PAUPER NOBILITY

Author: Agnes von Krusenstjerna
Year: 2010 (1935)
Publisher: Albert Bonniers förlag
Language: Swedish

In the maze of societal expectations, few endeavours are as effortlessly executed as keeping up appearances when one’s coffers harmonise with one’s station and lifestyle. But what drama looms when the reality of one’s means and the exigencies of one’s ideals diverge?

The hallmark of the old European nobility is that they do not labour for sustenance. Historically, their existence has been one of living off the fertile yields of their land, tended dutifully by others. Any work they deigned to undertake was veiled beneath the guise of service, be it to their community, their sovereign, or the nation at large. They could serve at the royal court, in government, diplomacy, or the military. Although they were often rewarded for this, there mere suggestion that their efforts might be tied to pecuniary rewards was to defile the sanctity of their noble lineage.

 In Europe, a seismic shift began to stir at the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment where noble titles were increasingly bestowed by monarchs upon favoured servants as an honour without an accompanying fiefdom or endowment. Thus, a new subclass of landless nobility was born. The momentum gathered further pace as the tide of revolutions swept across the continent, and even more so by the rapid formation of a capitalist class sprouting from the bourgeoisie during the industrialisation. By the end of the 19^th century a significant number of impoverished aristocrats had emerged; a nobility that had no other asset to their name… than their name. And yet, despite their destitution, they were held to the same standards as their affluent peers in terms of lifestyle and material standards. Noblesse oblige, after all.

In the Swedish language, this class is commonly attributed the sobriquet “Fattigadel” (“Pauper Nobility”) which is also the title of the first book of Agnes von Krusenstjerna’s tetralogy known under the same name. Through the lens of her own upbringing as the daughter of a military nobleman, Krusenstjerna offers an intimate chronicle of societal upheaval and familial strife against the backdrop of a world in flux.

“Fattigadel” opens with a short scene featuring Viveka von Lagercrona as an elderly lady receiving a visitor in what seems to be a sanatorium or hospital. After this scene, Krusenstjerna guides the reader through the life of Viveka as the youngest child of four and the only daughter in a financially distressed noble family around the turn of the century. As her father, who, like the author’s own father, is a military officer, keeps changing commands around Sweden, the family is compelled to follow and young Viveka and her brothers are gradually shaped by their parents' responses to the vicissitudes of their class, and by the judgment of others.

Having read the poignant reports penned by the likes of Vilhelm Moberg and Väinö Linna chronicling the hardships of the landless proletariat of the same epoch, one finds oneself grappling with an intuitive difficulty to immediately sympathise with the upper class Lagercrona children and their seemingly imagined misery. Befitting the commander of the regiment, a stately mansion with servants are provided to Viveka’s father and his family. Here, amidst the plush comforts of their domain, Viveka and her siblings can spend their time frolicking carefree, oblivious of the toil that that besets children of labourers and crofters. Their living conditions could not be any more different. However you look at it, the nobility was struggling to keep up with their class, while the workers were struggling to break free from theirs.

A fleeting moment wherein the lives of the privileged Lagercronas converge with the humble existence of their elderly household servant is when one of Viveka’s brothers finds out that the old woman keeps two canaries in a cage at her home. In a life defined by hard work and poverty, the canaries embody what little happiness the old woman has in life. Lady von Lagercrona, eager to win the affection of her son by presenting him with an exotic Christmas gift, takes little notice of this and demands that the woman sell her the canaries at a ridiculously low price. Unable to refuse the desire of the assertive noblewoman, the woman succumbs, is bereft of her only source of solace and left with a handful of change while the von Lagercronas can add another curiosity to their household for the superficial entertainment of their spoilt son. Krusenstjerna never returns to the fate of the elderly woman after the scene of the transaction. She remains an inconsequential witness to the capricious whims of those enveloped in privilege.

Even so, I am compelled to refrain from downplaying Viveka’s internal strife and her experience of inadequacy. It is well documented that negative stress appears when the gap between the expectations and the individual’s ability to meet with them becomes insurmountable and this is precisely what Viveka and her siblings are faced with. From an early age, they are confronted with the scorn of their more affluent peers and the ceaseless efforts to mask their poverty and want, not to mention handling their hysterical and overbearing mother. Anxiety and depression would be expected effects of such an upbringing. Suffering has not hierarchy and I hesitate to compare woes on an individual level as someone else’s misfortune rarely serves to take the edge off of one’s own.

In these poignant reflections, I find myself incapable of escaping the confrontation with the echoes of my own childhood. Though disparate in nature and historical context, the challenges faced by the von Lagercrona family resonate eerily with my own lived experiences of growing up in an atmosphere lined with the bitterness of bygone family greatness.

Irrespective of its contents, the literary value of “Fattigadel” remains undisputed as the book is objectively very well written. The characters, particularly the children, are meticulously crafted and easily distinguishable, and they behave predicably according to their individual personality. My only hesitation is with regard to the disposition of the novel which begins as a story that develops chapter for chapter in linear progression, only to change characteristics in the last quarter of the book to more resembling a series of independent snapshots or anecdotes from the life of the von Lagercronas, as if representing pages torn from a diary. Maybe the author’s own.  

I have three more parts to read of this series but I have a feeling that I may have reason to return to this issue in more depth further down the road.