Carl Segerståhl | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1899-05-12)12 May 1899 Norrköping, Östergötland County, Sweden |
| Died | 23 May 1958(1958-05-23) (aged 59) Vindeln, Västerbotten County, Sweden |
| Alma mater | Lund University |
| Occupation | Teacher |
| Spouse | |
Carl Yngve Segerståhl (12 May 1899 – 23 May 1958) was a Swedishrector andpainter. Born inNorrköping in southern Sweden, his initial studies included folkloristics, religion, and economics inLund, working in archives as a student and collecting folk tales. For almost the entirety of his career, he was a teacher, later headmaster, of thefolk high school (a form of tertiarypopular education) inVindeln. Segerståhl was arepublican, and a supporter of theconstructed languageOccidental. In the latter part of his life, he held severalexhibitions as an artist, and published a magazine generally concerning Vindeln and its surrounding localities.
Carl Yngve Segerståhl was born on 12 May 1899 inNorrköping,Östergötland. His mother worked as amidwife, and his step-father as acarpenter. Graduating in Norrköping in 1919, he took a degree[a] infolklore studies,archaeology,history of religion, andeconomics at theUniversity of Lund. In the 1920s, while studying at Lund, he worked for several years as an assistant to folkloristCarl Wilhelm von Sydow atKulturen – they were the first staff at the institution.[2][3]
After graduation, Segerståhl was employed at thefolk high school in Hola,[3] where he taught for two years. In 1929, he moved to theVindeln folk high school [sv], where he worked until his death; as a teacher from 1929 to 1948, and as rector thereafter. As a teacher, he taught in a style similar tothat of Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig, the creator of the folk high school as a form of school system; Grundtvig's methods placed value on religion. Segerståhl's approach to teaching, which was sometimes quite brusque, occasionally brought him into conflict with theSwedish school board.[3] AtVindeln, Segerståhl initiated the university's journal, Vindeln, and spread it towards other villages inDegerfors and several parishes inVästerbotten.Vindeln ran from 1933 to 1965, and was published four times annually – Segerståhl was its publisher from 1933 to 1958, and its editor until 1938. Several articles, including an interview with von Sydow, were written by him; he also contributed original poetry and criticism of literature and art.[4]
Sometime in the early 1930s, Segerståhl married Elisabet Söderblom, the daughter of Johan Söderblom, an agricultural consultant from Vindeln. Elisabet was also a teacher in folk high schools and had an interest in folkloristics.[3]
Active as apolitical radicalist, Segerståhl was anatheist and arepublican – on a visit by KingGustaf VI Adolf to Vindeln in the 1950s, he refused to raise the Swedish flag, and took his students swimming in lake Abborrtjärn in preference to paying homage to the king.[2] Along with von Sydow at the Lundfolkminnesarkivet and several otherfolklore researchers across Sweden, Segerståhl was a proponent for the introduction ofinternational auxiliary languages.[5] He published a book entitledThe Auxiliary Language Question (Swedish:Hjälpspråksfrågan) in 1933,[6] in which he gave an account of his admiration ofOccidental,[7] a naturalistic language created byEdgar de Wahl in 1922. Segerståhl gave courses teaching Occidental in the Vindeln school, teaching twenty the language in 1934,[8][9] and wrote several articles in and about the language.[10]
Segerståhl had been interested in art since childhood but never received any formal training as an artist. In the late 1930s and 1940s, he began drawing in coloured ink and painting withoil paint. He exhibited as a solo artist twice: in 1942 inUmeå and in 1953 in Norrköping.[7] He also participated in collective exhibitions of art on the theme of constellations. In 1958, a commemorative exhibition of his art was shown in Vindeln. According to theSvenskt konstnärslexikon, Segerståhl's art was initiallynaturalistic, and later developed into a style more reminiscent offantasy. He published a memoir,The Paths of Childhood (Barndomens stigar), in 1951.[1][7] As afolklorist, Segerståhl collected folk tales in the region of Östergötland; he is credited inReimund Kvideland andHenning K. Sehmsdorf'sScandinavian Folklore and Legend as having collected a story about the thief "Liven".[11]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)| Preceded by | Rector ofVindeln folk high school 1948–1958 | Succeeded by Nils Ståhlberg |
