts such as peace or
love. This new vocabulary penetrated peoples daily talk with new undercurrents
of meaning in old established concepts which not everybody was aware of even
though he got influenced. The German analysts told the Swedes that Germany
had had bad experience of this new under-cover-language that followed a
special ideology across national borders and even changed national languages
usage and meaning. The under-cover-language created its own counter-culture
using certain terms as recognition signals for a special communication realm so
the insiders could identify one another a t once. Based on research of this, the
Swedish authorities concluded that the inner speech of new meanings in
seemingly innocent communication led to public heresy and political rebellion
and a popular counter-culture. This cleared the way for the governments trial
of the dissenters. Some confessed; some went into exile; most of them repented
and became later respected leaders in church and government where they as
high officials exercised their influence in a new and democratic policy that had
a curious resemblance t o their ideas when they were hunted rebels.
The popular cultures way into established society did not stop with
church leaders and politicians of a new breed. Swedens most important newspaper a t that time in the late eighteenth century, The Stockholms Post, was

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JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

conceived and published by the son of the editor of the Songs of Zion who also
belonged t o his fathers sect. The Stockholms Posts editor published his newspaper according t o a program of democratic ideas about the common man and
his individual value that were much ahead of his time b u t very much a t home in
his fathers circle of dissenters around the Songs of Zion.
Many of Swedens best writers contributed t o The StockhoEms Post. One
was a woman, Anna Maria Lenngren, married t o a later editor of The Post. Both
she and her husband had been brought u p among dissenters. This Anna Maria
Lenngren was a well educated person-a consequence of the dissenters idea that
b o t h men and women were given a soul by God which it was a d u t y t o cultivate.
She also belongs t o the Swedish classics. Despite her dissenter roots she seemed
indifferent t o religion, especially t o the religion of her father who was a dissenter
and a persecuted university professor. She has among other things written the
Swedish literatures classic poem on childhood: The Boys. It is remarkable by
its democratic tendency and lively language. It was also written in a meter that
the Swedish historians of literature as usual tried t o identify among the upper
class literature of her time, but in vain. No wonder. The childhood she sings
about with such feelings in The Boys is a reminiscence of her own. If one studies
her fathers life one finds that the meter is taken from the song that was most
frequently used every night in their home for their illegal religious meetings
when she was a child. And how close she was t o her fathers counter-culture a t
the time one could also see when religious dissenter poems were found which
she had written when she was a twelve year old girl. I f Mrs. Lenngren was conscious of the source of her meter when she wrote her famous poem The Boys
many years later, she has not said. But the meter is identical with the songs
meter she most often sang as a child. Another illustration of how popular culture
can by undercurrents in communication influence the establishment by its
sleeper effect.
There were other more far reaching developments for Swedish society.
The dissenters around the Songs of Zion were often accused of mixing different
faiths assuming that all religions were equally good. This finally may lead t o
religious indifference, fumed the Swedish clergy a t the time. f i e StockhoEms
Posts later developments illustrated this. Thanks t o their dissenter upbringing,
Mrs. Lenngren and her editor-husband both became instruments in opening u p
the newspaper t o the new currents of Enlightenment and Deism from France
which j u s t emphasized such a broad attitude t o different religions that one
could even talk about indifference. Popular culture had joined the establishment.13
Stripped of its eighteenth century fashion, the communication process
involved in this can very well be applied t o our modern world. In many parts
of the globe the public still needs orientation; its popular culture is still exposed
t o the upper societys good taste education and indoctrination. This is most
obvious in political cultures and counter-cultures which makes them a problem
for news casts and news media a t home and abroad. As we know, the news
media must communicate in a cultural context that is a t home among the large
mass public. In the degree we want to reject such an orientation from above

POPULAR CULTURE IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EUROPE

567

and accept an optional society as our form of life which makes it possible for us
to have a taste and choice of our own, we should be able to keep our options
open, if we are aware of the communication principles described here as involved
in such a choice.

NOTES
Svante Svardstrom, Da~mthningarnaoch deras forlagor. E n studie i
folklig bildgestaltning 1770-1870, with an English summary. (Stockholm, 1949:
Nordiska Museets Handiingar, Vol. 33).
Karin Dovring, Till forfattarfraggn i Lasning i Blandade Amnen,
Scandia (Lund, Sweden), Vol. 1 9 (1948-49), pp. 284-298.
3Esaias Tegner (1782-1846), (S%ngden 5 april 1836 (Song at the 50th
anniversary of the Royal Swedish Academy, April 5, 1836).
Lucien Febvre, Le probleme de lincroyance au X V I siecle, La religion
de Rubelais (Paris 1947: Editions Albin Michel).
lbid., p. 161, p. 181.
6Karin Dovring, Vanity Fair-a fair of vanity, or a fair of conceit, o r
only a world-fair, Orbis Litterarum (Copenhagen), Vol. 5: 1-2, 1947.
Folke Dovring and Karin Dovring, The Optional Society: A n Essay on
Economic Choice and Bargains of Communication in an Affluent WorM (The
Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1971).
81bid., pp. 2-3.
For the eighteenth century struggle between establishment and papular
culture see Karin Dovring, Sions S8nger (Lund: Gleerups Universitetsbokhandel,
1951, 2 volumes), with a summary in English. See also idem, Troubles with
mass communication in 1744 and today, The American Behaoioral Scientist,
Vol. 9, No. 1, January, 1965.
Karin Dovring, The meaning of Evita Peron, unpublished research o n
Eva Peron, La razon de mi uida (Buenos Aires: Casa Peuser 1952). The
material for research o n the role of popular culture when used by politicians
is staggering and ranges from Quotations from Chairman Mao-tse-Tung,
especially his thoughts on Culture and art, to Hiders ideas on culture and
propaganda in his Mein Kampf. The amount of research devoted to the problem
has barely begun. As introduction see Harold D. Lasswell, The World Revolution
of Our Time, A Framework for Basic Policy Research (Stanford: University
Press, 1951); Karin Dovring, Land reform as a propaganda theme, in Land
and Labor in Europe in the Twentieth Century (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 3 rev.
ed., 1965); and Lorand B. Szalay and Associates, Communication Lexicon on
Three South Korean Audiences (Kensington, Maryland: American Institutes
for Research, 1971).
For analysis of values in communication ghettos see Karin Dovring,
Road of Propaganda: The Semantics of Biased Communication (New York:
Philoso hical Library, 1959).
Karin Dovnng, Sions Sgnger, o p . cit., Vol. 1 , pp. 152-156, about The

JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

568

Stockholms Post and its publisher.

3Karin Dovring, Fru Lenngren och herrnhutarna (Mrs. Lenngren and
the Moravian Brethren), Vetenskups-Societeteni Lund, Arsbok (Lund, Sweden,
C.W.K. Gleerup), (Yearbook of the New Society of Letters at Lund), 1946,
pp. 55-80.

Dr. Dovring, a journalist and scholar, has lectured in European and American universities, served as editor in the Journal of Communication and as a
member of the United Nations Committee on Communication of Land Reform.

**
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..st!
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9

LIFE, T H E GENTLE SATIRIST

John Flautz

A detailed account of the attitudes and ideas of Life, an

illustrated humor magazine, from 1883 t o 1918. Since the magazine spoke t o and for the conservative, moralistic, anti-intellectual,
middle-class American, this book provides background on the soci
ety, politics, literature, drama, and art of the time. . . . Suitable
for the large library and the special collection.
$7.95 cloth.
Choice. June 7 3

Bowling Green University Popular Press

BGSU, 100 UH
Bowling Green, Ohio 43403

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asL