Sven Hedin

Sven Anders Hedin (February 19, 1865 - November 26, 1952) was a Swedish explorer, geographer and geopolitician. His achievements include the production of the first detailed maps of vast parts of Pamir, the Taklamakan Desert, Tibet, the ancient Silk Road, and the Himalayas. He seems to have been the first explorer to realise that the Himalayas are a single mountain range.

Life

Hedin was born in Stockholm. Between 1886 and 1892 he studied geology, mineralogy, zoology, and Latin in Stockholm, Uppsala, Berlin, and Halle. He was a student of Ferdinand von Richthofen. Of small stature, with a bookish, bespectacled appearance, Hedin nevertheless proved himself a determined explorer, surviving several brushes with death from hostile forces and the elements over his long career.

Between his graduation in 1892 and 1935 he led several expeditions to Central Asia. In 1902 he was the last Swede ever to be ennobled with a hereditary title. He was never married, and had no children, so the noble branch of his family is now extinct. He became a member of the Swedish Academy in 1913.

Although primarily an explorer, Hedin was also the first to unearth the ruins of ancient Buddhist cities in Chinese Central Asia. In 1899 he discovered the ancient Chinese garrison town of Loulan (Lou-lan) in the Takla-Makan. Many manuscripts unearthed by him at Loulan proved to be of great historical importance.

In his later expeditions he became the first to map large parts of the Tibetan highlands, and conducted mapping and meteorological research in Eastern Turkestan and Mongolia. Hedin was one of the first European scientific explorers to use native-born scientists and research assistants on his expeditions, treating them on an equal footing with his European colleagues according to their position and experience. Always full of curiosity, Hedin continued his Asian expeditions late into his retirement years, braving numerous wars and conflicts in China and Central Asia along the way. However, like Nikolai Przhevalsky before him, Hedin never reached his ultimate goal: the then forbidden city of Lhasa.

Political views

Dr. Sven Hedin was a jury member of the Nobel Prize for both Science and Literature Refer Irvin Wallace - Making of a Novel.Being a Germanophile since his days of study in Berlin, Hedin was (together with Queen Victoria of Sweden) a strong advocate for a Swedish alliance with Germany during World War I, and he wrote several books about his experiences from journeys along the front lines. This attitude caused him to lose several influential friends in England and the USA, notably Lord Kitchener.

Hedin was a personal friend of Gustav V of Sweden (and his spouse Victoria of Baden) and paid them regular visits. It was he who drafted (together with Carl Bennedich) the so-called "borggårdstalet" ("the speech at the royal castle") which was read after the peasant armament support march arrived in the royal castle. In this speech the king denounced Karl Staaff's defence policy, which led to the latter resigning in protest over the king's meddling in political affairs.

Influenced by Imperial Russian and later, the Soviet Union's attempts to dominate and control territories outside its borders, especially in Central Asia and Turkestan, Hedin felt that Soviet Russia posed a great threat to the West, and this may be part of the reason why he supported Germany during both World Wars. Hedin received support from the German airline Lufthansa on at least one of his Central Asian mapping expeditions, and the original publication of his book "Germany and World Peace" was funded by the German government. However, the text included the following lines:

:"In my blood, every sixteenth drop is of Jewish origin. I cherish this sixteenth drop and I do not want to lose it." (Wallström 1983:265)

The book was banned in Nazi Germany. Although it has never been proved that Hedin supported the Nazis and National Socialism, it is known that he was in contact with Hitler and other prominent Nazi-politicians, and was well aware of the Nazi concentration camps (Danielsson 2005).

Expeditions

*1885-1886 First journey to Russia, the Caucasus, Persia, Iraq, and Turkey.
*1890-1891 Second journey to Persia and Central Asia
*1893-1897 Central Asia. Whilst crossing the forbidding Taklamakan Desert only Hedin and two members of his four men crew survived.
*1899-1902 Central Asia. Mapping of Tibet. He also unsuccessfully tried to reach Lhasa.
*1905-1909 Third expedition to Central Asia, particularly the Himalayas, where he spent significant time in Tibet, where he probably was the first to discover the Trans-Himalaya mountain system. After traveling through western Tibet, Hedin's party finally reached Simla on the Indian frontier.
*1914 Toured German military positions in Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg.
*1926-1935 The so-called "Sino-Swedish Expedition" (partly sponsored by the German and Swedish governments and the airline Lufthansa) to the Gobi Desert, Turkestan, and Mongolia. This in reality was a series of expeditions. In 1934, when Hedin was nearly seventy years of age, he was held captive, robbed, and nearly executed by soldiers of the Muslim Dungan (or Hui) general Ma Chung-ying, then after relief by White Russian and Soviet troops, was again held captive by them for another four months at the instruction of the Chinese military governor of Sinkiang province. Hedin also met Chiang Kai-shek, whom he found to be an impressing personality.

elected Works by Hedin

*1887 "A Journey Through Persia and Mesopotamia"
*1891 "Konung Oscars beskickning till Schahen af Persien, år 1890" (in Swedish)
*1898 "Through Asia"
*1903 "In Asia"
*1904-1907 Co-author of "Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia 1899-1902"
*1909 "Transhimalaya"
*1914 "With the German armies in the West" (English translation published in England in 1915).
*1925 "My Life as an Explorer"
*1932 "Across the Gobi Desert"
*1934 "A Conquest of Tibet"
*1936 "Big Horse's Flight"
*1938 "The Silk Road"
*1940 "The Wandering Lake"
*1949 "Ohne Auftrag in Berlin" (En: 'Without orders in Berlin'), Buenos Aires

Bibliography

*Wallström, T. 1983. "Svenska upptäckare". Bra böcker, Höganäs.
*Brennecke, Detlef. "Sven Hedin". rororo Bildmonographie, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1986 (ISBN 3-499-50355-7).
*Danielsson, S.K. 2005: "The Intellectual Unmasked: Sven Hedin's Political Life from Pan-Germanism to National Socialism", dissertation, Minnesota 2005.

External links

* [http://www.silk-road.com/bibliography/hedinb3.html Excellent biography also listing publications and further literature]