Erik Gustaf Geijer. Painting by Carl Wilhelm Nordgren Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783-1847) was a Swedish writer, composer, and historian. He was a member of the Swedish Academy and a professor of history from 1817 at Uppsala University where a statue commemorates him. Geijer was a member of the Geatish Society ("Götiska förbundet"); in the first issue of its periodical, Iduna, appeared Geijer's famous poem The Viking, which described the Viking as the heroic Norseman that many of us might imagine today and was a turning-point in the rehabilitation of Norse culture among the Swedes of the romantic generation. Although he rose to fame as a nationalist author, Geijer's views changed during his lifetime, and he began to advocate social reform.
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