Uplands Nation - Notable People

Notable People

Former curators (chairmen) of the nation include the chemist and later Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius and the later Secretary General of the U.N. and Nobel peace laureate Dag Hammarskjöld. Other members have included the songwriter Prince Gustaf, the Duke of Uppland, a central figure in Uppsala student life in the 1840s who died young in 1852, the philosopher Pontus Wikner, and the writer C. J. L. Almqvist, already mentioned above. The diplomat Hans Blix, who studied Law in Uppsala, was director for the theatre society of Uplands nation for a year. Among the inspectors (University-appointed faculty members whose task it is to supervise the nation's activities) can be mentioned Nathan Söderblom, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

An important part in the lore of the nation is played by a young boy who never actually matriculated in the nation: Svante Wijkman, who was born in a local bourgeois family and died 1837, during his last year in the Cathedral School in Uppsala. After his premature death, his mother donated scholarships both to the school and to the nation, which her son presumably would have joined in the near future if he had lived. A posthumous portrait of young Wijkman accompanied the donation.

Ignorance of the - easily verifiable - real identity of the boy in the picture among members has led speculations about his early death being the result of too much partying and he has been claimed to haunt the nation. Besides the Wijkman room (Wijkmanska rummet) where the portrait hangs, other institutions of the nation have been named after him, including a brass band (Wijkmanska blecket), a pub (Svantes källare) and a café (Café Wijkman).